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We demonstrate how developmental theories may be instantiated as statistical models, using hierarchical continuous-time dynamic systems. This approach offers a flexible specification and an often more direct link between theory and model parameters than common modeling frameworks. We address developmental theories of the relation between the academic competencies of mathematics and language, using data from the online learning system Mindsteps. We use ability estimates from 160,164 observation occasions, across N = 4623 3rd to 9th grade students and five ability domains. Model development is step-by-step from simple to complex, with ramifications for theory and modeling discussed at each step.

A recent Registered Replication Report (RRR) of the development of verbal rehearsal during serial recall revealed that children verbalized at younger ages than previously thought, but did not identify sources of individual differences. Here, we use mediation analysis to reanalyze data from the 934 children ranging from 5 to 10 years old from the RRR for that purpose. From ages 5 to 7, the time taken for a child to label pictures (i.e. isolated naming speed) predicted the child's spontaneous use of labels during a visually presented serial reconstruction task, despite no need for spoken responses. For 6- and 7-year-olds, isolated naming speed also predicted recall. The degree to which verbalization mediated the relation between isolated naming speed and recall changed across development. All relations dissipated by age 10. The same general pattern was observed in an exploratory analysis of delayed recall for which greater demands are placed on rehearsal for item maintenance. Overall, our findings suggest that spontaneous phonological recoding during a standard short-term memory task emerges around age 5, increases in efficiency during the early elementary school years, and is sufficiently automatic by age 10 to support immediate serial recall in most children. Moreover, the findings highlight the need to distinguish between phonological recoding and rehearsal in developmental studies of short-term memory.

This study used a stratified random sample of classes in Zurich, Switzerland, comprising approximately 2,000 students whose academic performances in math and language were assessed across primary and lower secondary education. Based on this longitudinal data, the study investigated the association of social inequalities with the baseline of, and gains in, academic performance. The study focused on growing social disparities in academic performance during compulsory education, taking into account disparities in the social backgrounds of students as well as in social deprivation of school attendance areas. The results of a multilevel growth curve analysis implemented to model academic performance development at student and school district levels suggest cumulative disadvantages for students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. These students (a) start school with lower initial knowledge and (b) experience lower improvements in academic performance. The findings also suggest that more advantaged school attendance areas achieved higher average performance levels in the early stages of primary education despite controlling for student socioeconomic backgrounds. On average, however, this gap in academic performance between more advantaged and more deprived attendance areas did not appear to widen over the subsequent years of compulsory schooling.

Thriving is a developmental process that is shaped by previous and current interactions within developmental contexts. We hypothesized that academic performance in the school context will positively predict thriving in young adulthood. Data of N = 2,043 students from Zurich were assessed with standardized tests in Grades 1, 3, 6, and 9. Results showed that a stronger increase in academic performance significantly predicted thriving at age 20, even after statistically controlling for various covariates. Further analyses showed that school bonding might represent a mediating link between the academic performance and thriving. We argue that although schools can be considered the most widespread and intensive "youth development program" of sorts, their role for thriving has been largely neglected in developmental science.

This paper investigates how individuals deal with demands of social and economic change in the domains of work and family when opportunities for their mastery are unfavorable. Theoretical considerations and empirical research suggest that with unattainable goals and unmanageable demands motivational disengagement and self-protective cognitions bring about superior outcomes than continued goal striving. Building on research on developmental deadlines, this paper introduces the concept of developmental barriers to address socioeconomic conditions of severely constrained opportunities in certain geographical regions. Mixed-effects methods were used to model cross-level interactions between individual-level compensatory secondary control and regional-level opportunity structures in terms of social indicators for the economic prosperity and family friendliness. Results showed that disengagement was positively associated with general life satisfaction in regions that were economically devastated and has less than average services for families. In regions that were economically well off and family-friendly, the association was negative. Similar results were found for self-protection concerning domain-specific satisfaction with life. These findings suggest that compensatory secondary control can be an adaptive way of mastering a demand when primary control is not possible.

