Adolescents' Online Connections with Friends during COVID-19: An Assessment of the Forms of Communication and Their Association with Emotional Adjustment.

The COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent stay-at-home orders limited adolescents' ability to connect with friends in person, leading adolescents to rely on digital forms of communication to interact with friends. The present study (N = 168 adolescents ages 11-20, 51.40% female) examined the types of digital communication adolescents used to connect with friends during the pandemic stay-at-home orders and how each form of digital communication related to adolescents' emotional adjustment. The results showed texting to be the most common way adolescents connected with friends. Boys were more likely than girls to talk with friends through social gaming. Synchronous forms of communication (i.e., texting, video calls, and social gaming) were associated with reduced loneliness and depressive symptoms and higher flourishing. Connecting with friends by posting or responding on social media was not associated with adolescent well-being. These results suggest that forms of digital communication that allowed adolescents to talk with friends in real time were particularly important for adolescents' emotional well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Longitudinal Change in Adolescent Depression and Anxiety Symptoms from before to during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

This study aimed to examine changes in depression and anxiety symptoms from before to during the first 6 months of the COVID-19 pandemic in a sample of 1,339 adolescents (9-18 years old, 59% female) from three countries. We also examined if age, race/ethnicity, disease burden, or strictness of government restrictions moderated change in symptoms. Data from 12 longitudinal studies (10 U.S., 1 Netherlands, 1 Peru) were combined. Linear mixed effect models showed that depression, but not anxiety, symptoms increased significantly (median increase = 28%). The most negative mental health impacts were reported by multiracial adolescents and those under 'lockdown' restrictions. Policy makers need to consider these impacts by investing in ways to support adolescents' mental health during the pandemic.

Predicting attributional accuracy in mother-adolescent conflictual discussions.

Attributional accuracy focuses on the extent to which one person accurately judges the reasons that another person acts the way they do. Research has shown that relationship quality, individual factors, and the overall context of a discussion, all play a role in the accuracy of attributions within adult relationships. However, little research has examined these patterns for parents and adolescents. Within the parent-adolescent literature, research on informant discrepancies has found agreement between family members' reports can highlight the overall functioning of the parent-child relationship but has not focused on perceptions of motives. This study assessed mothers' and adolescents' attributional accuracy during conflictual discussions and the extent to which such accuracy was associated with their relationship quality and individual perspective-taking abilities. One hundred twenty-three mother (MAge = 43) and adolescent (MAge = 14, 54% female, 52% White) dyads participated in a discussion about an issue commonly causing adolescent guilt and rated their own and their partner's motives during the discussion. They also self-reported on their relationship and perspective-taking abilities. Results showed that mothers and teens reported overall more positive discussion motives, when their relationship was better. There was also moderate agreement between mothers' and adolescents' attributed motives and their partners' self-reported motives. Adolescents' accuracy regarding both positive and negative maternal motives improved with better perspective-taking. Mothers' accuracy improved with better relationship quality, but only regarding negative adolescent motives. This study highlights individual factors may be more relevant for adolescent attributional accuracy whereas relational factors may be more relevant for mothers' accuracy. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Combining Parenting Strategies in Discipline Encounters: Influences on Moral Internalization in Adolescence.

Current research in the field of moral socialization needs to address more fully how combinations of discipline practices influence the internalization process. The present study examined young adults' retrospective reports concerning their mother's and father's disciplinary responses to remembered moral transgressions. Participants included 410 undergraduate students (Mage = 19.11 years; 79% female) who self-identified as White (74.9%), Hispanic (8.8%), Multiracial (8.8%), Black (3.2%), Asian (2.7%), and other (1.6%). Young adults provided narrative accounts of maternal and paternal responses to moral transgressions, then rated these responses in terms of their fairness and effectiveness. Discipline responses were coded for the presence of inductive discipline, mild punishment, or their combination. Results indicated that mother's use of inductive discipline with (and without) the presence of mild punishment was viewed as more appropriate than mild punishment used alone. Importantly, inductive discipline combined with mild punishment was viewed as more acceptable than (and equally effective as) inductive discipline alone. Findings for fathers were more limited, suggesting only that inductive discipline when used without mild punishment was viewed as more acceptable than mild punishment alone. Overall, mothers' use of induction with mild punishment in response to their adolescents' moral transgressions may not undermine the internalization of inductive messages and may even enhance its perceived appropriateness.

Maternal psychological control and mother-adolescent conflict discussion quality: Different perceptions are key.

