This study examined the direction of relations between values and prosocial sharing during middle childhood. A total of 299 children participated (age at first time point in months: = 80.49, = 4.16; = 92.98, = 4.84; 53% female, 47% male) completed a values questionnaire and participated in a resource allocation task over four annual assessments. A random-intercept cross-lagged panel model revealed stable associations between the variables. Prioritizing others' welfare (self-transcendence values) was associated with increases in costly sharing over time, to a stronger extent than costly sharing was also associated with later increases in self-transcendence values. These reciprocal effects were not observed for noncostly giving or self-enhancement values. The findings underscore the role of values in relations to prosocial sharing development, even in middle childhood. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

This study aimed to further our understanding of the predictors of the decline of students' intrinsic motivation in math in secondary school. Based on cognitive evaluation theory and stage-environment fit theory, we tested the hypotheses that changes in the three basic needs (competence, autonomy, and relatedness) can explain interindividual differences in the decline of students' intrinsic motivation. A sample of = 337 German students (t1: = 11.33 years, = 0.59) was followed for 5 years from the end of Grade 5 to the end of Grade 10. Students gave self-reports on their intrinsic motivation in math, perceived competence, autonomy, and social relatedness. Latent change score models showed declines in students' intrinsic motivation in math over the period of time. Moreover, we found interindividual differences in changes of students' intrinsic motivation. Furthermore, decreases in students' perceived competence, autonomy, and social relatedness significantly predicted the decline in students' intrinsic motivation. Therefore, the present findings provide suggestions as to how the decline of students' intrinsic motivation in secondary school could be explained. Implications for future research as well as for educational practice in schools are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Longitudinal studies of emotion socialization are still lacking in the Majority World. Studies with father data are particularly scarce. The present study drew data from a 15-year longitudinal project of urban Chinese families and examined both concurrent and longitudinal associations between parental emotion socialization (ES) practices and youth psychosocial adjustment from early- to mid-adolescence. Youths ( = 272, 52.9% boys, = 9.77 years, = 0.22) and their parents (247 mothers and 191 fathers) participated in the sixth wave of data collection when children were 10 years old (Year 10). Majority of them continued to participate 5 years later for the seventh wave of data collection (Year 15). Both mothers and fathers reported on their ES practices, and adolescents reported on their psychosocial adjustment outcomes at both waves. To examine how maternal and paternal ES were uniquely linked to adolescent psychosocial outcomes concurrently and across time, a series of multiple regression models were tested. Results showed that concurrently, maternal supportive ES (i.e., emotion encouragement, emotion talk or sharing, and emotion teaching) was positively linked to girls' self-esteem at Year 10, whereas paternal ES was inversely associated with boys' depressive symptoms at Year 15. Longitudinally, maternal supportive ES practices were uniquely related to girls' increases in self-esteem and decreases in depressive symptoms for all adolescents. Our findings suggest long-lasting associations between parental ES practices and adolescent psychological adjustment and unique roles of maternal and paternal ES in adolescent girls' and boys' development. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

How do first-time fathers and mothers share the care of their new infant at night? Using smartphone-based experience sampling, we compared parental reports during maternity and paternity leave. During maternity leave, mothers reported engaging in 2.70 more nighttime care events than fathers, performing approximately 77% of the nighttime checking or responding to infants. During paternity leave, fathers' reported share of nighttime care increased by about 17%, while mothers reported that their share decreased by 14%. However, mothers checked on their infants on average 1.43 times more than fathers during paternity leave. The total number of nighttime checks was similar between the maternity and paternity leave periods, despite infants being older during paternity leave, when sleep patterns typically stabilize. We also found considerable discrepancies between partners' reports: both parents consistently reported their partners doing less nighttime care than the partners reported themselves. The discrepancy was particularly pronounced in mothers' evaluations of father involvement during maternity leave. These findings reveal persistent asymmetries in parental nighttime care, even when fathers are on paternity leave. We suggest that the distribution of nighttime care, therefore, is not solely driven by parental leave status but might reflect established infant care routines, social norms, and other biological factors. These findings have implications for understanding the development of co-parenting dynamics and informing policies aimed at promoting father involvement in early infant care. