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It has widely been accepted that play has a major role in the process of human development. Not surprisingly, play research has mainly focused on children’s play as a key facet of emotional adjustment, such as self-confidence and creativity. However, recently, an increasing amount of research has demonstrated numerous positive effects of parental playfulness on children’s emotional functioning and behavioral adjustment. Parental playfulness is manifested in the ability to engage in spontaneous, amusing and creative parent-child interactions that potentially turn harsh situations into fun and reframe stressful situations in a playful manner. Parent-child play might make a significant contribution to the children’s ability of regulating emotions when faced with stressful events, potentially leading to better behavioral adjustment in later childhood and adolescence and therefore reducing the risk for the emergence of externalizing (e.g. physical aggression, impulsiveness) and internalizing (e.g. somatic complaints, social withdrawal) behavior problems. We aim to provide an up to date systematic review on parent-child play and its impact on the emergence of externalizing and internalizing behavior problems in childhood and adolescence, analyzing quantitative as well as qualitative research in this field.

Recent findings indicate that the utilization of social information, produced inadvertently by other individuals through their spatial location and/or interaction with the environment, may be ubiquitous in the animal kingdom. If so, social information-mediated effects on population growth and interspecies interactions may be more prevalent than previously thought. However, little is known about how social information may spread among non-grouping individuals, i.e., in animals that do not form cohesive groups and therefore social attraction among group-mates does not facilitate information diffusion. Are there any perception-related, temporal, and/or spatial parameters that may facilitate or limit the spread of social information in temporary aggregations or among dispersed individuals in a population? We argue that living in cohesive groups is not necessarily required for the diffusion of social information and for social information-mediated effects to emerge in a population. We propose that while learning complex problem-solving techniques socially is less likely to occur in non-grouping animals, the spread of adaptive responses to social stimuli, especially to non-visual cues, can be common and may affect population, and/or community dynamics in a wide range of taxa. We also argue that network-based diffusion analysis could be a suitable analytical method for studying information diffusion in future investigations, providing comparable estimations of social effects on information spread to previous studies on group-living animals. We conclude that more studies are warranted to verify what intrinsic and extrinsic factors influence information propagation among incidentally and/or indirectly interacting individuals if we are to better understand the role of social information in animal populations and how the social and ecological characteristics of species are related to information spread in natural communities.

Preterm birth is associated with a significantly increased risk for childhood and adolescent psychopathology relative to full-term birth, with an inverse relationship between gestational age at birth and later risk for psychopathology. The manifestation of symptomatology and comorbidity profiles of emotional and behavioral adjustment problems in this high-risk group have been shown to be distinct from the broader pediatric population. Acknowledging these differences, a preterm behavioral phenotype has been proposed and increasingly recognized, highlighting the unique, frequent co-occurrence of symptomatology associated with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, autism spectrum disorder, and anxiety disorders. The current state-of-the-art review provides a comprehensive characterization of this phenotype to date and further highlights key knowledge gaps primarily regarding the evolution of symptoms, co-occurrence of disorders and/or symptomatology within the phenotype, and associations of the phenotype with chronological age and degree of prematurity.

Fish often undergo predation stress and food shortages in nature, and living in groups may provide the ecological benefits of decreased predator risk but the costs of increased food competition. The main aim of the present study was to test whether the behavioral response of qingbo (Spinibarbus sinensis) to predators and/or starvation differed between a singleton and a group. We measured the locomotor activity and distance to a predator and/or food item of prior predator-experienced, starved, double-treated and control qingbo; the qingbo were tested both as singletons and in a group (five individuals). Fish from all groups showed increased activity when tested collectively compared to individually. The predator-experienced fish showed decreased locomotor activity to predators as an antipredator strategy when tested as singletons; however, increased locomotor activity occurred when tested in a group, which might be partially due to the decreased predator risk when living in a group and thus higher levels of boldness. As expected, starvation elicited increased activity indicating increased foraging willingness when tested in a group; however, the difference between starved and normal-fed fish was no longer significant when they were tested as singletons, possibly due to the increased predation risk and decreased food competition when living individually and higher behavioral variation among individual fish than among those in a shoal. Compared with the control fish, the double-treated fish showed no difference in activity when tested both individually and collectively (except a slower speed when tested in a group). The reason for the results from the singletons might be an offset of the effect of predator exposure and starvation. The reason for this difference in the group might be due to the impaired body condition indicated by a slower swimming speed as a consequence of severe stress. The present study demonstrated that behavioral adjustment was closely related to the size of the group, which might be due to differences in the predation risk and food competition.

