Developmental Psychology Research Articles

Psychosocial alterations during the COVID-19 pandemic and the global burden of anxiety and major depressive disorders in adolescents, 1990-2021: challenges in mental health amid socioeconomic disparities.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, a global health crisis, profoundly impacted all aspects of daily life. Adolescence, a pivotal stage of psychological and social development, is heavily influenced by the psychosocial and socio-cultural context. Hence, it is imperative to thoroughly understand the psychosocial changes adolescents experienced during the pandemic and implement effective management initiatives. We examined the incidence rates of depressive and anxiety disorders among adolescents aged 10-19years globally and regionally. We utilized data from the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2021 to compare pre-pandemic (2018-2019) and pandemic (2020-2021) periods. Our investigation covered 204 countries and territories across the six World Health Organization regions. We conducted a comprehensive literature search using databases including PubMed/MEDLINE, Scopus, and Google Scholar, employing search terms such as "psychosocial", "adolescent", "youth", "risk factors", "COVID-19 pandemic", "prevention", and "intervention". During the pandemic, the mental health outcomes of adolescents deteriorated, particularly in terms of depressive and anxiety disorders. According to GBD 2021, the incidence rate of anxiety disorders increased from 720.26 [95% uncertainty intervals (UI) = 548.90-929.19] before the COVID-19 pandemic (2018-2019) to 880.87 per 100,000 people (95% UI = 670.43-1132.58) during the COVID-19 pandemic (2020-2021). Similarly, the incidence rate of major depressive disorder increased from 2333.91 (95% UI = 1626.92-3138.55) before the COVID-19 pandemic to 3030.49 per 100,000 people (95% UI = 2096.73-4077.73) during the COVID-19 pandemic. This worsening was notably pronounced in high-income countries (HICs). Rapid environmental changes, including heightened social anxiety, school closures, economic crises, and exacerbated racism, have been shown to adversely affect the mental well-being of adolescents. The abrupt shift to remote learning and the absence of in-person social interactions heightened feelings of loneliness, anxiety, sadness, and stress among adolescents. This change magnified existing socioeconomic disparities, posing additional challenges. These complexities profoundly impact adolescents' well-being, especially vulnerable groups like those from HICs, females, and minorities. Acknowledging the underreporting bias in low- to middle-income countries highlights the importance of addressing these mental health alterations in assessments and interventions within these regions as well. Urgent interventions are crucial as the pandemic-induced mental stress may have lasting effects on adolescents' mental health.

How bipedalism shapes humans' actions with hand tools.

The task for an embodied cognitive understanding of humans' actions with tools is to elucidate how the human body, as a whole, supports the perception of affordances and dexterous action with objects in relation to other objects. Here, we focus on the relationship between humans' actions with handheld tools and bipedal posture. Posture plays a pivotal role in shaping animals' perception and action dynamics. While humans stand and locomote bipedally, other primates predominantly employ quadrupedal postures and locomotion, relying on both hands and feet to support the body. Drawing upon evidence from evolutionary biology, developmental psychology and performance studies, we elucidate the influence of bipedalism on our actions with objects and on our proficiency in using tools. We use the metaphor of cascades to capture the dynamic, nonlinear transformations in morphology and behaviour associated with posture and the use of tools across evolutionary and developmental timescales. Recent work illustrates the promise of multifractal cascade analysis to reveal nonlinear, cross-scale interactions across the entire body in real-time, supporting the perception of affordances for actions with tools. Cascade analysis enriches our comprehension of real-time performance and facilitates exploration of the relationships among whole-body coordination, individual development, and evolutionary processes.This article is part of the theme issue 'Minds in movement: embodied cognition in the age of artificial intelligence'.

Global research trends and hotspots in overweight/obese comorbid with depression among children and adolescents: A bibliometric analysis.

