Journal of Youth and Adolescence

Self-esteem is a powerful protective factor against depressive symptoms, with cognitive vulnerability theory suggesting that early self-esteem more strongly predicts later depressive symptoms than vice versa. While some meta-analyses have examined these relationships, limited knowledge exists on the prospective relationship between self-esteem and depressive symptoms, particularly how it changes with age. This study conducted a longitudinal meta-analysis of nine studies (20,733 participants) on the prospective relationship between self-esteem and depressive symptoms in Korean children and adolescents...

Earlier pubertal timing is associated with accelerated epigenetic aging, but the underlying mechanisms are not well understood. This three-wave longitudinal study examined negative health behaviors, specifically substance use, short sleep duration, and poor diet quality in middle adolescence, as mediators of links between earlier phenotypic and perceived pubertal timing measured in early adolescence and epigenetic aging on three epigenetic clocks in late adolescence (GrimAge, DunedinPACE, and PhenoAge). Phenotypic pubertal timing measured physical pubertal maturation relative to chronological age, whereas perceived pubertal timing was based on adolescents' subjective interpretation of their pubertal timing relative to their peers...

Although numerous studies have explored the causes and consequences of intrinsic and extrinsic life goals, the developmental trend of life goals during adolescence has not been well understood. To address this research gap, this study explored the developmental changes of the pursuit of intrinsic and extrinsic goals during early, middle, and late adolescence, and examined the relation between life goals and internalizing/externalizing problems from a developmental perspective. A total of 4703 Chinese adolescents from primary (N = 1819, 47...

Little is known about the unique effects of (un)popularity on body image and the characteristics influencing these effects. The goals of this study were to examine (1) the longitudinal associations of adolescents' (un)popularity with weight perception and dieting, (2) whether (dis)liking, self-esteem, and gender moderated these associations. Participants were 1697 Dutch adolescents (Mage  = 14.18 years, SD = 1.29; 51% female), from a middle-class population. Participants completed peer nominations and self-reports in three consecutive school years...

Activism around science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is a critical task to promote social justice and to develop sustainable and effective solutions to global problems (e.g., climate change) in contemporary society. The present study examines relationships between adolescents' perceptions of gender and ethnic classroom inclusivity, outcome expectancies, utility values, and activism orientation in STEM, grounded in the situated expectancy-value theory. Participants were 699 adolescents (50...

Given that adolescence is a critical period for socioemotional development, marked by shifting dynamics in the parent-child relationship, parent-adolescent dyadic regulation may serve as a key mechanism linking the quality of the parent-adolescent relationship to adolescent mental health. The current study investigated two dyadic regulatory processes during mother-adolescent conflictual interactions as interpersonal mechanisms underlying the link between adolescent-mother attachment security and adolescents' internalizing and externalizing symptoms: (a) mutual engagement in positive affect (i...

Understood from a critical consciousness framework, White racial identity development involves recognizing and combating White privilege and supremacy. The present study investigated the development of White American young adults' racial identity through their racial consciousness and racial affect and their combined impact on critical reflection using a person-centered approach via Latent Profile Analysis (LPA). Participants were 716 White identifying participants (Mage  = 21.00, SD = 6...

During adolescence, empathy and prosocial behavior contribute to the establishment of positive interpersonal relationships and social connections, promoting holistic development in youth. A substantial amount of research has provided compelling evidence that there is a relationship between peer relationships and empathy and prosocial behavior. Empathy, as a key mediating factor, links the influence of peers with prosocial behavior in adolescents, yet there is currently a lack of robust meta-analytic evidence regarding this mediating role...

Although identity research has predominantly focused on college-bound adolescents, it has largely neglected vocational high school students who enter the job market immediately after graduation. Furthermore, most studies have concentrated on personal identity and have overlooked the concurrent development of social identity. This study examined the relationship between adolescents' personal and social identities over three years of vocational high school. The participants were 4,264 vocational high school students in Japan (Time 1: 46...

Abundant evidence highlights the psychological and interpersonal benefits of self-compassion during adolescence, yet the developmental trajectory and influencing factors during this period remain relatively unexplored. This study investigated the developmental trajectory of self-compassion and illustrated the longitudinal relationship between parenting styles and self-compassion using latent growth curve models (LGCM), cross-lagged panel models (CLPM) and random-intercept cross-lagged panel models (RI-CLPM) in a sample of Chinese youth (N = 871; Mage  = 15...

