Empathy is assumed to be a universal human motivation to act altruistically toward others. Developmental models of empathy explaining when and how children acquire the capacity to empathize have been proposed. However, the existing knowledge is largely built upon studies conducted in the Western context. To fill this gap, a cross-culturally…

The transition to adulthood is a critical juncture in the course of psychopathology. This study examined the ways in which earlier capacity to deal with relationship stress during adolescence contributed to an adaptive outcome in emerging adulthood. In a prospective study of 145 individuals, relationship stress, individual coping capacities, and…

The abilities comprising social intelligence are critical to children's development and interpersonal functioning, and there is a need for reliable and valid tools for measuring them. This paper describes the Children's Social Comprehension Scale (CSCS), which is a performance-based test of the cognitive component of social intelligence for young…

We assessed the psychometric properties of the Social Behavior Questionnaire (SBQ), a 30-item questionnaire evaluating social (e.g., disruptive behaviors, bullying) and emotional problems (e.g., anxiety, depression) among children aged 3.5-12 years. Children (n = 1,950, 50.21% boys) were drawn from the Quebec Longitudinal Study of Child…

We address how to conceptualize and measure intentional self-regulation (ISR) among adolescents from four cultures by assessing whether ISR (conceptualized by the SOC model of Selection, Optimization, and Compensation) is represented by three factors (as with adult samples) or as one "adolescence-specific" factor. A total of 4,057 14-…

The study examined the contribution of reinforcement sensitivity to childhood personality at three levels of the hierarchical structure, mid-level traits, the Big Five and two higher-order factors, and the moderating role of sex and age in a sample of 3-18-year-olds. The canonical correlation analyses indicated that reinforcement sensitivity and…

Evidence of cultural comparisons of gender-identity-measurement scales is scarce. The present study aims to assess the scalar invariance of two dimensions of a widely used gender identity scale (Egan and Perry's Multidimensional Gender Identity Inventory) across two cultural contexts. Fourth, sixth, and fifth graders from Barranquilla (Colombia)…

The purpose of the study was to evaluate bidirectional associations between peer acceptance and both emotion and effortful control during kindergarten (N = 301). In both the fall and spring semesters, we obtained peer nominations of acceptance, measures of positive and negative emotion based on naturalistic observations in school (i.e., classroom,…

This article describes a method based on Pratt's measures and demonstrates its use in exploratory factor analyses. The article discusses the interpretational complexities due to factor correlations and how Pratt's measures resolve these interpretational problems. Two real data examples demonstrate the calculation of what we call the…

Two main theoretical constructs seek to describe the elaborated sense of time that may be a uniquely human attribute: diachronic thinking (the ability to think about the past and use that information to predict future events) and event ordering (the ability to sequence events in temporal order). Researchers utilize various tasks to measure the…

As the field of positive youth development (PYD) emerges internationally, models of PYD designed for use in the US must be extended to diverse contexts. For instance, a robust body of evidence supports Lerner and colleagues' Five Cs Model of PYD in the US, but it remains unclear whether the Five Cs Model can validly capture positive development in…

The fields of psychology and human development are experiencing a resurgence of scientific inquiries about phenomena that unfold at the level of the individual. This article addresses the issues of analyzing intraindividual psychological/developmental phenomena using standard analytical techniques for interindividual variation. When phenomena are…

We investigated preparation for age-related changes from a multidimensional, life span perspective and administered a newly developed questionnaire to a large sample aged 30-80 years. Preparing for age-related changes was organized by life domains, with domain-specific types of preparation addressing obstacles and opportunities in the respective…

This study examined daily hassles and coping dispositions in relation to life satisfaction and depressive symptoms among resettled unaccompanied refugees and other youth in the resettlement country. A total of 223 unaccompanied refugees ("M" = 20 years) was compared with 609 ethnic minority and 427 majority youth in Norway. Unaccompanied…