Overweight/obesity combined with depression among children and adolescents (ODCA) is a global concern. The bidirectional relationship between depression and overweight/obesity often leads to their comorbidity. Childhood and adolescence represent critical periods for physical and psychological development, during which the comorbidity of overweight/obesity and depression may increase the risk of adverse health outcomes. To evaluate the relationship between ODCA, we conduct a bibliometric analysis to aid in formulating prevention and treatment strategies. From 2004 to 2023, articles related to ODCA were selected using the Science Citation Index Expanded from the Web of Science Core Collection. Bibliometric analysis of relevant publications, including countries/regions, institutions, authors, journals, references, and keywords, was conducted using the online bibliometric analysis platforms, CiteSpace, VOSviewer, and bibliometrix. Between 2004 and 2023, a total of 1573 articles were published on ODCA. The United States has made leading contributions in this field, with Harvard University emerging as the leading contributor in terms of research output, and Tanofsky being the most prolific author. The J Adolescent Health has shown significant activity in this domain. Based on the results of the keyword and reference analyses, inequality, adverse childhood experiences, and comorbidities have become hot topics in ODCA. Moreover, the impact of balanced-related behavior and exploration of the biological mechanisms, including the potential role of key adipocytokines and lipokines, as well as inflammation in ODCA, have emerged as frontier topics. The trend of a significant increase in ODCA publications is expected to continue. The research findings will contribute to elucidating the pathogenic mechanisms of ODCA and its prevention and treatment.

GENDER STEREOTYPES AND ITS PSYCOLOGICAL IMPACT PORTRAYED IN MULAN 1998 MOVIE

Gender stereotypes are beliefs about individuals’ traits and behaviors based on gender. These preconceptions of gender stereotypes influenced society and shaped individual beliefs, attitudes, and experiences. This study examines the psychological impact of gender stereotypes towards Mulan as reflected in the Mulan (1998) movie. More specifically, this study aims to determine the psychological impact of negative stereotypes on women that are embedded in the beliefs of a patriarchal society. This research applies Erik Erikson’s developmental psychology theory to examine the psychological impact of gender stereotypes on Mulan as an adolescent girl. This study analyzed the data consisting of words, sentences, and dialogues using a qualitative approach. The data was collected through several steps, such as watching and reading the movie script, identifying, and classifying. Based on the findings of this study, Mulan’s psychological development is impacted by gender stereotypes in several aspects, including low self-esteem, future career, and social roles.

The Question of Moral Education: Reading Selected Bangla and English Folktales

Moral education is a type of education that distinguishes between right and wrong and determines human behaviour. In other words, moral education is an educational programme that focuses on moral and ethical values. The folktales' moral education aims to prepare the audience to be responsible, respectful, and resilient citizens who will contribute to the development of society, the nation, and the world at large. This study classifies moral themes and investigates their educational impact by conducting a qualitative content analysis of selected Bangala and English folktales. The study finds that each folktale incorporates some moral education, which is necessary in all aspects of human society. Folktales from the oral literary tradition play an important role in imparting moral education that includes historical, cultural, and religious ideologies and values. Folktale performances convey the moral values imbued in folktales to both children and adults. Folktale performance has been a part of human culture since time immemorial. The stories told in a pleasant ambience not only entertain, but also teach children moral lessons and values that will help them become better members of society. The folktale genre aims to educate children by instilling moral values, socialisation, behavioural changes, psychological development, and spiritual upliftment. The study concludes proving that these folktale-based lessons teach children human qualities like hard work, courage, love, sympathy, forgiveness, respect for elders, patriotism, tolerance, heroism, truthfulness, fraternity, and religiosity, among others. Furthermore, these folktale performances also highlight social vices such as pride, envy, wrath, theft, hatred, wickedness, ingratitude, injustice, disobedience, and dishonesty, which typically lead to retribution and nemesis.

An Empirical Study on the Psychological Impact of 'Internet Celebrity Culture' on Adolescents in Small Towns through Xiaohongshu

With the widespread popularity of social media, the culture of internet celebrities has significantly impacted adolescents. This study explores the psychological effects of "luxurious" lifestyle content shared by influencers on Xiaohongshu (Red) on adolescents in small towns in China. Employing both quantitative and qualitative research methods, we investigated how the portrayal of influencer content on Xiaohongshu shapes the values and life expectations of minors. The findings reveal significant differences in values, life satisfaction, and mental health among adolescents who frequently engage with such content. These insights offer a new perspective on the impact of social media content on youth psychological development and provide recommendations for parents, educators, and policymakers on guiding adolescent use of social media more effectively.

