Achieving a clear view of one's personality is a challenging but crucial developmental task during adolescence, which has enduring influences. This task might be harder if significant others see individuals differently from how the adolescents see themselves. Supporting this, the looking-glass-self theory suggests that significant others…

Parental self-efficacy (PSE) describes parents' beliefs about being able to handle developmentally specific issues and being able to influence their child in a way that fosters the child's positive development and adjustment (Bandura, 1997). Parents of adolescents have been shown to feel less efficacious than parents of preadolescent children…

Purpose: Adult relationships provide critical support for adolescents because of their potential to foster positive development and provide protective influences. Few studies examine multiple ecological layers of adult relationships in connection with well-being and depression. This study examines the influence of relationships from multiple…

This study examined the bidirectional relations between authoritative parenting and adolescents' prosocial behavior over a 1-year time period. Data were taken from Time 2 and 3 of the Flourishing Families Project, and included reports from 319 two-parent families with an adolescent child (M age of child at Time 2 = 12.34, SD = 1.06, 52% girls).…

Although socioemotional competencies have been identified as key components of youths' positive development, most studies on empathy are cross-sectional, and research on the role of the family has focused almost exclusively on parental socialization. This study examined the developmental course of empathy from age 7 to 14 and the within-person…

With China's rapidly developing economy and increasing urbanization, many adults from rural areas migrate to urban areas for better paid jobs. A side effect of this migration is that parents frequently leave their children behind (left-behind children). This research investigated left-behind children's and non-left-behind children's psychological,…

Scholars in the field of African American family studies recognize the influence of gender on socialization. However, few studies investigate how gender influences the racial and ethnic socialization of African American youth. To examine the role of gender (both caregiver and adolescent) in socialization practices, data were obtained from 218…