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To contribute to our understanding of cohort differences and the Flynn effect in the cognitive decline among older Americans, this study aims to compare rates of cognitive decline between two birth cohorts within a study of older Americans and to examine the importance of medical and demographic confounders. Analyses used data from the National Health and Aging Trends Study (2011-2019), which recruited older Americans in 2011 and again in 2015 who were then followed for 5 years. We employed mixed-effect models to examine the linear and quadratic main and interaction effects of year of birth while adjusting for covariates such as annual round, sex/gender, education, race/ethnicity, heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, test unfamiliarity, and survey design. We analyzed data from 11,167 participants: 7,325 from 2011 to 2015 and 3,842 from 2015 to 2019. The cohort recruited in 2015 was born, on average, 5.33 years later than that recruited in 2011 and had higher functioning than the one recruited in 2011 across all observed cognitive domains that persisted after adjusting for covariates. In multivariable-adjusted analyses, a 1-year increase in year of birth was associated with increased episodic memory (β = 0.045, SE = 0.001, p < .001), orientation (β = 0.034, SE = 0.001, p < .001), and executive function (β = 0.036, SE = 0.001, p < .001). Participants born 1 year later had slower rates of decline in episodic memory (β = 0.004, SE = 0.000, p < .001), orientation (β = 0.003, SE = 0.000, p < .001), and executive function (β = 0.001, SE = 0.000, p = .002). Additionally, sex/gender modified this relationship for episodic memory (-0.007, SE = 0.002, p < .001), orientation (-0.005, SE = 0.002, p = .008), and executive function (-0.008, SE = 0.002, p < .001). These results demonstrate the persistence of the Flynn effect in old age across cognitive domains and identified a deceleration in the rate of cognitive decline across cognitive domains. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: Using a large longitudinal sample of adults from the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) study, the present study extended a recently developed hierarchical model to determine how best to model the accumulation of stressors, and to determine whether the rate of change in stressors or traditional composite scores of stressors are stronger predictors of health outcomes., Method: We used factor analysis to estimate a stress-factor score and then, to operationalize the accumulation of stressors we examined five approaches to aggregating information about repeated exposures to multiple stressors. The predictive validity of these approaches was then assessed in relation to different health outcomes., Results: The prediction of chronic conditions, body mass index, difficulty with activities of daily living, executive function, and episodic memory later in life was strongest when the accumulation of stressors was modeled using total area under the curve (AUC) of estimated factor scores, compared to composite scores that have traditionally been used in studies of cumulative stress, as well as linear rates of change., Conclusions: Like endogenous, biological markers of stress reactivity, AUC for individual trajectories of self-reported stressors shows promise as a data reduction technique to model the accumulation of stressors in longitudinal studies. Overall, our results indicate that considering different quantitative models is critical to understanding the sequelae and predictive power of psychosocial stressors from midlife to late adulthood., (Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

Background: Medical students experience emotional challenges during their undergraduate education, often related to work-based learning. Consequently, they may experience feelings of uncertainty and self-doubt, which can negatively affect their well-being. Therefore, it is crucial to support students' development of their ability to manage distressful situations. Self-efficacy beliefs may be a central aspect of supporting them in this development, and have been shown to relate to resilient factors such as students' motivation, learning, and well-being., Methods: We constructed a scale to measure medical students' physician self-efficacy to manage emotional challenges during work-based learning, the PSMEC scale. The aim of the present study was to evaluate some of the psychometric properties of the PSMEC scale. The scale consists of 17 items covering five subscales: (1) medical knowledge and competence, (2) communication with difficult patients and delivering bad news, (3) being questioned and challenged, (4) educative competence in patient encounters, and (5) ability to establish and maintain relationships with healthcare professionals. Data were collected from 655 medical students from all seven medical schools in Sweden. To investigate the scale's dimensionality and measurement invariance with regard to gender and time in education, single and multiple group confirmatory factor models were estimated using techniques suitable for ordered categorical data. Measures of Cronbach's alpha were calculated to evaluate internal consistency., Results: The scale showed good internal consistency on both the global dimension and the five subdimensions of self-efficacy. In addition, the scale was shown to be measurement invariant across genders and times in education, indicating that the scale means of male and female medical students and the scale means of students at the middle and end of their education can be compared., Conclusions: The physician self-efficacy to manage emotional challenges scale demonstrated satisfactory psychometric properties, with regards to dimensionality, internal consistency, and measurement invariance relating to gender and time in education, and this study supports the usefulness of this scale when measuring self-efficacy in relation to emotional challenges., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