Good character: the implications of personality development and psychopathology for citizenship.

The introduction of new legislation in 2006 brought about changes to the way citizenship applications were considered in the UK. Over the intervening years, several hundred children born in the UK have been denied British citizenship as a result of changes to the 'good character' requirement in the legislation - namely its extension to cover all those aged 10 years or older applying for citizenship, including individuals who were born in the UK. As a result of the formulaic way in which this requirement is assessed, citizenship can be denied on the basis of historical patterns of behaviour or offending from childhood. This article will consider whether the current approach to assessment of character in the context of applications for British citizenship is meaningful or appropriate, given developments in our understanding of normative psychological and neurological development and also the impact of psychosocial adversity, trauma, and broader psychopathological or neurodevelopmental conditions.

SPSS vs. AMOS: A Comparative Approach to Analyzing Moderators in Behavioral Research

Many researchers face confusion in selecting appropriate software for quantitative data analysis due to the lack of comparative studies in this area (1). This study examines the moderator analysis results conducted using AMOS and SPSS software. Moderator analysis assesses the extent to which the independent variable influences the dependent variable through a moderator variable. The research utilized data from a questionnaire completed by 383 adolescents in Ahvaz, Iran. The independent variables included the impact of COVID-19, parental attachment, and peer attachment, while emotional intelligence served as the dependent variable, with online networking acting as the moderator. Analysis using SPSS indicated that online networking moderated the relationship between all independent and dependent variables. Conversely, results obtained from AMOS revealed no significant moderating effect between the independent and dependent variables. Descriptive data indicated that students experienced low internet connectivity during the COVID-19 pandemic, suggesting that online networking may have had a limited capacity to moderate these relationships. Consequently, the findings derived from AMOS are regarded as more reliable than those from SPSS. The novelty of this research lies in its comparative analysis of AMOS and SPSS, alongside its pioneering examination of moderation within developmental psychology studies using AMOS. The results underscore AMOS's superior accuracy and reliability, as demonstrated by its alignment with the descriptive data and ability to provide clearer visualizations of variable relationships. This study strongly advocates for the application of AMOS in psychological research, particularly for complex interaction effects.

“Lost in space and time”: Fathers’ experiences of preterm birth

ABSTRACT This study is a qualitative analysis of fathers’ experiences of preterm birth. Preterm birth affects about ten per cent of the families globally. It is a traumatic event, especially when the infant is very preterm. Often, parents are struggling with the experience without any psychological support. Though fathers’ role in the child’s healthy psychological development has been confirmed by recent studies, the impact of preterm birth on their paternal identity and their needs for support in this emotionally burdening situation has not been studied extensively. We analysed ten interviews using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, a method to study sensitive themes to determine the key themes as potential areas of intervention. We could find that these fathers live their lives in extended liminality, characterized by chaos and unpredictability, and are struggling with new, often unusual roles and responsibilities that may completely upset their private life – work balance. The first contact with the child is usually ambivalent and is burdened with grave concerns about the potential harms. Communication at Perinatal Intensive Care Units (PICUs), though seen as supportive, is not tailored to fathers’ competencies. Targeted intervention by trained counsellors at PICU could help the fathers overcome these traumatizing experiences.

BREADCRUMB LEGACY: THE EVERYDAY IMPACT OF OUR ACTIONS, DECISIONS, AND BEHAVIORS

AbstractThe author, professor merita at Central College, writes about her concept of breadcrumb legacy, including that our legacy is formed by our day‐to‐day actions over a long time period. She notes that in her interviews, “along with my own research and experiences working with leaders, drove home that legacy, much like leadership, is all about conscious impact, and living how you'd like to be remembered. But not in the way that you might think.” She draws on various examples, such as Robert Glazer, founder and CEO of Acceleration Partners; Sounds True founder Tami Simon; leadership adviser/authors Jim Collins, Stephen R. Covey, and Sally Helgesen; developmental psychologist Erik Erikson, psychotherapist David Richo; and authors Studs Terkel and Rob Salafia. Freed writes that a “leader’s legacy also includes how well the leader builds capacity for the organization to thrive after the leader has left. While some may call this succession planning, it is the mindset of any good steward and servant leader.” She concludes that “since leadership is a relationship, not a position or title, thinking about how we want to be remembered can positively impact all of our relationships. Call them strong skills, brave skills, or leadership superpowers–breadcrumbs.”

