This study assesses the relation between screen time, problematic media use behaviors, and clinical concerns (internalizing and externalizing problems) and suicidal ideation and non-suicidal self-injury within race/ethnicity and sex in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study (youth aged 11 to 12; N = 10,052). Understanding behaviors around screens (problematic media use), rather than focusing on screen time alone is useful in guiding clinical recommendations. In this analysis, regression models indicated that problematic media use consistently predicted clinical concerns with a larger effect size than screen media use. When examining how problematic media use and screen media use related to clinical concerns along domains of race/ethnicity and sex, problematic media use was a more consistent predictor of clinical concerns than screen media use for almost every race/ethnicity (except American Indian/Alaska Native participants). Problematic media use was also a consistent predictor of clinical concerns for both males and females, with some difference in screen media use predictors. This study has implications for the utility of assessing screen media use in research on clinical concerns in youth, and further suggests that researchers and clinicians should consider behaviors around screens in addition to screen time itself when assessing for impact on mental health.

It is well-established that adolescents’ temperament trajectories predict future psychopathology. Less well understood is how temperament traits co-develop from adolescence to young adulthood. We characterized how youths’ trajectories of effortful control, frustration, affiliation, and shyness formed multi-trajectory groups and examined their associations with adulthood psychopathology and polygenic risk scores (PRS). Participants were drawn from a larger longitudinal cohort (N = 1412). Effortful control, frustration, affiliation, and shyness were measured four times from ages 10-23. Adulthood internalizing and externalizing problems were measured at ages 24–27. PRS for externalizing problems and major depressive disorder were calculated. Group-based multi-trajectory analyses showed that a five-group model fit best, including “high-risk” on all temperament traits, “undercontrolled” and exuberant, “low-risk” on all traits, “overcontrolled” and inhibited, and “low affiliation” groups that differed on both the levels and slopes of temperament traits over time. The undercontrolled group showed the highest, and overcontrolled the lowest, externalizing PRS scores. The high-risk group showed heightened scores on the depression PRS. We found specific linkages between the high-risk group and withdrawn/depressed symptoms and the high-risk and undercontrolled groups with externalizing problems. Findings shed light on developmental patterns of temperament in adolescence-to-adulthood and unique combinations of temperament trajectories with specific linkages to etiologic factors and psychopathology.

It is well established that childhood adversity is associated with both negative physical and mental health outcomes. Recent research posits that 1) there may be developmental periods for which the effects of adversity are most influential on brain development and 2) abuse and neglect may be associated with different developmental mechanisms linking psychopathology. This study used seven years of longitudinal data to investigate how abuse and neglect during three developmental periods (early childhood, middle childhood, and adolescence), as well as chronicity of maltreatment across these developmental periods, are associated with young adult mental health outcomes (ages 20–21), and how changes in adolescent task-based functional connectivity during cognitive control (between ages 14–15 and 18–20 years) may mediate these associations. Hypothesized mediation models were tested via structural equation modeling (SEM). Significant indirect effects indicated that chronic abuse predicted higher depressive symptoms and higher substance use through stronger dACC–insula connectivity. In contrast, significant indirect effects revealed that neglect during adolescence predicted lower substance use and lower depressive symptoms through weaker dACC–insula connectivity. These results suggest that differential patterns of connectivity changes within the salience network during cognitive control may be associated with risk and resilience for future depression and substance use in young adulthood.

Refugee youth are at high risk for trauma-related disorders – outcomes not only the result of pre-migration trauma, but consequences of diverse post-migration stressors. This study identified individual, parental, and environmental factors – some potentially modifiable – associated with trajectories of psychological risk and resilience in 291 Syrian and Iraqi refugee youth during resettlement in the U.S. Data was collected at arrival and at two follow-up visits up to 7 years post-arrival. Linear mixed modeling assessed predictors of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, and depression trajectories. Victimization trauma (i.e., assault) and lower maternal subjective social status predicted more severe PTSD (p = .046, f 2 = .07; p < .001, f 2 = .23) and anxiety (p = .008, f2 = .05; p = .002, f 2 = .11) trajectories in youth. Paternal unemployment predicted less stable PTSD (p = .009, f2 = .13) and anxiety (p < .001, f 2 = .10) trajectories. More severe depression trajectories were associated with female sex (p = .045, f 2 = .06) and death threat traumas (p = .014, f 2 = .07). Findings identified predictors of long-term risk and resilience for refugee youth, as well as potentially modifiable ecological risk factors. Victimization and death threat trauma exposure could be salient in identifying youth at high risk for trauma-related symptoms early in resettlement. Indicators of financial security were also associated with symptoms, suggesting environmental intervention targets.

