{"title":"Exploring the links between gender-(a)typical career aspirations and educational choices: Heterogeneous developmental pathways.","authors":"Jeffrey M DeVries, Fani Lauermann","doi":"10.1037/dev0002015","DOIUrl":"10.1037/dev0002015","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Developmental psychologists often focus on specific male- or female-dominated job categories (e.g., sciences, technology, engineering, and mathematics or math-intensive jobs) to understand the causes of persistent gender-typical educational and career choices. However, the proportion of men and women can vary substantially within the same category (e.g., biology vs. physics). Accordingly, this study examined heterogeneous developmental trajectories of adolescents' career preferences using data from a representative sample of German academic-track 9th-12th-grade students (<i>N</i> = 4,759, 56% female). We linked adolescents' career preferences with census data on the proportion of women in each preferred occupation. Fifty-two percent of the participants aspired to a gender-segregated career by 12th grade. Growth mixture analyses revealed five distinct developmental patterns: stable preferences for <i>male-dominated</i> (21%, <i>n</i> = 920), <i>female-dominated</i> (22%, <i>n</i> = 983), or <i>gender-neutral</i> careers (48%, <i>n</i> = 2,276), and shifts from <i>male-to-female-dominated</i> (6%, <i>n</i> = 280) or <i>neutral-to-male-dominated</i> (6%, <i>n</i> = 300) career aspirations. These patterns predicted differences in mean level and growth of subject-specific academic beliefs, the gender ratios of subsequent choices of advanced math or language arts classes, and more gender-typical university majors. Aspiring to <i>male-dominated</i> careers related to positive academic development in the math domain; aspiring to <i>female-dominated</i> careers related to positive development in the verbal domain. Boys aspiring to <i>neutral or female-dominated</i> careers experienced more positive development in the verbal domain than girls. Highly performing girls in math tended to change to <i>male-dominated</i> careers later in school, but highly performing boys in math were on a <i>stable-male</i> trajectory throughout high school. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":48464,"journal":{"name":"Developmental Psychology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2025-07-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144709482","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"From spatial construction to mathematics: Exploring the mediating role of visuospatial working memory.","authors":"Yuxin Zhang, Rebecca Bull, Emma C Burns","doi":"10.1037/dev0002035","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0002035","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This study examined the longitudinal pathways from early spatial skills at 5 and 7 years to their mathematics reasoning abilities at 17 years in a large cohort sample (<i>N</i> = 16,338) from the Millennium Cohort Study. Children were assessed at four time points: Sweep 3 (<i>M</i><sub>age</sub> = 5.29), Sweep 4 (<i>M</i><sub>age</sub> = 7.23), Sweep 5 (<i>M</i><sub>age</sub> = 11.17), and Sweep 7 (<i>M</i><sub>age</sub> = 17.18), with measures including spatial construction skills, visuospatial working memory, mathematics achievement, and mathematics reasoning skills. Path analyses revealed that spatial construction at age 5 directly predicted mathematics achievement at age 7 after accounting for sex, age, socioeconomic status, vocabulary, and nonverbal reasoning ability. Furthermore, spatial construction at 5 and 7 years was directly associated with mathematics reasoning skills at 17, and spatial working memory at age 11 partially mediated this relationship. Notably, the direct effects of spatial construction on mathematics reasoning at age 17 remained significant and robust after accounting for the mediator and covariates. These findings highlight the potential value of early spatial construction skills as predictors of subsequent mathematical development over the long term. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":48464,"journal":{"name":"Developmental Psychology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2025-07-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144676203","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Mother-child reminiscing of emotional events during the pandemic: The role of changing family relationships and maternal prepandemic depression.","authors":"Xin Feng, Yihui Gong, Meingold Hiu-Ming Chan, Karis Inboden, Qi Wang","doi":"10.1037/dev0002036","DOIUrl":"10.1037/dev0002036","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This study examined the role of pandemic-induced changes in family relationships and maternal prepandemic depression in mother-child reminiscing during the pandemic and how this reminiscing in turn related to child outcomes. Mother-preschooler dyads (N = 69) were recruited from a larger longitudinal study, with 45% of mothers having a history of major depressive disorder before the pandemic. The dyads discussed the most positive and negative events (nominated by the mother) that the child experienced during the lockdown period. Mothers' emotion-related utterances were coded for emotion coaching and narrative style. Mothers also reported changing family relationships (family togetherness, household disagreements) during the pandemic prior to the reminiscing task. A principal component analysis on maternal emotion coaching and narrative style revealed two factors: <i>interactive</i> and <i>explanatory</i> emotion talk. Regression analyses indicated an interaction between maternal prepandemic depression and household disagreement (i.e., household disagreement was associated with less interactive emotion talk only for mothers with major depressive disorder) and a positive effect of family togetherness in predicting mothers' interactive emotion talk. Further, maternal interactive emotion talk predicted child decreased internalizing symptoms and explanatory emotion talk predicted improved autobiographical memory retrieval. These results underscore the importance of family emotional reminiscing in children's well-being during stressful times. Our findings offer insights for interventions aimed at promoting positive outcomes for children facing adversity. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":48464,"journal":{"name":"Developmental Psychology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2025-07-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12330948/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144676204","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Children's reasoning about possible outcomes of events in the present and the future.","authors":"Esra Nur Turan-Küçük, Melissa M Kibbe","doi":"10.1037/dev0002028","DOIUrl":"10.1037/dev0002028","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>When making decisions, we often must consider multiple alternative outcomes of events that will happen in the future, or of events that have already happened but the outcome is unknown. How do children navigate uncertainty across different points in time? Here, we tested several developmental hypotheses for children's ability to reason about possibilities in the present and in the future. In two experiments (<i>n</i> = 192, U.S. 3- and 4-year-olds), children were asked to prepare for two mutually exclusive possible outcomes of an event that either will occur in the future (Future condition) or had already occurred but the outcome was currently unknown (Present condition). In Experiment 1 (<i>n</i> = 96), children were asked to reason about the possible location of an object in an event. In Experiment 2 (<i>n</i> = 96), children were asked to reason about the possible identity of an object in an event. In both experiments, we replicated previous patterns of success with future possibility reasoning, and found no differences in children's ability to reason about possible outcomes in the present versus the future. Our results suggest that the ability to navigate uncertainty across different time points may emerge together in early development. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":48464,"journal":{"name":"Developmental Psychology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2025-07-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144676202","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Julia Marshall, Charles Duren Horsey, Chang Amy Lu, Katherine McAuliffe
{"title":"Older children's third-party punishment decisions are more sensitive to severity than younger children's.","authors":"Julia Marshall, Charles Duren Horsey, Chang Amy Lu, Katherine McAuliffe","doi":"10.1037/dev0002020","DOIUrl":"10.1037/dev0002020","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Maintaining cooperation requires responding to wrongdoing by, for example, punishing transgressors. However, we do not respond to all transgressions similarly: as adults, we are more likely to pursue the punishment of certain transgressions compared to others. This study (<i>N</i> = 213) looked at how presenting different transgressions may shape the developmental trajectory of third-party punishment behavior in children. Specifically, we tested whether children would be more likely to punish property destruction and theft compared to unfairness at earlier ages and, if so, whether this difference is related to perceptions of severity. We presented children with three transgression types (unfairness, property destruction, and theft). We then measured children's severity ratings and costly third-party punishment behavior. Both younger and older children rated property destruction and theft as worse than unfairness. Despite this, neither older nor younger children punished one kind of transgression more than another, suggesting that children's third-party punishment behavior is not especially sensitive to transgression type. However, exploratory analyses revealed that, independent of transgression type, older children were particularly inclined to punish what they perceived as worse actions compared to younger children, who largely did not punish at all. These results suggest that older children's third-party punishment decisions show signatures of being more sensitive to severity than younger children's. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":48464,"journal":{"name":"Developmental Psychology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2025-07-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144650918","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A handy tool: Using fingers as a numerical representation specifically benefits lower performers in kindergarten mathematics.","authors":"Gabriela Kovarsky Rotta, Eliza L Congdon","doi":"10.1037/dev0002032","DOIUrl":"10.1037/dev0002032","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Early math difficulties can stem from children's failure to link nonsymbolic and symbolic representations of number. Well-designed math games have been consistently shown to help children make this link (Balladares et al., 2024), but research using fingers as numerical representations is more mixed (e.g., Moeller et al., 2011). In the present study, 95 kindergarteners (5-7 years old; estimated demographics based on publicly available data: 81% White; 7% Hispanic/Latinx; 2% Black; 1% Asian/Pacific Islander; 