Search

The Family Stress Model of Economic Hardship (FSM) posits that economic situations create differences in psychosocial outcomes for parents and developmental outcomes for their adolescent children. However, prior studies guided by the FSM have been mostly in high-income countries and have included only mother report or have not disaggregated mother and father report. Our focal research questions were whether the indirect effect of economic hardship on adolescent mental health was mediated by economic pressure, parental depression, dysfunctional dyadic coping, and parenting, and whether these relations differed by culture and mother versus father report. We conducted multiple group serial mediation path models using longitudinal data from adolescents ages 12–15 in 2008–2012 from 1,082 families in 10 cultural groups in seven countries (Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, the Philippines, Thailand, and the United States). Taken together, the indirect effect findings suggest partial support for the FSM in most cultural groups across study countries. We found associations among economic hardship, parental depression, parenting, and adolescent internalizing and externalizing. Findings support polices and interventions aimed at disrupting each path in the model to mitigate the effects of economic hardship on parental depression, harsh parenting, and adolescents’ externalizing and internalizing problems.

Distinguishing between relational and physical aggression has become a key feature of many developmental studies in North America and Western Europe, but very little information is available on relational and physical aggression in more diverse cultural contexts. This study examined the factor structure of, associations between, and gender differences in relational and physical aggression in China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, the Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States. Children ages 7–10 years (N = 1,410) reported on their relationally and physically aggressive behavior. Relational and physical aggression shared a common factor structure across countries. In all nine countries, relational and physical aggression were significantly correlated (average r = .49). Countries differed in the mean levels of both relational and physical aggression that children reported using and with respect to whether children reported using more physical than relational aggression or more relational than physical aggression. Boys reported being more physically aggressive than girls across all nine countries; no consistent gender differences emerged in relational aggression. Despite mean-level differences in relational and physical aggression across countries, the findings provided support for cross-country similarities in associations between relational and physical aggression as well as links between gender and aggression.

The authors assessed whether mothers’ and fathers’ self-reports of acceptance-rejection, warmth, and hostility/rejection/neglect (HRN) of their preadolescent children differ cross-nationally and relative to the gender of the parent and child in 10 communities in 9 countries, including China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, the Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States ( N = 998 families). Mothers and fathers in all countries reported a high degree of acceptance and warmth, and a low degree of HRN, but countries also varied. Mothers reported greater acceptance of children than fathers in China, Italy, Sweden, and the United States, and these effects were accounted for by greater self-reported warmth in mothers than in fathers in China, Italy, the Philippines, Sweden, and Thailand and less HRN in mothers than in fathers in Sweden. Fathers reported greater warmth than mothers in Kenya. Mother and father acceptance-rejection were moderately correlated. Relative levels of mother and father acceptance and rejection appear to be country specific.

Introduction: We sought to understand the relation between positive parenting and adolescent diet, whether adolescents' internalizing and externalizing behaviors mediate relations between positive parenting and adolescent diet, and whether the same associations hold for both boys and girls and across cultural groups. Methods: Adolescents (N = 1334) in 12 cultural groups in nine countries were followed longitudinally from age 12 to 15. We estimated two sets of multiple group structural equation models, one by gender and one by cultural group. Results: Modeling by gender, our findings suggest a direct effect of positive parenting at age 12 on a higher quality diet at age 15 for males (β =.140; 95% CI: 0.057, 0.229), but an indirect effect of positive parenting at age 12 on a higher quality diet at age 15 by decreasing externalizing behaviors at age 14 for females (β =.011; 95% CI: 0.002, 0.029). Modeling by cultural group, we found no significant direct effect of positive parenting at age 12 on the quality of adolescent diet at age 15. There was a significant negative effect of positive parenting at age 12 on internalizing (β = −.065; 95% CI: −0.119, −0.009) and externalizing at age 14 (β = −.033; 95% CI: −0.086, −0.018). Conclusions: We founder gender differences in the relations among positive parenting, adolescents' externalizing and internalizing behaviors, and adolescent diet. Our findings indicate that quality of parenting is important not only in promoting adolescent mental health but potentially also in promoting the quality of adolescents' diet.

Parent and child endorsement of reactive aggression both predict the emergence of child aggression, but they are rarely studied together and in longitudinal contexts. The present study does so by examining the unique predictive effects of parent and child endorsement of reactive aggression at age 8 on child aggression at age 9 in 1456 children from 13 cultural groups in 9 nations. Multiple group structural equation models explored whether age 8 child and parent endorsement of reactive aggression predicted subsequent age 9 child endorsement of reactive aggression and child aggression, after accounting for prior child aggression and parent education. Results revealed that greater parent endorsement of reactive aggression at age 8 predicted greater child endorsement of aggression at age 9, that greater parent endorsement of reactive aggression at age 8 uniquely predicted greater aggression at age 9 in girls, and that greater child endorsement of reactive aggression at age 8 uniquely predicted greater aggression at age 9 in boys. All three of these associations emerged across cultures. Implications of, and explanations for, study findings are discussed.

