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Research to date has shown longitudinal changes in conscientiousness during early and middle adolescence, but most studies have been conducted in Western countries. The present study aimed to examine the pattern of mean-level conscientiousness change at the transition into early adolescence among a Chinese sample using curve of factors (CUFFS) models. Four waves of data from 661 Chinese children aged 8 years old at baseline in the China Family Panel Studies were used. Parents were asked to rate their children's level of conscientiousness every 2 years. On average, mean-level conscientiousness showed a decelerating increase. Girls had higher average conscientiousness levels than boys, but they did not differ in change patterns. The inconsistency between the current study and previous research indicates that conscientiousness development may depend, in part, on cultural factors.

Parental burnout is a state that parents feel exhausted in their parental role. Although past research has examined concurrent correlates of parental burnout, the impacts of parental burnout on adolescent development over time remain largely unknown. The current study explored the indirect mechanisms linking mothers' parental burnout to adolescents' later internalizing and externalizing problems through maternal hostility among Chinese families. Using a sample of 606 adolescents (51.5% boys; M[subscript age] = 12.89 years old) and their mothers (M[subscript age] = 38.50 years old), this three-wave longitudinal study showed that mothers' parental burnout was predictive of adolescents' perceptions of their mothers' parental hostility over time, which were in turn related to adolescents' later internalizing and externalizing problems. Moreover, mothers' parental burnout was directly related to adolescents' later externalizing problems. Taken together, parental burnout played a role in adolescents' internalizing and externalizing problems over time through increased parental hostility. These findings underscore the importance of parental burnout on parenting behavior and adolescent adjustment.

Purpose: Limited research has investigated how parenting stress may play a role in sibling relationships. Little is known about co-parenting in buffering against the role of parenting stress on sibling relationships. This study examined these links in a Chinese contest. Methods: A sample of 167 two-child Chinese families were recruited to attend this study. Mothers completed questionnaires assessing parenting stress, co-parenting, parental warmth, and the quality of their children's sibling relationships. Results: Mothers' parenting stress was indirectly associated with positive sibling relationships through the role of maternal warmth. In addition, mothers' parenting stress interacted with their perception of co-parenting to play a role in maternal warmth. Conclusions: These findings provide useful information about the pathway through which mothers' parenting stress influences sibling relationships. In identifying the moderating role of co-parenting on the mediating process of parenting behaviors, we encourage fathers to support the mothers' role in caring for two children.

Adolescents' family obligation is a cultural strength that shows enduring prevalence in China. Given that the meaning of family obligation has undergone rapid changes in recent decades, it is crucial to examine the role of family obligation in adolescent adjustment in contemporary China. More importantly, although past research has investigated the consequences of family obligation on adolescents' adjustment, little is known about the antecedents of Chinese adolescents' family obligation. Using a two‐wave longitudinal sample of 450 Chinese adolescents (mean age = 13.78 years, SD =.71 years; 49% female) and their parents, the current research explored two questions. First, this study examined the role of family obligation in adolescents' academic achievement, externalizing problems, and internalizing problems over early adolescence. Second, this study explored the role of parents in predicting Chinese adolescents' family obligation, specifically whether parental expectations or parental acceptance was predictive of adolescents' family obligation over time. Third, this study investigated whether family obligation is an underlying mechanism between parenting and Chinese adolescents' adjustment. Results showed that Chinese adolescents' family obligation was longitudinally associated with increased academic achievement and reduced externalizing problems. Moreover, perceived parental acceptance, but not parental expectations, was longitudinally associated with Chinese adolescents' greater family obligation. Notably, family obligation mediated the longitudinal effect of parental acceptance on Chinese adolescents' externalizing problems. By studying both the consequences and antecedents of Chinese adolescents' family obligation, this study helps provide a comprehensive understanding of this cultural strength. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To examine whether the cultural normativeness of parents' beliefs and behaviors moderates the links between those beliefs and behaviors and youths' adjustment, mothers, fathers, and children (N = 1,298 families) from 12 cultural groups in 9 countries (China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States) were interviewed when children were, on average, 10 years old and again when children were 12 years old. Multilevel models examined 5 aspects of parenting (expectations regarding family obligations, monitoring, psychological control, behavioral control, warmth/affection) in relation to 5 aspects of youth adjustment (social competence, prosocial behavior, academic achievement, externalizing behavior, internalizing behavior). Interactions between family level and culture-level predictors were tested to examine whether cultural normativeness of parenting behaviors moderated the link between those behaviors and children's adjustment. More evidence was found for within- than between-culture differences in parenting predictors of youth adjustment. In 7 of the 8 instances in which cultural normativeness was found to moderate the link between parenting and youth adjustment, the link between a particular parenting behavior and youth adjustment was magnified in cultural contexts in which the parenting behavior was more normative.