The Flynn effect refers to increases over time in measured (particularly fluid) intelligence of approximately 3 IQ points per decade. We define the Flynn effect at the family level, using longitudinal data and two new family-level cohort definitions. Multilevel growth curve analyses of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 data showed that children in families with later-born mothers had higher average PIAT math scores, and lower average reading comprehension scores and growth, in young and middle childhood. Children in families where the first child was born later had higher average PIAT math, reading recognition, and reading comprehension scores, as well as larger developmental growth. The latter family-level Flynn effects were of higher magnitudes than the usual individual-level Flynn effect found in previous studies. Our results, showing family level-intercept and slope Flynn effects for both maternal birthyear and first child birthyear, have implications for research aiming to explain the Flynn effect.

Studies have reported that the age-adjusted incidence of cognitive impairment and dementia may have decreased over the past two decades. Aging is the predominant risk factor for Alzheimer's disease and related dementias and for neurocognitive decline. However, aging cannot explain changes in overall age-adjusted incidence of dementia. The objective of this position paper was to describe the potential for cohort and period effects in cognitive decline and incidence of dementia. Cohort effects have long been reported in demographic literature, but starting in the early 1980s, researchers began reporting cohort trends in cognitive function. At the same time, period effects have emerged in economic factors and stressors in early and midlife that may result in reduced cognitive dysfunction. Recognizing that aging individuals today were once children and adolescents, and that research has clearly noted that childhood cognitive performance is a primary determinant of old-age cognitive performance, this is the first study that proposes the need to connect known cohort effects in childhood cognition with differences in late-life functioning.

School bullying is a complex social and relational phenomenon with severe consequences for those involved. Most children view bullying as wrong and recognize its harmful consequences; nevertheless, it continues to be a persistent problem within schools. Previous research has shown that children's engagement in bullying perpetration can be influenced by multiple factors (e.g., different forms of cognitive distortions) and at different ecological levels (e.g., child, peer-group, school, and society). However, the complexity of school bullying warrants further investigation of the interplay between factors, at different levels. Grounded in social cognitive theory, which focuses on both cognitive factors and social processes, this study examined whether children's bullying perpetration was associated with moral disengagement at the child level and with collective moral disengagement and prevalence of pro-bullying behavior at the classroom level. Cross-level interactions were also tested to examine the effects of classroom-level variables on the association between children's tendency to morally disengage and bullying perpetration. The study's analyses were based on cross-sectional self-report questionnaire data from 1,577 Swedish fifth-grade children from 105 classrooms (53.5% girls; M age = 11.3, SD = 0.3). Multilevel modeling techniques were used to analyze the data. The results showed that bullying perpetration was positively associated with moral disengagement at the child level and with collective moral disengagement and pro-bullying behavior at the classroom level. Furthermore, the effect of individual moral disengagement on bullying was stronger for children in classrooms with higher levels of pro-bullying behaviors. These findings further support the argument that both moral processes and behaviors within classrooms, such as collective moral disengagement and pro-bullying behavior, need to be addressed in schools' preventive work against bullying.

