Adolescents become increasingly sensitive to social evaluation. Some previous studies have related this change to pubertal development. The present longitudinal study examined the role of sociocognitive development. We investigated whether or not the transition to recursive thinking, the ability to think about (others') thoughts, would be…

Empathy is an important social skill and is believed to play an essential role in moral development (Hoffman, 2000). In the present longitudinal study, the authors investigated adolescents' development of perspective taking and empathic concern from age 13 to 18 years (mean age at Wave 1 = 13 years, SD = 0.46) and examined its association with…

It is important to account for timing of puberty when studying the adolescent brain and cognition. The use of classical methods for assessing pubertal status may not be feasible in some studies, especially in male adolescents. Using data from a sample of 478 males from a longitudinal birth cohort, we describe the calculations of three independent…

From 1964-71, 323 pairs of twins and 740 age-matched controls born in 1954-55, were investigated. Compared to schoolchildren in 1880 and 1940 the children in the present study were taller, reached maturity earlier and passed through puberty faster. No differences between socioeconomic strata defined by father's occupation and family income were…