Coparenting Conflict Behavior, Parent-Adolescent Attachment, and Social Competence with Peers: An Investigation of Developmental Differences

Joint Roles of Oxytocin- and Dopamine-Related Genes and Childhood Parenting Experience in Maternal Supportive Social Network

How genes and parenting determine maternal social support availability, an important preventive factor of postpartum depression, has been little studied. Our study aimed to examine the interaction effects of maternal sociality-related gene and parenting on maternal social support. We analyzed data of 115 triads of Japanese grandmothers, mothers, and their infants. An interaction between parenting and cumulative genetic risk, calculated on the sociality-related genes (OXTR rs53576, rs2254298, rs1042778; COMT rs4680), was found. Mothers with high genetic risk received less social support if received poorer parenting (B = - 0.02, 95%CI = - 0.04 to - 0.01), while no association among low-risk mothers. Poorer social support was associated with severer depression in high-risk mothers (B = - 0.88, 95%CI = - 1.45 to -0.30). Our results suggest that mothers carrying risk alleles of sociality-related genes are particularly sensitive to childhood parenting, underscoring the importance of childhood parenting and genetic risk to understand maternal help-seeking behavior.

Bidirectional Longitudinal Associations between Parental Psychological Control and Peer Victimization among Chinese Adolescents: The Mediating Role of Basic Psychological Need Satisfaction

Despite evidence indicating a connection between inappropriate parenting styles and peer victimization, the dynamic processes and mechanisms underlying this link and whether it is consistent across genders and different developmental stages have yet to be explored. To address these gaps, the current 2-year longitudinal study explored the potential bidirectional associations between parental psychological control and peer victimization, as well as the mediating role of adolescent basic psychological need satisfaction. A total of 4,990 adolescents (49.4% boys, Mage T1 = 12.21 years, SDage T1 = 2.60) across different developmental stages (early adolescents, N = 1,819, 49.2% boys, Mage T1 = 9.34 years, SDage T1 = 0.62; middle adolescents, N = 1,525, 50.75% boys, Mage T1 = 12.47 years, SDage T1 = 0.69; late adolescents, N = 1,646, 46.5% boys, Mage T1 = 15.26 years, SDage T1 = 0.50) participated in this three-wave longitudinal survey. The results revealed that parental psychological control was bidirectionally associated with peer victimization. Additionally, basic psychological need satisfaction played the meditating role in this vicious cycle. Further analysis demonstrated interesting developmental differences. Parental psychological control was directly associated with subsequent peer victimization at all three developmental stages, and peer victimization was only directly associated with subsequent parental psychological control in the next year among early adolescents and middle adolescents. The mutual mediating role of basic psychological need satisfaction between parental psychological control and peer victimization was observed exclusively in early adolescents. Both male and female adolescents could be equally affected by these dynamics. This research underscores the reciprocal dynamics inherent in parent-child interactions, intervening in either of these processes (i.e., family, peers, and adolescent basic psychological need satisfaction) may break this destructive cycle.

Associations among Parental Phubbing, Self-esteem, and Adolescents' Proactive and Reactive Aggression: A Three-Year Longitudinal Study in China

Parental phubbing, as a new risk factor for adolescents' healthy development, has been noticed by scholars. However, few studies have clarified the associations between parental phubbing and adolescents' proactive and reactive aggression and the potential mediating mechanisms. To address the gaps, the current study explored the longitudinal associations among parental phubbing, self-esteem, and adolescents' proactive and reactive aggression by using the parallel process latent growth curve model and the cross-lagged panel model. The current study involved 2407 Chinese adolescents (girls were 1202, Mage = 12.75, SD = 0.58 at baseline, range = 11-16). Results indicated that parental phubbing significantly positively predicted adolescents' reactive aggression but not proactive aggression. Self-esteem significantly predicted the adolescents' reactive and proactive aggression. Self-esteem significantly mediated the associations between parental phubbing and adolescents' proactive and reactive aggression, respectively. These findings suggest that intervening with parental phubbing is a promising way to reduce adolescents' reactive aggression, and promoting adolescents' self-esteem is an effective approach to prevent their proactive and reactive aggression.