Parental psychological control is associated with poor adolescent outcomes, but little research has examined discrepancies between observed and perceived psychological control in predicting conversational outcomes. The present study used a multimethod, multi-informant approach to examine whether independent and joint associations between observer, adolescent, and mother perceptions of maternal psychological control during mother-adolescent conflict discussions were associated with adolescents' and mothers' perceptions of the quality of these conversations. Mother-adolescent dyads (N = 123 dyads) participated in a conflict discussion and subsequently reported on their satisfaction with the process and outcome of the discussion. Mothers' behavior was coded for psychological control and mothers and adolescents separately reported on mothers' psychological control during the discussion. Findings indicate that higher adolescent-perceived psychological control was associated with poorer adolescent- and mother-reported discussion quality controlling for overall relationship discord. Central to our hypotheses, observer, adolescent, and mother perceptions of psychological control significantly interacted with one another to predict discussion quality, though the specific pattern of findings varied across mother- and adolescent-reported discussion quality. Findings suggest that adolescent perceptions of discussion quality are poorest when adolescents attribute psychologically controlling behavior to mothers, particularly when mothers and outside observers report relatively lower levels of psychological control. This study highlights the importance of adolescent perceptions of parents' behavior and of obtaining information about behavior during parent-adolescent conversations from multiple reporters (observers, adolescents, and parents) to develop targeted interventions with parents and adolescents managing conflict. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

How Do Chinese Youth in Hong Kong Evaluate Maternal Guilt and Shame Induction? Age, Form, and Domain Differences.

Although Chinese parents are seen as employing guilt and shame induction to socialize children's culturally appropriate behavior, research has focused primarily on Chinese parents' use of these inductions and their links with child adjustment rather than on children's evaluations of them. Furthermore, this research typically does not examine variations in children's appraisals based on the type of behavior being socialized. The present study addressed these gaps in the literature by examining 206 Hong Kong Chinese children's and early adolescents' (Ms = 9.76, 13.35 years, SDs = 0.78, 0.54; 50% and 61% female, respectively) appraisals of maternal guilt induction (act- vs. parent-focused) and shame induction (social comparison vs. denigration) following a hypothetical moral and academic transgression. Overall, act-focused guilt induction was evaluated as more appropriate, respectful, effective, and reflective of mothers' love and concern than parent-focused guilting, and in turn, social comparison shaming, and then denigration and more so overall for the moral than the academic transgression. Early adolescents judged act-focused guilting for the moral transgression as more effective and eliciting more positive feelings than did children. Although culturally valued, social comparison shame (and also denigration) were judged as less appropriate, less effective, as reflecting less maternal love and concern, and as eliciting less positive feelings (but only for social comparison shaming in response to lower-than-expected academic performance) by early adolescents as compared to younger peers, suggesting that youth become more critical of these culturally appropriate practices in the transition to adolescence.

"That's Not What I Heard!": Adolescent Internalizing, Negative Perceptions of Maternal Communication, and Felt Shame and Guilt.

Adolescents with internalizing problems are more prone to feelings of guilt and shame, experience more guilt-induction, and report more negative parenting, but little is known about the way these processes are associated nor the extent to which they occur within real-time parent-adolescent interactions. The current study sought to clarify these links by investigating whether negatively biased perceptions of maternal communication mediate links between adolescent internalizing symptoms and their feelings of guilt, shame, and guilt-induction during real-time mother-adolescent discussions. One hundred twenty-three mother-adolescent dyads participated in the study. These dyads were moderately diverse in both race/ethnicity (53% White, 29% Black, 12% Hispanic) and family income (26% earned less than $30,000/year, 22% earned more than $100,000/year) and included adolescents who ranged in age from 12 to 17 (Mage = 13.99) and were approximately half female (54%). Mothers and adolescents engaged in lab discussions about issues of conflict and guilt and rated mothers' positive and negative communication during the tasks; observers rated these same behaviors. Adolescents also reported on their general internalizing symptoms prior to the discussions and feelings of guilt, shame, and experienced guilt induction following each discussion task. Structural equation models, parceling out shared and unique perceptions of maternal communication behaviors, showed that adolescents with more internalizing symptoms reported greater feelings of shame and perceived maternal guilt-induction following the discussion, and that these associations were mediated by adolescents' unique perceptions of more maternal negativity. These findings highlight the potential role of cognitive biases in perpetuating established associations among adolescent internalizing symptoms, shame, and parental guilt-induction.

Longitudinal associations between adolescent information management and mother-teen relationship quality: Between- versus within-family differences.