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented families around the world with extraordinary challenges related to physical and mental health, economic security, social support, and education. The current study capitalizes on a longitudinal, cross-national study of parenting, adolescent development, and young adult competence to document the association between personal disruption during the pandemic and reported changes in internalizing and externalizing behavior in young adults and their mothers since the pandemic began. It further investigates whether family functioning during adolescence 3 years earlier moderates this association. Data from 484 families in five countries (Italy, the Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States) reveal that higher levels of reported disruption during the pandemic are related to reported increases in internalizing and externalizing behaviors after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic for young adults (Mage = 20) and their mothers in all five countries, with the exception of one association in Thailand. Associations between disruption during the pandemic and young adults' and their mothers' reported increases in internalizing and externalizing behaviors were attenuated by higher levels of youth disclosure, more supportive parenting, and lower levels of destructive adolescent-parent conflict prior to the pandemic. This work has implications for fostering parent-child relationships characterized by warmth, acceptance, trust, open communication, and constructive conflict resolution at all times given their protective effects for family resilience during times of crisis. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

We examined whether a policy banning corporal punishment enacted in Kenya in 2010 is associated with changes in Kenyan caregivers’ use of corporal punishment and beliefs in its effectiveness and normativeness, and compared to caregivers in six countries without bans in the same period. Using a longitudinal study with six waves of panel data (2008–2016), mothers ( N = 1086) in Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Philippines, Thailand, and United States reported household use of corporal punishment and beliefs about its effectiveness and normativeness. Random intercept models and multi-group piecewise growth curve models indicated that the proportion of corporal punishment behaviors used by the Kenyan caregivers decreased post-ban at a significantly different rate compared to the caregivers in other countries in the same period. Beliefs of effectiveness of corporal punishment were declining among the caregivers in all sites, whereas the Kenyan mothers reported increasing perceptions of normativeness of corporal punishment post-ban, different from the other sites. While other contributing factors cannot be ruled out, our natural experiment suggests that corporal punishment decreased after a national ban, a shift that was not evident in sites without bans in the same period.

We investigated the effects of parental warmth and behavioral control on externalizing and internalizing symptom trajectories from ages 8 to 14 in 1,298 adolescents from 12 cultural groups. We did not find that single universal trajectories characterized adolescent externalizing and internalizing symptoms across cultures, but instead found significant heterogeneity in starting points and rates of change in both externalizing and internalizing symptoms across cultures. Some similarities did emerge. Across many cultural groups, internalizing symptoms decreased from ages 8 to 10, and externalizing symptoms increased from ages 10 to 14. Parental warmth appears to function similarly in many cultures as a protective factor that prevents the onset and growth of adolescent externalizing and internalizing symptoms, whereas the effects of behavioral control vary from culture to culture.

This study tested culture-general and culture-specific aspects of adolescent developmental processes by focusing on opportunities and peer support for aggressive and delinquent behavior, which could help account for cultural similarities and differences in problem behavior during adolescence. Adolescents from 12 cultural groups in nine countries (China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, the Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States) provided data at ages 12, 14, and 15. Variance in opportunities and peer support for aggression and delinquency, as well as aggressive and delinquent behavior, was greater within than between cultures. Across cultural groups, opportunities and peer support for aggression and delinquency increased from early to mid-adolescence. Consistently across diverse cultural groups, opportunities and peer support for aggression and delinquency predicted subsequent aggressive and delinquent behavior, even after controlling for prior aggressive and delinquent behavior. The findings illustrate ways that international collaborative research can contribute to developmental science by embedding the study of development within cultural contexts.

BACKGROUND: Grounded in interpersonal acceptance-rejection theory, this study assessed children’s (N=1,315) perceptions of maternal and paternal acceptance-rejection in nine countries (China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, the Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States) as predictors of children’s externalizing and internalizing behaviors across ages 7-14 years. METHODS: Parenting behaviors were measured using children’s reports on the Parental Acceptance-Rejection Questionnaire. Child externalizing and internalizing behaviors were measured using mother, father, and child reports on the Achenbach System of Empirically-Based Assessment. RESULTS: Using a multilevel modeling framework, we found that in cultures where both maternal and paternal indifference/neglect scores were higher than average–compared to other cultures –children’s internalizing problems were more persistent. At the within-culture level, all four forms of maternal and paternal rejection (i.e., coldness/lack of affection, hostility/aggression, indifference/neglect, and undifferentiated rejection) were independently associated with both externalizing and internalizing problems across ages 7-14 even after controlling for child gender, parent education, and each of the four forms of parental rejection. CONCLUSIONS: Results demonstrate that the effects of perceived parental acceptance-rejection are panculturally similar.

