The aim of this longitudinal study is to evaluate 3 views on the relationship between nonword repetition and vocabulary: (i) the storage-based view that considers nonword repetition, a measure of phonological storage, as the driving force behind vocabulary development, (ii) the lexical restructuring view that considers improvements in nonword…

Frequent social interactions are strongly linked to positive affect, longevity, and good health. Although there has been extensive research on changes in the size of social networks over time, little attention has been given to the development of contact frequency across the life span. In this cohort-sequential longitudinal study, we examined…

We assessed the extent to which feelings of sympathy and aggressive behaviors codeveloped from 6 to 12 years of age in a representative sample of Swiss children (N = 1,273). Caregivers and teachers reported children's sympathy and overt aggression in 3-year intervals. Second-order latent curve models indicated general mean-level declines in…

Guided primarily by life history theory, this study was designed to identify how and why early exposure to caregiver intimate relationship instability uniquely predicts children's externalizing symptoms in the context of other dimensions of unpredictability characterized by residential and parental job transitions. Participants included 243…

We investigated the role of sociocultural (between-groups) and individual (within-group) factors on the development of preschoolers' resource-allocation preferences. We tested claims of the "joint impact hypothesis" of social values development that social-emotional understanding skills would predict the transition from simpler…

Personality traits are hypothesized to be among the most important factors contributing to individual differences in identity development. However, longitudinal studies linking Big Five personality traits to contemporary identity models (in which multiple exploration and commitment processes are distinguished) are largely lacking. To gain more…

Using data from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (N = 1,364), the present study supports an agentic perspective; it demonstrates that mothers' depressive symptoms in infancy predict children's poor first-grade cognitive functioning because depressive symptoms…

We evaluated the extent to which the externalizing behavior construct is self-organizing in the first 2 years of life. Based on dynamic systems theory, we hypothesized that changes in physical aggression, defiance, activity level, and distress to limitations would each be predicted by earlier manifestations of one another. These hypotheses were…

Although research suggests associations between children's executive function skills and their academic achievement, the specific mechanisms that may help explain these associations in early childhood are unclear. This study examined whether children's (N = 1,103; M age = 54.5 months) executive function skills at the beginning of prekindergarten…

While recent evidence has indicated that experienced racial discrimination is associated with increased depressive symptoms for African American adolescents, most studies rely on cross-sectional and short-term longitudinal research designs. As a result, the direction and persistence of this association across time remains unclear. This article…

Prospective memory performance shows a decline in late adulthood. The present article examines the role of 3 main executive function facets (i.e., shifting, updating, and inhibition) as possible developmental mechanisms associated with these age effects. One hundred seventy-five young and 110 older adults performed a battery of cognitive tests…

The goal of this study was to examine physiological and environmental predictors of children's sympathy (an emotional response consisting of feelings of concern or sorrow for others who are distressed or in need) and whether temperamental effortful control mediated these relations. Specifically, in a study of 192 children (23% Hispanic; 54%…

Data from a large prospective longitudinal study (n = 1,239) was used to investigate the association between observed sensitive parenting in early childhood and children's representations of family relationships as measured by the Family Drawing Paradigm (FDP) in first grade as well as the extent to which these representations partially mediate…

In this longitudinal study, we tested whether the association between oppositional defiance to parental authority (i.e., adolescents' tendency to bluntly reject parental rules) and autonomy would depend upon the specific conceptualization of autonomy. Whereas oppositional defiance would yield more interpersonal distance from parents, because…

Overgeneral memory (OGM) refers to difficulty in retrieving specific autobiographical memories. The tendency to be overgeneral in autobiographical memory recall is more commonly observed among individuals with emotional disorders compared with those without. Despite significant advances in theory and identification of mechanisms that underlie the…