Parent-adolescent relationships are related to adolescents' disclosure and concealment, but these associations may represent between-family differences (e.g., families with more negative interactions have adolescents who disclose less) or within-family processes (e.g., when a family has more negative interactions, their adolescent discloses less). This study used cross-lagged panel modeling (CLPM) and random-intercept cross-lagged panel modeling (RI-CLPM) to separate these elements. U.S. adolescents (N = 214, Mage = 16.0, 52% female) reported on their disclosure, concealment, positive relationships, and negative interactions with mothers 3 times over a year. Consistent with prior research, adolescent disclosure was transactionally associated with more positive and less negative relationships with mothers over time in between-family (CLPM) analyses. However, in the within-family (RI-CLPM) analyses, which controlled for the fact that more positive and less negative families had adolescents who disclosed more, changes in relationship quality within a family were not linked with changes in disclosure. In contrast, negative interactions and greater concealment were reciprocally related over time both between families and within families, even when considering that families with more negative interactions also had adolescents who concealed more. Positive relationships were associated with less adolescent concealment, but only relative to other families (at the between level) and not over time. Results confirm the importance of examining disclosure and concealment as separate processes, particularly at the within-family level, and indicate that the cycle of concealment and negative interactions among troubled families may be a particularly ripe area for intervention. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Defend, Stand By, or Join In?: The Relative Influence of Moral Identity, Moral Judgment, and Social Self-Efficacy on Adolescents' Bystander Behaviors in Bullying Situations.

In bullying situations, adolescent bystanders may help bullied others, just stand by, or join in the antisocial behavior. Current studies have yet to fully examine the moral and social factors motivating these varied responses to bullying encounters. Extending from pertinent developmental theories, the present study investigated the relative contributions of moral identity (i.e., viewing moral qualities as central to the self), moral judgment, and social self-efficacy to adolescents' bystander behaviors vis-à-vis bullies. Also investigated were the interactions among these variables. Three hundred and thirty-seven adolescents (M age = 13 years, 56.1% female) who self-identified as Caucasian (90.2%), Hispanic-American (2.1%), Asian-American (0.9%), African-American (3.9%), or Other/Unknown (2.9%) participated in the study. Students completed questionnaires assessing moral identity, moral judgment, social self-efficacy, and how they would respond if they observed a peer being bullied. Moral identity predicted more prosocial action, particularly for adolescents high in social self-efficacy. Moral identity related positively to moral judgment, and both predicted less antisocial (joining in) behavior. Interestingly, moral judgment maturity primarily diminished antisocial behavior when moral identity was relatively low. Social self-efficacy predicted less passive bystanding. Overall, moral identity strongly relates to defending behavior, and-as does moral judgment maturity-predicts less antisocial behavior among bystanders.

Within-family dyadic patterns of parental monitoring and adolescent information management.

In line with increasing calls for within-family analyses of monitoring processes, this study examined profiles of (combined) adolescent information management strategies and parent knowledge-gathering strategies among 174 families with middle adolescents (Mage = 15.7 years; 164 mother-teen and 112 father-teen dyads). Three mother-adolescent profiles (open, intrusive, indirect) and two father-adolescent profiles (reserved, covert) emerged, with voluntary disclosure and snooping particularly differentiating profiles and fathers reporting gaining more knowledge from others. Profile membership was associated with adjustment and relationship quality both concurrently and over one year, controlling for prior levels. For mother-teen dyads, open communicators reported less behavioral control over time, intrusive communicators reported more negative interactions concurrently and greater depression and less maternal knowledge over time, and indirect communicators reported more problem behavior over time. For father-teen dyads, covert communicators reported more problem behavior concurrently and more negative interactions over time. Profile membership in mother-teen and father-teen dyads was not significantly associated. Results confirm the importance of disclosure and the problematic nature of snooping, while highlighting diverse ways that monitoring processes play out within families. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Situational and structural variation in youth perceptions of maternal guilt induction.

Parental induction of empathy-related guilt plays an important role in children's moral development. However, guilt induction can also be psychologically controlling and detrimental for youth adjustment. This study provided a more nuanced view of parental guilt induction by examining how the nature of a child's misdeed and the structure and content of the parental guilt inductive statement impact children's perceptions of it. Using hypothetical vignettes, this study experimentally examined the impact of the type (domain) of child behavior, highlighted victim, and focus of parental criticism on 156 children's and early and middle adolescents' (age: Ms = 8.82, 12.11, and 15.84 years) perceptions of maternal guilt induction. Attributions of guilt and shame increased most for younger children, when mothers focused on indirect harm to themselves about personal issues, and when mothers criticized their child as a person (shame only). Youth evaluated guilt induction least positively for personal issues and when mothers criticized the child's personality while focusing on indirect harm to themselves. With age, youth were less accepting of maternal guilt induction and more likely to endorse negative and parent-centered intentions, especially for personal issues. Older youth also drew less distinction between guilt induction over multifaceted and personal issues. Guilt induction over moral issues was generally perceived most positively. Additional interactions also emerged. These findings suggest that the meaning and effects of guilt induction on children's development may depend on the way in which it is enacted. (PsycINFO Database Record

Patterns and Predictors of Mother-Adolescent Discrepancies across Family Constructs.