Solitude Without Loneliness: Understanding Loneliness in Terms of Psychological Separation

The reason why fear of loneliness is not ubiquitous is because loneliness is essentially an experience of “ego-separation.” Ego-separation exists on a continuum. While it may be extreme in some people, some people may experience little or no ego-separation, and so be less prone to loneliness. On the contrary, such people embrace and relish solitude and inactivity, with no distressing effects. I refer to Maslow’s concept of self-actualization and my own research on the state of “wakefulness.” I conclude that positive psychological development should involve a healthy relationship to solitude and inactivity.

IDENTIFICATION OF BEGINNING READING DIFFICULTIES IN CLASS II PRIMARY SCHOOL STUDENTS

This research aims to determine: 1) the difficulties faced by students in beginning reading, 2) teachers' efforts to overcome students' beginning reading difficulties, and 3) factors that cause difficulties in beginning reading. This research uses a qualitative approach with a phenomenological design. The research subjects were 14 students in class II of SD Inpres Bumi Sagu. Data was collected using observation, interviews and document study techniques. The data analysis used is data condensation, data presentation and drawing conclusions/verification. The results of this research show that the difficulties experienced by students in beginning reading are that they do not know letters, are slow in reading, students cannot yet read, letters and words are often confused, and have difficulty spelling. The factors that cause students to experience difficulty in reading at the beginning are internal factors which include the child's psychology and external factors, namely the family environment and the learning environment at school. The teacher's efforts to overcome this problem are by applying the EGRA teaching method, spelling method, sound method (phonic), syllabic method (silabel) and the method of the word institution.

Hilangnya Peran Orang Tua Terhadap Kondisi Psikologis dan Mental Anak "Studi Kasus: Emerging Adulthood"

The role of parents in a child's psychological and mental development is very important. However, in some cases, this role may be lost or reduced, which will have an impact on the child's psychological and mental state. In this context, the loss of parental roles may occur for various reasons, such as divorce, death, economic or other conditions that result in parents being unable to fulfill their roles fully. In many cases, this leads to children feeling deprived of attention, protection and affection from their parents. This study focuses on "Emerging Adulthood", the transition phase from adolescence to adulthood, where individuals undergo major changes in various aspects of their lives. This study aims to understand the impact of the loss of parental role in this phase to provide in-depth insights based on individual experiences.

Affective foundations in AI-human interactions: Insights from evolutionary continuity and interspecies communications

The imminent arrival of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) compels a reevaluation of AI-human interactions, particularly through affective communication. This research synthesizes insights from evolutionary biology, comparative psychology, and AI development, advocating for a paradigm shift beyond conventional human-like cognitive processes. It emphasizes the universal nature of affective pathways, as evidenced across various species. We introduce three affective interaction models — the Affective Threshold Model, the Dynamic Set-Point Model, and the Affective Schema Model — all of which stem from an in-depth analysis of interspecies communications. These models present a roadmap to craft AI interfaces attuned to human affective experiences, elucidating avenues of trust, intuition, and reciprocal recognition between machines and their human counterparts. By further crystallizing the concept of the “Large Affect Model”, we project a horizon where AI not only deciphers but also empathizes with human partners, paving the way for a revolutionary cooperative paradigm between AI and humanity.

Smartphone and Tablet as Digital Babysitter

Several scientific studies have highlighted the negative impact of new technologies (NTs) on children’s psychological development, both in terms of emotional and cognitive development. NTs, such as smartphones, tablets, and video games, have a significant impact on children’s development, both in terms of social relationships and cognitive functions. This study aims to identify and explore the cultural models that shape children’s exposure to new technologies in early childhood. This study involved 48 subjects between parents and infant educators. Unstructured interviews were conducted. Emotional Text Analysis was applied. The findings reveal the existence of three cultural repertoires (clusters): Connected but isolated (45.2), Technology education (30%), and Mistrust (24.8%). Their placement in the factorial space explains how the negative effects on children’s psychological development are determined. Technology education seems to be a protective factor for the cognitive and affective development of children. These findings are discussed, comparing them with Musk’s recent experiment and the rapid loss of social ties due to the lack of an educational plan.

