Leveraging data from a longitudinal study of Chinese families (n = 364), this research aims to understand the role of secure base script knowledge as a cognitive mechanism by which early caregiving experiences inform adolescents' friendship quality and feelings of loneliness. Results showed that observed maternal sensitivity at 14 and 24 months…

Research suggests a link between precocious transitions to adulthood (e.g., high school dropout) and maladaptation, and this association is typically assumed to be uniform. We propose that this monolithic portrayal of precocious transitions as problematic for adult functioning is unwarranted, particularly across identities defined by gender,…

Educational transitions involve a number of changes for adolescents and can be challenging for adolescents and parents alike. The present study was designed to gain a better understanding as to how adolescents' perceptions of parenting evolves across a major educational transition and how the parenting perceived across this transition may…

Introduction: This longitudinal study designed and tested the validity of a new measure of pro-social risk taking -- risks that individuals take in order to help others. Methods: The sample was racially and ethnically diverse adolescents in the rural Southeastern United States (N = 867; Mage = 12.82 years, 10-14 years at Wave 1; 50% Girls, 33%…

Identity formation is one of the key developmental tasks in adolescence. According to Erikson (1968) experiencing identity uncertainty is normative in adolescence. However, empirical studies investigating identity uncertainty on a daily basis are lacking. Hence, studying individual differences in daily certainty (i.e., identity commitment levels)…

Young adolescents who encounter difficulties with peers can consult with their parents to help solve these problems. In this context, this study examines the contribution of adolescents' disclosure, parental advice giving, and parental intrusiveness into adolescents' social and behavioral adjustment. Young adolescents (N = 93; 49% girls; mean age…

We examined 7 life-course pathways from adolescence through the early adult years and their links with general health and psychosocial adjustment among 2,290 women from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Young women who followed a pathway involving college attendance to full-time employment with no family-formation transitions…

This study examined gender differences in trajectories of delinquent behaviors over a 6-year period in adolescence and differential outcomes of these diverse developmental pathways. Participants were 754 children who were part of a longitudinal study of the development of early starting conduct problems. Four trajectory patterns were identified…

Increasing bodies of evidence suggest that keeping secrets may be detrimental to well-being and adjustment, whereas confiding secrets may alleviate the detriments of secrecy and benefit well-being and adjustment. However, few studies have addressed the consequences of keeping and confiding secrets simultaneously, and even fewer have done so…

Recent research suggests that youths interpret parental control and that this may have implications for how control affects youths' adjustment. In this study, we propose that youths' feelings about being over-controlled by parents and feeling connected to parents are intermediary processes linking parental control and youths' adjustment. We used…

This longitudinal study examined the influences of discrimination on socioemotional adjustment and academic performance for a sample of 444 Chinese American adolescents. Using autoregressive and cross-lagged techniques, the authors found that discrimination in early adolescence predicted depressive symptoms, alienation, school engagement, and…

This study used hierarchical linear modeling to compare longitudinal patterns of adolescent religious service attendance and club attendance, and to contrast the longitudinal relations between adolescent adjustment and religious service versus club attendance. Participants included 1050 students (47% girls) encompassing a school district in…

This article examines the mechanisms linking health to the educational attainment of adolescents. In particular, it investigates the role of cognitive/academic achievement and a variety of psychosocial adjustment factors in explaining this relationship. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 cohort (NLSY97), we estimate…

The present study includes externalizing problems, internalizing problems, mother-adolescent relationship quality, and father-adolescent relationship quality in the same structural equation model and tests the longitudinal reciprocal association among all four variables over a 1-year period. A transactional model in which adolescents'…

Since the identification of fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) over 35 years ago, mounting evidence about the impact of maternal alcohol consumption during pregnancy has prompted increased attention to the link between prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE) and a constellation of developmental disabilities that are characterized by physical, cognitive, and…