Parents and their children can have congruent or incongruent perceptions of parenting, which has been shown to have downstream effects on certain adolescent outcomes. However, little is known about whether such effect holds for various domains of developmental outcomes or across adolescent boys and girls. Investigating 2268 parent-girl (Mage  = 15.73, SDage  = 0.29, 75.5% were mothers) and 2090 parent-boy (Mage  = 15.75, SDage  = 0.29, 71.8% were mothers) dyads from Hong Kong, this study examined the associations between parent-adolescent (in)congruence and adolescent emotional symptoms, positive emotions, and academic performance...

Although research has established the immediate, detrimental impact of discrimination on sleep, how changes in experiences of discrimination may be related to changes in sleep duration over multiple years is less clear. This three-year longitudinal study investigated: (1) intercept-only and linear trajectories of sleep and everyday discrimination across three years of high school; (2) ethnic/racial differences in these trajectories; and (3) the associations between changes in sleep and changes in everyday discrimination...

Given the heightened difficulties in social adjustment and the potential diminishment of social networks encountered by migrant children, family functioning may play a crucial role in their development. Existing research has highlighted the significance of family environment in shaping adolescent self-compassion and emotion regulation, which can serve as protective factors against adverse emotional outcomes. However, there remains a lack of comparative studies to examine the specific effects of family functioning on fostering self-compassion and emotion regulation in both migrant and their non-migrant counterparts...

Family resilience is crucial for individual's psychological health. Previous studies explored the protective factors of anxiety at the individual level, with less attention paid to the impact of family interaction from a dyadic perspective. This study utilized the Actor-Partner Interdependence Mediation Model to investigate the relationship between family resilience, emotional flexibility, and anxiety symptoms. A sample of 2144 Chinese parent-adolescent dyads (36% upper grades of primary school, 64% secondary school, 49...

As a common form of negative interpersonal interaction in childhood, school bullying is closely related to individual negative cognition. Few studies have assessed whether there is an interaction between different kinds of school bullying roles and negative cognition. The present study administered four questionnaire follow-up tests among Chinese children over two years to explore the bidirectional relation and underlying mechanisms between bullying/victimization and negative automatic thoughts (about self/others)...

Depressive symptoms and sleep problems are extremely prevalent in adolescence, and future time perspective has been found to be strongly associated with them. However, little is known about the longitudinal relationship and the temporal dynamics of future time perspective, sleep problems, and depressive symptoms. Moreover, it is unclear whether sleep problems mediate the associations between future time perspective and depressive symptoms. To address this gap, a one-year longitudinal study was performed using data collected at three waves from 622 Chinese college students (aged 17-22 years, Mage  = 18...

Studies have shown that there are protective and risk factors related to cyber dating violence. However, the effect size of these factors is unclear. This study aims to clarify the effect size of the associations of protective and risk factors, as well as symptoms of mental health conditions, with cyber dating violence perpetration and victimization. Databases, including PubMed, Web of Science (WoS), ProQuest, Scopus, and EBSCOhost were searched to identify relevant studies. Forty-nine studies were included in the current study...

Sexual minority youth experience disproportionate rates of mental health symptomatology relative to their heterosexual peers. Less is known about why these disparities have persisted despite growing public awareness of sexual diversity. The developmental collision hypothesis states that increased cultural visibility of sexual diversity has accelerated the developmental timing of sexual minority identity formation processes such that they collide with early adolescence, a uniquely sensitive period for experiencing identity-based stigma and associated mental health vulnerability...

Suicide is prevalent among left-behind youth, a group that has yet to be thoroughly explored in terms of the developmental dynamics of their suicide risk and associated factors. This study adopted a person-centered approach to investigate the developmental trajectories of suicide risk among Chinese left-behind adolescents, along with multi-dimensional predictors. A total of 774 left-behind adolescents (Mage  = 13.60, 50.1% female) completed three surveys over a year, with six-month intervals. Result of Latent Class Growth Modeling identified three subgroups with distinct developmental trajectories: High Risk-Escalating (7...

Boundary diffusion is a particular risk after divorce and has been associated with adolescents' adjustment problems. Yet, its potential impact on parent-adolescent relationship quality is less straightforward, as previous findings support both an alienation and conflict perspective. Therefore these associations (daily and half-yearly) were examined in recently divorced families, addressing both within-dyad changes and between-dyad differences. Data were collected among a sample of N = 133 (pre)adolescents (Mage  = 11...