Purpose: Parental burnout is a psychological syndrome that develops in response to the chronic stressors in one's role as a parent. It can be detrimental to the health and wellbeing of both parents and children and has been empirically proven to result in more negative parenting behaviours. Based on recent research, parental burnout is more prevalent in individualistic cultures. Considering that parenting norms and practices vary greatly across cultures, there could be different effects of parental burnout on parenting practices in different areas. The present study aimed to determine the relationship between parental burnout and parenting behaviours in Shanghai and Nanning, two cities in China that differ in the extent to which they have been exposed to the cultural influence of Western individualism, and to examine the moderating effect of city on these relationship patterns. Methods: Three hundred and sixty-eight mothers in Shanghai and 180 mothers in Nanning took part in the survey. Results: On average, mothers in Shanghai had more severe parental burnout than their counterparts in Nanning. Furthermore, parental burnout was associated with positive parenting behaviours (i.e., parental warmth) and negative parenting behaviours (i.e., parental hostility and neglect), and the associations between parental burnout and negative parenting behaviours in Nanning were greater than in Shanghai. Conclusions: These results can be explained by cultural differences in individualism and collectivism between Shanghai and Nanning. This study extends the knowledge on the role of culture in shaping parental roles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parents' differential treatment of siblings has been understudied among sibling research in Chinese societies where the government ended its one-child policy. This study, using a three-wave longitudinal design, explored the associations among parents' marital and coparenting relationships, parental differential treatment of siblings, and adolescents' sibling relationships within a theoretical framework of a developmental cascade model of family influence. Adolescents (Mage = 12.88 years, SD = 0.76 at Time 1; 51.2% girls) and their mothers from 260 families in China participated in this research (first data collection in January 2018). Mothers completed questionnaires that assessed marital and coparenting relationship quality, and adolescents completed questionnaires that assessed their perceptions of parental differential treatment as well as sibling intimacy and conflict. The results, based on path analyses, revealed that marital satisfaction at Time 1 was positively associated with coparenting support at Time 2. Coparenting support at Time 2 was negatively associated with adolescents' perception of parental differential treatment at Time 3. Parental differential treatment at Time 3 was negatively associated with sibling intimacy at Time 3 but positively associated with sibling conflict at Time 3. These results are consistent with the developmental cascade hypothesis in that parent–parent subsystems influenced parental differential treatment of siblings as a parent–child subsystem, which in turn spilled over to create negative family processes that exacerbated adolescents' sibling subsystem quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

(1) Background: Parental involvement in adolescents' learning generally benefits adolescents' development, thus highlighting the importance of investigating why parents involve. Specifically, Chinese parents are highly involved in adolescents' learning, which may be explained by their cultural beliefs. This longitudinal study provided a novel cultural understanding of the antecedents of Chinese mothers' involvement in adolescents' learning by examining the predicting effect of their expectations of adolescents' family obligations over time, with attention to how adolescents' academic performance moderated such effect. (2) Methods: Chinese mothers (N = 450; Mage = 39.52 years, SD = 3.96) of middle-school adolescents reported on their expectations of adolescents' family obligations at Wave 1 and their involvement in adolescents' learning twice over six months. Adolescents' academic performance (i.e., grade) was obtained from teachers. (3) Results: Chinese mothers who had greater expectations of adolescents' family obligations were involved more in adolescents' learning over time. Moreover, adolescents' academic performance moderated this longitudinal association, such that mothers' expectations only predicted their greater involvement among adolescents with high, but not low, academic performance. (4) Conclusions: These findings highlight the cultural understanding of parents' beliefs that motivate their involvement in adolescents' learning in a non-Western society, as well as the moderating role of adolescents' characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the influences of peer interpersonal strategy and secure attachment on social status in peer contexts in the initial period of secondary school in China. Two hundred and thirty-one new students in secondary schools (grade 6) were recruited in the first semester to complete measures of interpersonal strategies in the peer group, secure attachment to mother, social dominance, and sociometric nomination. The results indicated that both prosocial strategies and attachment security were positively correlated with social dominance and peer preference in peer group, whereas the coercive strategies were not correlated with social status. Implications and limitations of findings were discussed. (Contains 1 table.)