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Nowadays, children's reading habits extend beyond traditional printed texts, embracing new practices and forms through digital devices. The influence of such new digital reading habits on reading motivation and comprehension development remains largely underexplored. This study aimed to explore reciprocal causal paths between digital reading habits, reading comprehension and intrinsic reading motivation. To do so, we analyzed longitudinal data of 908 Spanish students from Grades 4 to 6. We estimated random-intercept and cross-lagged panel models to examine long-term associations between our main variables. Results revealed null causal paths between digital reading habits and reading comprehension for both leisure and academic purposes. After controlling for autoregressive effects and considering only within-person variance, one significant path remained from academic digital reading habits in Grade 5 to decreased intrinsic reading motivation in Grade 6. Our study provides new insights about the role of digital reading habits in the development of reading comprehension and intrinsic reading motivation in primary school students. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

The present study aimed to explore whether interactive touchscreen could facilitate children's causal learning and transfer compared with demonstration and video. In Experiment 1 ( = 121, 54 girls) and Experiment 2 ( = 133, 61 girls), 4- and 5-year-olds either passively observed screen-based demonstration, and video, or actively interacted with blocks on the touchscreen to make accurate inferences about the causal relationship between the color of the blocks and their corresponding effect. We presented children with 100% and 75% possibilities of causality and tested their ability of discriminating between these two competing causal hypotheses with different possibilities on the touchscreen. The results suggested that interaction with touchscreens was superior to screen-based demonstration and video learning for helping 4-year-olds identify 100% and 75% color feature hypotheses and distinguish the most likely color hypothesis in both simple and generalized conflict tasks. For 5-year-olds, it specifically aided in resolving generalized conflict tasks. In Experiment 3 ( = 139, 69 girls), we not only replicated our previous findings but also found that interaction learning helped children to transfer the causality abstracted from touchscreen to reality. Specifically, interacting with blocks on the touchscreen supported 4-year-old children to successfully perform cross-medium near transfer and 5-year-old children to perform cross-medium near and far transfer, but these abilities were not available for demonstration and video learning. In conclusion, findings demonstrated that touchscreen interactivity has the potential to facilitate 4- and 5-year-olds' causal learning and transfer compared to demonstration and video learning. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Cross-ethnic peer relations are pivotal for ethnic minority adolescents. However, there is limited understanding of how their cross-ethnic friendships with majority peers in school develop over time. Addressing this, this study aimed to investigate individual trajectories of cross-ethnic friendship in school and how they predict long-term school adjustment. Our sample consisted of 1,445 Turkish- and Moroccan-heritage minority adolescents in 70 Belgian middle schools (52.6% boys, = 15.07; 76.3% second generation), followed across three annual waves over 3 years. Latent growth mixture models of their repeated self-reported cross-ethnic friendships with majority peers revealed four distinct trajectories: maintaining (32.7%), gaining (9.3%), losing (10.5%), and never having cross-ethnic friendships (47.6%). Adolescents who maintained or gained cross-ethnic friendships experienced stronger school adjustment, including increased belonging and engagement. Conversely, adolescents who never had or lost such friendships showed poorer school adjustment. These results highlight the importance of cross-ethnic friendships in the school context, particularly for ethnic minority adolescents. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

This study investigated how decoding, oral language, cognitive, and code-related skills in both first language (L1) Filipino and second language (L2) English contributed to reading comprehension, both within and across languages, among 193 Grades 1-3 Filipino-English bilingual children in the Philippines. Within-language structural equation modeling analyses revealed that decoding and oral language directly contributed to reading comprehension in both L1 and L2. Cognitive skills and code-related skills contributed indirectly through their effects on oral language and decoding. Cross-linguistically, only decoding and oral language within each language directly contributed to reading comprehension in both L1 and L2. L1 decoding indirectly influenced L2 reading comprehension via L2 decoding. Similarly, L2 decoding influenced L1 reading comprehension indirectly through L1 decoding. These findings underscore the roles of decoding and oral language in early Filipino-English bilingual children's reading comprehension, with language proficiency determining possible cross-language transfer between L1 Filipino and L2 English. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Most existing training programs designed to enhance children's sociocognitive abilities, such as emotion understanding and theory of mind, rely heavily on language-based approaches. This study investigated the effectiveness of a novel visuospatial-based block-building training protocol compared with traditional language-based training in improving children's understanding of emotions and minds. A total of 106 4.5-year-old children ( = 53.77 months, = 2.53 months; 53% girls) from Hong Kong participated in a pretest-posttest training study. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three training conditions: (a) block building with verbal cues, (b) block building with visual-verbal cues, or (c) dialogic reading. Each group received 1.5-hr weekly sessions for 6 weeks. Posttraining assessments showed significant gains in visuospatial perspective-taking and social-cognitive abilities, particularly among children in the block-building group with visual-verbal cues. Notably, the visuospatial-based training was as effective as the language-based approach in improving emotion understanding and theory of mind. These findings illuminate the interconnectedness of visuospatial perspective-taking and sociocognitive abilities and suggest that embodied simulation mechanisms may underlie psychological perspective taking. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Despite the recent upsurge of interest in scientific reasoning in early childhood, limited research has addressed early scientific argumentation abilities and their development. The present longitudinal study investigated the development of young children's ability to refute a false claim utilizing unconfounded disconfirming evidence. Children were tested when they were 4.0 ( = 191, 85 girls, 106 boys) and 5.5 years old ( = 179, 82 girls, 97 boys). At both time points, children learned the true cause of a light effect and were presented with a false claim about its cause. We assessed children's verbal counterarguments and the generation of physical disconfirming evidence. At 4 years, approximately half of the children demonstrated the ability to provide valid verbal causal counterarguments, which increased to 70% at 5.5 years. Remarkably, at 4 years, 90% of the children selected causally efficacious unconfounded evidence over an ambiguous alternative. Furthermore, developmental progress was observed from 4 to 5.5 years in flexibly utilizing different types of disconfirming evidence. These findings indicate that as early as 4 years old, children exhibit a genuine understanding of falsification through evidence, distinguishing confounded from unconfounded evidence when confronted with a claim they know to be false. The associations with cognitive abilities suggest that development in argumentation from 4 to 5.5 years primarily revolves around the capacity to utilize diverse evidence, related to children's ability to represent multiple higher order rules and perspectives. The potential educational implications for fostering young children's scientific reasoning and argumentation abilities are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Early language input to infants varies in lexical composition across languages and contexts. For instance, American-English input emphasizes nouns more than verbs, while Mandarin Chinese and Korean inputs provide more verbs than nouns, the difference of which is considered an influential factor in the child's early vocabulary acquisition. Furthermore, a possibility was raised that nonverbal input accompanying child-directed language provides additional support for verb meanings in verb-dominant caregiver input. However, these early verb dominance and support patterns have been derived from a handful of studies that examined very small samples. Thus, we aimed to systematically reexamine the verb dominance pattern in Korean caregiver input, considering both verbal and nonverbal aspects and their relative contributions to long-term vocabulary outcomes using a larger longitudinal sample. From 70 caregiver inputs to their 14- to 20-month-olds (41,349 utterances; 2,186 min, 30 s total), we found that the Korean language supports verb learning through lexical distribution and nonverbal extralinguistic input quality. Both the noun representation ratio and verb proportion positively predicted 54-month vocabulary outcomes, indicating that overall frequency is crucial for long-term vocabulary growth. Differences in caregiver nonverbal input quality between nouns and verbs explained 36-month vocabulary outcomes but did not predict long-term growth. These findings suggest that verbal and nonverbal inputs play different roles in long-term language development and that these might explain why Korean infants demonstrate better comprehension for verbs than nouns early on. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

We used network analysis to examine the structure and development of arithmetic fluency in Chinese students from Grades 3 to 6-a critical period during which fluency across the four operations becomes increasingly integrated. In two preregistered studies, students completed timed fluency tasks in addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. In Study 1, we compared network structures in Grade 3 ( = 1,072; = 9.1 years) and Grade 6 ( = 1,160; = 12.1 years). We found that students in Grade 6 demonstrated more strongly interconnected and uniformly structured networks than those in Grade 3. In Study 2, students ( = 1,055; = 9.8 years) were assessed in a longitudinal design at four time points in Grades 4 and 5. Addition and subtraction consistently emerged as central operations, forming the foundational core of the arithmetic network. Division reflected significant integration of knowledge from other operations, whereas multiplication generally showed weak connections with the other operations. Overall, development was highly interdependent, with improvements in one operation closely linked to gains in others. This research provides empirical evidence that arithmetic knowledge evolves from a differentiated structure into a unified and interconnected system, highlighting the value of viewing arithmetic development as a dynamic network of associations that consolidate over time. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