This study sought to explore whether creativity in undertaking activities such as free writing, telling a story, crafts, painting, drawing, or drama at age 7 is associated with a lower risk of social and behavioral maladjustment in children at the onset of adolescence. Data from 7558 7‐year‐olds who were socially and behaviorally “stable” at baseline were analyzed from the nationally representative National Child Development Study. Multinomial regression analyses showed associations between teacher‐rated creativity at age 7 and a lower relative risk of social and behavioral instability and maladjustment at age 11. Specifically, the associations were found between moderate and marked creativity and a lower risk of symptoms of internalizing behaviors (including depression and withdrawal), externalizing behaviors (such as restlessness) as well as a lower risk of various nervous symptoms of social and behavioral instability and maladjustment. Associations were independent of social, demographic, educational, parental, academic, and personality covariates, and robust to a range of sensitivity analyses. These results suggest that facilitating engagement with creative activities could be explored further as a way of reducing levels of instability and maladjustment at the onset of adolescence.

Proper psychological interventions are of great importance because they help enhancing psychological and public health in adolescents with irresponsible parents or no parents. The current research aimed to examine the impact of training problem-solving experiment on self-esteem and behavioral adjustment in teenage girls with irresponsible parents or no parents. Methodology: The approach of the present research was a semi-test via a post-test-pre-test model and a check team. Hence, in Tehran, 40 girls with irresponsible parents or no parents were chosen by using the Convenience modeling, and they were classified into 2 teams: control and experiment. Both groups were pre-tested by using a demography questionnaire, Rosenberg’s self-esteem scale, and a behavioral adjustment questionnaire. Afterwards, both groups were post-tested, and the obtained data were examined by using inferential and descriptive methods through SPSS 21. Findings: Findings indicated that the training problem-solving skills significantly increased the self-esteem and the behavioral adjustment in teenage girls with irresponsible parents or no parents (P < 0/ 001). Conclusion: The conclusion of this research was that training problem-solving methods greatly helps endangered people such as teenage girls with irresponsible parents or no parents, because these methods are highly efficient especially when they are performed in groups, as they are cheap and accepted by different people.

Fatin Mhaidat Department of Educational Psychology, Faculty of Educational Sciences, The Hashemite University, Zarqa, Jordan Abstract: This study aimed at identifying the levels of adaptive problems among teenage female refugees in the government schools and explored the behavioral methods that were used to cope with the problems. The sample was composed of 220 Syrian female students (seventh to first secondary grades) enrolled at government schools within the Zarqa Directorate and who came to Jordan due to the war conditions in their home country. The study used the scale of adaptive problems that consists of four dimensions (depression, anger and hostility, low self-esteem, and feeling insecure) and a questionnaire of the behavioral adjustment methods for dealing with the problem of asylum. The results indicated that the Syrian teenage female refugees suffer a moderate degree of adaptation problems, and the positive adjustment methods they have used are more than the negatives. Keywords: adaptive problems, female teenage refugees, behavioral adjustment

Background Previous research showed that individuals have a natural tendency to conform to others. This study investigated the temporal characteristics of neural processing involved in social conformity by recording participants’ brain potentials in performing a line judgment task. After making his initial choice, a participant was presented with the choices of four same-sex group members, which could be congruent or highly or moderately incongruent with the participant’s own choice. The participant was then immediately given a second opportunity to respond to the same stimulus. Results Participants were more likely to conform to the group members by changing their initial choices when these choices were in conflict with the group’s choices, and this behavioral adjustment occurred more often as the level of incongruence increased. Electrophysiologically, group choices that were incongruent with the participant’s choice elicited more negative-going medial frontal negativity (MFN), a component associated with processing expectancy violation, than those that were congruent with the participant’s choice, and the size of this effect increased as the level of incongruence increased. Moreover, at both levels of incongruence, the MFN responses were more negative-going for incongruent trials in which participants subsequently performed behavioral adjustment than for trials in which they stuck to their initial choices. Furthermore, over individual participants, participants who were more likely to conform to others (i.e., changing their initial choices) exhibited stronger MFN effect than individuals who were more independent. Conclusions These findings suggest that incongruence with group choices or opinions can elicit brain responses that are similar to those elicited by violation of non-social expectancy in outcome evaluation and performance monitoring, and these brain signals are utilized in the following behavioral adjustment. The present research complements recent brain imaging studies by showing the temporal characteristics of neural processing involved in social conformity and by suggesting common mechanisms for reinforcement learning in social and non-social situations.

