Peer victimization and depressive symptoms are highly relevant risks during adolescence. Understanding the dynamic patterns of interactions between peer victimization and depressive symptoms as well as gender differences in these variables can improve intervention strategies for adolescents navigating this critical transition period. In the present study, a large sample of Chinese adolescents reported peer victimization and depressive symptoms in four survey waves at six-month intervals. A total of 2534 adolescents (51.9% boys, M = 12.98 ± 0.60 years) were included in the latent change score (LCS) analysis. The results supported the reciprocal effects model obtained in the full sample. Changes in peer victimization were influenced by prior changes in depressive symptoms over time, and changes in depressive symptoms were influenced by prior levels of peer victimization. There were also gender differences, with boys exhibiting depressive symptom-driven effects on peer victimization, while girls exhibiting peer victimization-induced depressive symptoms. The dynamic relationships between peer victimization and depressive symptoms that promote and constrain each other in adolescents are elucidated in this study. Differentiating effects on boys and girls is crucial for enhancing the effectiveness of practical interventions.

Although multiple domains of risk are theorized to predict adolescent delinquency, father-specific risk in the context of other risks is under-researched. Using the low-income Future of Families and Child Wellbeing cohort (48% Black, 27% Hispanic, 21% White, 51% boy, N = 4,255), the current study addressed three research questions. (1) are father-, mother-, child-, and family-level cumulative risk during early childhood associated with adolescent delinquent behavior?, (2) does child self-control in middle childhood mediate the associations between fathers’ and mothers’ cumulative risk and adolescent delinquent behavior, and do quality of parent’s relationships with children and parental monitoring in middle childhood mediate the association between child cumulative risk and delinquent behavior?, (3) do parenting, quality of parent-child relationships in middle childhood, and child sex at birth moderate the associations among fathers’, mothers’, children’s, and family risk and adolescent delinquent behavior? Results indicated father, child, and mother risk at ages 3–5 were significantly and positively associated with youth-reported delinquent behavior. Higher levels of family risk were associated with less delinquency when 9-year-olds felt closer to fathers than when they felt less close. Children’s self-control at age 9 mediated the associations between father and child risk and delinquent behavior.

Greater maternal depressive symptoms are consistently associated with higher levels of behavioral difficulties in children, emerging in early childhood and with long-lasting consequences for children’s development. Interventions promoting early relational health have been shown to have benefits for children’s behavior; however, these impacts are not always realized in the context of maternal depression. This study examined whether tiered programs could address this limitation by focusing on both parenting, through universal primary prevention, and psychosocial stressors and parent mental health, through tailored secondary prevention. Analysis of a randomized controlled trial (RCT) of the Smart Beginnings (SB) intervention was conducted to determine whether SB attenuated the association between maternal depression and early childhood internalizing and externalizing behaviors. Maternal depression significantly predicted both internalizing and externalizing behaviors in linear regression models. Further, there was a significant interaction between maternal depression and treatment group, such that among mothers with higher depressive symptoms, the SB treatment attenuated the magnitude of the association between depression and child behavior. Findings suggest that while parenting support is important for all families, it may be particularly critical for those with higher levels of depression and underscores the need to consider multidimensional family processes in both research and clinical practice.

Longitudinal studies exploring the role of early personality vulnerabilities as risk factors for later NSSI dynamics are scarce. In this study, we assess how pre-adolescent borderline personality pathology (BPP) traits (assessed at mean age 12.78; SDage = 1.38, age range = 7.17–14.78) shape dynamic links between daily socio-emotional dysregulation and NSSI thoughts during emerging adulthood (Mage = 20.96, SDage = 1.63). Mothers of 131 children completed questionnaires about their child’s BPP traits in pre-adolescence. These children were re-assessed eight years later and were asked to complete a daily diary for 14 consecutive days. During these 14 days, behavioral and emotional dysregulation as well as NSSI thoughts were self-reported. Multilevel structural equation modeling was used (1) to examine dynamic links between socio-emotional dysregulation manifestations and NSSI thoughts in early adulthood, and (2) to explore the role of pre-adolescent BPP traits in moderating these early-adult dynamic associations. Our findings suggest that young adults who were described by their mothers as high on BPP traits (especially anxious and paranoid traits) during pre-adolescence, tended to respond more with NSSI thoughts when experiencing dysregulation or when perceiving others as rejecting in young adulthood. Results are discussed in terms of potential targets for indicated prevention of NSSI development.

