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Socially anxious adolescents often display fears of negative evaluation (FNE) and fears of positive evaluation (FPE). The Bivalent Fear of Evaluation model posits that FNE and FPE represent two poles of socio-evaluative fears, and that individuals may simultaneously display high levels of FNE and FPE (high FNE/FPE). To what degree do adolescents who display high FNE/FPE differ in psychosocial functioning from adolescents who display high concerns on one domain and not the other (either high FNE/low FPE, or low FNE/high FPE), or low concerns on both domains (i.e., low FNE/FPE)? We tested this broader question (a) across multiple psychosocial domains, (b) using multiple informants’ reports to identify adolescents’ patterns of socio-evaluative fears, and (c) in relation to adolescents’ reactions to anxiety-provoking social situations with unfamiliar peers. One-hundred twenty-seven 14–15-year-old adolescents and their parents completed measures of adolescents’ FNE, FPE, and domains of psychosocial functioning (i.e., social anxiety, safety behaviors, depressive symptoms, psychosocial impairments). Adolescents participated in several social interaction tasks with unfamiliar peers. Adolescents self-reported on their arousal during these tasks and the unfamiliar peers with whom they interacted completed measures of social anxiety about the adolescent. High FNE/FPE adolescents tended to display poorer psychosocial functioning relative to adolescents who displayed other patterns of socio-evaluative fears. Based on adolescent-classified groups, high FNE/FPE adolescents displayed greater self-reported arousal during social interactions, relative to the other groups. Identifying adolescents’ patterns of socio-evaluative fears may inform interpretations of the individual differences among adolescents’ clinical presentations of social anxiety.

Exposure to early risks are linked with less optimal child development across domains. These contextual risks may display various configurations and each configuration could be linked to specific developmental outcomes. Based on 1364 mother–child dyads from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care, this study examined the different risk profiles children experienced in early development and how changes in these profiles over time predicted a wide range in their school adjustment. Using latent class analysis (LCA), we found that children’s contextual risks could be characterized by one of the five risk typologies at each assessment from 6-months to first grade: low risk, high socio-cultural risk, high psychological risk, high socio-economic risk, and high risk across domains. Moreover, these risk profiles they experienced were fairly stable over time: children rarely moved in or out of certain risk classes from infancy through middle childhood. As a function of these risk typologies they experienced across time, children demonstrated different levels of academic and socio-emotional adjustment in first grade. These findings link configurations of risks children experience across infancy and early childhood to their first-grade adjustment observed by multiple informants.

In the current paper, two short-term longitudinal studies were conducted to examine relational aggression and relational bullying as differential predictors of relational victimization and health-related outcomes (i.e., social maladjustment problems). In Study 1, teachers completed reports of preschoolers’ (N = 124; M age = 44.88 months; SD = 4.52; 41.1% girls) physical and relational aggression, bullying behavior, and peer victimization at two time points. Hierarchical models revealed that, consistent with study hypotheses, relational aggression but not relational bullying predicted increases in relational victimization. Study 2 (N = 105; M age = 46.78 months; SD = 7.47; 52.4% girls) improved upon several limitations of Study 1 by having multiple informants and addressing collinearity concerns. Specifically, two variables were created, relational severity and relational directionality, reflecting the commonalities and differences between relational aggression and relational bullying respectively. Results of Study 2 generally replicated the overall pattern of findings of Study 1 with a more conservative model. Results indicated that relational directionality tended to be negatively associated with increases in social maladjustment problems. These results suggest that, relative to relational bullying, relational aggression tended to be associated with increases in social maladjustment problems. These findings provide support for distinguishing between subtypes of both aggression and bullying behavior (i.e., physical and relational) in the developmental literature.