Previous research has suggested bidirectional relations between depressive symptoms and both internal and external core beliefs (self-esteem and optimism, respectively) in adolescence. However, little work has examined the cultural commonality versus specificity of these developmental pathways in adolescence across diverse contexts. To address this gap, the current study traced bidirectional associations among depressive symptoms and two forms of core beliefs (self-esteem and optimism) in adolescents from 12 cultural groups in nine countries. Longitudinal data were collected from 1,090 adolescents at ages 15 and 17. Significant associations emerged between age 15 depressive symptoms and both age 17 core beliefs across all cultural groups except Sweden. No significant associations between age 15 core beliefs and age 17 depressive symptoms were found in the multigroup model. However, the pathways from core beliefs to depressive symptoms and from depressive symptoms to core beliefs did not significantly differ in strength. These findings provide cross-cultural evidence for the scar theory (depressive symptoms → core beliefs), but no clear support for the vulnerability theory (core beliefs → depressive symptoms), perhaps due to the measurement and stability of depression. These findings have implications for understanding the adolescent development of psychopathology and cognitions, such as core beliefs, across diverse cultures.

Suicide rates are increasing rapidly among Black children and adolescents, calling for novel approaches to understanding their unique risk factors. The Structural Racism and Suicide Prevention Systems Framework offers a new culturally responsive theory that structural racism is an underlying mechanism for disparities in suicide among ethnoracial marginalized youth. Thus, a deeper analysis of the intersection of racism and systems to better understand suicide risk and create more effective targeted interventions for Black youth is imperative. The current systematic review comprehensively evaluated and synthesized the empirical literature regarding the relationship between structural racism and suicide risk among Black youth. 17 studies from 3 database searches, published between 2013 and 2024 are presented. Results revealed a positive relationship between structural racism and suicidal thoughts and behaviors among Black youth. Systems that particularly facilitate the perpetration of racism toward Black youth include schools, criminal justice, and income inequality. Findings serve as a call to action to incorporate more socioecological models into suicide prevention research focused on Black youth. Understanding the depth and scope of how racism contributes to suicide risk provides key targets for prevention and intervention strategies that are specific to individuals belonging to this group at disparate risk for suicide.

Anxiety and depression symptoms and disorders are the leading child mental health problems in western societies. This systematic review evaluated how parental emotion socialization (ES) relates to children’s internalizing problems (from birth to age 18 years). Three meta-analyses, evaluating supportive (k = 50, N = 10,698), nonsupportive ES behaviors (k = 47, N = 10,970), and elaboration (k = 6, N = 867) were conducted. Supportive ES behaviors had a very small negative association with children’s internalizing problems (r = −.06), nonsupportive ES behaviors had a medium positive association with internalizing problems (r = .18), and elaboration had a small negative association with internalizing problems (r = −.11). Very few significant moderators emerged, and no differences based on parent gender were found. The results suggest that incorporating an ES framework in intervention and preventive efforts might be beneficial for children at risk of experiencing internalizing problems.

The quality of research across psychology needs improvement. Ample evidence has indicated that publication bias, specifically making publication decisions based on a study’s results, has led to a distorted literature (e.g., high rates of false positives). Registered Reports, which can now be submitted to Development and Psychopathology, are a recent publication format designed to combat publication bias and problematic research practices. The format represents a shift from a system in which publication decisions are based on the nature of the findings, to one that is based on the quality of the study conceptualization and design. In this invited Views article, we introduce the Registered Reports format to Development and Psychopathology by arguing that they can and should be used in developmental psychopathology research. We first describe what Registered Reports are and why they are useful. We then review 10 commonly expressed concerns about publishing Registered Reports – including that they are not appropriate for studies using preexisting data, that they do not allow for exploratory analyses, and that they take too long to publish – explaining why these concerns are unwarranted. We hope that this article will allay concerns about publishing Registered Reports, and that readers will submit them to Development and Psychopathology.