It has been established that whereas young children who use their fingers to solve arithmetic problems outperform those who do not, this trend reverses in older children around the age of 7. One possible interpretation is that finger counting is helpful for solving simple problems but becomes inadequate as problem complexity increases, leaving finger users reliant on strategies that are no longer efficient. Another possibility is that nonfinger users after the age of 7 are, in fact, ex-finger users who have already transitioned to efficient mental strategies. These contrasting interpretations carry significant theoretical and educational implications. In the first case, finger counting may be viewed as an ultimately limiting tool, potentially trapping children in immature strategies, and, in the second, as a powerful tool that has not only immediate benefit but also long-term positive effect on children's arithmetic development. To disentangle these interpretations, 192 children from middle to high socioeconomic status (mainly White, 96 girls) were followed from the age of 4.5 to 7.5 across seven testing points. While virtually all children were observed using their fingers at some point during the study, most nonfinger users by age of 6.5 were in fact ex-finger users. Importantly, they presented higher arithmetic performance than finger users and genuine nonfinger users of the same age. These original findings provide the first empirical evidence that finger counting acts as a developmental scaffold toward efficient mental arithmetic, rather than as a mere useful but limiting strategy eventually hindering development. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Based on Self-Determination Theory (Ryan & Deci, 2017), this study examined longitudinal predictions of two types of prenatal maternal beliefs about child development: (a) belief in coercion and external control and (b) belief in intensive monitoring. Based on laboratory observations of first-time mothers ( = 305), maternal control and toddler noncompliance at age 2 years were examined in relation to each prenatal belief. A path analysis revealed that the two beliefs show different patterns of associations with child compliance and noncompliance 2 years postpartum, via two different types of maternal control: harsh and nonharsh. Mothers' prenatal belief in coercion and external control was associated with mothers' tendency to exercise harsh control (e.g., threats and punishments conveyed in an unpleasant tone), which, in turn, was positively associated with child defiance and negatively associated with child compliance. Mothers' prenatal belief in intensive monitoring was associated with nonharsh control (e.g., repetitive requests, expressions of disappointment, and dismissive redirection), which, in turn, positively predicted child passive noncompliance (i.e., ignoring maternal directives) and negatively predicted compliance. Our findings underscore the potential long-term effects of prenatal control-oriented beliefs on parenting behaviors, particularly in fostering postpartum control strategies that may contribute to varying forms of toddler noncompliance. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Despite growing interest in supporting caregivers' use of nurturing care globally, few parenting measures have been validated for use outside of Minority World contexts. This study aims to develop, describe, and provide validity evidence for an efficient, culturally relevant instrument to measure local nurturing parenting beliefs and behaviors regarding responsive caregiving and early learning within a sample of caregivers of 2- to 5-year-olds in Cajamarca, Peru. We used a multiple methods phased study design to develop the self-reported parenting instrument, Nurturing Parenting Beliefs and Behaviors Scale, including qualitative interviews, focus groups, cognitive testing, and quantitative pilot testing. The final validation sample included 2,274 mothers of children ( = 29.41 months, 49.56% female) from Cajamarca, Peru. We used exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis to examine the factor structure of the instrument and correlations and regressions to validate it against parenting and child development outcomes. Results indicate a two-factor structure reflecting nurturing parenting beliefs (α = .84) and behaviors (α = .82). Analyses of concurrent validity showed that the parenting beliefs and behaviors subscales correlated positively with parental stimulation and learning materials. Both parenting beliefs and behaviors positively predicted early childhood development (parent report and direct assessment). This instrument can be used as a starting point for measuring parenting in other Majority World contexts with similar caregiver characteristics. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Family math engagement interventions can effectively encourage parent-child math talk, yet no known studies have modeled the shape of this growth. Modeling growth demonstrates how change occurs, not just that it occurred, and is especially valuable in intervention studies to account for growth in families not exposed to the intervention. The present study examined the shape of growth in parent and child math talk across four time points in a pilot study of Math Made 4 Me, a 6-week program tailoring math supports (short video clips and texts) to each family's typical routines. Participants were 76 mostly White, middle-income parents and their 4-year-old children in the United States. At four time points (pretest, after 2 and 4 weeks of intervention, and posttest), parent-child dyads in the Math Made 4 Me and control conditions were videotaped completing picture-sharing and free-play tasks, and their utterances were transcribed and coded for math content. We tested linear and quadratic mixed-effects models and found that linear models best explained growth in parent-child math talk in the Math Made 4 Me condition, while parents and children in the control condition showed no change in math talk. This linear growth was particularly visible in three math subdomains: (a) counting and cardinality, (b) comparison, and (c) addition and subtraction and differed across observational contexts. This study provides valuable insight into the shape of growth in parent-child math talk and contributes evidence to how interventions can increase math talk both in high-frequency subdomains (counting and cardinality) and low-frequency subdomains (comparison, addition, and subtraction). (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Episodic memory, or memory for specific past experiences, can be measured in ways ranging from fully controlled laboratory paradigms to real-world settings. However, it is unknown whether different measures of episodic memory are capturing the same construct. In other words, how do the different tasks that help to define episodic memory relate to one another, or what is the component structure of episodic memory as defined by the tasks that measure it? We examined this question in children between 4 and 7 years ( = 76), using a battery of assessments ranging from measurements of memory for minievents presented in the lab to measures of memory for a cartoon, and most naturalistically, recall of real-world events, that is, autobiographical memory. Most measures of memory improved with age. After controlling for the effects of age and verbal IQ, a factor analysis revealed two distinct components of children's memory. The first component was comprised of our lab-based measures of memory and captured the majority of variance in the data. The second component included autobiographical memory and free recall of previously seen cartoons. This dichotomy may be driven by whether memory was assessed via recall or recognition or by the presence or absence of narrative structure. Without changes to typically used experimental design, current lab-based tasks and more naturalistic assessments of memory may not be measuring the same underlying construct. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Singapore's aging population and the geographical proximity of Singaporean families may contribute to comparatively high rates of grandparental caregiving. This study describes the prevalence of grandparental caregiving and investigates concurrent and longitudinal effects of grandparental care on infant and preschool-aged children's preacademic, executive function, and socioemotional outcomes for the first time in Singapore. In the present study, grandparental caregiving was operationalized as time spent and as children's preferences for their grandparents. Data from three longitudinal studies conducted over the past decade were used (259 from Growing Up in Singapore Toward Healthy Outcomes [GUSTO], 122 Singapore Preconception Study of Long-Term Maternal and Child Outcomes [S-PRESTO], and 39 from Singapore Parenting and Cognition in Early Childhood [SPACE]). Results suggested that grandparental care may be on the decline in recent years and most of the grandparental care-child outcome associations were not significant. Still, when effects were observed, the majority were negative when time spent was considered and positive when preference was considered. Furthermore, maternal sensitivity significantly moderated the association between grandparental care and child outcomes, exemplifying the importance of considering children's larger caregiving network when examining the effects of grandparental care. A greater understanding of how to support grandparental caregiving for optimal child outcomes will be beneficial. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Friends are often a source of emotional and informational support, which suggests that friends can directly assist adolescents to more effectively cope with stressful experiences, reducing emotional distress. In this longitudinal study, we examined the direct impact of friendship on adolescents' use of help seeking, comfort seeking, concealment, and rumination to cope with peer stressors. We used path modeling with two waves of data to consider the unique roles of friendship quality and coping on change in peer victimization (both overt and relational/reputational) and depression over time. Gender and age moderation were also examined. Participants were 619 Australian adolescents ( = 12.14) who experienced peer victimization in the past year and participated in two surveys over 1 year. In a comprehensive path model, higher quality friendship related to increased comfort-seeking responses to peer stress and decreased overt victimization over time. Regarding coping with peer stressors, comfort seeking was associated with fewer depressive symptoms over time, and concealment and rumination were associated with more overt and relational victimization, as well as increased depressive symptoms. Additionally, adolescents higher in overt victimization decreased help and comfort seeking over time, those higher in relational victimization increased comfort seeking, and those higher in depression increased concealment and rumination over time. Girls reported more problematic responses to peer stressors, and, although effects were small, gender and age moderated some longitudinal associations. Future research is needed to better understand how friendships may influence coping responses, with the aim of supporting adolescents to help each other cope with stress. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Although many antibullying programs encourage students to defend victimized peers, there is little empirical evidence that being defended actually helps victims of bullying by diminishing victimization and improving their psychological adjustment (i.e., self-esteem, depressive symptoms, and loneliness) over time. Therefore, the current longitudinal study examines whether defended victims experience a stronger within-person decrease in victimization and psychological problems over time than nondefended victims, while distinguishing between bully- and victim-oriented defending and evaluating the effect of the number of defenders. Among = 6,470 Finnish fourth- to ninth-grade students, surveys were administered in September/October (T1), January (T2), and April. A total of = 1,493 and = 1,303 students indicated that they were victimized by their peers at T1 and T2, respectively; 75.1% of the T1 victims and 70.6% of the T2 victims reported being defended. Descriptive statistics indicated that defended victims were less frequently victimized and experienced fewer psychological problems than nondefended victims at most time points (cross-sectional associations). However, longitudinal findings consistently indicated that defended victims did not experience stronger within-person decreases in victimization and psychological problems than nondefended victims. No significant interaction effects with gender and age were detected. Thus, the benefits of being defended for victims of bullying may be more limited than often assumed, at least in the longer term. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Social goals (i.e., objectives that individuals aim to attain or avoid in their peer relationships through their actions; Emmons, 1996; Parkhurst & Asher, 1985) are important for a variety of adjustment outcomes, but little is known about the factors that foster them. Exposure to peer victimization, either at a young and formative age or as a long-term burden, has a significant impact on how youth negotiate their social world, and may alter social goal orientation during the adolescent transition. The present study examined the hypothesis that exposure to higher early (second grade) levels of victimization and smaller decreases or larger increases in victimization over time (second-seventh grade) would uniquely predict lower levels of social mastery goals and elevated levels of social performance goals in the seventh grade. Longitudinal growth curve analysis was employed in a sample of 636 youth (298 boys, 338 girls; = 7.97, = 0.37) followed from second to seventh grade. Youh reported annually on peer victimization and reported on social goals in second and seventh grades. Compared to youth experiencing lower early levels and/or normative declines in peer victimization over this span, youth experiencing elevated early levels and/or smaller decreases/larger increases in victimization between second and seventh grade tended to endorse greater seventh-grade performance-approach and performance-avoidance goals. No association was evident for mastery goals. These results provide evidence that peer victimization can have resounding implications for the development of social goals, which can have long-lasting effects on social health and well-being. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

The current work uses ecological momentary assessment data in an age and cognitively diverse group of adults to explore if, when, and why individuals feel purposeful in daily life. Seven times per day for 9 days, young adults (age: = 27.36; 51.4% men, 47.1% women, 1.4% additional gender; 7.0% Asian/Asian American, 28.6% as Black/African American, 1.4% as Indigenous, 5.7% as Latine/Hispanic, 1.4% Middle Eastern, 58.6% White/European American), older adults without cognitive impairment (age: = 75.18; 32.6% men, 67.4% women; 23.6% Black/African American, 1.1% Latine/Hispanic, 74.2% White/European American), and older adults with mild cognitive impairment (age: = 76.97; 50.0% identified as men, 50.0% as women; 31.7% identified as Black/African American, 65.0% White/European American) reported their current sense of purpose and their current activity ( = 219). On average, older adults had higher momentary sense of purpose and less variability in momentary sense of purpose than young adults regardless of cognitive status. Across age and cognitive status groups, individuals felt more purposeful when they were at work/school, engaged in physical activity, volunteering, doing errands/chores, or doing a hobby, and felt less purposeful when they were engaged with media/TV/internet. Individuals often felt more purposeful when they had recently engaged in a social interaction, especially when that social interaction was pleasant and not uncomfortable. Interactions with coworkers were associated with a higher sense of purpose across all groups, though face-to-face interactions versus other interactions (e.g., phone calls, video calls) were not differentially related to momentary sense of purpose. Findings highlight activities that individuals may engage in to bolster their sense of purpose across development. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