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted many young adults’ lives educationally, economically, and personally. This study investigated associations between COVID-19-related disruption and perception of increases in internalising symptoms among young adults and whether these associations were moderated by earlier measures of adolescent positivity and future orientation and parental psychological control. Participants included 1329 adolescents at Time 1, and 810 of those participants as young adults (M age = 20, 50.4% female) at Time 2 from 9 countries (China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, the Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States). Drawing from a larger longitudinal study of adolescent risk taking and young adult competence, this study controlled for earlier levels of internalising symptoms during adolescence in examining these associations. Higher levels of adolescent positivity and future orientation as well as parent psychological control during late adolescence helped protect young adults from sharper perceived increases in anxiety and depression during the first nine months of widespread pandemic lockdowns in all nine countries. Findings are discussed in terms of how families in the 21st century can foster greater resilience during and after adolescence when faced with community-wide stressors, and the results provide new information about how psychological control may play a protective role during times of significant community-wide threats to personal health and welfare.

Using a sample of 1338 families from 12 cultural groups in 9 nations, we examined whether retrospectively remembered Generation 1 (G1) parent rejecting behaviors were passed to Generation 2 (G2 parents), whether such intergenerational transmission led to higher Generation 3 (G3 child) externalizing and internalizing behavior at age 13, and whether such intergenerational transmission could be interrupted by parent participation in parenting programs or family income increases of > 5%. Utilizing structural equation modeling, we found that the intergenerational transmission of parent rejection that is linked with higher child externalizing and internalizing problems occurs across cultural contexts. However, the magnitude of transmission is greater in cultures with higher normative levels of parent rejection. Parenting program participation broke this intergenerational cycle in fathers from cultures high in normative parent rejection. Income increases appear to break this intergenerational cycle in mothers from most cultures, regardless of normative levels of parent rejection. These results tentatively suggest that bolstering protective factors such as parenting program participation, income supplementation, and (in cultures high in normative parent rejection) legislative changes and other population-wide positive parenting information campaigns aimed at changing cultural parenting norms may be effective in breaking intergenerational cycles of maladaptive parenting and improving child mental health across multiple generations. This research has been funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Grant RO1-HD054805, Fogarty International Center Grant RO3-TW008141, and by the National Institute on Drug Abuse grant P30 DA023026, the Intramural Research Program of the NIH/NICHD, USA, and an International Research Fellowship at the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), London, UK, funded by the European Research Council (ERC) under the Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant Agreement No 695300-HKADeC-ERC-2015-AdG).

Cultures and families are not static over time but evolve in response to social transformations, such as changing gender roles, urbanization, globalization, and technology uptake. Historically, individualism and collectivism have been widely used heuristics guiding cross-cultural comparisons, yet these orientations may evolve over time, and individuals within cultures and cultures themselves can have both individualist and collectivist orientations. Historical shifts in parents' attitudes also have occurred within families in several cultures. As a way of understanding mothers' and fathers' individualism, collectivism, and parenting attitudes at this point in history, we examined parents in nine countries that varied widely in country-level individualism rankings. Data included mothers' and fathers' reports (N = 1338 families) at three time points in China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States. More variance was accounted for by within-culture than between-culture factors for parents' individualism, collectivism, progressive parenting attitudes, and authoritarian parenting attitudes, which were predicted by a range of sociodemographic factors that were largely similar for mothers and fathers and across cultural groups. Social changes from the 20th to the 21st century may have contributed to some of the similarities between mothers and fathers and across the nine countries. This research was funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of ChildHealth and Human Development grant RO1-HD054805 and Fogarty International Center grantRO3-TW008141. This research also was supported by National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)Grant P30 DA023026, the Intramural Research Program of the NIH/NICHD, USA, and an International Research Fellowship at the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), London, UK, funded by the European Research Council (ERC) under the Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme(grant agreement No 695300-HKADeC-ERC-2015-AdG)

This study used data from 12 cultural groups in 9 countries (China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and United States;N= 1,315) to investigate bidirectional associations between parental warmth and control, and child externalizing and internalizing behaviors. In addition, the extent to which these associations held across mothers and fathers and across cultures with differing normative levels of parent warmth and control were examined. Mothers, fathers, and children completed measures when children were ages 8 to 13. Multiple-group autoregressive cross-lagged structural equation models revealed that evocative child-driven effects of externalizing and internalizing behavior on warmth and control are ubiquitous across development, cultures, mothers, and fathers. Results also reveal that parenting effects on child externalizing and internalizing behaviors, though rarer than child effects, extend into adolescence when examined separately in mothers and fathers. Father-based parent effects were more frequent than mother effects. Most parent- and child-driven effects appear to emerge consistently across cultures. The rare culture-specific parenting effects suggested that occasionally the effects of parenting behaviors that run counter to cultural norms may be delayed in rendering their protective effect against deleterious child outcomes.