This longitudinal research identified the developmental trajectories of sibling jealousy in firstborn children (M age = 49.9 months; 55% boys) among 107 Chinese families from 1 to 12 months after the birth of a younger sibling. Four sibling jealousy trajectories were identified: (a) low-increasing, (b) middle-stable, (c) high-stable, and (d) sharp-increasing. Trajectory group membership varied as a function of pre-birth parental factors including strict parental control (i.e., tiger parenting), parenting stress, and parental depression. These results highlight the benefit of examining the development of sibling jealousy over the transition to siblinghood and the importance to recognize pre-birth parental characteristics, especially paternal factors, as determinants when identifying children who may be at greater risk of adjustment difficulties following the birth of a younger sibling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The three-dimensional (i.e. affective, behavioural, and cognitive) conceptualisation of student engagement has been the prevalent framework for understanding student engagement, but most existing research has focussed on general, rather than subject-specific, student engagement. The present study tested the psychometric properties of a measure of student engagement for two language-relevant subject areas (Chinese and English) developed from general student engagement measures using a structural equation modelling approach. The sample consisted of 778 students (M = 10.43 years, SD = 0.99) from grades 4 to 6 in Shanghai, China. This study adapted the general student engagement scales to develop measures of student engagement in the subject areas of Chinese and English language for Chinese students within the three-dimensional engagement framework. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) supported the three-factor model, showing adequate fit for each subject area. In addition, the model showed configural, metric, and scalar invariance across both gender and grade groups. There were also some latent mean differences in the subject-specific student engagement constructs between gender and age groups. These results indicate that the student engagement measure for the two subject areas has acceptable psychometric properties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Associations between parent–child relationships and adolescents' shyness are well documented, but relatively little is known about the role of siblings. This three‐wave longitudinal research examined reciprocal associations between parental and sibling warmth and adolescents' shyness in China. One hundred and fifty Chinese adolescents (Mage = 12.84 years; 56.7% girls) participated. Data were collected from multiple sources including self‐reports and peer assessments. Cross‐lagged model analyses revealed unique longitudinal paths from sibling warmth to adolescents' shyness and from adolescents' shyness to sibling warmth. Moreover, no cross‐lagged paths existed between fathers' and mothers' warmth and adolescents' shyness. The results suggest that sibling relationships may be a unique social context for socialization and development among Chinese adolescents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the relationships of parents' and children's sibling status to parenting and co-parenting in Shanghai, China. Parents of 652 children (mean age = 61.55 months) from 12 preschools completed the questionnaire. The fathers and mothers provided demographic information and responded to items that assessed parenting style and perceived co-parenting. The results found that, in two-child families, mothers without siblings reported more authoritative parenting styles and less authoritarian parenting styles than mothers with siblings. Co-parenting positively related to authoritative parenting style and negatively related to authoritarian parenting style for both parents and regardless of parents' and children's sibling status. The results support the resource dilution model for Chinese families, emphasize the importance of sibling status on parenting and co-parenting, clarify gender differences, and add to the emerging discourse on China's changing population policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The associations among parenting behaviors, effortful control, and student engagement in math were examined in a sample of Chinese children. The sample was composed of 778 students (Mage = 10.43 years, SD = 0.99) from Grades 4 to 6 in Shanghai, China. Children completed questionnaires to assess parental warmth and hostility, effortful control, and student engagement in math. The results indicated that parental warmth was positively correlated with math engagement whereas parental hostility was negatively correlated with math engagement. In addition, mediational analyses indicated that effortful control fully mediated the association between parental hostility and math engagement, but partially mediated the association between parental warmth and math engagement. This study offers insights into a mediating mechanism linking the relationships among parenting behaviors, effortful control, and math engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Previous studies have indicated that only children (i.e., children without siblings) have a greater risk of being overweight and/or obese than children with siblings. The present study aimed to explore how family factors, such as maternal warmth and marital relationships, are associated with the weight status of only children in China. Methods: The sample was comprised of 395 mothers (M = 32.95 years old, SD= 3.18) with only children (M = 61.32 months, SD= 9.32) in Shanghai, China. Mothers completed questionnaires assessing maternal warmth and marital satisfaction. In addition, they reported their children's weight and height, which was used to calculate the children's body mass index (BMI) and overweight/obese status. Results: Maternal warmth was negatively related to only children's BMI and overweight/obese status. Marital satisfaction, on the other hand, was only negatively related to only children's BMI. In addition, maternal warmth had a mediating role in the association between marital satisfaction and children's BMI. Conclusions: The findings may enhance our understanding of how family functioning influences only children's weight. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explored how maternal involvement in sibling relationships and coparenting behaviors were associated with adolescents' sibling conflicts. Adolescents (Mage = 12.25 years; 47.8% boys) and their mothers from 542 families in China participated in this research. Mothers completed questionnaires that assessed their strategies of involvement in sibling relationships, as well as their perceptions of the quality of their coparenting behaviors. Furthermore, adolescents completed questionnaires that assessed sibling conflicts. Results revealed that the mother's positive guidance was negatively related and their authoritarian control was positively related to sibling conflict. A significant interaction was also found between positive maternal guidance in sibling relationships and undermining coparenting behaviors. These findings underscore the unique and interactive effects of mothers' direct involvement in sibling relationships and coparenting behaviors in adolescents' sibling conflicts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the study was to examine the relationships between social support and boundaries from family, school and community and student engagement