Parental socialization of children's sadness was examined through self-report, spouse report, and a parent-child sadness discussion task. A total of 79 two-parent, predominantly White, middle-class families participated with one child in grades 2-5 (44 sons; M = 9 years, 8 months). Analyses revealed that mothers and fathers respond…

Effects of feedback on children's self-evaluations are well established, yet little is known about how parents talk with children about everyday successes and failures, despite the importance of parent-child reminiscing in children's psychological understanding. We examine mothers' attributions and performance evaluations in…

Extending John Bowlby's hypothesis that dysfunctional anger is a predictable outcome of insecure attachments to parents, this study investigated the relationship between current parent-adolescent attachment and both the experience and expression of anger. Participants included 776 students (379 boys and 397 girls) in grades 8-12. As predicted…

Attachment theorists suggest that attachment security with parents supports the quality of social adaptation in peer groups during early childhood, and numerous studies supporting this conjecture have been published. Most of these studies used enacted representations rather than mental representations of attachment security, and most studies…

Enriched environments may moderate the effect of genetic factors on prosocial leadership (gene-environment interaction, G × E). However, positive environmental experiences may also themselves be influenced by a genetic disposition for prosocial leadership (gene-environment correlation, rGE). Relating these processes to friendships, the present…

A body of empirical research has revealed that there are associations among language skills, peer interactions, and behavioral problems in childhood. At the same time, however, there has been comparatively less research devoted to exploring the mutual unfolding of these factors over the first few years of life. The current study is designed to…

Peer victimization appears heritable, but it is unclear whether the traits that confer genetic risk require time and familiarity with a perpetrator to manifest or whether novel and brief interactions can lead to received aggression that demonstrates similar genetic risk. We examined 20-minute, peer-play interactions between 5-year-olds, pairing…

Gene-environment studies on adolescents' peer contexts are important for understanding the interplay between biological and social antecedents of adolescent psychopathology. To this end, this study examined the roles of serotonin transporter (5-HTTLPR) and preadolescent and early adolescent peer rejection and acceptance, as well as the…

Harsh parenting and child characteristics such as opposition and aggression have been found to relate to bullying, victimization, and bullying-victimization, yet not all children display equal vulnerability to harsh parenting. The monoamine oxidase A gene ("MAOA"; "low-activity" variant) may be a key vulnerability allele as it…

This study examined parents' provision of "structure," defined as the organization of the environment to facilitate competence, and the degree to which it supports versus controls children's autonomy, in the domains of homework and studying, unsupervised time, and responsibilities in a diverse sample of sixth-grade children and…

This study examined the relations between multiple types of peer victimization, affective reactivity to victimization, and academic achievement. Participants (179 fifth-grade boys and girls) completed repeated daily measures of peer victimization and negative affect; a standardized measure of achievement was collected concurrently. The daily…

We examined behavior problems in 80 adolescents (39 male; mean age = 15.74 years) adopted in early childhood by Canadians from globally depriving Romanian institutions. Overall, rates of clinically significant behavior problems were comparable to rates found in younger postinstitutionalized adopted children. The association between duration of…

This investigation used two-part growth modeling and cross-lagged panel analysis to examine the predictive function of parenting and teacher-child relationship on the likelihood of children showing problems with parent-rated physical aggression, and on the severity of problems, for 374 children followed from prekindergarten and first grade.…

In this study on being ignored by peers, 934 twelfth-grade students reported on their experiences of being ignored, victimized, and socially withdrawn, and completed measures of friendship and psychological adjustment (depression, self-esteem, and global satisfaction). Peer nominations of being ignored, victimized, and accepted by peers were also…

Family socioeconomic status (SES) and the quality of maternal behavior are among the few identified predictors of child executive functioning (EF), and they have often been found to have interactive rather than additive effects on other domains of child functioning. The purpose of this study was to explore their interactive effects in the…