Families from nine countries (N = 1,338) were interviewed annually seven times (Mage child = 7-15) to test specificity and commonality in parenting behaviors associated with child flourishing and moderation of associations by normativeness of parenting. Participants included 1,338 children (M = 8.59 years, SD = 0.68, range = 7-11 years; 50% girls), their mothers (N = 1,283, M = 37.04 years, SD = 6.51, range = 19-70 years), and their fathers (N = 1,170, M = 40.19 years, SD = 6.75, range = 22-76 years) at Wave 1 of 7 annual waves collected between 2008 and 2017. Families were recruited from 12 ethnocultural groups in nine countries including: Shanghai, China (n = 123); Medellin, Colombia (n = 108); Naples (n = 102) and Rome (n = 111), Italy; Zarqa, Jordan (n = 114); Kisumu, Kenya (n = 100); Manila, Philippines (n = 120); Trollhattan & Vanersborg, Sweden (n = 129); Chiang Mai, Thailand (n = 120); and Durham, NC, United States (n = 110 White, n = 102 Black, n = 99 Latinx). Intergenerational parenting (parenting passed from Generation 1 to Generation 2) demonstrated specificity. Children from cultures with above-average G2 parent warmth experienced the most benefit from the intergenerational transmission of warmth, whereas children from cultures with below-average G2 hostility, neglect, and rejection were best protected from deleterious intergenerational effects of parenting behaviors on flourishing. Single-generation parenting (Generation 2 parenting directly associated with Generation 3 flourishing) demonstrated commonality. Parent warmth promoted, and parent hostility, neglect, and rejection impeded the development of child flourishing largely regardless of parenting norms.

Children, mothers, and fathers in 12 ethnic and regional groups in nine countries (N = 1,338 families) were interviewed annually for eight years (M(age) child = 8-16 years) to model four domains of parenting as a function of child age, puberty, or both. Latent growth curve models revealed that for boys and girls, parents decrease their warmth, behavioral control, rules/limit-setting, and knowledge solicitation in conjunction with children’s age and pubertal status as children develop from age 8 to 16 across a range of diverse contexts, with steeper declines after age 11 or 12 in three of the four parenting domains. National, ethnic, and regional differences and similarities in the trajectories as a function of age and puberty are discussed.

The current cross-cultural study aimed to extend research on parenting and children’s prosocial behavior by examining relations among parental warmth, values related to family obligations (i.e., children’s support to and respect for their parents, siblings, and extended family), and prosocial behavior during the transition to adolescence (from ages 9 to 12). Mothers, fathers, and their children (N = 1107 families) from 8 countries including 11 cultural groups (Colombia; Rome and Naples, Italy; Jordan; Kenya; the Philippines; Sweden; Thailand; and African Americans, European Americans, and Latin Americans in the United States) provided data over 3 years in 3 waves (Mage of child in wave 1 = 9.34 years, SD = 0.75; 50.5% female). Overall, across all 11 cultural groups, multivariate change score analysis revealed positive associations among the change rates of parental warmth, values related to family obligations, and prosocial behavior during late childhood (from age 9 to 10) and early-adolescence (from age 10 to 12). In most cultural groups, more parental warmth at ages 9 and 10 predicted steeper mean-level increases in prosocial behavior in subsequent years. The findings highlight the prominent role of positive family context, characterized by warm relationships and shared prosocial values, in fostering children’s positive development in the transition to adolescence. The practical implications of these findings are discussed.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, adolescents (N = 1,330; Mages = 15 and 16; 50% female), mothers, and fathers from nine countries (China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, United States) reported on adolescents' internalizing and externalizing problems, adolescents completed a lab-based task to assess tendency for risk-taking, and adolescents reported on their well-being. During the pandemic, participants (Mage = 20) reported on changes in their internalizing, externalizing, and substance use compared to before the pandemic. Across countries, adolescents' internalizing problems pre-pandemic predicted increased internalizing during the pandemic, and poorer well-being pre-pandemic predicted increased externalizing and substance use during the pandemic. Other relations varied across countries, and some were moderated by confidence in the government's handling of the pandemic, gender, and parents' education. This work was supported by the Eunice Kennedy ShriverNational Institute of Child Health and Human Development (JEL, grant number RO1-HD054805), Fogarty International Center (JEL, grant numberRO3-TW008141), National Institute on Drug Abuse (grant number P30DA023026), the Intramural Research Program of the NIH/NICHD, USA,and an International Research Fellowship at the Institute for Fiscal Studies(IFS), London, UK, funded by the European Research Council (ERC) underthe Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (MHB, grant number695300-HKADeC-ERC-2015-AdG).

The present study examines parents' self-efficacy about anger regulation and irritability as predictors of harsh parenting and adolescent children's irritability (i.e., mediators), which in turn were examined as predictors of adolescents' externalizing and internalizing problems. Mothers, fathers, and adolescents (N = 1,298 families) from 12 cultural groups in 9 countries (China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and United States) were interviewed when children were about 13 years old and again 1 and 2 years later. Models were examined separately for mothers and fathers. Overall, cross-cultural similarities emerged in the associations of both mothers' and fathers' irritability, as well as of mothers' self-efficacy about anger regulation, with subsequent maternal harsh parenting and adolescent irritability, and in the associations of the latter variables with adolescents' internalizing and externalizing problems. The findings suggest that processes linking mothers' and fathers' emotion socialization and emotionality in diverse cultures to adolescent problem behaviors are somewhat similar. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Promoting children's prosocial behavior is a goal for parents, healthcare professionals, and nations. Does positive parenting promote later child prosocial behavior, or do children who are more prosocial elicit more positive parenting later, or both? Relations between parenting and prosocial behavior have to date been studied only in a narrow band of countries, mostly with mothers and not fathers, and child gender has infrequently been explored as a moderator of parenting-prosocial relations. This cross-national study uses 1,178 families (mothers, fathers, and children) from 9 countries to explore developmental transactions between parental acceptance-rejection and girls' and boys' prosocial behavior across 3 waves (child ages 9 to 12). Controlling for stability across waves, within-wave relations, and parental age and education, higher parental acceptance predicted increased child prosocial behavior from age 9 to 10 and from age 10 to 12. Higher age 9 child prosocial behavior also predicted increased parental acceptance from age 9 to 10. These transactional paths were invariant across 9 countries, mothers and fathers, and girls and boys. Parental acceptance increases child prosocial behaviors later, but child prosocial behaviors are not effective at increasing parental acceptance in the transition to adolescence. This study identifies widely applicable socialization processes across countries, mothers and fathers, and girls and boys. (PsycINFO Database Record