among Chinese adolescents. Participants were 577 adolescents (53.5% boys) from Shanghai who provided data on student engagement, environmental support and boundaries from family, school and community. Results showed that family, school and community support and boundaries were positively related to two dimensions of student engagement (i.e., behavioral and affective). Several interaction terms were also observed. Specifically, school support strengthened the relationship between community support and behavioral engagement, and family support and affective engagement; school boundary strengthened the relationship between family boundary and affective engagement. Practical implications for the contributions of support and boundaries from family, school and community on student engagement are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Life history theory provides a unifying perspective on understanding human behaviors as adaptive strategies in response to particular environmental conditions. There is little empirical literature on the relationships between life history strategies and positive youth development.Objective: This study examines the relationships between environmental certainty, life history strategies and external and internal developmental assets among adolescents.Methods: Participants were 577 adolescents (53.5% boys) from Shanghai, China. Data on environmental certainty, life history strategies and developmental assets were collected from adolescents' self-reports.Results: Adolescents with a slower life strategy reported higher levels of both external and internal assets. Furthermore, perceptions of environmental certainty were associated with both external and internal assets through a slower life history strategy.Conclusions: Developmental assets may be a part of or the result of the slow life history strategy in response to certain environments. This pattern also complements and expands previous findings linking life history strategy and negative adolescent development. The present study suggests profitable avenues of study in the areas of social environments and positive youth development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Parents' experiences as siblings have received little attention from family psychologists. This study examined whether Chinese mothers' sibling status—growing up with or without siblings—played a role in the quality of their children's sibling relationships. It also tested whether the association between mothers' sibling status and children's sibling relationships was moderated by supportive coparenting. The research goal was to provide preliminary evidence relevant to the importance of parents' sibling experiences on their children's sibling relationships.Methods: The sample comprised 167 two-child families in Shanghai, China. Mothers (M = 34.5 years old; 55.1% of mothers without siblings) completed questionnaires assessing supportive coparenting and the quality of their children's sibling relationships.Results: The results indicated that there were differences in the quality of sibling relationships among children whose mothers grew up with siblings and their counterparts whose mothers grew up without siblings. Specifically, the former had sibling relationships characterized by more positive involvement, but less conflict, rivalry and avoidance than the latter. In addition, supportive coparenting was positively related to positive sibling involvement and—in children of mothers without siblings—negatively related to both sibling conflict and sibling avoidance.Conclusions: These findings enhance understanding of how mothers' experiences as siblings may have a role in their children's sibling relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: The reaction of firstborns to the impending arrival of a sibling has received little attention from family psychologists. The present study examined whether firstborns’ positive feelings about their sibling before the birth were related to the time at which they were told about the mother’s pregnancy and their effortful control, which was defined as the self-regulatory ability to inhibit a dominant response to perform a subdominant response. The goal of this research was to provide preliminary evidence in the social context of the two-child policy in China.Methods: The sample included 52 Chinese parents and their firstborns when mothers were in their third trimester of pregnancy with their second child. Data were obtained by means of observation and parent-reported questionnaires.Results: Firstborn children who were told earlier in their mothers’ pregnancy were more likely to have positive feelings about their sibling before the birth. In addition, firstborns’ effortful control was positively associated with positive feelings about a sibling before the birth. Last, firstborns’ effortful control moderated the association between the time at which they were told and positive feelings about the sibling before the birth. Specifically, only when firstborns had low levels of effortful control, being told later about the pregnancy, was related to lower levels of positive feelings about the sibling.Conclusions: Findings enhanced our understanding of how parents’ preparation and firstborns’ individual characteristics may have a role on firstborns’ positive adjustment before the birth of a sibling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the theoretical framework of attachment theory, this study examined associations between adolescents' attachment relationships with both mother and father and their academic adjustment, and explored the potential mediation role of self-worth in the associations. Participants were 384 Chinese adolescents (49.6% male, average age = 15.13 years) from public schools in Shanghai, China. They completed self-report measures of mother-adolescent attachment, father-adolescent attachment, general self-worth, academic engagement and school grades. The results indicated that adolescents' attachments to both parents were associated with higher levels of academic engagement. There was partial support of the mediating role of self-worth, as adolescents who had high levels of parent-adolescent attachment were more likely to have high levels of self-worth, which in turn enhanced their academic engagement and then improved high school grades. The findings highlighted the importance of parental attachment-based intervention strategies to promote and maintain academic adjustment among adolescents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Attachment is an important relational construct. Many studies have shown concurrent as well as longitudinal associations between attachment and many indices of adolescent and adult adaptation. The experiences in close relationships-revised (ECR-R) is one of the most commonly used self-report instruments of romantic attachment and therefore it is important to extend knowledge on its applicability in understudied non-Western samples. The purpose of this paper was threefold: (1) to examine the factor structure of the ECR-R in a Chinese sample, (2) to test the factorial equivalence of the instrument between Chinese and Greek samples, (3) to examine the measurement invariance of the instrument between those samples. Results supported the well-known two-factor structure of the instrument in the Chinese sample and the common factor structure between the two groups. Applying a multiple testing procedure we were able to detect those parameters for which invariance did not hold. Implications of results are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