El objetivo de esta investigación fue estudiar el papel que juegan las relaciones con padres e iguales en el ajuste emocional y conductual de los adolescentes. Concretamentte, pretendíamos analizar tanto la contribución independiente de padres e iguales como los posibles efectos de interacción entre ambos contextos. Una muestra de 221 chicos y 292 chicas de edades comprendidas entre los 13 y los 19 años cumplimentaron un cuestionario que incluía medidas sobre las relaciones familiares, las relaciones con los iguales y varios aspectos referidos al ajuste emocional (autoestima y satisfacción vital) y conductual (rendimiento escolar y consumo de alcohol y drogas). Los resultados obtenidos indican que el apoyo parental favorece el ajuste general de chicos y chicas durante la adolescencia temprana y media, mientras que el apego a los iguales ejerce una influencia positiva sobre el ajuste emocional, pero no sobre el conductual, hasta el inicio de la etapa adulta. La ausencia de efectos de interacción puso de relieve que los efectos positivos de padres e iguales sobre el ajuste adolescente son independientes entre sí, de forma que los chicos y chicas más desajustados son quienes muestran un apoyo parental más bajo y un menor apego hacia los iguales. The aim of the research was to study the influence of relationships with peers and parents on adolescent emotional and behavioural adjustment. Particularly we analyse the independent contribution of parents and peers to adolescent development, and the possible interaction effect between both relationships. The sample was made up of a total of 221 boys and 292 girls, aged between 13 and 19 years. Subjects filled out a questionnaire that included queries about family and peer-group relationsips and various aspects of emotional adjustment (self-esteem and life satisfaction) and behavioural adjustment (school grades and alcohol and drug consumption). Results reveal that parental support promote general adjustment of boys and girls in early and middle adolescence. Peer attachment has a positive influence on emotional adjustment until late adolescence, however this influence is not so clear over behavioural adjustment. Results did not show interaction effects so it reveals that parents and peers have an independent influence on adolescence adjustment: adolescents with less parental support and less peer attachment have more emotional and behavioural problems.

The present study investigated (a) the effects of group therapy ix on values and behavioral adjustment of hospitalized psychiatric patients, and (b) differential effects of directive versus non-directive group therapy in effecting desired therapy outcomes. Thirty subjects selected from among patients at Wyoming State Hospital were matched on age and sex and then randomly assigned to two experimental groups and one control group. Experimental group I received directive group therapy, experimental group II received non-directive group therapy and the control group participated in recreational activities. Both experimental groups and the control group participated in 12 weekly sessions, which were structured according to the respective objectives, mode of leadership style and/or activity intended for each group. All subjects were administered the Rokeach Value Survey prior to, and following the 12 group sessions. Each subject was also rated on the MACC Behavioral Adjustment Scale by two independent raters (hospital ward attendants) both before and after the experimental period. Porter's (1950, pp. 180-182) "counseling categories" were used to measure directiveness and non-directiveness of the group therapy leaders. Pretest comparisons among the experimental and control groups showed the groups to be essentially comparable (not significantly different) either in median rankings of values on the Rokeach Value Survey or in ward attendant ratings of the subjects on the MACC Behavioral Adjustment Scale. Posttest comparisons on the same variables (i.e., value rankings and ratings of behavior) indicated significant differences among the experimental and control groups on two of the 18 instrumental values of the Rokeach Value Survey, but no differences on any of Rokeach's 18 terminal values. Posttest changes over pretest value rankings occurred as much in the control group as in the experimental groups and the direction of changes varied with each group. Thus, no definitive benefits of one type of group procedure over another occurred. Further, the limited number of values for which posttest differences were observed between the experimental and control groups were well within the amount of normal change that could be expected from chance probabilities alone. It was therefore concluded that these particular changes in value rankings were essentially negligible and thus not attributable to either of the treatment modalities. Possible effects of group therapy in general, as well as any differential effects of directive versus non-directive group therapy were also studied in terms of behavioral ratings of subjects by hospital ward attendants. Statistically significant results on this variable clearly supported the value of both therapy groups over the control group for effecting positive changes in post-treatment behavioral ratings of the study's hospitalized subjects. However, the results did not demonstrate sufficient differences between the two experimental groups to conclude superiority of one leadership style over the other. A descriptive analysis of individual movement (direction and amount of change) from pretest to posttest ratings of behavioral adjustment was presented, and posttest differences between subjects subgrouped according to psychiatric diagnosis and number of psychiatric hospitalizations were discussed in terms of clinical rather than statistical inferences. The results of the study were discussed in reference to previous research related to human values, and Rokeach's viewpoint with regard to personal values and value changes was considered in light of the findings of the present study. Some possible implications of the study results were suggested, with particular reference to some of the unique characteristics of the study sample, including differing psychiatric diagnoses and chronicity of subgroups of the subjects, and a possible lack of motivation on the part of some subjects for participation in therapy groups. Several delimitations of the study were discussed, and recommendations for further research of this nature were offered.