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Most research has shown that sexual satisfaction in long-term relationships tends to decline over time. Studies showing the average trajectory, however, are limited by only assessing one slope. With longitudinal data from the Flourishing Families Project, Marital Instability Dataset, and the Iowa Youth and Families Project, we utilized growth mixture modeling to assess what trajectories of sexual satisfaction exist in midlife marriages. In the three samples (one individual, two dyadic), we found clear evidence for heterogeneous sexual satisfaction trajectories, for both wives and husbands. Through the datasets, we found some trajectories did decline over time. We also found stably high, stably medium, stably low, and some trajectories that showed an increase in sexual satisfaction over time. Overall, trajectories were similar for wives and husbands, though some classes had one partner with variability while the other was stable, some classes had trajectories with wives having higher sexual satisfaction than husbands, and some classes had trajectories with husbands having higher sexual satisfaction than wives. Demographic variables were not strong distinguishers of these differing trajectories. Both marital satisfaction and perceived marital stability trajectories (based on sexual satisfaction classes) generally had similar patterns to sexual satisfaction trajectories, with a few exceptions. Both marital satisfaction and perceived marital stability were less likely to significantly change over time, have discrepancies between wives and husbands, and have either low marital satisfaction or high perceived marital instability, even if sexual satisfaction was low. These data can help couples recognize various possibilities for sexual satisfaction over time, perhaps helping them to avoid cultural myths of inevitably declining sexual satisfaction.

Suicide rates have increased over the past decade, and screen media (and social media in particular) are often blamed for this marked increase. However, there is little longitudinal research on this topic. The current study examined the link between various types of screen media use over a 10-year period (from adolescence to emerging adulthood) to suicide risk in emerging adulthood. Participants included 500 adolescents (51% female) who were first surveyed in 2009, when they were an average of 13.82 years old (range 12-15 years). For girls, a high level of social media or television use in early adolescence followed by a marked increase over time was most predictive of suicide risk in emerging adulthood. Additionally, video game use that increased over time was also associated with a higher risk for developing suicide risk for girls. A passive sensing measurement was also included at the final wave of data collection to obtain a more accurate and complete picture of phone use in particular. The use of entertainment apps was risky for girls while reading apps were risky for boys. Additionally, video game use (for boys) was associated with suicide risk when cyberbullying was also high. Identifying nonnormative patterns of media during adolescence may be instructive in terms of suicide prevention efforts.

Religiosity is a protective factor for adolescents, though research has indicated religiosity declines across adolescence. However, little research has examined how various dimensions of religiosit...

Fathers are more than social accidents. Research has demonstrated that fathers matter to children's development. Despite noted progress, challenges remain on how best to conceptualize and assess fathering and father-child relationships. The current monograph is the result of an SRCD-sponsored meeting of fatherhood scholars brought together to discuss these challenges and make recommendations for best practices for incorporating fathers in studies on parenting and children's development. The first aim of this monograph was to provide a brief update on the current state of research on fathering and to lay out a developmental ecological systems perspective as a conceptual framework for understanding the different spaces fathers inhabit in their children's lives. Because there is wide variability in fathers' roles, the ecological systems perspective situates fathers, mothers, children, and other caregivers within an evolving network of interrelated social relationships in which children and their parents change over time and space (e.g., residence). The second aim was to present examples of empirical studies conducted by members of the international working group that highlighted different methods, data collection, and statistical analyses used to capture the variability in father-child relationships. The monograph ends with a commentary that elaborates on the ecological systems framework with a discussion of the broader macrosystem and social-contextual influences that impinge on fathers and their children. The collection of articles contributes to research on father-child relationships by advancing theory and presenting varied methods and analysis strategies that assist in understanding the father-child relationship and its impact on child development.

Suicide rates have increased over the past decade, and screen media (and social media in particular) are often blamed for this marked increase. However, there is little longitudinal research on this topic. The current study examined the link between various types of screen media use over a 10-year period (from adolescence to emerging adulthood) to suicide risk in emerging adulthood. Participants included 500 adolescents (51% female) who were first surveyed in 2009, when they were an average of 13.82 years old (range 12-15 years). For girls, a high level of social media or television use in early adolescence followed by a marked increase over time was most predictive of suicide risk in emerging adulthood. Additionally, video game use that increased over time was also associated with a higher risk for developing suicide risk for girls. A passive sensing measurement was also included at the final wave of data collection to obtain a more accurate and complete picture of phone use in particular. The use of entertainment apps was risky for girls while reading apps were risky for boys. Additionally, video game use (for boys) was associated with suicide risk when cyberbullying was also high. Identifying nonnormative patterns of media during adolescence may be instructive in terms of suicide prevention efforts.