One approach to understanding leadership styles in human society is through the lens of followers' preferences. From a life history perspective, followers from different backgrounds may develop different psychological traits and social connections that are compatible with the type of future environments that they expect following childhood experiences. This psychosocial life-history profile of the follower, representing different domains of fitness investment, predisposes them to preferences for dominance-style or prestige-style leadership. We tested multiple aspects of followers' life-history profiles as potential mediators between childhood adversity and leadership preferences in hypothetical scenarios in two studies using multisite samples in Mainland China. Study 1 (N = 898) focused on childhood economic conditions, and Study 2 (N = 1233) examined childhood resource insecurity and negative life events as independent indicators of childhood adversity. The results indicated an association between childhood adversity and a preference for dominant (rather than prestigious) leaders that was mediated by indicators of relational social investment but not by indicators of intellectual, long-term reproduction, or generalized social investment. This finding represents a new direction for research into leadership preferences as well as the application of life-history theory to social psychology. • People with more adverse childhoods are more likely to endorse dominant leaders. • Relational social investment is a key mediator of this relationship. • Early adversity does not necessarily undermine intellectual development investment. • Not all future-oriented investment predicts a preference for prestigious leaders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationship between resource acquisition strategies, social functioning and social status in Chinese children. A sample of nearly 500 Chinese children in elementary schools in Shanghai, China, participated in this study. The authors divided the sample into five resource acquisition strategies; based on self-reported use of coercive and pro-social strategies of resource control, they were 'bistrategic controllers' (Machiavellians), 'coercive controllers', 'pro-social controllers', 'non-controllers', or 'typicals'. The results revealed that bistrategic controllers were the most effective in resource control, followed by pro-social and coercive controllers: non-controllers were the least effective. It also indicated that bistrategic and coercive controllers exhibited poor social functioning and low peer status; in contrast, 'typical' controllers emerged as possessing positive social functioning and high peer status. In addition, non-controllers were not at risk with regard to social competence. The results indicate specific cultural 'meanings' of different resource acquisition strategies in Chinese children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective. The present study examined mothers' and fathers' attributions and attitudes related to parenting in China. Design. Interviews were conducted with 241 pairs of parents to obtain maternal and paternal reports of attributions regarding successes and failures in parent-child interactions and on progressive versus authoritarian attitudes about parenting. Results. Mothers' mean levels of attributions and attitudes did not differ significantly from fathers' mean levels of attributions and attitudes. The authors found significant correlations between mothers' and fathers' attributions regarding uncontrollable success, authoritarian attitudes, and modernity of attitudes. Conclusions. Supporting the cultural evolutionary view that drastic social changes bring about nonconforming and individualistic behavioral tendencies, these findings rectify and expand the existing literature portraying Chinese parenting as uniformly Confucian and traditional. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to investigate the associations of four dyads (mother-child, father-child, teacher-student, and student-student) of social relationships with adolescent Internet addiction (IA) and explore the seldom concurrently examined roles of life satisfaction and life meaning (indicators of hedonic and eudaimonic well-being respectively) as potential mediators and moderators in these associations. Based on data collected from 1,974 adolescents in China, the results showed that 1) father-child relationship (but not other relationships) was negatively associated with IA; 2) the mediation effects of life satisfaction and life meaning were significant on the links between father-child and student-student relationships and IA, and the suppression effect of life satisfaction (but not life meaning) was significant on the association between mother-child relationship and IA, while the mediation effects were not significant regarding teacher-child relationship; 3) life satisfaction and life meaning significantly moderated the association between father-child relationship and IA in opposite directions: life satisfaction reinforced the negative association, while life meaning mitigated the relation. The findings delineate the association between social relationships in different contexts and adolescent IA as well as the unique roles played by life satisfaction and life meaning in underlying the association. • Father-child relationship plays a prominent role in adolescent Internet addiction. • The indirect effects of well-being vary across different social relationships-Internet addiction links. • Hedonic well-being exerts a suppression effect on the link between mother-child relationship and Internet addiction. • Hedonic well-being enhances the negative relation between father-child relationship and Internet addiction. • Eudaimonic well-being mitigates the negative relation between father-child relationship and Internet addiction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A wealth of research has revealed that both sibling absence or presence and sibling relationship are essential contributors to children's theory of mind (ToM) skills. However, almost all these studies were conducted in Western, individualistic countries, and no study has yet focused on the sibling-ToM link in Chinese children. To address these gaps, firstly,113 children without siblings (M age = 4.38 years, SD = 0.84, 53 boys) and 150 one-sibling children (M age = 4.24 years, SD = 0.85, 64 boys) from China were compared by an established developmental ToM Scale. This study revealed that sibling status (e.g., children with a sibling vs without a sibling; children with an older or child-aged sibling vs. children with a young sibling) did not influence ToM scores. Moreover, for children with a sibling, positive interactions (but not negative interactions) between sibling dyads were positively associated with children's ToM skills. In conclusion, these findings suggested that the presence of one sibling at home only doesn't necessarily accelerate Chinese children's acquisition of ToM skills. It is the positive interaction between siblings that promotes the development of children's ToM skills. • Sibling status do not affect ToM skills of Chinese children. • Sibling negative interactions have no effect on Chinese children's ToM skills. • Sibling positive interactions could promote Chinese children's ToM skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To examine whether parents' cultural values are related to parenting practices and children's behavioural adjustment, mothers, fathers and children (N = 218) from two cities in China (Jinan and Shanghai) were interviewed when children were, on average, 10 years old. Mothers and fathers reported their endorsement of cultural values (individualism, collectivism, conformity), which were used to separately predict warmth and family obligation expectations reported by each parent, as well as children's report of parental psychological control, rule setting, knowledge solicitation and perceived family obligation expectations. Cross-informant (parents and child) composites of internalising and externalising behaviours were also obtained. The results showed that maternal individualism positively predicted parents' knowledge solicitation. Parental collectivism positively predicted their own warmth and family obligation expectations. Mothers' conformity positively predicted mothers' family obligation expectations, paternal warmth and children's perception of family obligation, whereas fathers' conformity only positively predicted fathers' family obligation expectations. These effects were largely consistent across regional subsamples, although mothers in Jinan were more collectivistic than mothers in Shanghai, and parents in Shanghai adopted less psychological control and more knowledge solicitation in parenting., (© 2023 International Union of Psychological Science.)

