Individualism, collectivism and conformity in nine countries: Relations with parenting and child adjustment.

This study investigated how individualism, collectivism and conformity are associated with parenting and child adjustment in 1297 families with 10-year-old children from 13 cultural groups in nine countries. With multilevel models disaggregating between- and within-culture effects, we examined between- and within-culture associations between maternal and paternal cultural values, parenting dimensions and children's adjustment. Mothers from cultures endorsing higher collectivism and fathers from cultures endorsing lower individualism engage more frequently in warm parenting behaviours. Mothers and fathers with higher-than-average collectivism in their culture reported higher parent warmth and expectations for children's family obligations. Mothers with higher-than-average collectivism in their cultures more frequently reported warm parenting and fewer externalising problems in children, whereas mothers with higher-than-average individualism in their culture reported more child adjustment problems. Mothers with higher-than-average conformity values in their culture reported more father-displays of warmth and greater mother-reported expectations for children's family obligations. Fathers with higher-than-average individualism in their culture reported setting more rules and soliciting more knowledge about their children's whereabouts. Fathers who endorsed higher-than-average conformity in their culture displayed more warmth and expectations for children's family obligations and granted them more autonomy. Being connected to an interdependent, cohesive group appears to relate to parenting and children's adjustment.

Childhood socioeconomic status and executive function in childhood and beyond.

Socioeconomic status (SES) predicts health, wellbeing, and cognitive ability, including executive function (EF). A body of recent work has shown that childhood SES is positively related to EF, but it is not known whether this disparity grows, diminishes or holds steady over development, from childhood through adulthood. We examined the association between childhood SES and EF in a sample ranging from 9-25 years of age, with six canonical EF tasks. Analyzing all of the tasks together and in functionally defined groups, we found positive relations between SES and EF, and the relations did not vary by age. Analyzing the tasks separately, SES was positively associated with performance in some but not all EF measures, depending on the covariates used, again without varying by age. These results add to a growing body of evidence that childhood SES is associated with EF abilities, and contribute novel evidence concerning the persistence of this association into early adulthood.

Combined effects of peer presence, social cues, and rewards on cognitive control in adolescents.

Developmental scientists have examined the independent effects of peer presence, social cues, and rewards on adolescent decision-making and cognitive control. Yet, these contextual factors often co-occur in real world social situations. The current study examined the combined effects of all three factors on cognitive control, and its underlying neural circuitry, using a task to better capture adolescents' real world social interactions. A sample of 176 participants ages 13-25, was scanned while performing an adapted go/no-go task alone or in the presence of a virtual peer. The task included brief positive social cues and sustained periods of positive arousal. Adolescents showed diminished cognitive control to positive social cues when anticipating a reward in the presence of peers relative to when alone, a pattern not observed in older participants. This behavioral pattern was paralleled by enhanced orbitofrontal activation. The results demonstrate the synergistic impact of social and reward influences on cognitive control in adolescents.

Around the world, adolescence is a time of heightened sensation seeking and immature self-regulation.

The dual systems model of adolescent risk-taking portrays the period as one characterized by a combination of heightened sensation seeking and still-maturing self-regulation, but most tests of this model have been conducted in the United States or Western Europe. In the present study, these propositions are tested in an international sample of more than 5000 individuals between ages 10 and 30 years from 11 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas, using a multi-method test battery that includes both self-report and performance-based measures of both constructs. Consistent with the dual systems model, sensation seeking increased between preadolescence and late adolescence, peaked at age 19, and declined thereafter, whereas self-regulation increased steadily from preadolescence into young adulthood, reaching a plateau between ages 23 and 26. Although there were some variations in the magnitude of the observed age trends, the developmental patterns were largely similar across countries.

At risk of being risky: The relationship between "brain age" under emotional states and risk preference.

Developmental differences regarding decision making are often reported in the absence of emotional stimuli and without context, failing to explain why some individuals are more likely to have a greater inclination toward risk. The current study (N=212; 10-25y) examined the influence of emotional context on underlying functional brain connectivity over development and its impact on risk preference. Using functional imaging data in a neutral brain-state we first identify the "brain age" of a given individual then validate it with an independent measure of cortical thickness. We then show, on average, that "brain age" across the group during the teen years has the propensity to look younger in emotional contexts. Further, we show this phenotype (i.e. a younger brain age in emotional contexts) relates to a group mean difference in risk perception - a pattern exemplified greatest in young-adults (ages 18-21). The results are suggestive of a specified functional brain phenotype that relates to being at "risk to be risky."

When Is an Adolescent an Adult? Assessing Cognitive Control in Emotional and Nonemotional Contexts.

An individual is typically considered an adult at age 18, although the age of adulthood varies for different legal and social policies. A key question is how cognitive capacities relevant to these policies change with development. The current study used an emotional go/no-go paradigm and functional neuroimaging to assess cognitive control under sustained states of negative and positive arousal in a community sample of one hundred ten 13- to 25-year-olds from New York City and Los Angeles. The results showed diminished cognitive performance under brief and prolonged negative emotional arousal in 18- to 21-year-olds relative to adults over 21. This reduction in performance was paralleled by decreased activity in fronto-parietal circuitry, implicated in cognitive control, and increased sustained activity in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, involved in emotional processes. The findings suggest a developmental shift in cognitive capacity in emotional situations that coincides with dynamic changes in prefrontal circuitry. These findings may inform age-related social policies.

The Impact of Emotional States on Cognitive Control Circuitry and Function.

Typically in the laboratory, cognitive and emotional processes are studied separately or as a stream of fleeting emotional stimuli embedded within a cognitive task. Yet in life, thoughts and actions often occur in more lasting emotional states of arousal. The current study examines the impact of emotions on actions using a novel behavioral paradigm and functional neuroimaging to assess cognitive control under sustained states of threat (anticipation of an aversive noise) and excitement (anticipation of winning money). Thirty-eight healthy adult participants were scanned while performing an emotional go/no-go task with positive (happy faces), negative (fearful faces), and neutral (calm faces) emotional cues, under threat or excitement. Cognitive control performance was enhanced during the excited state relative to a nonarousing control condition. This enhanced performance was paralleled by heightened activity of frontoparietal and frontostriatal circuitry. In contrast, under persistent threat, cognitive control was diminished when the valence of the emotional cue conflicted with the emotional state. Successful task performance in this conflicting emotional condition was associated with increased activity in the posterior cingulate cortex, a default mode network region implicated in complex processes such as processing emotions in the context of self and monitoring performance. This region showed positive coupling with frontoparietal circuitry implicated in cognitive control, providing support for a role of the posterior cingulate cortex in mobilizing cognitive resources to improve performance. These findings suggest that emotional states of arousal differentially modulate cognitive control and point to the potential utility of this paradigm for understanding effects of situational and pathological states of arousal on behavior.