#workoutathome: How Instructions in the Captions of Fitfluencers' Posts Impact Adolescents' Body Satisfaction and Intention to Exercise

The present study examines how content of fitfluencers can be employed to improve body satisfaction and intention to exercise among adolescents. Specifically, this experimental study (N = 114 adolescents, age: 16-18) compares the effects of fitfluencer content with instructional captions that contain exercise or workout instructions (as a form of edutainment) with those of self-focused fitfluencer captions that emphasize the fitfluencer's appearance. These two types of captions are found to induce no significant differences in either body satisfaction or intention to exercise. In addition, there were no significant indirect effects via state appearance comparison or self-efficacy. The results do show that less state appearance comparisons increase body satisfaction, and that more self-efficacy increases body satisfaction and intention to exercise. The results suggest that instructions in fitfluencer captions do not differ from self-focused captions in their effects on body satisfaction and intention to exercise among adolescents.

Exploring symptom-level associations between anxiety and depression across developmental stages of adolescence: a network analysis approach

BACKGROUND

Anxiety and depression often co-occur during adolescence, but the associations between symptoms of these two disorders in this developmental period are not yet fully understood. Network analysis provides a valuable approach to uncover meaningful associations among symptoms and offers insights for prevention and intervention strategies. This study aimed to investigate symptom-level associations between anxiety and depression using network analysis and to identify core symptoms, bridge symptoms, and differences in network structure across different stages of adolescence.

METHODS

The cross-sectional study was conducted in March 2022 in Shenzhen, China. Participants completed the Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale-7 and Patient Health Questionnaire Depression Scale, along with demographic questionnaires assessing age and gender. Chinese adolescents aged 10 to 17 who were in Grades 5 or 6 of elementary school, Grades 1 or 2 of middle school, or Grades 1 or 2 of high school, and who could comprehensively understand and read Chinese were recruited as participants. Students in Grade 3 of middle and high schools were excluded due to their upcoming high school or college entrance examinations. Based on age, participants were categorized into early, middle, and late developmental stages of adolescence.

RESULTS

"Loss of control" was among the most central symptoms in the comorbidity network throughout all three developmental stages; "excessive worry" and "anhedonia" emerged as the core symptoms in early adolescence, and "restlessness" as the core symptom in late adolescence. "Anhedonia," "sad mood," and "fatigue" were identified as bridge symptoms between anxiety and depression across all three developmental stages of adolescence. The global strength of the network in middle adolescence was significantly higher compared to the other two stages.

CONCLUSION

These findings highlight the core and bridge symptoms that require special attention and intervention at each stage of adolescence. Moreover, significantly higher network connectivity in middle adolescence suggests this is a critical period for intervention to prevent the development of comorbid mental disorders.

Symptom relationships between internet addiction and anxiety across primary and middle school students during the Omicron lockdown

During the Omicron pandemic, students in Shenzhen took classes at home via the internet, which could lead to internet addiction (IA) symptoms, and anxiety is often considered an important risk factor for IA. There are several different developmental stages within adolescence. However, no studies have explored the interaction between IA and anxiety at the symptom level using a longitudinal design stratified by age. A total of 2744 students completed the questionnaire 50 days after starting the online classes (T1) and 50 days after they returned to school (T2). A cross-lagged panel network model was used to describe the structure of the comorbidity network. With the help of bootstrapping, the Mann-Whitney U test was used to examine the differences between primary school students' and middle school students' networks. The results found that there is a bidirectional interaction between IA and anxiety, and anxiety plays a dominant role. Feeling afraid is the bridge symptom between IA and anxiety. IA did not show developmental stage differences, but anxiety did. These findings extend the model of compensatory internet use and suggest that, when alleviating IA symptoms in adolescents, attention should be given to their possible comorbid anxiety symptoms, especially in middle school students.

Fathers and mothers' parenting stress and adolescent depressive symptoms: the mediating roles of overt and covert coparenting conflict behaviors

BACKGROUND

It is yet to be clarified if and how parenting stress was linked to adolescent depressive symptoms during the pandemic.

OBJECTIVES

This study adopted an interdependent approach to examine the relationship between parenting stress and adolescent depressive symptoms in Chinese families. It then examined the mediating effects of overt and covert coparenting conflict behaviors.