This longitudinal study examined the reciprocal associations between paternal and maternal rejection and firstborn children's (M age  = 49.9 months; 55% boys) behavior problems across the transition to siblinghood in a sample of 120 families recruited from 2016 to 2018 from Shanghai, China. Parental rejection and behavior problems were assessed before (prenatal) and 1, 6, and 12 months after the birth of a baby sibling. Random intercept cross-lagged panel models revealed positive relations between internalizing problems and both maternal and paternal rejection, and between externalizing problems and paternal rejection at the between-person level (rs = .32-.37), but only cross-lagged effects from children's internalizing and externalizing problems to maternal rejection at the within-person level (βs = .30-.54)., (© 2022 The Authors. Child Development © 2022 Society for Research in Child Development.)

We investigated how sibling status and sex of younger siblings influence Chinese adolescents' relationships with their fathers and mothers as a function of resource dilution and preference for sons. The sample included 1,093 adolescents from the 8th grade (M age  = 13.96 years, SD = 0.75 years; 47% girls) and the 11th grade (M age  = 17.25 years, SD = 0.74 years; 57% girls) in a longitudinal study. Consistent with expectations pertaining to the hypothesis of resource dilution and son preference in combination, girls with a younger brother reported less positive relationships with mothers than either singleton girls or girls with a younger sister. No significant difference was found between singleton boys and boys with a younger sibling. The current findings show implications that the resource-dilution theory and son preference culture together may place girls with a younger brother in an unfavorable condition of resource allocation., (© 2022 Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences and John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd.)