This three-year longitudinal study examined both within- and between-person effects of moral disengagement on verbal bullying perpetration in early adolescence. Data came from the first four waves (T1-T4, Grades 4 to 7) of an ongoing longitudinal project examining social and moral correlates of bullying in Swedish schools. Participants included 2432 Swedish early adolescents (52% girls; M age at T1 = 10.55 years). Students completed self-report measures of verbal bullying perpetration and moral disengagement. Results of a multilevel growth model showed that verbal bullying increased over time (regression coefficient for Grade was b = 0.04, SE = 0.01, p < .001). Additionally, the verbal bullying trajectories of participants with higher average levels of MD were higher (regression coefficient for MD¯ was b = 0.28, SE = 0.02, p < .001) and steeper (regression coefficient for the Grade ×MD¯ interaction was b = 0.02, SE = 0.01, p = .018), indicating that these students scored higher on verbal bullying in general and increased more in verbal bullying over time, compared to students with lower levels of average MD. Variations around one's own mean of MD over time was also significantly associated with concurrent changes in verbal bullying (regression coefficient for time-varying MD was b = 0.21, SE = 0.01, p < .001)., (Copyright © 2020 Society for the Study of School Psychology. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

The aim of this study was to examine whether individual and classroom collective social-cognitive processes (moral disengagement and self-efficacy) were associated with bullying perpetration among schoolchildren. An additional aim was to examine whether changes in these processes from grade 4 (Time 1) to grade 5 (Time 2) were associated with a change in bullying perpetration. Self-reported survey data were collected from 1,250 Swedish students from 98 classrooms. Results of multilevel analysis indicated that individual and classroom collective moral disengagement (CMD) were positively associated with bullying, and defender self-efficacy (DSE) was negatively associated with bullying. The effect of changes in individual moral disengagement on changes in bullying was positive, and the effects of changes in DSE and classroom collective efficacy on changes in bullying were negative. Thus, the findings demonstrate the changeability of moral disengagement, DSE and collective efficacy over time, and how these changes are linked to changes in bullying perpetration.

Using the social-ecological and social cognitive theories as integrated guiding frameworks, the present study examined whether moral disengagement and defender self-efficacy at the individual level, and moral disengagement, quality of teacher-student relationships and quality of student-student relationships at the classroom level were associated with passive bystanding and defending in bullying situations. Participants were 900 Swedish students from 43 classrooms, ranging in age from 9 to 13years. Multilevel regression analyses revealed that passive reactions by bystanders were associated with greater moral disengagement and less defender self-efficacy. Defending, in turn, was associated with less moral disengagement and greater defender self-efficacy and classroom student-student relationship quality. Furthermore, students who scored high in moral disengagement were even less prone to defend victims when the classroom student-student relationship quality was low, but more prone to act as defenders when the classroom student-student relationship quality was high. In addition, the negative association between defender self-efficacy and passive bystanding was stronger both in classrooms with higher student-student relationship quality and in those with lower class moral disengagement. Implications for prevention are discussed., (Copyright © 2017 Society for the Study of School Psychology. All rights reserved.)

Although the Flynn Effect has been studied widely across cultural, geographic, and intellectual domains, and many explanatory theories have been proposed, little past research attention has been paid to subgroup differences. Rodgers and Wänström (2007) identified an aggregate-level Flynn Effect (FE) at each age between 5 and 13 in the Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSYC) PIAT-Math data. FE patterns were not obtained for Reading Recognition, Reading Comprehension, or Digit Span, consistent with past FE research suggesting a closer relationship to fluid intelligence measures of problem solving and analytic reasoning than to crystallized measures of verbal comprehension and memory. These prior findings suggest that the NLSYC data can be used as a natural laboratory to study more subtle FE patterns within various demographic subgroups. We test for subgroup Flynn Effect differences by gender, race/ethnicity, maternal education, household income, and urbanization. No subgroups differences emerged for three demographic categories. However, children with more educated (especially college educated) mothers and/or children born into higher income households had an accelerated Flynn effect in their PIAT-M scores compared to cohort peers with lower educated mothers or lower income households. We interpret both the positive and the null findings in relation to previous theoretical explanations.