developmental-psychology

A new study suggests that when teenage daughters use humor during conversations about sex, they tend to experience better sexual well-being. However, a mother's use of humor is actually associated with her daughter being less willing to open up.

Kuykendall comments on the potential benefits of UK companies offering fertility benefits as part of their employee packages.

Background and AimsAnxiety and depression symptoms are common among autistic youth, yet little is known about the pattern and relationship of their trajectories from childhood into adolescence, a period of increasing social and academic demands.MethodsThis study used parallel process latent growth curve models to examine joint trajectories, including initial levels and rate of change in caregiver…

Most parents try hard. But effort alone doesn't protect kids from anxiety, shutdowns, or emotional overload. These three essentials do.

IntroductionThis study aimed to rigorously evaluate the psychometric properties of the Brief Self-Control Scale (BSCS) for use with early adolescents aged 10–14 years within Turkish culture. Given developmental differences in cognitive and self-regulatory capacities during early adolescence, the study sought to determine whether the original scale structure is appropriate for this age group and c…

Humor is a universal human experience, enjoyed and expressed across all stages of life. While numerous studies have explored the developmental aspects of humor, relatively little research has focused on humor in older adults. Yet, humor remains a valuable psychological and social resource, aiding in stress management and fostering meaningful social connections. This study aims to explore individu…

Young people are growing up amid interacting crises, including climate disruption, war, economic insecurity, democratic strain, and rapid technological change. This condition, often described as polycrisis, may weaken future orientation, agency, and confidence in the link between effort and outcome. This Hypothesis and Theory paper argues that rising youth distress should be understood as a devel…

Watching comforting movies can help motherless daughters feel less alone on Mother's Day.

Mother's Day can bring a flood of bittersweet emotions to grieving youth. Having support can help them navigate this challenging day.

A new study reveals that many minimally verbal autistic children teach themselves a second language without any social exposure. Instead of interacting with others, these children often acquire new language skills through media like tablets and videos.

Teens and their behaviors make more sense when we understand their developmental needs and internal conflicts. Here’s what’s actually happening, and how parents can help.

IntroductionFamily intimacy—a core facet of family functioning—has been posited to protect college students from negative emotions, yet the mechanisms remain insufficiently specified. This study tested whether social support and psychological resilience independently and sequentially mediate the association between family intimacy and negative emotions.MethodsA cross-sectional survey was administ…

Perceptual learning, which is typically considered an implicit and automatic process, has received little attention in the study of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). In this study, we investigated whether children and adolescents with ADHD show intact perceptual learning using the intermixed-blocks effect, whereby alternating exposure to similar stimuli improves subsequent discrimi…

BackgroundNon-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) has become an increasingly prominent mental health problem during adolescence and often co-occurs with depressive symptoms, anxiety, personality-related difficulties, and experiences of childhood trauma, forming a complex psychosocial risk structure. From a risk and protective factor perspective, the present study examined the associations among adverse c…

BackgroundSleep problems, including daytime sleepiness, short sleep duration, and poor sleep quality, are strongly associated with suicidality in non-autistic people. Sleep difficulties are also common in Autistic children and adolescents (herein, youth), affecting 40-80%, and may contribute to their elevated suicide risk, which emerges as early as 10 years of age and is 3.5 times higher than the…

IntroductionCreative self-beliefs are shaped by stable personality traits and psychological resources. While the links between the creative personality and creative self-beliefs are established, the role of self-compassion, a promoter of subjective well-being, in shaping creative self-beliefs remains a significant theoretical gap. The goal of this study was to describe the relationships among cre…

ObjectiveThis study examined whether caregivers’ picture book reading styles involving moral narratives are associated with the strength of their belief in a just world.MethodsWe investigated the relationship between caregivers’ just-world belief scores and the number of belief-related utterances produced beyond the picture book text. We observed picture book reading sessions involving 24 infants…

Borderline organization of personality stems from difficulties children experience in separating from their primary caregiver.

The instinct, when a child is struggling, is to point to the people around them. Friends, family, a parent who loves them. But for children who’ve grown up in homes where violence is ordinary, the social network that’s supposed to protect them turns out to be one of the more complicated parts of the picture. A new study from Radboud University in the Netherlands finds that children who’ve experie…