Internalizing and externalizing problems increase during adolescence. However, these problems may be mitigated by adequate parenting, including effective parent–adolescent communication. The ways in which parent-driven (i.e., parent behavior control and solicitation) and adolescent-driven (i.e., disclosure and secrecy) communication efforts are linked to adolescent psychological problems universally and cross-culturally is a question that needs more empirical investigation. The current study used a sample of 1087 adolescents (M = 13.19 years, SD = 0.90, 50% girls) from 12 cultural groups in nine countries including China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States to test the cultural moderation of links between parent solicitation, parent behavior control, adolescent disclosure, and adolescent secrecy with adolescent internalizing and externalizing problems. The results indicate that adolescent-driven communication, and secrecy in particular, is intertwined with adolescents’ externalizing problems across all cultures, and intertwined with internalizing problems in specific cultural contexts. Moreover, parent-driven communication efforts were predicted by adolescent disclosure in all cultures. Overall, the findings suggest that adolescent-driven communication efforts, and adolescent secrecy in particular, are important predictors of adolescent psychological problems as well as facilitators of parent–adolescent communication.

BACKGROUND Studies of U.S. and European samples demonstrate that parental warmth and behavioral control predict child internalizing behaviors and vice versa. However, these patterns have not been researched in other cultures. This study investigates associations between parent warmth and control and three child-reported internalizing behavior clusters to examine this question. METHODS Data from 12 cultural groups in 9 countries were used to investigate prospective bidirectional associations between parental warmth and control, and three child-reported internalizing behavior types: withdrawn/depressed, anxious/depressed, and somatic problems. Multiple-group structural equation modeling was used to analyze associations in children followed from ages 8 to 12. RESULTS Parent warmth and control effects were most pervasive on child-reported withdrawn/depressed problems, somewhat pervasive on anxious/depressed problems and least pervasive on somatic problems. Additionally, parental warmth, as opposed to control, was more consistently associated with child-reported internalizing problems across behavior clusters. Child internalizing behavior effects on parental warmth and control appeared ubiquitously across cultures, and behaviors, but were limited to ages 8-10. Most effects were pancultural, but culture-specific effects emerged at ages 9-10 involving the associations between parent warmth and withdrawn/depressed and somatic behaviors. CONCLUSIONS Effects of parent warmth and control appear stronger on some types of child-reported internalizing behaviors. Associations are especially strong with regard to parental warmth across cultures, and culture-specific effects may be accounted for by cultural normativeness of parent warmth and child-reported somatic symptoms. Child internalizing behavior effects on subsequent parenting are common across cultures.

Use of alcohol, tobacco, and drugs (i.e., substance use) is a leading cause of global health burden for 10-to-24-year-olds, according to the World Health Organization's index of number of years of life lost, leading international health organizations to prioritize the prevention of substance use before it escalates in adolescence. Pathways defined by childhood externalizing symptoms and internalizing symptoms identify precursors to frequent substance use toward which interventions can be directed. However, these pathways are rarely examined beyond the United States and Europe. We investigated these pathways in our sample of 1083 children from 10 cultural groups followed from ages 8-14. We found that age-10 externalizing symptoms predicted more frequent mother-reported age-13 and self-reported age-14 substance use. We also found that a depressive pathway, marked by behavioral inhibition at age 8 and subsequent elevation in depressive symptoms across ages 8-12 predicted more frequent substance use at age 13 and 14. Additionally, we found a combined externalizing and internalizing pathway, wherein elevated age-9 depressive symptoms predicted elevated externalizing symptoms at age-10 which predicted greater peer support for use at age-12, which led to more frequent substance use at age-13 and -14. These pathways remained significant within the cultural groups we studied, even after controlling for differences in substance use frequency across groups. Additionally, cultures with greater opportunities for substance use at age-12 had more frequent adolescent substance use at age-13. These findings highlight the importance of disaggregating between- and within-culture effects in identifying the etiology of early adolescent substance use.