9% multiracial) participated in a 2-week intervention that targeted quantitative skills through one of three approaches to math games: finger-based games, manipulative-based games, or a combination of fingers and manipulatives. There was also a nonmath control group. Across all math-based conditions, children improved significantly from pretest to posttest in measures of early numeracy. This pattern of improvement was moderated by children's initial performance; children performing at or above grade level at pretest derived the most benefit from the manipulative-based games and combined conditions, while their peers who began the study below grade-level performance saw the largest improvements in the finger-based condition. The findings add nuance to a growing literature that seeks to understand the benefits of finger-based activities or numerical games on quantitative skills in 5- to 7-year olds. We underscore the practical and theoretical importance of considering student's baseline understanding of number and argue that fingers are an especially appropriate tool for children who are at the beginning of their numeracy journey, perhaps because they embody the connection between symbolic and nonsymbolic number in a single, pared-down representation. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":48464,"journal":{"name":"Developmental Psychology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2025-07-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144650917","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
V Paul Poteat, Abigail Richburg, Jack Day, Emily K Finch, Jerel P Calzo, Robert A Marx, Arthur Lipkin, Hirokazu Yoshikawa
{"title":"LGBTQ+ advocacy and inclusive school policies are associated with self-worth among youth in gender-sexuality alliances over the school year.","authors":"V Paul Poteat, Abigail Richburg, Jack Day, Emily K Finch, Jerel P Calzo, Robert A Marx, Arthur Lipkin, Hirokazu Yoshikawa","doi":"10.1037/dev0002024","DOIUrl":"10.1037/dev0002024","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Inclusive school policies and youth advocacy could promote well-being and positive development among youth of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities. Utilizing three waves of data over a 6-month period, we tested a three-level multilevel model on the extent to which youth's advocacy in gender-sexuality alliances (GSAs; school clubs affirming youth identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning or with other expansive sexual orientations or gender identities [LGBTQ+]) and attending schools that more thoroughly implemented LGBTQ+ inclusive policies and practices were associated with youth's self-worth. Participants were 627 youth (87% LGBQ+ youth, 45% transgender or nonbinary youth, 48% youth of color, <i>M</i><sub>age</sub> = 15.13) in 51 GSAs. Youth who reported greater involvement in advocacy over the 6-month period reported greater self-worth than others. There was also a contextual effect at the GSA level: Youth in GSAs whose members collectively reported greater advocacy reported even greater self-worth, beyond what was associated with a youth's own advocacy. Furthermore, GSA members in schools that more thoroughly implemented LGBTQ+ inclusive policies and practices reported greater self-worth over the study period. The findings highlight the importance of youth and school efforts to affirm the dignity and worth of LGBTQ+ young people. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":48464,"journal":{"name":"Developmental Psychology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2025-07-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144638458","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Devon N Gangi, Ana-Maria Iosif, Shyeena Maqbool, Monique M Hill, Chandni Parikh, Gregory S Young, Sally Ozonoff
{"title":"Continuity in social communication development among school-aged siblings of autistic children.","authors":"Devon N Gangi, Ana-Maria Iosif, Shyeena Maqbool, Monique M Hill, Chandni Parikh, Gregory S Young, Sally Ozonoff","doi":"10.1037/dev0002025","DOIUrl":"10.1037/dev0002025","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Prospective studies of later born siblings of autistic individuals often focus on predicting autism diagnosis. Studies concentrating on siblings who do not develop autism have found subclinical atypicalities in some children as early as the first year of life. However, when followed to school-age, the continuity of these findings has been mixed. We tracked nonautistic siblings (<i>n</i> = 151 higher familial likelihood of autism, <i>n</i> = 115 lower likelihood) longitudinally from infancy to 6-16 years of age when participants completed a battery of social communication measures (parent report and direct observation/administration). Using latent profile analysis, we derived groupings based on patterns of performance across measures. Three groups were identified: <i>Class 1</i> (45.5%), <i>Class 2</i> (45.2%), and <i>Class 3</i> (9.3%)-characterized by higher, intermediate, and lower school-age social communication abilities, respectively. We then examined the performance of these classes on independent measures of pragmatic language, reciprocal social interaction, and cognition. <i>Class 3</i> demonstrated social communication differences that were most evident with novel interactive partners (e.g., examiners) and scored lower on IQ and academic achievement measures, indicating that social communication differences captured by the latent profile analysis were part of a broader pattern of developmental differences. Using data collected in the first 3 years of life, we found that the school-age classes began showing differences by 12-18 months of age-evidence of continuity