Purpose To date, little is known about underlying psychophysiological contributions to the impact of media content and overall screen time on adolescent psychological functioning. In the present study we examine respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) as a moderator of the link between specific types of media content use, overall media exposure, and the development of internalizing and aggressive symptoms in youth. Methods A sample of 374 adolescents (mean age = 15) reported on their media use, internalizing behavior, and aggressive behavior at time 1 (2011) and 1-year follow-up (2012). RSA reactivity was gathered during a challenging laboratory task. Path analyses were conducted to test the hypothesized three-way interaction model between media use, media content, and RSA reactivity, separately for internalizing and aggressive problems. Results Significant interactions were found for aggressive, but not prosocial, media content. For aggressive content, youth exhibiting RSA withdrawal reported significantly greater internalizing and aggressive symptoms when exposed to higher amounts of screen time and aggressive content. Conclusions These findings suggest that profiles of heightened RSA withdrawal may place adolescents at greater risk to the negative impact of violent media, whereas prosocial media content may not significantly impact youth development of psychopathology. Implications for the role of psychophysiology in our understanding of media effects are discussed.

Multiple studies have found an inverse relationship between adolescent religiosity and adolescent depression. However, further research is needed to better understand the complexity of this relatio...

A child's relationship with his or her nonresident father has been found to be related to that child's development in important ways. However, validated measures of the relationship between nonresident fathers and their children are rare, particularly for low-income nonresident fathers. To provide guidance for researchers and practitioners evaluating nonresident fatherhood programs, this study uses a sample of 420 primarily low-income nonresident fathers to examine the reliability, convergent validity, and predictive validity of measures of father-child closeness and conflict contained in the Child-Parent Relationship Scale-Short Form (CPRS-SF). Validity was examined across 3 child age groups: preschool, middle childhood, and adolescence. The CPRS-SF closeness scale demonstrated measurement equivalence across time (conflict did not) and had excellent reliability and validity. Compared to the closeness scale, the CPRS-SF conflict scale was related to fewer validity items but still showed both convergent and predictive validity, including predicting child behavior problems (which the closeness scale did not). Both the closeness and conflict scales are recommended for use with low-income nonresident fathers. Age differences in validity findings are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record

Prior research has linked marital conflict to children's internalizing/externalizing disorders, insecure attachment, and poor emotional regulation (e.g., Cummings & Davies, 2010; Cummings, Iannotti, & Zahn-Waxler, 1985). Although investigators have examined the impact of marital discord on older children (e.g., Crockenberg & Langrock, 2001), few have explored direct links in infancy (e.g., Cowan & Cowan, 1999). This study extends earlier work by examining linkages between marital functioning (conflict and harmony) and infants' cardiac vagal tone and developmental status across 2 time points using a cross-lag approach. Differential findings were found for boys and girls, with concurrent linkages between marital love and vagal tone at 6 months for boys and girls but only for boys at 12 months. In addition, marital conflict at 6 months predicted lower cardiac vagal tone in girls at 12 months but not boys. Finally, infants' developmental status at 6 months was found to predict marital conflict at 12 months. Higher scores on the Psychomotor Development Index (PDI) predicted greater marital conflict whereas higher scores on the Mental Development Index (MDI) predicted lower conflict. These findings are discussed in the context of the emotional security hypothesis and the spillover framework as well as differential susceptibilities to early developmental contexts. (PsycINFO Database Record

Most research has shown that sexual satisfaction in long-term relationships tends to decline over time. Studies showing the average trajectory, however, are limited by only assessing one slope. With longitudinal data from the Flourishing Families Project, Marital Instability Dataset, and the Iowa Youth and Families Project, we utilized growth mixture modeling to assess what trajectories of sexual satisfaction exist in midlife marriages. In the three samples (one individual, two dyadic), we found clear evidence for heterogeneous sexual satisfaction trajectories, for both wives and husbands. Through the datasets, we found some trajectories did decline over time. We also found stably high, stably medium, stably low, and some trajectories that showed an increase in sexual satisfaction over time. Overall, trajectories were similar for wives and husbands, though some classes had one partner with variability while the other was stable, some classes had trajectories with wives having higher sexual satisfaction than husbands, and some classes had trajectories with husbands having higher sexual satisfaction than wives. Demographic variables were not strong distinguishers of these differing trajectories. Both marital satisfaction and perceived marital stability trajectories (based on sexual satisfaction classes) generally had similar patterns to sexual satisfaction trajectories, with a few exceptions. Both marital satisfaction and perceived marital stability were less likely to significantly change over time, have discrepancies between wives and husbands, and have either low marital satisfaction or high perceived marital instability, even if sexual satisfaction was low. These data can help couples recognize various possibilities for sexual satisfaction over time, perhaps helping them to avoid cultural myths of inevitably declining sexual satisfaction.