We investigated whether bidirectional associations between parental warmth and behavioral control and child aggression and rule-breaking behavior emerged in 12 cultural groups. Study participants included 1,298 children (M = 8.29 years, standard deviation [SD] = 0.66, 51% girls) from Shanghai, China (n = 121); Medellín, Colombia (n = 108); Naples (n = 100) and Rome (n = 103), Italy; Zarqa, Jordan (n = 114); Kisumu, Kenya (n = 100); Manila, Philippines (n = 120); Trollhättan/Vänersborg, Sweden (n = 101); Chiang Mai, Thailand (n = 120); and Durham, NC, United States (n = 111 White, n = 103 Black, n = 97 Latino) followed over 5 years (i.e., ages 8–13). Warmth and control were measured using the Parental Acceptance-Rejection/Control Questionnaire, child aggression and rule-breaking were measured using the Achenbach System of Empirically-Based Assessment. Multiple-group structural equation modeling was conducted. Associations between parent warmth and subsequent rule-breaking behavior were found to be more common across ontogeny and demonstrate greater variability across different cultures than associations between warmth and subsequent aggressive behavior. In contrast, the evocative effects of child aggressive behavior on subsequent parent warmth and behavioral control were more common, especially before age 10, than those of rule-breaking behavior. Considering the type of externalizing behavior, developmental time point, and cultural context is essential to understanding how parenting and child behavior reciprocally affect one another.

The external environment has traditionally been considered as the primary driver of animal life history (LH). Recent research suggests that animals' internal state is also involved, especially in forming LH behavioural phenotypes. The present study investigated how these two factors interact in formulating LH in humans. Based on a longitudinal sample of 1223 adolescents in nine countries, the results show that harsh and unpredictable environments and adverse internal states in childhood are each uniquely associated with fast LH behavioural profiles consisting of aggression, impulsivity, and risk-taking in adolescence. The external environment and internal state each strengthened the LH association of the other, but overall the external environment was more predictive of LH than was the internal state. These findings suggest that individuals rely on a multitude and consistency of sensory information in more decisively calibrating LH and behavioural strategies.

The current longitudinal study is the first comparative investigation across Low- and Middle- Income Countries (LMICs) to test the hypothesis that harsher and less affectionate maternal parenting (child age 14 years, on average) statistically mediates the prediction from prior household chaos and neighborhood danger (at 13 years) to subsequent adolescent maladjustment (externalizing, internalizing, and school performance problems at 15 years). The sample included 511 urban families in six LMICs: China, Colombia, Jordan, Kenya, the Philippines, and Thailand. Multigroup structural equation modeling showed consistent associations between chaos, danger, affectionate and harsh parenting, and adolescent adjustment problems. There was some support for the hypothesis, with nearly all countries showing a modest indirect effect of maternal hostility (but not affection) for adolescent externalizing, internalizing, and scholastic problems. Results provide further evidence that chaotic home and dangerous neighborhood environments increase risk for adolescent maladjustment in LMIC contexts, via harsher maternal parenting.

This study advances understanding of predictors of child abuse and neglect at multiple levels of influence. Mothers, fathers, and children (N= 1,418 families,Mage of children = 8.29 years) were interviewed annually in three waves in 13 cultural groups in nine countries (China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States). Multilevel models were estimated to examine predictors of (a) within-family differences across the three time points, (b) between-family within-culture differences, and (c) between-cultural group differences in mothers' and fathers' reports of corporal punishment and children's reports of their parents' neglect. These analyses addressed to what extent mothers' and fathers' use of corporal punishment and children's perceptions of their parents' neglect were predicted by parents' belief in the necessity of using corporal punishment, parents' perception of the normativeness of corporal punishment in their community, parents' progressive parenting attitudes, parents' endorsement of aggression, parents' education, children's externalizing problems, and children's internalizing problems at each of the three levels. Individual-level predictors (especially child externalizing behaviors) as well as cultural-level predictors (especially normativeness of corporal punishment in the community) predicted corporal punishment and neglect. Findings are framed in an international context that considers how abuse and neglect are defined by the global community and how countries have attempted to prevent abuse and neglect.

Using multilevel models, we examined mother-, father-, and child-reported (N = 1,336 families) externalizing behavior problem trajectories from age 7 to 14 in nine countries (China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, the Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States). The intercept and slope of children's externalizing behavior trajectories varied both across individuals within culture and across cultures, and the variance was larger at the individual level than at the culture level. Mothers’ and children's endorsement of aggression as well as mothers’ authoritarian attitudes predicted higher age 8 intercepts of child externalizing behaviors. Furthermore, prediction from individual-level endorsement of aggression and authoritarian attitudes to more child externalizing behaviors was augmented by prediction from cultural-level endorsement of aggression and authoritarian attitudes, respectively. Cultures in which father-reported endorsement of aggression was higher and both mother- and father-reported authoritarian attitudes were higher also reported more child externalizing behavior problems at age 8. Among fathers, greater attributions regarding uncontrollable success in caregiving situations were associated with steeper declines in externalizing over time. Understanding cultural-level as well as individual-level correlates of children's externalizing behavior offers potential insights into prevention and intervention efforts that can be more effectively targeted at individual children and parents as well as targeted at changing cultural norms that increase the risk of children's and adolescents’ externalizing behavior.

