Adolescents' future expectations are a potentially important precursor of adult attainment and may illuminate how males and females vary in schooling and work. Thus, this longitudinal study examined gender variation in developmental trajectories of educational and occupational expectations from adolescence to adulthood and in connection to…

This investigation addresses the mediational role of friends' characteristics between adolescents' activity breadth (i.e., variety in activity participation) and their later adjustment. Data were drawn from 2 longitudinal studies: the Childhood and Beyond (CAB; N = 925) study and the Maryland Adolescent Development in Context Study (MADICS; N =…

Relations of maternal and child characteristics to child cortisol reactivity to and recovery from emotional arousal were examined prospectively at approximately 7 months of age (infancy) and then again at approximately 15 months of age (toddlerhood). The sample was diverse and population based (N = 1,292 mother-infant dyads) and included families…

Trajectories of emotion regulation processes were examined in a community sample of 269 children across the ages of 4 to 7 using hierarchical linear modeling. Maternal depressive symptomatology (Symptom Checklist-90) and children's physiological reactivity (respiratory sinus arrhythmia [RSA]) and vagal regulation ([delta]RSA) were explored as…

This study investigated the prospective predictors of body image in 9- to 12-year-old girls. Participants were 150 girls in Grades 4-6 with a mean age of 10.3 years. Girls completed questionnaire measures of media and peer influences (television/magazine exposure, peer appearance conversations), individual psychological variables (appearance…

The authors investigated the relationship between the acquisition of cultural life scripts and the degree of coherence in children's and adolescents' life stories. Three groups of Danish school children aged 9 to 15 years participated. In 3 sessions, they wrote down a recently experienced single autobiographical event, their life story, and their…

Longitudinal data spanning 22 years, obtained from deceased participants of the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP; N = 1,637; 70- to 100-year-olds), were used to examine if and how life satisfaction exhibits terminal decline at the end of life. Changes in life satisfaction were more strongly associated with distance to death than with…

The purpose of the present investigation was to examine the association between circadian rhythms of cortisol and physical and relational aggression. Morning arrival, prelunch, and afternoon predeparture salivary cortisol were assessed among 418 maltreated and nonmaltreated children (52% maltreated; 49% female) attending a summer day camp.…

The purpose of this study was to examine the frequency and correlates of cross-racial/ethnic friendships. The sample consisted of 509 (188 African American, 135 European American, 106 Asian American, and 80 Latino) children in 4th grade from 39 classrooms in several public elementary schools. The authors hypothesized that (a) the frequency of…

The authors examined the degree to which disparities in parent and child acculturation are linked to both family and child adjustment. With a sample of 1st- and 2nd-generation Mexican American children, acculturation and parent-child relationship quality at 5th grade, and parent-child conflict, child internalizing, and child externalizing at 7th…

The purpose of the study was to examine social functioning and adjustment in peer context in Chinese Canadian and European Canadian children. A sample of elementary school children participated in the study. Data on social functioning, peer acceptance and rejection, and victimization were collected from peer assessments and sociometric…

Joint pretence games are implicit rule-governed activities with a normative structure: Given shared fictional stipulations, some acts are appropriate moves, others are inappropriate (i.e., mistakes). The awareness of 2- and 3-year-old children of this normative structure was explored, as indicated by their ability to not only act according to the…

Ethnic and generation differences in the frequency and types of ethnic socialization messages that 524 eleventh-grade adolescents from Mexican, Chinese, and European backgrounds received from their parents were examined. Results indicated that adolescents from both Mexican and Chinese backgrounds reported more cultural socialization and…

Previous studies have found that children have difficulty solving proportional reasoning problems involving discrete units until 10 to 12 years of age, but can solve parallel problems involving continuous quantities by 6 years of age. The present studies examine where children go wrong in processing proportions that involve discrete quantities. A…

Little research has investigated girls' and college women's reactions to non-objectified media images of women, including those that depict women in instrumental activities like playing a sport. This study examined open-ended responses to images of performance athletes, sexualized athletes, and sexualized models. Participants were 258 adolescent…