Spouses perceiving that they have shared power in marriage has been linked to higher marital quality and attachment security. Existing research, however, is limited in assessing how these perceptions influence both spouses and whether these influences endure over time. To address these limitations, we analyzed the longitudinal relationship reports from 319 couples from the Flourishing Families Project (FFP) to estimate biyearly (Waves 1, 3, and 5) and yearly (Waves 3-5) longitudinal actor-partner interdependence models. Reporting shared power in marriage was linked to the actors' higher marital quality and lower attachment insecurity over time (although less consistently for attachment insecurity). Longitudinal partner effects and indirect effects were also found from reports of shared marital power on both marital quality and attachment insecurity over time. The combined evidence suggests that power dynamics in a marriage are an important predictor of changes in couples' overall relational well-being. Accordingly, marriages appear to benefit from husbands and wives mutually seeking to help each other feel empowered in a relationship as equal and full partners. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

This study examines depression among Latter-day Saint teens, particularly how religiosity and the parent&ndash, child relationship are associated with depressive symptomology. Although there is an abundance of research on adolescent depression and on adolescent religiosity, there is less research addressing the connection between the two. The research questions include: Does religiosity among Latter-day Saint teens reduce their rates of depression? What aspects of religiosity affect depression most significantly? How does religious coping influence depression? How does the parent&ndash, child relationship affect depression rates among Latter-day Saint teens? Being a sexual minority and living in Utah were related to higher levels of depression. Greater depression was also associated with more anxiety and poorer physical health. Authoritative parenting by fathers was associated with lower depression for daughters but not sons. Finally, feeling abandoned by God was related to higher depression, while peer support at church was associated with lower depression.

This longitudinal study was conducted with 262 adolescents (M age = 15.3) and their parents to examine adolescent respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA; baseline and reactivity) as a moderator of the relationship between parenting style and adolescent externalizing behaviors. This was conceptualized within the differential susceptibility to the environment framework, which proposes that children with greater sensitivity to environmental influences benefit more from supportive environments but are at greater risk in averse environments. In this study, low RSA baseline was associated with greater susceptibility. In confirmation of hypotheses, males with low RSA baseline had the most externalizing behaviors when mother or father authoritative parenting was low or when mother authoritarian parenting was high. Contrary to hypotheses, females with greater RSA reactivity (high susceptibility) did more poorly when authoritarian parenting was low or authoritative parenting was high. Differential gender socialization and the task used to elicit RSA reactivity are suggested reasons for gender differences.

A burgeoning literature supports the role of autonomic nervous system (ANS) functioning as an index of physiologic sensitivity to the environment, but extant research is limited in its focus on single branches of the ANS, childhood samples, and solely negative environmental factors. This study seeks to address these limitations by exploring whether reactivity in the parasympathetic (PNS) and sympathetic (SNS) nervous systems jointly moderate the prospective contributions of both positive (maternal involvement) and negative (maternal psychological control) aspects of the family environment to developmentally relevant outcomes in adolescence (depressive symptoms and emotion regulation). At Wave 1, adolescents (n = 352, 52% female, M age = 15.27, SD = 1.04; 65% White) and their parents completed a problem-solving discussion task, during which adolescent ANS activation was continuously monitored, and reports of maternal involvement, maternal psychological control, adolescent depressive symptoms, and adolescent emotion regulation were obtained. Adolescent depressive symptoms and emotion regulation were assessed again 1 year later (Wave 2). Results indicated that PNS and SNS reactivity jointly moderated the prospective contributions of maternal involvement and maternal psychological control to depressive symptoms and emotion regulation. Specifically, adolescents who exhibited reciprocal SNS activation appeared to be most sensitive to both positive and negative parenting environments. Adolescents exhibiting coinhibition or coactivation profiles of autonomic reactivity were comparatively unreactive to parenting. This study corroborates the notion that consideration of multiple physiological systems is critical to our understanding of biological processes in the development of emotional functioning in adolescence. (PsycINFO Database Record

The construct is the most basic aspect of a theoretical model. Whether a construct is equivalent across groups or time is a vital consideration when testing theory. However, examining construct equivalence is often not well understood either conceptually or statistically. This article provides a conceptual and statistical overview of construct equivalence as well as a rationale for its increased use. An example of testing for equivalence is also provided. Three hundred 12-year-olds rated their mother and father on a scale of parental engagement. It was examined whether this scale demonstrated equivalence for both mothers and fathers. Equivalence tests found that strong equivalence was not met, and therefore mean comparisons are not justified. Theoretical and practical implications of measurement equivalence are discussed.