This study investigated the association between perceived material deprivation, children's behavior problems, and parents' disciplinary practices. The sample included 1,418 8- to 12-year-old children and their parents in China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, the Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States. Multilevel mixed- and fixed-effects regression models found that, even when income remained stable, perceived material deprivation was associated with children's externalizing behavior problems and parents' psychological aggression. Parents' disciplinary practices mediated a small share of the association between perceived material deprivation and children's behavior problems. There were no differences in these associations between mothers and fathers or between high- and low- and middle-income countries. These results suggest that material deprivation likely influences children's outcomes at any income level.

Background: It is generally believed that parental rejection of children leads to child maladaptation. However, the specific effects of perceived parental acceptance-rejection on diverse domains of child adjustment and development have been incompletely documented, and whether these effects hold across diverse populations and for mothers and fathers are still open questions. Methods: This study assessed children’s perceptions of mother and father acceptance-rejection in 1,247 families from China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, the Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States as antecedent predictors of later internalizing and externalizing behavior problems, school performance, prosocial behavior, and social competence. Results: Higher perceived parental rejection predicted increases in internalizing and externalizing behavior problems and decreases in school performance and prosocial behavior across 3 years controlling for within-wave relations, stability across waves, and parental age, education, and social desirability bias. Patterns of relations ere similar across mothers and fathers and, with a few exceptions, all nine countries. Conclusions: Children’s perceptions of maternal and paternal acceptance-rejection have small but nearly universal effects on multiple aspects of their adjustment and development regardless of the family’s country of origin. Keywords: Parental acceptance-rejection, behavior problems, school performance, prosocial behavior, social competence, cross-cultural.

In the present analysis, we test the dual systems model of adolescent risk taking in a cross-national sample of over 5,200 individuals aged 10 through 30 (M = 17.05 years, SD = 5.91) from 11 countries. We examine whether reward seeking and self-regulation make independent, additive, or interactive contributions to risk taking, and ask whether these relations differ as a function of age and culture. To compare across cultures, we conduct 2 sets of analyses: 1 comparing individuals from Asian and Western countries, and 1 comparing individuals from low- and high-GDP countries. Results indicate that reward seeking and self-regulation have largely independent associations with risk taking and that the influences of each variable on risk taking are not unique to adolescence, but that their link to risk taking varies across cultures. © 2016 American Psychological Association. 52 10 1593 1605 J2: Dev. Psychol.; Cited By :2; Export Date: 12 July 2017; Correspondence Address: Duell, N.; Department of Psychology, Temple University, 6th Floor Weiss Hall, 1701 North 13th Street, United States; email: ntduell@temple.edu

International research on parenting and child development can advance our understanding of similarities and differences in how parenting is related to children's development across countries. Challenges to conducting international research include operationalizing culture, disentangling effects within and between countries, and balancing emic and etic perspectives. Benefits of international research include testing whether findings regarding parenting and child development replicate across diverse samples, incorporating cultural and contextual diversity to foster more inclusive and representative research samples and investigators than has typically occurred, and understanding how children develop in proximal parenting and family and distal international contexts.

According to the dual systems model of adolescent risk taking, sensation seeking and impulse control follow different developmental trajectories across adolescence and are governed by two different brain systems. The authors tested whether different underlying processes also drive age differences in reward approach and cost avoidance. Using a modified Iowa Gambling Task in a multinational, cross-sectional sample of 3,234 adolescents (ages 9-17; M = 12.87, SD = 2.36), pubertal maturation, but not age, predicted reward approach, mediated through higher sensation seeking. In contrast, age, but not pubertal maturation, predicted increased cost avoidance, mediated through greater impulse control. These findings add to evidence that adolescent behavior is best understood as the product of two interacting, but independently developing, brain systems. © 2016 The Society for Research in Child Development, Inc. J2: Child Dev.; Cited By :1; Export Date: 12 July 2017; Article in Press; CODEN: CHDEA; Correspondence Address: Icenogle, G.email: grace.icenogle@temple.edu

Background: Research supports the beneficial role of prosocial behaviors on children’s adjustment and successful youth development. Empirical studies point to reciprocal relations between negative parenting and children’s maladjustment, but reciprocal relations between positive parenting and children’s prosocial behavior are understudied. In this study reciprocal relations between two different dimensions of positive parenting (quality of the mother–child relationship and the use of balanced positive discipline) and children’s prosocial behavior were examined in Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, the Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States. Methods: Mother–child dyads (N = 1105) provided data over 2 years in two waves (Mage of child in wave 1 = 9.31 years, SD = 0.73; 50% female). Results: A model of reciprocal relations between parenting dimensions, but not among parenting and children’s prosocial behavior, emerged. In particular, children with higher levels of prosocial behavior at age 9 elicited higher levels of mother–child relationship quality in the following year. Conclusions: Findings yielded similar relations across countries, evidencing that being prosocial in late childhood contributes to some degree to the enhancement of a nurturing and involved mother–child relationship in countries that vary widely on sociodemographic profiles and psychological characteristics. Policy and intervention implications of this study are discussed. Keywords: Prosocial behavior; parenting; cross-national; late childhood.