The present study investigated the role of pride in promoting honesty among children aged 3-6. Children ( = 247; 125 boys, 122 girls; middle-income Chinese families) participated in a temptation resistance paradigm, instructing them not to peek at a toy when unsupervised. Subsequently, children were randomly assigned to one of four experimental conditions: a moral pride condition, induced through a compliance task; a nonmoral pride condition, induced through a success task; a happiness condition, induced through exposure to a comedy video; or a baseline condition, with no emotion induction. Children in the moral pride condition were significantly less likely to lie about peeking than those in the other three conditions. The nonmoral pride and happiness conditions did not differ in lying rates from the baseline condition. These results suggest that fostering moral pride can enhance honesty in young children, offering important insights for parenting and educational practices. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

A sense of fairness is deeply rooted in human nature, and plays a fundamental role in supporting cooperation. This study investigated the electrophysiological responses to third-party resource allocations and behavioral economics games assessing costly sharing and distributive justice decisions in early and middle childhood across three countries, France, Taiwan, and the United States. To examine the temporal dynamics and cultural differences in the neural development of fairness considerations, both traditional event-related potential and artificial neural network methods were employed. Results demonstrate a marked lack of cross-cultural differences in the electrophysiological profile of fairness yet notable cross-cultural differences in the functional link between electrophysiology and actual distributive behaviors. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Infant-directed speech (IDS), the register caregivers often use when interacting with infants, has been suggested to facilitate language learning. To assess its didactic role, we examined the acoustic modifications parents make in IDS for words they attribute to their infant as unknown, versus known, by analyzing data from three studies of Norwegian IDS with 8- to 18-month-old infants ( = 132 infants, = 182 parents). Parents' speech was recorded during a shared-reading interaction with their infant and with an experimenter (as a control register), ensuring that speech content was matched across participants and registers. Contrary to our hypotheses, we found no evidence that parents emphasized IDS for words attributed as unknown. Furthermore, Bayesian analyses suggested that Norwegian parents modulate IDS based on infants' attributed word knowledge. Thus, our findings do not support the notion that parents use IDS as a didactic strategy to teach individual words, underscoring alternative motivations for engaging in such speech. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

For ethnic-racial minoritized children, ethnic-racial affect-feelings about their group and heritage-is a key part of identity development. However, little is known about how positive (e.g., pride about one's group or heritage) and negative (e.g., shame about one's group or heritage) ethnic-racial affect develops over time in children. Examining the developmental trajectories and factors that shape these feelings can help elucidate how to ensure positive child development even in the face of experiencing racism. Therefore, in our 3-year longitudinal study with 117 ethnic-racial minoritized mother-child dyads from the Netherlands (Turkish heritage = 59%, West African or Caribbean heritage = 41%), we used a multimethod approach and multilevel modeling to examine children's ethnic-racial affect development from middle childhood to early adolescence. We were specifically interested in whether and to what extent mothers' ethnic-racial socialization (i.e., messages and practices that convey information about ethnicity and race-related topics), measured through questionnaires and video observations, contributes to ethnic-racial affect development. Our findings indicate that children's positive ethnic-racial affect remained stable over time, while their negative ethnic-racial affect decreased over time. Notably, mothers' higher observed cultural socialization about identity-related topics, such as skin color, national identity, and cultural heritage, was associated with a decrease in children's negative ethnic-racial affect across time. Findings suggest that parent-child conversation about identity-related topics may promote positive child development in the face of experiencing racism. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