Pathologic video game use (PVGU) has been associated with a host of negative psychological, physical, and social outcomes during adolescence; however, little research has examined physiological predictors of such use. The purpose of the study was to examine physiological predictors of the development of PVGU across adolescence.The article involves a 1-year longitudinal study across midadolescence. Participants were 374 adolescents and their parents from a large metropolitan area in the Northwest United States. PVGU was assessed via questionnaire, as were a number of control variables. A number of physiological indicators including respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) and galvanic skin conductance (indices of parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system activity, respectively) were measured during baseline, a cognitively stimulating task (Rubik's cube), and a family problem-solving task.Less RSA withdrawal to a cognitively simulating task was related to greater pathologic video game symptoms, but less RSA withdrawal to a family problem-solving task was associated with the presence of pathologic video game symptoms (p.05). For girls only, galvanic skin conductance activation during the family problem solving was related to greater pathologic video game symptoms (p.01).These findings suggest that adolescents who do not find cognitive tasks stimulating physiologically have a greater severity of PVGU. Additionally, adolescents who show physiological signs of stress in a family task were more likely to have PVGU symptoms and only girls have more severe PVGU levels. This study is the first to show that physiological indicators predict PVGU over time in adolescence and has important implications regarding the prevention and treatment of PVGU in adolescence.

This study reports on the development and validation of the Fatherhood Research and Practice Network coparenting perceptions scale for nonresident fathers. Although other measures of coparenting have been developed, this is the first measure developed specifically for low-income, nonresident fathers. Focus groups were conducted to determine various aspects of coparenting. Based on this, a scale was created and administered to 542 nonresident fathers. Participants also responded to items used to examine convergent and predictive validity (i.e., parental responsibility, contact with the mother, father self-efficacy and satisfaction, child behavior problems, and contact and engagement with the child). Factor analyses and reliability tests revealed three distinct and reliable perceived coparenting factors: undermining, alliance, and gatekeeping. Validity tests suggest substantial overlap between the undermining and alliance factors, though undermining was uniquely related to child behavior problems. The alliance and gatekeeping factors showed strong convergent validity and evidence for predictive validity. Taken together, results suggest this relatively short measure (11 items) taps into three coparenting dimensions significantly predictive of aspects of individual and family life.

The ability to control one’s emotions, thoughts, and behaviors is known as self-regulation. Family stress and low adolescent self-regulation have been linked with increased engagement in risky sexual behaviors, which peak in late adolescence and early adulthood. The purpose of this study was to assess whether adolescent self-regulation, measured by parent and adolescent self-report and respiratory sinus arrhythmia, mediates or moderates the relationship between family financial stress and risky sexual behaviors. We assessed these relationships in a 4-year longitudinal sample of 450 adolescents (52 % female; 70 % white) and their parents using structural equation modeling. Results indicated that high family financial stress predicts engagement in risky sexual behaviors as mediated, but not moderated, by adolescent self-regulation. The results suggest that adolescent self-regulatory capacities are a mechanism through which proximal external forces influence adolescent risk-taking. Promoting adolescent self-regulation, especially in the face of external stressors, may be an important method to reduce risk-taking behaviors as adolescents transition to adulthood.

Measurement invariance (MI) is a property of measurement that is often implicitly assumed, but in many cases, not tested. When the assumption of MI is tested, it generally involves determining if the measurement holds longitudinally or cross-culturally. A growing literature shows that other groupings can, and should, be considered as well. Additionally, it is noted that the standard techniques for investigating MI have been focused almost exclusively on the case of 2 groups, with very little work on the case of more than 2 groups, even though the need for such techniques is apparent in many fields of research. This paper introduces and illustrates a model building technique to investigating MI for more than 2 groups. This technique is an extension of the already-existing hierarchy for testing MI introduced by Meredith (1993). An example using data on father involvement in 5 different groups of families of children with and without developmental disabilities from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort dataset will be given. We show that without considering the possible differential functioning of the measurements on multiple developmental groups, the differences present between the groups in terms of the measurements may be obscured. This could lead to incorrect conclusions.