Self-concept becomes reliant on social comparison, potentially leading to excessive self-focused attention, persistently negative self-concept and increased risk for depression during early adolescence. Studies have implicated neural activation in cortical midline brain structures in self-related information processing, yet it remains unclear how this activation may underlie subjective self-concept and links to depression in adolescence. We examined these associations by assessing neural activity during negative vs. positive self-referential processing in 39 11-to-13-year-old girls. During a functional neuroimaging task, girls reported on their perceptions of self-concept by rating how true they believed positive and negative personality traits were about them. Girls reported on depressive symptoms at the scan and 6 months later. Activation in the dorsomedial and ventrolateral prefrontal cortexes (dMPFC; VLPFC), and visual association area was significantly associated with subjective self-concept and/or depressive symptoms at the scan or 6 months later. Exploratory models showed higher activation in the dMPFC to Self-negative > Self-positive was indirectly associated with concurrent depressive symptoms through more negative self-concept. Higher activation in the visual association area to Self-positive > Self-negative was associated with lower depressive symptoms at follow-up through more positive self-concept. Findings highlight how differential neural processing of negative versus positive self-relevant information maps onto perceptions of self-concept and adolescent depression.

Meta-analyses demonstrate that the quality of early attachment is modestly associated with peer social competence (r = .19) and externalizing behavior (r = −.15), but weakly associated with internalizing symptoms (r = −.07) across early development (Groh et al., Child Development Perspectives, 11(1), 70–76, 2017). Nonetheless, these reviews suffer from limitations that undermine confidence in reported estimates, including evidence for publication bias and the lack of comprehensive assessments of outcome measures from longitudinal studies in the literature. Moreover, theoretical claims regarding the specificity of the predictive significance of early attachment variation for socioemotional versus academic outcomes had not been evaluated when the analyses for this report were registered (but see Dagan et al., Child Development, 1–20, 2023; Deneault et al., Developmental Review, 70, 101093, 2023). To address these limitations, we conducted a set of registered analyses to evaluate the predictive validity of infant attachment in two landmark studies of the Strange Situation: the Minnesota Longitudinal Study of Risk and Adaptation (MLSRA) and the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (SECCYD). Across-time composite assessments reflecting teacher report, mother report, and self-reports of each outcome measure were created. Bivariate associations between infant attachment security and socioemotional outcomes in the MLSRA were comparable to, or slightly weaker than, those reported in the recent meta-analyses, whereas those in the SECCYD were weaker for these outcomes. Controlling for four demographic covariates, partial correlation coefficients between infant attachment and all socioemotional outcomes were r ≤ .10 to .15 in both samples. Compositing Strange Situations at ages 12 and 18 months did not substantively alter the predictive validity of the measure in the MLSRA, though a composite measure of three different early attachment measures in the SECCYD did increase predictive validity coefficients. Associations between infant attachment security and academic skills were unexpectedly comparable to (SECCYD) or larger than (MLSRA) those observed with respect to socioemotional outcomes.

Research has suggested that childhood-onset conduct problems (CPs) are more strongly related to individual predispositions, whereas adolescent-onset CP is more strongly associated with social factors, such as peer delinquency. Neighborhood disadvantage (ND) increases the risk for associating with deviant peers. Thus, peer delinquency could mediate the relationship between ND and adolescent-onset CP. This mediational hypothesis has not been tested previously. We tested this hypothesis in 1,127 justice-involved adolescent males using self-reported delinquency and official arrest records over 3 years after the youth’s first arrest as outcomes. Predictors were self-reported and census-derived indicators of ND and self-reported peer delinquency. Age of onset moderated the associations between self-reported ND and arrests and between self-report of peer delinquency and arrests. In both cases, the association was stronger for those with adolescent-onset CP. Peer delinquency mediated all relationships between ND and CP. Our results also showed some unexpected differences in associations depending on whether self-reported ND or census-derived indicators were used as predictors. Specifically, census-derived ND was negatively related to self-reported offending, which could be due to the use of an arrested sample and the need for youth in more advantaged neighborhoods to show a more severe pattern of antisocial behavior to be arrested.

