This study examined trajectories of perceived control and their association with parents' education and personal educational experience (educational attainment and years of full-time postsecondary education) in 971 Canadian high school seniors tracked 7 times across 25 years. Latent growth models showed that, on average, perceived control…

The authors hypothesized that a social and emotional learning (SEL) program involving mindfulness and caring for others, designed for elementary school students, would enhance cognitive control, reduce stress, promote well-being and prosociality, and produce positive school outcomes. To test this hypothesis, 4 classes of combined 4th and 5th…

Sensitive responding to others' emotional body expressions is an essential social skill in humans. Using event-related brain potentials, it has recently been shown that the ability to discriminate between emotional body expressions develops between 4 and 8 months of age. However, it is not clear whether the perception of emotional body…

This longitudinal study examined developmental links between closeness in teacher-child relationships and children's receptive language ability from the end of the preschool years into the early elementary years, while controlling for changes in peer interaction quality and child behavioral functioning. The sample included children and their…

This study explored how nonpromotional school changes, a potentially major event for children, were associated with 3 forms of social maladjustment: isolation/withdrawal, affiliation with maladjusted peers, and aggression toward peers. Given that school mobility frequently co-occurs with family transitions, the moderating role of these transitions…

The authors examined the development of self-esteem across the life span. Data came from a German longitudinal study with 3 assessments across 4 years of a sample of 2,509 individuals ages 14 to 89 years. The self-esteem measure used showed strong measurement invariance across assessments and birth cohorts. Latent growth curve analyses indicated…

The ability to narrate stories and a synchronic self-concept develop in the pre- and primary school years. Life story theory proposes that both developments extend to an even later developmental stage, that is, to adolescents' acquisition of a coherent life story. Cross-sectional evidence supports the emergence of a life story in adolescence,…

The vulnerability model states that low self-esteem functions as a predictor for the development of depressive symptoms whereas the scar model assumes that these symptoms leave scars in individuals resulting in lower self-esteem. Both models have received empirical support, however, they have only been tested within individuals and not across…

In previous infant studies on statistics-based word segmentation, the unit of statistical computation was always aligned with the syllabic edge, which had a consonant onset. The current study addressed whether the learning system imposes a constraint that favors word forms beginning with a consonant onset over those beginning with an onsetless…

We conducted 3 studies to explore cultural differences in global versus local processing and their developmental trajectories. In Study 1 ("N" = 363), we found that Japanese college students were less globally oriented in their processing than American or Argentine participants. We replicated this effect in Study 2 ("N" =…

This study examines the temporal stability (over 3 years) of individual differences in 3 domains relevant to preschool children's social competence: social engagement/motivation, profiles of behavior and personality attributes characteristic of socially competent young children, and peer acceptance. Each domain was measured with multiple…

From early in development, humans have strong prosocial tendencies. Much research has documented young children's propensity to help others achieve their unfulfilled goals toward physical objects. Yet many of our most common and important goals are social--directed toward other people. Here we demonstrate that children are also inclined, and…

In this short-term longitudinal study, we systematically examined the distinctiveness of guilt- and shame-proneness in early adolescents (N = 395, mean age = 11.8 years) in terms of differential relations with peer reported prosocial behavior, withdrawal, and aggression. Results from structural equation modeling indicated that guilt-proneness…

Applying a person-centered approach, the primary aim of this study was to examine what profiles of schoolwork engagement and burnout (i.e., exhaustion, cynicism, inadequacy) can be identified in high school (N = 979) and among the same participants in young adulthood (ages ranging from 17 to 25). We also examined gender differences, group…

Empathy is an important social skill and is believed to play an essential role in moral development (Hoffman, 2000). In the present longitudinal study, the authors investigated adolescents' development of perspective taking and empathic concern from age 13 to 18 years (mean age at Wave 1 = 13 years, SD = 0.46) and examined its association…