METHODS

As a national survey, data were obtained from different regions in China. Fathers, mothers, and adolescents from 1031 families participated in this study. The fathers and mothers reported parenting stress; the adolescents rated their fathers and mothers' overt and covert coparenting conflict behaviors and their own depressive symptoms.

RESULTS

Maternal parenting stress was related to adolescent depressive symptoms through the mediating effects of paternal overt and maternal covert coparenting conflict behaviors. Both paternal and maternal parenting stress were directly related to adolescent depressive symptoms. However, maternal parenting stress had a more substantial effect on adolescent depressive symptoms than paternal parenting stress.

CONCLUSIONS

The findings support the effects of parenting stress on adolescent depressive symptoms. The study also highlights the mediating roles of paternal overt and maternal covert coparenting conflict behaviors in relationships.

Associations between parental mediation and adolescents' internet addiction: The role of parent-child relationship and adolescents' grades

Introduction

Family factors, such as parental mediation on Internet use and parent-child relationships, have been shown to play a crucial role in preventing adolescents' internet addiction. Previous studies have shown a change in characteristics of online risk during adolescents' development. However, it is still of great interest whether such differences applied in the relationships among parent-child relationships, different types of parental mediation and adolescents' internet addiction level. In this study, we investigated the associations between different types of parental mediators and adolescents' internet addiction level and how the associations were mediated by father-child and mother-child relationships. We further investigated whether mediating effect differs between primary and secondary school children.

Methods

Based on a sample of 3,026 school children aged 9-14 years (M = 11.56, SD = 0.71; 55.25% primary school adolescents, 44.75% secondary school adolescents), a series of Structural Equation Models were applied to investigate the relationships among internet addiction, parental mediation, and parent-child relationship. In addition, a series of multi-group analysis were applied to detect whether there are differences in these relationships between the primary and secondary school group.

Results

The internet addiction level and intensity of parental mediation was higher among primary school adolescents than secondary school adolescents. Parental active mediation and monitoring on internet use were associated with reduced and increased adolescents' internet addiction. Father-child relationship had stronger partial mediating effects on the relationships between parental mediation and adolescents' internet addiction than the mother-child relationship. The relationships among parental mediation, parent-child relationship and internet addiction were more pronounced among primary school adolescents than secondary school adolescents.

Discussion

The findings suggest that good father-child relationships and adequate parental mediation approach, such as active mediation, may contribute to reduction of internet addiction risk in adolescents, especially in primary school adolescents.

Maternal positive coparenting and adolescent peer attachment: Chain intermediary role of parental involvement and parent–child attachment

This study investigated the relationship between maternal positive coparenting and adolescent peer attachment, and the intermediary role of parental involvement and parent–child attachment in 1,807 families using the maternal positive coparenting scale, the parental involvement scale, and the parent and peer attachment scale. The results showed that maternal positive coparenting behaviour, parental involvement, parent–child attachment, and peer attachment had significant positive relationships, and maternal positive coparenting had a positive correlation with adolescent peer attachment. Moreover, parental involvement and parent–child attachment played a significant mediating role between maternal positive coparenting behavior, including unity and consistent behavior, and adolescent peer attachment, respectively, which consisted of a sole intermediary role of parental involvement; a single intermediary role of parent–children attachment; and a chain intermediary role of parental involvement and parent–children attachment. Hence, maternal positive coparenting was positively associated with adolescent peer attachment, in which parental involvement and parent-child attachment served as a crucial bridge.

The Structure of Mental Elasticity Education for Children in Plight Using Deep Learning

The purpose is to solve the problem that the current research on the impact of the microstructure of mental elasticity and its constituent factors on the development of the mental elasticity of children is not comprehensive, and the traditional artificial analysis method of mental problems has strong subjectivity and low accuracy. First, the structural equation model is used to study the microstructure of poor children's mental elasticity, and to explore the structural relationship and functional path between the mental elasticity of children and the self-efficacy of their mental health, psychological anxiety, and attachment. Second, a prediction model of mental problems of children in plight based on the backpropagation neural network (BPNN) is constructed. Finally, middle schools in the representative areas of Northwest China are selected as the research unit. The relevant research data are collected by issuing questionnaires, and the data set is constructed to verify the performance of the model. The experimental results show that the average prediction errors of the BPNN model and the support vector regression (SVR) model are 1.87 and 5.4, respectively. The error of BPNN is 65.4% lower than that of SVR, so BPNN has a better performance. The prediction results of the test set show that the actual error and the relative error of the BPNN model are controlled in the range of 0.01, and the prediction accuracy is high. The structural equation model has a high fitting degree. The results of the questionnaire analysis show that attachment, self-efficacy, and psychological anxiety exert a significant direct impact on mental elasticity. This exploration aims to conduct a micro investigation on the relationship among the three core variables (attachment, self-efficacy, and mental health) in the resilience research of children in plight, and analyze their resilience, to provide a theoretical basis for the resilience intervention design of vulnerable groups.