Despite the growing body of research on the intergenerational transmission of problem behavior, there is a need for more integrative approaches that consider the interplay between genetic and environmental factors. This study uses unique longitudinal data from TRAILS (analytic sample n = 2202), a prospective multiple-generation cohort study in the Netherlands to examine whether parents’ problem behavior (parents’ self-reported lifetime antisocial behavior and substance use, reported at mean age 40 years) predicts offspring problem behavior nearly two decades later (offspring self-reported aggression and delinquency at mean ages 29 and 32 years). In path analyses, independent and relative contributions of genetic (polygenic scores of parents and offspring) and environmental (harsh parenting) pathways were tested. Results confirm intergenerational transmission and consistently point to genetic nurture whereby genetic predisposition predicts parental problem behavior, which in turn predicts harsh parenting, which in turn predicts offspring problem behavior, all while accounting for offspring genetic predisposition, sex and family socioeconomic position. Though these findings are surprising in light of genetic contributions to behavior, they allow for tentative considerations regarding implication for practice to help reduce the continuation of problem behaviors across generations.

Individuals with childhood experience of out-of-home care (OHC) face elevated risks of criminal behavior and poor mental health compared with the majority population. Evidence on how trajectories of offending and psychiatric disorders covary among individuals with experience of OHC is needed. This study is based on a cohort of 14,608 individuals (n = 1,319 with OHC experience) born in the Stockholm metropolitan area in 1953 (49% women) from birth to age 63 (2016). Group-based multi-trajectory modeling among those with at least one offense or psychiatric disorder (40.5% of the men, 16.6% of the women) identified four co-occurring trajectories for both sexes. Multinomial regression analyses showed that adolescent OHC placement, particularly in institutions and for behavioral reasons, was linked to higher odds of early-adulthood-limited or decreasing offending and psychiatric trajectories. Most individuals recover from offending and psychiatric disorders by retirement, but placed individuals in particular remain at high risk for offending, alongside psychiatric disorders, throughout early adulthood. Early assessment and tailored attention to needs and risk levels is important when designing long-term care services to mitigate this. Research on underlying mechanisms, and on collaboration between the welfare, justice, and psychiatric care systems, can help to design effective intervention strategies and policies.

Although depression can be transmitted across generations, less is known about how this cycle can be interrupted. This study examines whether the multilevel Fast Track intervention (clinicaltrials.gov, NCT01653535) disrupts intergenerational transmission of depression. Children at high risk for aggression were randomly assigned to a 10-year control group or intervention targeting parenting and children’s intrapersonal, interpersonal, and academic skills. The original sample included 891 first-generation (G1) participants who reported on their depression and their children’s (second-generation; G2) internalizing problems. At age 34, 374 G2 participants (n = 191 intervention, n = 183 control) reported on their and their children’s (third-generation; G3) emotional difficulties. Mediated path models showed that a cascading model where higher G1 depressive symptoms influence higher G2 childhood depressive symptoms, leading to higher G2 adulthood depressive symptoms, which in turn is connected with greater G3 emotional difficulties, emerged only in the control group. The Fast Track intervention disrupted the pathways from G1 depressive symptoms to G3 emotional difficulties, from G2 childhood depressive symptoms to G2 adulthood depressive symptoms, and from G2 adulthood depressive symptoms to G3 emotional difficulties, highlighting the importance of preventive interventions in altering developmental trajectories of psychopathology.

Trust judgments involve rapidly evaluating others’ appearance and are critical in psychosocial development. Trust biases may be linked to psychopathology risk, particularly in vulnerable, adversity-affected populations, but very little is known about trust perception in refugee context. Here, we measured trust perception of Syrian refugee children (N = 324, Mage = 6.32 years) displaced in Jordan, using a validated trust task with computer-generated faces varying in perceived trustworthiness (data collection: May-August 2021). Mothers (N = 324, Mage = 32.59) reported on child and mothers’ mental health, and mother-child relationship. Child trust perception was not associated with child or mothers’ mental health, or mother-child relationship (all p > .10), but we found age-related changes in perceived trust, with older children reporting faces as less trustworthy than younger children (B = .32, p < .001). Although children’s social judgments might be associated with socio-emotional functioning in non-refugee populations, our results suggest that refugee children’s mental health does not seem to be linked to their perception of trust, and that trusting others might diminish with age in displaced, at-risk children.