between early behavior and later development. Findings suggest that when early childhood challenges are observed in siblings of autistic children, even those not meeting criteria for autism, they should be monitored over time and additional support offered as needed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":48464,"journal":{"name":"Developmental Psychology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2025-07-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12352373/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144610005","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Daily associations among hassles, self-reported sleep, and impulsivity: Developmental changes in the protective roles of daily peer and family support across university.","authors":"Hao Zheng, Yao Zheng","doi":"10.1037/dev0002031","DOIUrl":"10.1037/dev0002031","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Life and academic stress during the transition to young adulthood often lends university students particularly susceptible to sleep problems, which in turn adversely impact their well-being. While peer and family support can mitigate the effect of stress on maladjustment through sleep, the short-term, within-person protective roles of such support in daily lives remain largely underexplored. Using a measurement burst design, this study investigated these short-term effects on impulsivity-a transdiagnostic marker for internalizing and externalizing problems-in proximal daily processes, as well as their potential developmental changes across university on a long-term developmental timescale. Prospective longitudinal data from two waves of 30-day daily diary surveys spanning from the transition to university (<i>n</i> = 277, <i>M</i><sub>age</sub> = 18.1, 73% female, 68% non-White, 6,340 daily reports) to the junior year (<i>n</i> = 177, 3,985 daily reports) were analyzed using multilevel modeling. The results suggest that more daily hassles were associated with shorter and poorer self-reported sleep on the same night, which were further linked to increased next-day impulsivity. Daily family support served as an immediate buffer in this temporal sequence during the junior year but not in the first year, while peer support showed no protective effect in either wave. The findings highlight the increasing salience of family support in coping with psychosocial challenges during the transition to young adulthood. Strengthening family relationships may be an effective strategy to maintain the physical and mental well-being of university students. Future research should leverage measurement burst designs to further investigate how such short-term proximal processes change over larger timescales within a lifespan developmental framework. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":48464,"journal":{"name":"Developmental Psychology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2025-07-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144610008","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Megan M Hare, Kathryn L Humphreys, Ana Cosmoiu, Nathan A Fox, Charles A Nelson, Charles H Zeanah
{"title":"Adaptive functioning at age 18 years following severe early deprivation: Results of a randomized controlled trial.","authors":"Megan M Hare, Kathryn L Humphreys, Ana Cosmoiu, Nathan A Fox, Charles A Nelson, Charles H Zeanah","doi":"10.1037/dev0002029","DOIUrl":"10.1037/dev0002029","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In the present study, we examined adaptive functioning data from the Bucharest Early Intervention Project, a randomized controlled trial of foster care as an alternative to institutional care following exposure to severe psychosocial deprivation. Adaptive functioning refers to the skills individuals need to meet age-appropriate social and practical demands required for independent functioning. These abilities are essential for successful navigation of daily life and can be impacted by early adversity. We report data from 134 children (55% female) assessed in early adulthood (<i>M</i><sub>age</sub> = 18.9 years). Adaptive functioning was assessed via the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales (Vineland). We found that 16 years after randomization occurred, those who had been randomized to the foster care group (FCG) had significantly higher scores in adaptive functioning, including communication and socialization skills, compared to those in care as usual group (CAUG). Further, when examining age equivalences (i.e., individual's adaptive functioning by representing their functional level in terms of age milestones), individuals in the FCG had higher age equivalences compared to those in the CAUG. Mediation analyses revealed that caregiving quality partially mediated the association between the intent-to-treat group (i.e., CAUG vs. FCG) and adaptive functioning, with higher caregiving quality associated with higher levels of adaptive functioning. Similarly, caregiving quality mediated the association when comparing the never-institutionalized group to the ever-institutionalized group (CAUG + FCG) and adaptive functioning. These findings underscore the positive impact of nurturing environments on children's adaptive functioning and indicate that early investment in family care as an alternative to institutional care leads to better adaptive functioning during the transition to adulthood. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":48464,"journal":{"name":"Developmental Psychology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2025-07-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12465061/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144610001","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}