Physiological synchrony is an important biological process during which parent-child interaction plays a significant role in shaping child socioemotional adjustment. The present study held a context-dependent perspective to examine the conditional association between parent-child physiological synchrony and child socioemotional adjustment (i.e.,…

Social support has been consistently identified as a protective factor for youth. Two competing models have been proposed regarding the role of social support: one in which social support provides benefits for all youth (General Benefits) and one where youth undergoing stress are especially protected (Stress-Buffering). While the General Benefits…

Research has shown that the quality of mother-infant interactions, as measured by mother-infant synchrony, is associated with infants' vagal tone, a physiological indicator of emotion regulation. However, little is known about the association between the infant's vagal tone and the quality of father-infant interactions. Existing literature…

Anxiety and externalizing concerns create notable challenges for families. One factor that has been widely studied in relation to anxiety concerns, which may also be influenced by externalizing symptoms, is parental accommodation. Most research on parental accommodation has tended to focus on behaviors, while not accounting for accommodation…

Unwanted pursuit behaviours (UPBs) are behaviours that are often intended to initiate a relationship or restore romantic relationships following a break-up. Research shows relatively high prevalence rates of UPBs in college students. In the current study, we tested a conceptual mediation model, where perceived parental warmth would be indirectly…

Maternal substance use and unpredictable maternal sensory signals may affect child development, but no studies have examined them together. We explored the unpredictability, frequency and duration of maternal sensory signals in 52 Caucasian mother-child dyads, 27 with and 25 without maternal substance use. We also examined the association between…

This article interlaces the story 'Comfort' by Alice Munro with Hannah Arendt's understanding of education as intergenerational passing on. Its principal aim is not to criticise Arendt or the fictional character of Lewis but to work with them towards a richer and more complex understanding of what can go wrong in education in general and teaching…

Background: There is an established link between depression and drug use among adolescents. This relationship holds true for Hispanic youth, for whom familial relationships are especially impactful toward health outcomes. Purpose: Our purpose was to examine the relationships between family functioning and adolescent and parent depressive symptoms,…

Risky sexual behaviors in adolescence continue to be a social problem that impacts individuals, families, and communities across the United States. Previous research showed that parents who actively talk with their adolescents about sex and intimacy topics reduce their likelihood of engaging in these behaviors. Still, less is known about what…

While previous studies have demonstrated correlations between children and adolescents' evaluations of lies and lie-telling behaviors, the temporal order of these associations over time and changes across this developmental period remain unexamined. The current study examined longitudinal associations among children and adolescents' (N = 1128;…

This study investigated multilevel models of homework time management involving Chinese middle school students. At the individual level, homework time management was positively associated with arranging the environment, monitoring motivation, time on homework, and teacher and parent autonomy support. Additionally, homework time management was…

Children learn words in a social environment. In my dissertation, I examine how caregivers' social cues facilitate young children's word learning in settings that mirror their typical, dynamic learning environments. In Chapter 1, I overview prior work examining how social cues may support word learning, focusing on possible mechanisms underlying…

Theory and research have described developmental processes leading to damaged parent-child relationships, such as those that occur during a divorce. However, scholars dispute the scientific status of the literature on children who form unhealthy alliances with one parent against the other-termed parental alienation (PA). This comprehensive…

Children's spatial activities and parental spatial talk were measured to examine their associations with variability in preschoolers' spatial skills (N = 113, Mage = 4 years, 4 months; 51% female; 80% White, 11% Black, and 9% other). Parents who reported more diversity in daily spatial activities and used longer spatial talk utterances during a…

Objective: The purpose of these studies was to examine whether college students' beliefs about themselves (i.e., self-compassion and beliefs about emotions) could be mechanisms explaining the relationship between problematic parenting behaviors (helicopter parenting and parental invalidation) and outcomes including perfectionism, affective…