Purpose: Preventive health behavior during COVID-19 protects not only oneself but also the welfare of others. However, little attention has been paid to prosocial motivation in adolescents, who are often viewed as selfish and egocentric. Therefore, the current study aimed to explore the role of empathy in adolescents' preventive health behavior using longitudinal data., Methods: A total of 442 Chinese adolescents (mean age of youth = 13.35 years; 49.5% girls and 50.5% boys) completed two-wave longitudinal surveys over the span of two months during the pandemic (Time 1: July 2020; Time 2: September 2020). At T1, participants reported on their empathic concern, perspective taking, and concern for personal health. At both T1 and T2, participants reported on their preventive health behavior and COVID-related worry., Results: Adolescents who showed greater empathic concern tend to engage in more preventive health behavior over time (p < .01). However, greater empathic concern also predicted adolescents' greater worry about COVID-19 over time (p < .01). In comparison, adolescents' perspective-taking and concern for personal health did not predict their health behavior or worry over time. Notably, the longitudinal effect of empathic concern on preventive health behavior and COVID-related worry remained (ps < .05) after taking into account adolescents' perspective-taking and concern for personal health., Conclusions: These findings highlight adolescents' prosocial motivation in engaging in preventive health behavior during the pandemic and also point out the potential negative influence of empathic concern on adolescent mental health., (Copyright © 2021 Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Parental burnout is a state that parents experience overwhelming exhaustion in their parental role. Given the detrimental impacts of parents' stress on adolescent development, youth may suffer from undesirable emotional adjustment due to parental burnout. Therefore, it is key to understand the underlying mechanisms through which parental burnout may play a role in youth's mental health and identify protective factors that may reduce the potential negative impacts. Using a sample of 442 Chinese parent-adolescent dyads (Mean age of youth = 13.35 years; 50% girls), this two-wave longitudinal study examined how parental burnout contributes to youth's mental health over the span of two months. Moreover, the current research investigated the potential mediating role of autonomy support and the potential moderating role of emotion regulation in the links between parental burnout and youth's mental health. The results showed that greater parental burnout was predictive of youth's greater depressive and anxiety symptoms two months later, and such effects were partially mediated by less autonomy-supportive parenting. Notably, the negative effects of parental burnout on autonomy-supportive parenting and youth's mental health were not significant when parents used more cognitive reappraisal to regulate their emotions. These findings demonstrate the underlying mechanisms of how parental burnout affects youth's mental health over time and highlight the protective role of healthy emotion regulation against parental burnout., (© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.)

Parents' comparisons of siblings have been understudied among sibling research, especially in Chinese societies where the government recently relaxed its one-child policy. This study, using a two-wave longitudinal design, explored how parents' comparisons of siblings were associated with adolescents' internalizing and externalizing problems. Study participants were 260 Chinese adolescents who had siblings and completed questionnaires that assessed their internalizing and externalizing problems, as well as their perceptions of parents' critical comparisons of siblings. Cross-lagged modeling analysis showed that parents' comparisons of siblings predicted more internalizing and externalizing problems in adolescents 6 months later. Moreover, adolescents' externalizing problems but not internalizing problems predicted more parents' comparisons of siblings over time. These findings underscore the importance of reciprocal relations between parents' comparisons of siblings and adolescents' externalizing problems and the implication of cultural context in understanding associations between parental practices and adolescents' adjustment.

To explore the association between phytoplankton community structure and water quality of the Tianhe Reservoir in Wenzhou, Zhejiang, we examined the phytoplankton and physico-chemical factors in the Tianhe Reservoir from February 2019 to January 2020. A total of 89 phytoplankton species belonging to 60 genera and 7 phyla were identified. The annual average abundance and biomass of phytoplankton were 2.02×10 5 cells·L -1 and 0.26 mg·L -1 respectively. Bacillariophyta was dominant in the whole year. Chlorophyta was dominant in spring and autumn. Cyanophyta was dominant in summer. Both Euglenophyta and Pyrrophyta appeared in the whole year. Cryptophyta appeared in autumn and winter. However, none of them was dominant due to their low abundance. The dominant species throughout the year were Melosira granulata , Synedra acus , Navicula cryptocephala , Asterionella formosa , Pseudoanabaena , Closterlum venus , Pediastrum duplex , Peridinium bipes , Dinobryon cylindricum and Cryptomonas ovata . Results of redundancy analysis (RDA) showed that water temperature, total nitrogen, COD Mn and pH value were the main factors driving phytoplankton community structure in the whole year. According to the evaluation based on diversity indices, including Shannon index , Pielou evenness index , Margalef richness index and comprehensive trophic status index (TLI), water quality of Tianhe Reservoir is between oligotrophication and mesotrophication.