The current study examined how early smartphone ownership impacts parent-child informant discrepancy of youth internalizing problems during the transition to adolescence. We used four waves of longitudinal data (Years 1–4) from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD; Baseline N = 11,878; White = 52.0%, Hispanic = 20.3%, Black = 15.0%, Asian = 2.1%, Other = 10.5%; Female = 47.8%). Across the full sample, significant parent-child informant discrepancy, such that parents underestimated child reports, appeared at Year 2 (Mage = 12.0) and increased across the remainder of the study (b = −0.21, SE = .042, p < .001, 95%CI [−.29, −.23]). Further, multi-group models indicated that significant parent-child informant discrepancy emerged in the years following initial smartphone acquisition, whereas youth who remained non smartphone owners did not demonstrate such a pattern. Moreover, this discrepancy grew with additional years of smartphone ownership. This study contributes to the ongoing discourse on adolescent smartphone use and mental health by documenting a novel, longitudinally observed risk to timely parental detection of mental health problems by early smartphone ownership.

Cross-sectional and longitudinal evidence indicates that the error-related negativity (ERN) increases across adolescence. However, there are no longitudinal studies of ERN development which traverse all of adolescence. In addition, anxiety (e.g., generalized and social anxiety) and depression have been associated with a larger and smaller ERN, respectively, but it is unknown whether childhood psychopathology is associated with adolescent development of the ERN. In the present study, 317 8 to 14-year-old girls completed a flanker task at baseline and approximately 2-year and 5-year follow-ups. Multilevel growth modeling was used to examine ERN trajectory across adolescence and test whether self-reported childhood generalized anxiety, social anxiety, and depression symptoms at baseline predicted ERN trajectory. On average, the ERN demonstrated a linear increase from late childhood to early adulthood. Additionally, participants with high baseline anxiety (generalized anxiety, social anxiety) and low depression symptoms had the steepest ERN trajectory across adolescence. The present study provides longitudinal support for an increase in the ERN spanning adolescence and demonstrates that childhood psychopathology is associated with error-related neural development into early adulthood.

Imaging genetics is an interdisciplinary field that integrates neuroimaging and genetic data to improve behavioral prediction and investigate the genetic bases of brain structure and function. It aims to identify associations between genetic markers and brain imaging phenotypes, with a behavioral or clinical trait as the outcome of interest. Since its emergence nearly 30 years ago, the field has advanced substantially, fueled by rapid developments in molecular-genetic and neuroimaging techniques. These advances have opened new avenues for exploring individual differences in cognitive and socio-emotional development and their links to neurodevelopmental disorders. This systematic review examined studies published between 2020 and 2024, focusing on developmental psychopathology. We screened 769 articles from PubMed/MEDLINE and PsycINFO and selected 42 publications that met specific inclusion criteria for review. The studies were categorized into three groups based on the developmental ages in which conditions typically develop: birth/early childhood, late childhood or early adolescence, and late adolescence. Although the field has seen considerable progress, multiple challenges in data acquisition, analysis, and interpretation remain. Larger sample sizes and novel analytical techniques are crucial for the continued advancement of imaging genetics, with animal studies offering potential complementary insights.

Research shows that parenting plays an important role in the development of callous-unemotional (CU) traits in children. Yet, the specific aspects of positive parenting that may offer the strongest protection against the development of CU traits, as well as the potential role of child attachment to parent in this protection, remain poorly understood. This longitudinal multi-informant study aimed to investigate the mediating role of early mother–child attachment security in the prospective associations between three aspects of maternal sensitivity (positivity, attunement, availability) and subsequent CU traits in children. Maternal sensitivity and mother–child attachment security were observed in the home when children were 12 and 15 months old respectively. Child CU traits were reported by mothers, fathers, and teachers at age 4 years. Analyses revealed that maternal attunement was linked to lower levels of CU traits indirectly through the mediating role of attachment security. There was also a direct, non-mediated negative association between maternal availability and CU traits. Consistent with the notion of equifinality, these findings suggest that different aspects of parenting may be linked to child CU traits via distinct mechanisms, with some but not all of those mechanisms involving parent–child attachment.