This study examined longitudinal associations between caregiver-child dyadic unpredictability, children's verbal abilities, and externalizing problems, and the moderating role of temperamental surgency. Participants were 235 families with young children ( = 2.97 years, = 0.38, range = [2-4], 55.3% female, ethnicity: 55.2% White, 21.3% African American, 16.2% mixed race). Mother-child dyadic unpredictability measured at Wave 1 was linked to lower verbal development over Waves 1 and 2, which was associated with greater increases in externalizing problems over Waves 1 and 3. These effects were particularly salient for children with high surgency. In contrast, father-child dyadic unpredictability was linked to greater verbal ability for children with low temperamental surgency, although this finding did not hold after controlling for the variability in child dysregulation during father-child interaction. Furthermore, findings revealed a curvilinear association between father-child dyadic unpredictability in association with the development of children's verbal ability. The present study has important implications for understanding unpredictability within parent-child interactions and its influence on child development. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Microcoding systems can facilitate detection of parent-child interaction , which cannot be disentangled through self-report or global coding methods. Yet, existing microcoding approaches focus on a relatively narrow range of behavior, particularly for children. The present study aimed to evaluate the reliability and validity of a novel microcoding system for capturing second-by-second changes in parent and child emotion-related behavior. A 6-min videorecorded conflict resolution task was double-coded for 159 parent-child (ages 6-16 years, = 11.17, = 3.43, 49.1% female; 26.4% White, non-Hispanic; 44.7% early caregiving-related adversity exposed) dyads. Results provided strong evidence of interrater reliability and concurrent validity with respect to global ratings. There was mixed evidence of nomological validity vis-à-vis mental health outcomes. As expected, greater parent depressive symptoms were associated with less parent positive social communication and more child nonautonomous behavior; child attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptoms were associated with more parent off-task behavior. Surprisingly, parent active social engagement, reflecting efforts to socialize emotions or support autonomy, was positively associated with child anxiety (specifically among adolescents); child behaviors were not associated with child mental health. On average, children's positive social communication increased the likelihood of subsequent parent positive communication, and vice versa. Parents were typically more likely to engage in active social engagement behavior immediately following child withdrawal, and children were more likely to withdraw following parent active social engagement. Results offer initial support for the reliability, validity, and utility of our microcoding approach in elucidating bidirectional parent-child dynamics, and warrant replication in additional samples and interaction contexts. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Making abstract inferences from specific instances is a critical cognitive ability. Here, we examine children's capacity to use these inferences to reason beyond the evidence they observe. In three experiments, participants ( = 161, 46% female, 43% White) observed various colored balls randomly drawn from two opaque boxes and were asked to choose which box was more likely to contain a novel-colored ball. Younger preschoolers ( = 40.12 months, Experiment 1) chose the container that produced differently colored balls over one that produced balls of a single color, suggesting they made inferences about second-order characteristics (variability vs. uniformity), and used this to make novel predictions. When presented with more subtle contrasts (low- vs. high-variability, Experiments 2 and 3), older ( = 55.53 months), but not younger preschoolers, continued to make adult-like predictions, suggesting that these second-order inferences increase in sophistication during early childhood. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Praise is not only rewarding but also informative. It can provide children with information about their competence, especially when they are uncertain or unable to judge for themselves. Not all praise is equally meaningful, however: someone who praises only high-quality work is more informative than someone who praises indiscriminately. Across four experiments, we find that 4- to 5-year-old U.S. children-from both in-person preschool and online samples-can infer the informativeness of others' praise based on the statistical dependence between praise and the quality of work evaluated. Participants were more likely to endorse praise from a teacher whose previous praise covaried with the quality of work over a teacher who praised indiscriminately or a teacher who praised only lower quality work (Experiment 1). Although children did not show a preference between teachers when seeking out praise for themselves (Experiment 2), they sought out praise from different teachers on behalf of another learner depending on the learner's goal (Experiments 3-4). Collectively, these findings show that even young children understand that praise is more than just positive reinforcement. Rather, they can reason about a speaker's inferred informativeness and use this to guide whose praise to seek out and endorse. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).