This cross-cultural study compared the prosocial behaviors of 101 Dutch, 37 urban Indian and 91 urban Chinese preschoolers, investigated (potential) cultural differences on their mothers' values and goals, and examined how mothers' values and goals relate to preschoolers' prosocial behaviors. Preschoolers' prosocial behaviors were observed in three standardized, behavioral assessments. Mothers reported on their own values and socialization goals for their children. Results showed no cultural difference in prosocial behaviors. However, Indian and Chinese mothers rated self-enhancement values as more important than Dutch mothers, and Indian mothers rated self-transcendence values and relational goals as more important than the Chinese and Dutch mothers. No difference was found on autonomous goals. These findings suggest that current cultural differences on parental socialization processes are beyond the individualistic-collectivistic dichotomy often used to classify cultures and are more reflective of the independence of these two dimensions. Mothers in urban Indian and urban Chinese societies can be categorized into an autonomous-relatedness cultural model. Additionally, there might be an ongoing shift toward an independence model in the urban, Chinese societies. Furthermore, culture moderated the association between autonomous goals and observed prosocial behaviors, with this association being significant within the Dutch sample only. No other associations between values or goals and children's prosocial behavior were found. Overall, these findings support the ecocultural model of children's prosocial development, and further suggest that young preschoolers from different cultures are more alike than different in prosocial behaviors.

Objective: To screen mutations in FERM domain-containing protein 7 (FRMD7) gene in two Chinese families with X-linked idiopathic congenital nystagmus (XLICN)., Methods: Common ophthalmic data and peripheral blood of two Chinese XLICN families (families A and B) were collected after informed consent. Genomic DNA was prepared from the peripheral blood of members of the two families and from 100 normal controls. Mutations in the FRMD7 gene were determined by directly sequencing polymerase chain reaction (PCR) products., Results: We identified a novel mutation c.980&#95;983delATTA compound with c.986C>A mutation in the 11th exon of FRMD7 in family B, and a previously reported splicing mutation c.781C>G (p.R261G) [corrected] in family A. The mutations were detected in patients and female carriers, while they were absent in other relatives or in the 100 normal controls., Conclusions: Our results expand the spectrum of FRMD7 mutations in association with XLICN, and further confirm that the mutations of FRMD7 are the underlying molecular mechanism for XLICN.

The purpose of this study was to examine relations between mother-child attachment and social initiative and withdrawal in Chinese urban children. Participants were 487 school-aged children (247 boys, 240 girls) in Shanghai, the People's Republic of China. Data on mother-child attachment styles were collected from children's self-reports. Information concerning social initiative and social withdrawal (i.e., shyness and social disinterest) was obtained from peer nomination. Path analyses revealed that secure attachment was positively associated with social initiative, whereas ambivalent-insecure attachment was positively associated with shyness. However, avoidant-insecure attachment was not significantly associated with social disinterest. In addition, a number of gender and developmental differences were also observed.

Based on the acid rain and concurrent meteorological observational data during the past 10 years in Fujian Province, China, the dependence of distribution characteristics of acid rain on season, rain rate, weather pattern and dominant airflow in four regions of Fujian Province is analyzed. On the annual average, the acid rain frequency is the highest (above 40%) in the southern and mid-eastern regions, and the lowest (16.2%) in the western region. The acid rain occurs most frequently in spring and winter, and least frequent in summer. The acid rain frequency in general increases with the increase of precipitation. It also depend on the direction of dominant airflows at 850 hPa. In the mid-eastern region, more than 40% acid rains appear when the dominant wind directions are NW, W, SW, S and SE. In the southern region, high acid rain occurrence happens when the dominant wind directions are NW, W, SW and S. In the northern region, 41.8% acid rains occur when the southwesterly is pronounced. In the western region, the southwesterly is associated with a 17% acid rain rate. The examination of meteorological sounding conditions over Fuzhou, Xiamen and Shaowu cities shows that the acid rain frequency increases with increased inversion thickness. Based on the results above, a meteorological potential forecast model for acid rain is established and tested in 2007. The result is encouraging. The model provides an objective basis for the development of acid rain forecasting operation in the province.