Emotional symptoms are common in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and are often associated with long-term adverse outcomes. However, little is known about how emotional symptoms develop from middle childhood to early adolescence in individuals with ADHD, including how they differ between boys and girls. This study investigated the trajectories of emotional symptoms in children with ADHD during this transition period and compared to neurotypical peers, using longitudinal data from the UK Millennium Cohort Study, while also examining potential sex differences. Latent growth curve modeling was employed to model emotional symptoms at ages 7, 11, and 14. Children with ADHD had significantly higher levels of emotional symptoms than neurotypical peers across all three waves, with levels remaining stable over time. Boys and girls with ADHD did not differ in their emotional symptoms levels at any wave. Girls with ADHD however did show a significant increase in emotional symptoms over time, whilst boys’ levels remained relatively stable over the same period. These findings highlight the importance of early screening for emotional symptoms in children with early-diagnosed ADHD, with particular attention to the increasing levels of emotional symptoms in girls as they transition into adolescence.

Anhedonia is a common and impairing symptom of psychopathology that predicts negative outcomes and may undermine peer relationships. Anhedonia comprises both trait (stable, time-invariant) and state (dynamic, time-varying) components. Relative to trait anhedonia, state anhedonia may be more strongly related to proximal risk for deleterious outcomes. Yet, associations between state anhedonia and daily-life socio-affective experiences in adolescence are not well understood. Thus, the present study used ecological momentary assessment (EMA) to examine within-person associations between state anhedonia and the quantity and quality of daily-life peer interactions among a sample of adolescents enriched for suicidality risk, a population at high risk for anhedonic and peer problems. Participants included 102 adolescents assigned female at birth (ages 12–18; M[SD] = 15.34[1.50]; 67.6% at elevated risk for suicidality). State anhedonia, as well as being with peers, connectedness with peers, and positive affect with peers, was measured three times per day for 10 days via EMA (n = 30 prompts). Multilevel models demonstrated that within-person fluctuations in state anhedonia relate to reduced odds of being with peers, as well as decreased connectedness and positive affect with peers. Findings suggest that dynamic changes in state anhedonia are related to both the quantity and quality of peer experiences among adolescents.

Parent attributions about their child significantly impact parenting behavior. The present study investigates parent attributions in the context of Parent–Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) in child-welfare involved families. PCIT has two treatment phases, the first of which focuses on fostering a warm parent–child relationship and the second of which provides parents a positive discipline framework. This study characterizes individual differences in stability and change in parent attributions over the course of the intervention. It explores the impact of family treatment dosage on parent attributions as well as the impact of parent attributions on positive parenting skills outcomes. In a sample of 149 families involved with the child-welfare system (children aged 3–7, 59% nonwhite, 11% Hispanic, 50% female), multinomial logistic regression analyses and ANCOVAs were used. Results showed that engaging in additional treatment sessions increased the odds of parent attributions about their child increasing in warmth. Additionally, parents whose positive attributions of their child increased over time used more positive parenting behaviors in a cleanup task at posttreatment. These findings demonstrate that parent attributions about their child play an important role in behavioral parent training interventions. Future research should investigate how to leverage parent attributions to improve family treatment outcomes.

This study examines how infant temperament, particularly fear, influences physiological improvements in infants following maternal postpartum depression (PPD) treatment. Forty infants of birthing parents with major depressive disorder and 40 healthy controls were recruited. Parents with PPD participated in a nine-week cognitive-behavioral therapy intervention. Infant emotion regulation was assessed using high-frequency heart-rate variability (HF-HRV) and frontal alpha asymmetry (FAA) at baseline (T1), immediately post-treatment (T2), and three months later (T3). Birthing parents also reported on their infant’s temperamental fear using the Infant Behavior Questionnaire-Revised Short-Form at these times. A significant increase in HF-HRV was observed immediately after treatment in the PPD group which persisted at T3. While no Group × Visit × Fear interaction emerged from repeated measure models, follow-up regression analyses within the PPD group revealed that higher baseline fear was associated with smaller increases in HF-HRV from T1 to T2 or T3. Although FAA shifted leftward over time, fear did not significantly predict FAA changes. No associations between fear and physiology were observed in the control group. The study suggests that infant fear may reduce the physiological benefits of maternal PPD treatment for infants, underscoring the importance of considering infant characteristics when assessing the impact of maternal PPD interventions.