Using Evaluation to Boost the Moral Development of Junior High School Students: Exploration of the Moral Evaluation Mechanism Based on the English Subject

Due to the transitional, closed, social, and turbulent characteristics of their psychological development, the evaluation of the moral development of junior high school students should focus on the dynamic evaluation of their daily performance and growth. This exploration of the moral evaluation mechanism for junior high school students precisely starts from this criterion, based on the characteristics of the English subject, takes “all-round education” as the cornerstone of the evaluation, uses the three dimensions of core competencies as the basis for evaluation, and adopts multiple evaluation and progressive implementation methods as the guide to conduct a diverse and objective assessment of the morality of junior high school students. With the expectation of achieving the ultimate goal of developing students’ individual specialties and promoting the comprehensive development.

Mothers with low incomes view both individual and structural interventions as potentially helpful for supporting early child development

Many developmental psychologists aspire to conduct research that informs interventions and policies to prevent income-related disparities in child development. Among growing researcher discussion about the value of interventions that target “structural” and resource-related correlates of income inequality and child development (e.g., housing, food, material goods, cash), rather than individual, person-centered correlates (e.g., parenting behaviors), the perspectives of mothers with low incomes may provide important context. 281 mothers with young children and low incomes rated various structural and individual interventions, framed as having minimal costs and entry barriers, for their perceived helpfulness. Analyses were pre-registered. Overall, mothers rated all interventions very highly, though they rated structural interventions as slightly more helpful than individual interventions. Mothers rated interventions they used in the past as less helpful than those they hadn’t previously used. An exploratory qualitative analysis revealed mothers’ desires for supports in other intervention domains beyond those addressed in our survey. Together, mothers’ responses indicated that they did not see individual interventions as inherently unhelpful due to a focus on individual states, knowledge, and skills. Implications for developmental psychology and intervention science are discussed.

The Evolution of Developmental Psychology: An Ethologist’s Insight

The Evolution of Developmental Psychology: An Ethologist’s Insight

Marriage Practice: A Comparative Analysis between Chinese and Ethiopian People

Marriage has been crucial to maintaining human reproduction, social progress, and cultural continuity. Countries have distinctive wedding traditions that reflect social life, morals, religion, values, sexual consciousness, and national psychology's development trends. The article evaluates and compares the variations between Chinese and Ethiopian wedding cultures from the perspectives of traditional values, religion, and wedding processes to understand the variances and similarities of marriage cultures in the process of cultural globalization. The approach adopted in this study is an integrative or narrative review which enables us to capture the practice of marriage culture in Ethiopian and Chinese people. The article revealed that Chinese and Ethiopian marriage practice is similar in terms of pride price, Wedding Ring, wedding banquet, wedding gift, and Wedding ceremony, but have different practice in dressing clothes color and Marriage Sense. But, the impact of cultural globalization is melting both countries’ wedding traditions into Western style.

Guidance-As-Progressive in Human Skill Training Based on Deep Reinforcement Learning

To achieve psychological inclusion and skill development orientation in human skill training, this paper proposes a haptic-guided training strategy generation method with Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL)-based agent as the core and Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) tuning as the auxiliary. The information of the expert and trainee is stored first with a designed database that can be accessed in real-time, which establishes the data foundation. Then, under the DRL framework, a strategy generation agent is designed, which consists of an actor-network and two Q-networks. The former network generates the agent’s decision policy, while the other two Q-networks work to approximate the state-action value function, and the parameters of all of them are administrated by the Soft Actor-Critic (SAC) algorithm. In addition, for the first time, the psychological ZPD evaluation method is integrated into the strategy generation of the DRL-based agent, which is utilized to describe the relationship between a trainees intrinsic skills and guidance. With it, the problem of transitional guidance or insufficient guidance can be handled well. Finally, simulation experiments validate the proposed method, demonstrating its efficiency in regulating the trainee under favorable training conditions.