In this study, the effectiveness of a life skills program to impede tobacco use in early adolescence was scrutinized. The focus was on the mediating role of yielding to peer pressure. The universal school-based life skills program IPSY (Information + Psychosocial Competence = Protection) against adolescent substance use was implemented over 3 years. Over the same time period, it was evaluated based on a longitudinal quasi-experimental design with an intervention and comparison group (4 measurement points; N = 1,657 German students, age 10 at T1). By applying a growth curve modeling approach, we found that participation in IPSY compared with non-participation predicted a slower increase in tobacco use over time, suggesting a significant intervention effect. Moreover, a parallel growth curve model revealed that less yielding to peer pressure induced by IPSY mediated the program effects on tobacco use over time.

Globalized labor markets confront many adults, both employed and unemployed, with demands arising from career uncertainty that have the potential to jeopardize their occupational planning. This article investigated how individuals in different regions of Germany, which are characterized by different economic opportunities, negotiate such demands to pursue a career. The central hypothesis is that under unfavorable economic conditions, disengagement from demands of career planning, in terms of reducing commitment to their mastery, will predict positive changes in subjective well-being. This was tested using a sample of N = 806 adults living in 91 regions of Germany. Results suggest that disengagement predicts increased subjective well-being, but only if individuals report a very high load of demands of career planning and live in regions characterized by particularly poor opportunities for goal striving. It is concluded that disengagement can be an adaptive way of mastering occupational planning under particularly disadvantageous circumstances. (Contains 3 tables and 2 figures.)

Developmental contexts play a pivotal role in shaping the psychosocial adaptation and development of young people. Family, school, peer groups, and community provide the opportunities and constraints for the attainment of major developmental tasks of adolescence, and changing relations between the individual and these contexts constitute the basic process of human development. Furthermore, it is primarily through these immediate developmental contexts (microsystems in terms of ecological systems theory) that macrolevel trends such as globalization influence youth development. In this article, the authors illustrate how globalization and economic change have been reshaping the central microcontexts of adolescence. They then argue that the individual differences in the way youth perceive these changes and cope with them--that is, the active role individuals play in their own development--are the key to understanding the psychological consequences of social change. (Contains 1 figure and 33 notes.)

Individually experienced demands of current social change in the domains of work and family were assessed in a large sample of adults from two Western and two Eastern federal states of Germany. For each domain of life, a cumulated index was computed representing the load with highly endorsed demands and this was compared across political regions, employment, partnership status and participants' level of education. Generally, a higher load of demands was found in Eastern Germany for participants who were unemployed or outside the labor market, those who were separated or divorced, and those with lower education. The political context and education aggravated the load of demands in the domain of work (but not in the domain of family) as indicated by significant two-way interactions between the different factors. The results prove that the demands of social change due to globalization or individualization differ in a systematic way across ecological niches.

The transition from school to work is a central developmental task with long-term implications for the financial and social status of individuals. We argue that dynamic adjustments of aspirations play a decisive role for a successful outcome of the school to work transition, particularly in the context of the German vocational training system. Latent growth curve analyses conducted on the self-reported occupational aspirations of German adolescents (N = 414) surveyed in a 5-wave longitudinal study during their senior school year support this assumption. Based on expectancy-value-models of achievement, we delineated an adaptive trajectory of aspirations as starting off with relatively high aspirations and subsequently gradually downgrading them until s is attained. Such a trajectory of adjustment should maximize both expectancy (i.e., probability of obtaining an apprenticeship position at all) and value (i.e., training position with promotion potential). Finally, we showed empirically that the trajectory conceptually proposed as most adaptive was characteristic for youth who reported phase-adequate goal engagement strategies as suggested by the life-span theory of control. (Contains 3 tables.)

These analyses explore the relationship between gender inequality and subjective well-being. The hypothesis was tested as to whether societal gender inequality is related to the size of gender differences in subjective well-being in various societies. Results come from comparative data sets (World Values Survey, involving 57 countries; OASIS project, involving Norway, England, Germany, Spain and Israel). The size of gender differences varied with the extent of societal gender inequality and the cultural attitudes regarding gender equality in different countries. Including individual resources like education and income in the analyses reduced the size of gender and country differences. Gender differences in subjective well-being could therefore be related to gender specific access to goal relevant resources.

A study of 335 German 10th graders who applied for apprenticeships showed that they adjusted their aspirations from "dream job" to "a job I am interested in" as deadlines approached. They matched their school performance to the prestige of the apprenticeships they applied for. (Contains 47 references.) (SK)