Development of Primal World Beliefs.

Primal world beliefs ("primals") capture individuals' basic understanding of what sort of world this is. How do children develop beliefs about the nature of the world? Is the world a good place? Safe or dangerous? Enticing or dull? Primals were initially introduced in social and personality psychology to understand beliefs about the world as a whole that may influence well-being and personality. This article introduces the concept of primals to developmental scientists and reviews preliminary research examining how primals relate to sociodemographic and well-being indicators.

Parenting Risk and Protective Factors in the Development of Conduct Problems in Seven Countries.

This study advances the understanding of risk and protective factors in trajectories of conduct problems in adolescence in seven countries that differ widely on a number of sociodemographic factors as well as norms related to adolescent behavior. Youth- and parent-report data from 988 adolescents in seven countries (Colombia, Italy, Kenya, Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the USA) who were followed longitudinally from ages 10 to 18 (yielding 6872 total data points) were subject to latent class growth analysis. A 4-class model provided the best fit to the data: Late Starters, Alcohol Experimenters, Mid-Adolescent Starters, and Pervasive Risk Takers.

Investigating Longitudinal Trajectories of COVID-19 Disruption: Methodological Challenges and Recommendations.

Relatively few studies have longitudinally investigated how COVID-19 has disrupted the lives and health of youth beyond the first year of the pandemic. This may be because longitudinal researchers face complex challenges in figuring out how to code time, account for changes in COVID-19 spread, and model longitudinal COVID-19-related trajectories across environmental contexts. This manuscript considers each of these three methodological issues by modeling trajectories of COVID-19 disruption in 1080 youth from 12 cultural groups in nine nations between March 2020-July 2022 using multilevel modeling.

Attachment security, environmental adversity, and fast life history behavioral profiles in human adolescents.

One species-general life history (LH) principle posits that challenging childhood environments are coupled with a fast or faster LH strategy and associated behaviors, while secure and stable childhood environments foster behaviors conducive to a slow or slower LH strategy. This coupling between environments and LH strategies is based on the assumption that individuals' internal traits and states are independent of their external surroundings. In reality, individuals respond to external environmental conditions in alignment with their intrinsic vitality, encompassing both physical and mental states.