Childhood maltreatment is associated with wide-ranging psychopathology at all stages of life. In the current study, we investigated whether posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) severity mediated the association between childhood maltreatment and internalizing and externalizing disorders among 262 South African trauma-exposed adolescents (aged 12–18 years). Childhood maltreatment and PTSD symptom severity were assessed using the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire and the Child PTSD Checklist, respectively. Psychiatric disorders were assessed utilizing the Kiddie-Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia-Present and Lifetime version and were grouped into internalizing or externalizing disorders. Hierarchal logistic regression was used to assess the association of childhood maltreatment subtype with internalizing and externalizing disorders, controlling for age and gender, with PTSD symptom severity added to the final model. We found that sexual abuse was significantly associated with internalizing disorders, although this effect was no longer significant when PTSD was added to the model demonstrating that PTSD mediated the association between sexual abuse and internalizing disorders. Physical abuse, but not PTSD, was associated with externalizing disorders. Physical abuse, emotional neglect, and PTSD were associated with comorbid internalizing and externalizing disorders. These findings have implications for intervention and prevention strategies targeted at trauma-exposed adolescents with a history of childhood maltreatment.

Childhood maltreatment and mental health problems are common among young people placed out-of-home. However, evidence on the impact of maltreatment on the course of mental health problems in at-risk populations is sparse. The aim of this longitudinal study is twofold: (a) describe the course of mental health problems and the shift in symptom patterns among adolescents in youth residential care into young adulthood and (b) assess how childhood maltreatment is related to the course of mental health problems. One hundred and sixty-six adolescents in Swiss youth residential care were followed up into young adulthood (36.1% women; MAge-Baseline = 16.1 years; MAge-Follow-Up = 26.4 years). Latent transition analysis was employed to analyze transitions of symptom patterns and their association with maltreatment exposure. We found three latent classes of mental health problems: a “multiproblem”-class (51.8% baseline; 33.7% follow-up), a “low symptom”-class (39.2% baseline; 60.2% follow-up), and an “externalizing”-class (9.0% baseline; 6.0% follow-up). Individuals in the “multiproblem”-class were likely to transition towards less-complex symptom patterns. Higher severity of self-reported childhood maltreatment was associated with more complex and persistent mental health problems. Our study underlines the need for collaboration between residential and psychiatric care systems within and after care placements, with a specialized focus on trauma-informed interventions and care.

The finding that victims’ psychological problems tend to be exacerbated in lower-victimization classrooms has been referred to as the “healthy context paradox.” The current study has put the healthy context paradox to a strict test by examining whether classroom-level victimization moderates bidirectional within- and between-person associations between victimization and psychological adjustment. Across one school year, 3,470 Finnish 4th to 9th graders (Mage = 13.16, 46.1% boys) reported their victimization, depressive symptoms, anxiety, and self-esteem. Three types of multilevel models (cross-lagged panel, latent change score, and random-intercept cross-lagged panel) were estimated for each indicator of psychological adjustment. Findings indicated that the healthy context paradox emerges because classroom-level victimization moderates the prospective effect of victimization on psychological problems, rather than the effect of psychological problems on victimization. In classrooms with lower victimization, victims not only experience worse psychological maladjustment over time compared to others (between-person changes), but also higher maladjustment than before (absolute within-person changes).

Sensory differences and anxiety disorders are highly prevalent in autistic individuals with and without ADHD. Studies have shown that sensory differences and anxiety are associated and that intolerance of uncertainty (IU) plays an important role in this relationship. However, it is unclear as to how different levels of the sensory processing pathway (i.e., perceptual, affective, or behavioral) contribute. Here, we used psychophysics to assess how alterations in tactile perception contribute to questionnaire measures of sensory reactivity, IU, and anxiety. Thirty-eight autistic children (aged 8-12 years; 27 with co-occurring ADHD) were included. Consistent with previous findings, mediation analyses showed that child-reported IU fully mediated an association between parent-reported sensory reactivity and parent-reported anxiety and that anxiety partially mediated an association between sensory reactivity and IU. Of the vibrotactile thresholds, only simultaneous frequency discrimination (SFD) thresholds correlated with sensory reactivity. Interestingly, we found that sensory reactivity fully mediated an association between SFD threshold and anxiety, and between SFD threshold and IU. Taken together, those findings suggest a mechanistic pathway whereby tactile perceptual alterations contribute to sensory reactivity at the affective level, leading in turn to increased IU and anxiety. This stepwise association can inform potential interventions for IU and anxiety in autism.