There is scant research on how the parenting practices of custodial grandmothers affect the psychological adjustment of grandchildren in their care. Yet, the findings from a handful of prior studies suggest the relevance of the Family Stress Model (FSM) to these caregivers. The present study further tested the FSM with baseline data from 343 custodial grandmothers (Mage = 58.5 years) enrolled in a clinical trial of the efficacy of interventions for improving the well-being of their families. Not only was this “help-seeking” sample atypical of prior FSM studies, but also unique to the present study was our addition of multiple parenting practices, self-reported and clinical ratings of grandmothers’ distress, and reports of grandchildren’s internalizing and externalizing difficulties from grandchildren and grandmothers. Mplus 7.31 was used to test a model where the effect of grandmother distress on grandchildren’s internalizing and externalizing difficulties was hypothesized to be indirect through five distinct parenting practices. The findings regarding both the measurement and structural models fit the observed data well, and invariance was largely found across grandchildren’s gender and age (4–7 vs. 8–12). Although grandchildren’s self-reported internalizing and externalizing difficulties were unrelated to grandmothers’ distress and parenting practices, the grandmothers’ reports of these outcomes were generally related to their own distress and parenting practices as hypothesized. However, considerable variation was found across the five parenting practices in terms of their relationships to the other FSM constructs. We conclude that data from multiple informants and measures of assorted parenting practices are essential to future research and practice.

Prior work indicates that adolescents perceive the family more negatively than do their parents. These discrepant views comprise some of the most robust observations in psychological science, and are observed on survey reports collected in vastly different cultures worldwide. Yet, whether developmental changes occur with these discrepant views remains unclear. In a sample of 141 adolescents and their mothers, we examined 1-year developmental changes in discrepancies between parents’ and adolescents’ views of family functioning. We focused on discrepant views about a relatively covert domain of family functioning (i.e., internal views of open communication) and a relatively overt domain of such functioning (i.e., views about observable communication problems). We observed significant developmental changes in discrepant views for open communication, but not for communication problems. These findings have important implications for research examining links between discrepant views of family functioning and whether these discrepancies serve as risk or protective factors for adolescent psychosocial functioning.

Clinical assessments of adolescent mental health often incorporate the perspectives of multiple caregivers (e.g., mothers and fathers). Caregiver reports tend to exhibit relatively high levels of correspondence versus other informant pairs such as caregivers and teachers. Yet, caregiver reports are not redundant with one another. Thus, researchers often apply strategies for integrating caregiver reports (e.g., composite score), assuming that greater convergence between caregivers on reports of high adolescent mental health concerns points to greater severity in such concerns. To our knowledge, this assumption has never been directly tested. We examined patterns of convergence and divergence between caregiver reports of adolescent mental health in a sample of 519 families from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development’s Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development. Caregivers and adolescents completed reports of adolescent mental health, and independent coders rated levels of adolescent hostility displayed in separate caregiver–adolescent interactions (e.g., mother–adolescent vs. father–adolescent). We identified caregiver dyads that converged in their reports of relatively high levels of adolescent mental health concerns, as well as dyads that diverged in reports of such concerns. Relative to adolescents whose caregivers diverged in their reports of adolescent mental health, those adolescents with caregivers who converged on reports of relatively high adolescent mental health concerns both self-reported high levels of mental health concerns, and displayed greater levels of hostility within caregiver–adolescent interactions. Our findings have important implications for using convergence between caregiver reports of adolescent mental health concerns as an indicator of the severity of such concerns.

Fears of positive evaluation form important components of social anxiety. Researchers developed the Fear of Positive Evaluation Scale (FPES) to assess these fears. The FPES reliably and validly assesses fears of positive evaluation in undergraduates and adult social anxiety patients. However, it remains unclear if the FPES reliably and validly assesses these fears in clinic-referred adolescents. Further, implementing the FPES in clinical assessments of adolescents likely requires a multi-informant approach. Indeed, long lines of work indicate low cross-informant correspondence in reports of anxiety and anxiety-related constructs, and support the combined use of multiple informants’ reports (e.g., parents and adolescents). We examined the FPES in a clinic-referred sample of adolescents aged 14–17 years (M = 15.11; 20 females; 59.5 % African American). Thirty-seven parent-adolescent pairs completed the FPES, as well as reports of adolescent social anxiety, safety-seeking behaviors, and depressive symptoms. Both parent and adolescent reports on the FPES evidenced adequate levels of internal consistency. Further, when taking both parent and adolescent reports into consideration, the FPES significantly and positively related to measures of social anxiety and safety-seeking behaviors, over and above other widely used measures of adolescent social anxiety and depressive symptoms. The findings indicate that a multi-informant administration of the FPES yields internally consistent and valid estimates of fears of positive evaluation in a clinical sample of adolescents. These findings have important implications for properly assessing and treating social anxiety concerns in adolescents.