Although parent-child conversations about race are recommended to curb White U.S. children's racial biases, little work has tested their influence. We designed a guided racism discussion task for U.S. White parents and their 8-12-year-old White children. We explored whether children's and parents' (a) pro-White implicit biases changed pre to…

Using a new method for examining parental explanations in a laboratory setting, the prompted explanation task, this study examines how characteristics of parental explanations about biology relate to children's knowledge. Parents (N = 148; M[subscript age] = 38; 84% female, 16% male; 67% having completed college) of children ages 7-10 (M[subscript…

This multi-method study examined mothers' and fathers' cognitive stimulation during parent--child interactions and toddlers' moral regulation (assessed via parent reports) as predictors of their executive functioning skills approximately 2½ years later. Forty children (23 girls and 17 boys) and their parents participated in both timepoints.…

Adolescents' civic engagement is related to other aspects of their positive development. Many family and school characteristics can promote adolescents' civic engagement, but they are often studied separately. Furthermore, studies have often used adolescent self-reports and measured only one aspect of the multidimensional construct of civic…

Parental cognitions are considered to have a strong influence on parental behaviours that, in turn, shape children's development. Among these parental cognitions, parental self-efficacy (PSE) represents the parents' confidence about their ability to successfully raise their children. Although PSE can explain the quality of parent-child…

Background: Robust research indicates that social support is negatively associated with depression and anxiety. Less work has investigated social support as a network of support across sources like parents and classmates. Past work suggests that sources of support have differential associations with internalizing outcomes. More work exploring the…

This study examined parental playfulness as a mediator of the association between mothers' emotional difficulties (anxiety, depression) and their children's psychosocial adjustment (externalizing, internalizing, and prosocial behaviours). We also examined the associations between parental playfulness and mothers' supportive / unsupportive…

Studies of language development in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have been primarily focused on the influence of child-based factors such as autism traits, IQ, and initial language skills. Yet the findings of these studies are inconclusive. There has, moreover, been little research compared the relative influences of child-based…

Although previous research consistently finds a strong relationship between parent and child voting, the role of parent encouragement, or verbal instruction, remains less clear. In addition, few studies in this area have attempted to determine the causal mechanisms which drive this association. This study models a potential outcomes approach to…

Guided by paternal investment theory (PIT), the current research examines the effects of fathers on daughters' expectations for men in adulthood, and the role of these expectations in mediating women's short-term (casual or uncommitted) sexual behavior. Using a genetically informed differential sibling-exposure design (N = 223 sister pairs from…

Recent research indicates that parental behaviours may influence the development of executive functions (EFs) during early childhood, which are proposed to serve as domain-general building blocks for later classroom behaviour and academic achievement. However, questions remain about the strength of the association between parenting and child EFs,…

Previous studies that attempted to explain why girls often perform better than boys in reading have emphasized the role of values and beliefs, with little attention paid to the role of emotions. This study focused on the role of parent-child emotional contagion in explaining gender differences, by investigating how parents' reading emotion…

This longitudinal follow-up studied continued effects of parental influences on narrative identity in young adulthood. Decades of research have shown the importance of parental shared reminiscing and positive parenting for the development of children's and youths' autobiographical memory and narrative identity. Yet, research on long-term…

Despite rapidly growing research on parental influences on children's executive function (EF), the uniqueness and specificity of parental predictors and links between adult EF and parenting remain unexamined. This 13-month longitudinal study of 117 parent-child dyads (60 boys; M[subscript age] at Time 1 = 3.94 years, SD = 0.53) included detailed…

Parent responsiveness is critical for child development of cognition, social-communication, and self-regulation. Parents tend to respond more frequently when children at-risk for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) demonstrate stronger social-communication; however, it is unclear how responsiveness is associated with sensory characteristics of children…