Parent-child discrepancies pervade the family literature; they appear in reports of relationship dynamics (e.g., conflict; Laursen et al. 1998), parent and child behaviors (e.g., monitoring; De Los Reyes et al. 2010), and individual family members' beliefs (e.g., parental legitimate authority; Smetana 2011). Discrepancies are developmentally normative (Steinberg 2001) but also may be indicators of relationship and adjustment problems for teens (Ohannessian 2012). Because of this variation, it is important to consider the extent to which parent-child discrepancies are a function of both the dyad and the family construct considered. The present study contributed to our understanding of informant discrepancies in family relationships by considering the patterning, consistency, and correlates of mother-adolescent discrepancies across three family constructs that vary in their objectivity. Using person-centered analyses, discrepancies in adolescents' and mothers' ratings of parents' right to know about teens' activities, mothers' knowledge of them, and positive mother-adolescents relationships were examined in 167 middle class, primarily European American mother-adolescent dyads (M teen age = 15.68 years, SD = .64, 53 % female). Each construct was best described by three profiles, one where adolescents' standardized ratings were consistently higher than mothers', one showing the reverse, and one revealing little disagreement. Adolescent-reported problem behavior (but not depression), behavioral and psychological control, and mothers' wellbeing significantly predicted profile membership. Most dyads maintained consistent membership in a discrepancy profile across at least two family constructs. Results contribute to understanding the different sources of discrepancies in views of the family.

Thriving while engaging in risk? Examining trajectories of adaptive functioning, delinquency, and substance use in a nationally representative sample of U.S. adolescents.

Recent advances in positive youth development theory and research explicate complex associations between adaptive functioning and risk behavior, acknowledging that high levels of both co-occur in the lives of some adolescents. However, evidence on nuanced overlapping developmental trajectories of adaptive functioning and risk has been limited to 1 sample of youth and a single conceptualization of adaptive functioning. We build on prior work by utilizing a nationally representative sample of U.S. adolescents (N = 1,665) followed from 7th grade until after high school and using a measure of adaptive functioning that was validated in a secondary sample of older adolescents (N = 93). In using dual trajectory growth mixture modeling to investigate links between developmental trajectories of adaptive functioning and delinquency and substance use, respectively, results provided evidence of heterogeneity in the overlap between adaptive functioning and risk trajectories. Males were more likely to be in the highest adaptive functioning group as well as the most at-risk delinquency class. The magnitude of negative associations between adaptive functioning and both risk behaviors decreased at Wave 3, indicating a decoupling of adaptive functioning and risk as youth aged. These findings converge in underscoring the need to generate a cohesive theory that specifies factors that promote adaptive functioning and risk in concert.

What do mothers want to know about teens' activities? Levels, trajectories, and correlates.

Middle class mothers (n = 169) of middle adolescents (M = 15.69 years old) in the U.S. rated how much they want to know and responded qualitatively about what they "always" and "never" want to know about adolescents' risky prudential (e.g., drinking alcohol, using illegal drugs), personal (e.g., teens' private conversations), and multifaceted (involving overlapping prudential and personal concerns) activities. Latent growth curve modeling over one year showed that mothers wanted to know most about prudential, less about multifaceted, and least about personal activities; wanting to know declined over time for each type of activity, but less for prudential than for other activities. With teen problem behavior controlled, psychologically controlling parenting, supportive and negative interactions with teens, knowledge of adolescents' activities, and teens' age were associated with individual differences in mothers' initial ratings and trajectories of wanting to know, although results varied by domain and were moderated by teen gender.

Developmental changes and individual differences in young children's moral judgments.

Developmental trajectories and individual differences in 70 American middle-income 2½- to 4-year olds' moral judgments were examined 3 times across 1 year using latent growth modeling. At Wave 1, children distinguished hypothetical moral from conventional transgressions on all criteria, but only older preschoolers did so when rating deserved punishment. Children's understanding of moral transgressions as wrong independent of authority grew over time. Greater surgency and effortful control were both associated with a better understanding of moral generalizability. Children higher in effortful control also grew more slowly in understanding that moral rules are not alterable and that moral transgressions are wrong independent of rules. Girls demonstrated sharper increases across time than boys in understanding the nonalterability of moral rules.