Perceptual narrowing occurs in human infants for other-race faces. A paired-comparison task measuring infant looking time was used to investigate the hypothesis that adding emotional expressiveness to other-race faces would help infants break through narrowing and reinstate other-race face recognition. Experiment 1 demonstrated narrowing for White…

Life Span psychological and life course sociological perspectives have long acknowledged that individual functioning is shaped by historical and sociocultural contexts. Secular increases favoring later-born cohorts are widely documented for fluid cognitive performance and well-being (among older adults). However, little is known about secular…

The first months after becoming a new parent are a unique and important period in human development. Despite substantial research on the many social and biological changes that occur during the first months of parenthood, little is known about changes in mothers' attachment. The present study examines developmental stability and change in…

Existing gap-year research indicates a number of benefits of a gap-year at the end of school and before university enrollment. Life span theory of control, however, suggests that direct goal investment, rather than delay, at developmental transitions is associated with more adaptive outcomes. Comparing these perspectives, the authors undertook 2…

Vagal tone is widely believed to be an important physiological aspect of emotion regulation and associated positive behaviors. However, there is inconsistent evidence for relations between children's baseline vagal tone and their helpful or prosocial responses to others (Hastings & Miller, 2014). Recent work in adults suggests a quadratic…

Increasing age is characterized by greater positive affective states. However, there is mixed evidence on the implementation of emotion regulation strategies across the life span. To clarify the discrepancies in the literature, we examined the modulating influence of contextual factors in understanding emotion regulation strategy use in older and…

This study used longitudinal data to examine the effects of spousal illness on depressive symptoms among middle-aged and older married individuals and the extent to which the adverse effects of illness in a spouse were mitigated by 2 psychological resources, mastery and self-esteem. Using 1,704 married participants who were 51 years of age on…

This study explores the stability and change in maternal life satisfaction and psychological distress following the birth of a child with a congenital anomaly using 5 assessments from the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study collected from Pregnancy Week 17 to 36 months postpartum. Participating mothers were divided into those having infants…

The present study examined the impact of the developmental timing of trauma exposure on posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms and psychosocial functioning in a large sample of community-dwelling older adults (N = 1,995). Specifically, we investigated whether the negative consequences of exposure to traumatic events were greater for traumas…

Each year, an increasing number of children are born through surrogacy and thus lack a genetic and/or gestational link with their mother. This study examined the impact of surrogacy on mother-child relationships and children's psychological adjustment. Assessments of maternal positivity, maternal negativity, mother-child interaction, and child…

The authors sought to provide an initial evaluation of the hypothesis that corporal punishment is less strongly associated with parental emotion and impulsivity among African American ("Black") in contrast to European American ("White") parents. White-Latino and Black-Latino differences in corporal punishment, emotion, and impulsivity were…

Three studies compared beliefs about natural and late blooming positive traits with those acquired through personal effort, extrinsic rewards or medicine. Young children (5-6 years), older children (8-13 years), and adults all showed a strong bias for natural and late blooming traits over acquired traits. All age groups, except 8- to 10-year-olds,…

The authors conducted 2 studies of 9th-grade Israeli adolescents (169 in Study 1, 156 in Study 2) to compare the parenting practices of conditional positive regard, conditional negative regard, and autonomy support using data from multiple reporters. Two socialization domains were studied: emotion control and academics. Results were consistent…

Consistent with a holistic perspective emphasizing the integration of multiple individual characteristics within child systems, it was hypothesized that subgroups of anxious solitary (AS) children characterized by agreeableness, behavioral normality, attention-seeking-immaturity, and externalizing behaviors would demonstrate heterogeneity in peer…

To examine the neurobiological consequences of early institutionalization, the authors recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) from 3 groups of Romanian children--currently institutionalized, previously institutionalized but randomly assigned to foster care, and family-reared children--in response to pictures of happy, angry, fearful, and sad…