This study examined the longitudinal relationships among self-concept clarity (SCC), hope, and subjective well-being (i.e., emotional well-being and cognitive well-being). Specifically, we tested both the between-person and within-person associations of SCC with subjective well-being among 2,001 Chinese adolescents (age range 11-24 years, 42.9%…

Knowing about emotions is vital for children's school adjustment, well-being, and future social relationships. Whereas experiencing emotions is a universal psychological process at the biological level, how emotions are categorized and communicated is shaped by culture. Most studies have investigated cultural differences in emotion (knowledge) in…

Economic inequality has been consistently rising in recent decades in many Western countries including Germany. This is a pressing issue as greater economic inequality within a society has detrimental consequences for well-being, social stability, productivity, and even life expectancy. However, little is known about how individuals of different…

While loneliness for short periods of time is normal, prolonged loneliness has severe health risks. This study aims to discover what loneliness trajectories can be found in a cohort of adolescents, how belongingness to different groups may be associated with these trajectories, and the mental, physical, and academic consequences of these…

Lack of social interaction is associated with a heightened sense of loneliness and, in turn, poorer psychological well-being. Despite the prevalence of communicating with others virtually even when physically alone, whether the social interaction--loneliness--well-being relationship is different between face-to-face and virtual interactions and…

It has been well documented that parental psychological control is detrimental to child and adolescent development. Yet, when entering emerging adulthood, the centrality of relationships with parents in youth's lives may differ across individuals as well as cultures, making both cross- and within-cultural variations in the implications of parental…

The present study examined the direction of effects between peer likeability and youth's school adjustment and psychological well-being, and the moderation of these effects by students' immigrant status. One thousand one hundred and eighteen students (63% immigrants) nested in 57 Greek middle-school classrooms took part in the study (Wave 1; age M…

Despite the robust link between dispositional optimism and well-being across the lifespan, the developmental origins of dispositional optimism are unknown. Understanding the pathways that lead to greater optimism during the transition from adolescence into young adulthood may be important given that this stage of the life course involves the…

Successful emotion regulation (ER) is a central aspect of psychosocial functioning and mental health and is thought to improve and be refined in adolescence. Past research on ER has mainly focused on one-time measurements of habitual ER. Linking regulatory strategies to emotions in daily lives is key to understanding adolescents' emotional lives.…

In emerging adulthood, being committed to and making progress on important personal goals constitutes a source of identity and well-being. Goal striving, however, does not always go without problems. Even though highly committed to a goal, individuals may experience recurring setbacks and, consequently, increasing doubts about the goal that might…

The current article provides a review of adoption research since its inception as a field of study. Three historical trends in adoption research are identified: the first focusing on risk in adoption and identifying adoptee-nonadoptee differences in adjustment; the second examining the capacity of adopted children to recover from early adversity;…

Increasing bodies of evidence suggest that keeping secrets may be detrimental to well-being and adjustment, whereas confiding secrets may alleviate the detriments of secrecy and benefit well-being and adjustment. However, few studies have addressed the consequences of keeping and confiding secrets simultaneously, and even fewer have done so…

The aim of this study was to investigate the role of social capital assessed in early adulthood in linking self-control in childhood with psychological and social functioning in middle age. Data collected at ages 8, 27, and 42 years were based on the Jyvaskyla Longitudinal Study of Personality and Social Development (159 females, 177 males).…

Despite growing research results indicating that shyness is a risk factor for psychosocial maladjustment in childhood, less is known about the conceptual mechanisms that may underlie these associations. The purpose of the current study was to explore links between self-reported shyness, coping strategies and social functioning in middle childhood.…

In contrast to the abundant research on family relationships during adolescence, the nature of family interactions during young adulthood remains comparatively unexamined. The current study explored ethnic differences in young adults' interactions with parents and siblings, the role of other activities in young adults' family interactions, and the…