Actor-partner association of work-family conflict and parental depressive symptoms during COVID-19 in China: Does coparenting matter?

Parental depressive symptoms and their related factors have not been widely examined during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Therefore, the current study examined the actor and partner associations of work–family conflict and parental depressive symptoms. Considering the new demands and challenges for families during the COVID‐19 pandemic, we further explored the moderation effect of coparenting. A cross‐sectional online survey with 985 paired fathers and mothers was conducted in Mainland China. In 11.6% of families, only mothers reported moderate to severe depressive symptoms; in 10.6% families, only fathers reported moderate to severe depressive symptoms; in 9.5% families, the mother and father reported mild to moderate depressive symptoms. Results of the actor–partner interdependence model showed that parental family‐to‐work conflict was negatively associated with their own depressive symptoms. The negative actor association of maternal family‐to‐work conflict and depressive symptoms was moderated by undermining coparenting. The partner effects of maternal family‐to‐work and work‐to‐family conflicts on paternal depressive symptoms were moderated by undermining coparenting. Moreover, supportive coparenting moderated the actor association of work‐to‐family conflict and the depressive symptoms of fathers. Results highlight the importance of family‐to‐work conflict and family function for parental depressive symptoms. These findings can help promote parental well‐being during the COVID‐19 pandemic.

Relationships between neighborhood collective efficacy and adolescent suicidal ideation

INTRODUCTION

Until now, South Korean adolescent suicidal ideation literature has focused mainly on individual-level characteristics. Little is known about the contextual effects of social integration and social regulation on an individual's suicide behavior in South Korea as identified through the use of Durkheim's sociological insights. This study drew on Durkheim's suicide and collective efficacy theories and analyzed the effects of the structural characteristics and collective efficacy of neighborhoods on adolescents' suicidal ideation.

METHODS

The data analyzed was from three sources: the 2013 Korean National Survey of the Present Status of Children (n = 1,915; 50.41% girls; mean age = 13.04 years), government census data from the Korea Statistical Information System, and administrative data from the Korea Ministry of Health and Welfare. The Hierarchical Generalized Linear Model was used to investigate the effects of neighborhood structural characteristics and collective efficacy on adolescent suicidal ideation.

RESULTS

There were no significant associations between neighborhood characteristics such as concentrated poverty, divorce rate, and residential instability; however, adoles cents' perceptions of collective efficacy in neighborhoods was associated with lower suicidal ideation after accounting for individual adolescent differences.

CONCLUSION

The findings provide significant implications for the prevention of suicide in adolescents and suggest that enhancing the collective efficacy of neighborhoods through community-based intervention may be an important target of future suicide prevention strategies in South Korea.

A Parental Competence Scale: Dimensions and Their Association With Adolescent Outcomes

Positive family functioning during adolescence is usually studied analyzing parents' competences and children's relationship abilities. We present an instrument for the assessment of parental competence, which encompasses both educational style and transmission of values. The objective of the study was to analyze its factor structure and to assess its value in predicting adolescent outcomes. We recruited 2,459 high school students, aged 12–15, in 40 schools from Spain, Peru, Mexico, and Chile. They responded to the instrument and to other questions regarding lifestyles. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were carried out in order to assess the internal structure of the instrument, and internal consistency of the resulting dimensions was calculated. Finally, regression analyses were performed to establish associations between the parenting dimensions and adolescent outcomes. Factor analyses showed a consistent structure, with good fit indices in the four countries. The final four factors include parenting styles (Warmth and Demandingness) and education in values (Fortitude and Privacy). Regression analyses showed associations with adolescent outcomes. For example, adolescents' life satisfaction was best predicted by Warmth and Education in fortitude. Practical implications are suggested.