This study examined whether parents’ social information processing was related to their subsequent reports of their harsh discipline. Interviews were conducted with mothers (n = 1,277) and fathers (n = 1,030) of children in 1,297 families in nine countries (China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, the Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States), initially when children were 7 to 9 years old and again 1 year later. Structural equation models showed that parents’ positive evaluations of aggressive responses to hypothetical childrearing vignettes at Time 1 predicted parents’ self-reported harsh physical and nonphysical discipline at Time 2. This link was consistent across mothers and fathers, and across the nine countries, providing support for the universality of the link between positive evaluations of harsh discipline and parents’ aggressive behavior toward children. The results suggest that international efforts to eliminate violence toward children could target parents’ beliefs about the acceptability and advisability of using harsh physical and nonphysical forms of discipline.

Two key tasks facing parents across cultures are managing children’s behaviors (and misbehaviors) and conveying love and affection. Previous research has found that corporal punishment generally is related to worse child adjustment, whereas parental warmth is related to better child adjustment. This study examined whether the association between corporal punishment and child adjustment problems (anxiety and aggression) is moderated by maternal warmth in a diverse set of countries that vary in a number of sociodemographic and psychological ways. Interviews were conducted with 7- to 10-year-old children (N¼1,196; 51% girls) and their mothers in 8 countries: China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan,Kenya, the Philippines, Thailand, and theUnited States. Follow-up interviews were conducted 1 and 2 years later. Corporal punishment was related to increases, and maternal warmth was related to decreases, in children’s anxiety and aggression over time; however, these associations varied somewhat across groups. Maternal warmth moderated the effect of corporal punishment in some countries, with increases in anxiety over time for children whose mothers were high in both warmth and corporal punishment. The findings illustrate the overall association between corporal punishment and child anxiety and aggression as well as patterns specific to particular countries. Results suggest that clinicians across countries should advise parents against using corporal punishment, even in the context of parent–child relationships that are otherwise warm, and should assist parents in finding other ways to manage children’s behaviors. As primary

The goal of the current study was to investigate potential cross-cultural differences in the covariation between two of the major dimensions of parenting behavior: control and warmth. Participants included 1,421 (51% female) 7- to 10-year-old (M = 8.29, SD = .67 years) children and their mothers and fathers representing 13 cultural groups in nine countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and North and South America. Children and parents completed questionnaires and interviews regarding mother and father control and warmth. Greater warmth was associated with more control, but this association varied widely between cultural groups.

The measurement invariance of mother-reported use of 18 discipline strategies was examined in samples from 13 different ethnic/cultural groups in nine countries (China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, the Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States). Participants included approximately 100–120 mothers and their children aged seven to 10 years from each group. The results of exploratory factor analyses and multi-group categorical confirmatory factor analyses (MCCFA) indicated that a seven-factor solution was feasible across the cultural groups, as shown by marginally sufficient evidence for configural and metric invariance for the mother-reported frequency on the discipline interview. This study makes a contribution on measurement invariance to the parenting literature, and establishes the mother-report aspect of the discipline interview as an instrument for use in further cross-cultural research on discipline.

Background. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to a global perspective on corporal punishment by examining differences between mothers' and fathers' use of corporal punishment with daughters and sons in nine countries.Methods. Interviews were conducted with 1398 mothers, 1146 fathers, and 1417 children (age range=7to 10 years) in China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, the Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States.Results. Across the entire sample, 54% of girls and 58% of boys had experienced mild corporal punishment, and 13% of girls and 14% of boys had experienced severe corporal punishment by their parents or someone in their household in the last month. Seventeen percent of parents believed that the use of corporal punishment was necessary to rear the target child. Overall, boys were more frequently punished corporally than were girls, and mothers used corporal punishment more frequently than did fathers. There were significant differences across countries, with reports of corporal punishment use lowest in Sweden and highest in Kenya.Conclusion. This work establishes that the use of corporal punishment is widespread, and efforts to prevent corporal punishment from escalating into physical abuse should be commensurately widespread.

Longitudinal data from the Parenting Across Cultures study of children, mothers, and fathers in 12 cultural groups in nine countries (China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, the Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the USA; N = 1331 families) were used to understand predictors of compliance with COVID-19 mitigation strategies and vaccine hesitancy. Confidence in government responses to the COVID pandemic was also examined as a potential moderator of links between pre-COVID risk factors and compliance with COVID mitigation strategies and vaccine hesitancy. Greater confidence in government responses to the COVID pandemic was associated with greater compliance with COVID mitigation strategies and less vaccine hesitancy across cultures and reporters. Pre-COVID financial strain and family stress were less consistent predictors of compliance with COVID mitigation strategies and vaccine hesitancy than confidence in government responses to the pandemic. Findings suggest the importance of bolstering confidence in government responses to future human ecosystem disruptions, perhaps through consistent, clear, non-partisan messaging and transparency in acknowledging limitations and admitting mistakes to inspire compliance with government and public health recommendations.