Adolescents often experience heightened socioemotional sensitivity warranting their use of regulatory strategies. Yet, little is known about how key socializing agents help regulate teens’ negative emotions in daily life and implications for long-term adjustment. We examined adolescent girls’ interpersonal emotion regulation (IER) with parents and peers in response to negative social interactions, defined as parent and peer involvement in the teen’s enactment of emotion regulation strategies. We also tested associations between rates of daily parental and peer IER and depressive symptoms, concurrently and one year later. Adolescent girls (N = 112; Mage = 12.39) at temperamental risk for depressive disorders completed a 16-day ecological momentary assessment protocol measuring reactivity to negative social interactions, parental and peer IER, and current negative affect. Results indicated that adolescents used more adaptive strategies with peers and more maladaptive strategies with parents in daily life. Both parental and peer IER down-regulated negative affect, reflected by girls’ decreased likelihood of experiencing continued negative affect. Higher proportions of parental adaptive IER predicted reduced depressive symptoms one year later. Findings suggest that both parents and peers effectively help adolescent girls down-regulate everyday negative emotions; however, parents may offer more enduring benefits for long-term adjustment.

Parental depression is a risk factor for children’s cognitive and psychological development. Literature has found reciprocal relations between parental depression and child psychopathology and effects of parental depression on children’s cognition. The present study is the first to examine reciprocity among parental depression and child cognition, and pathways to child psychopathology. Structural equation models were conducted using data from the Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Project, a nationally representative sample of 3,001 economically marginalized families. Measures were collected in four waves from 14 months to 10–11 years. Reciprocal associations emerged between maternal and paternal depression at from 14 months to 5 years. Reciprocal parental depression was associated with greater psychopathology at age 10–11. Maternal depression predicted poorer child cognition, which indirectly predicted increased depression in mothers of children aged 3–5 through paternal depression, and in fathers at age 3, through earlier paternal depression. This study was unable to parse within- and between-person effects. Additionally, data for paternal depression was limited to ages 2 and 3. Findings emphasize the transactional nature of child cognition and child and parent psychopathology, supporting family focused intervention and prevention efforts that target parent psychopathology and child cognition.

Cognitive impairment has been identified as an important aspect of major depressive disorder (MDD). We tested two theories regarding the association between MDD and cognitive functioning using data from longitudinal cohort studies. One theory, the cognitive reserve hypothesis, suggests that higher cognitive ability in childhood decreases risk of later MDD. The second, the scarring hypothesis, instead suggests that MDD leads to persistent cognitive deficits following disorder onset. We tested both theories in the Dunedin Study, a population-representative cohort followed from birth to midlife and assessed repeatedly for both cognitive functioning and psychopathology. We also used data from the Environmental Risk Longitudinal Twin Study to test whether childhood cognitive functioning predicts future MDD risk independent of family-wide and genetic risk using a discordant twin design. Contrary to both hypotheses, we found that childhood cognitive functioning did not predict future risk of MDD, nor did study members with a past history of MDD show evidence of greater cognitive decline unless MDD was accompanied by other comorbid psychiatric conditions. Our results thus suggest that low cognitive functioning is related to comorbidity, but is neither an antecedent nor an enduring consequence of MDD. Future research may benefit from considering cognitive deficits that occur during depressive episodes from a transdiagnostic perspective.

Comorbidity of internalizing and externalizing problems and its risk and protective factors have not been well incorporated into developmental research, especially among racial minority youth from high-poverty neighborhoods. The present study identified a latent comorbid factor as well as specific factors underlying internalizing and externalizing problems among 592 African American adolescents living in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods (291 male; M age = 15.9 years, SD = 1.43 years). Stressful life events and racial discrimination were associated with higher comorbid problems, whereas stressful life events and exposure to violence were associated with higher specific externalizing problems. Collective efficacy was associated with both lower specific externalizing problems and lower comorbid problems. Moreover, high collective efficacy buffered the risk effects of stressful life events and racial discrimination on comorbid problems. Our results demonstrated the advantages of latent variable modeling to understanding comorbidity by articulating impacts of risk factors on comorbid and specific components underlying internalizing and externalizing problems. They also highlighted the protective effect of collective efficacy in mitigating risks for these problems. Broadly, these findings call for more studies on comorbidities in developmental psychopathology among youth from diverse sociocultural backgrounds.