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Background: Childhood antisocial behaviour has been associated with poorer teacher-student relationship (TSR) quality. It is also well-established that youth with antisocial behaviour have a range of emotion-related deficits, yet the impact of these students’ emotion-related abilities on the TSR is not understood. Furthermore, the addition of the Limited Prosocial Emotions specifier in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) indicates that understanding the role of callous-unemotional (CU) traits for youth with antisocial behaviour problems is of particular importance. \ud \ud Aims: The aim of this study was to investigate the association between antisocial behaviour difficulties and the TSR by examining the influence of emotion-related abilities and CU traits.\ud \ud Sample: Twelve teachers from 10 primary schools provided anonymised information on 108 children aged 6-11 years. \ud \ud Results: Antisocial behaviour was associated with higher teacher-student conflict (but not closeness) as well as higher emotion lability/negativity and lower emotion understanding/empathy. Emotion lability/negativity was associated with higher teacher-student conflict (but not closeness), and emotion understanding/empathy was associated with lower teacher-student conflict and higher closeness. CU traits was associated with higher teacher-student conflict and lower teacher-student closeness (controlling for antisocial behaviour more broadly). We found no evidence of a moderating effect of CU traits or emotion-related abilities on the association between antisocial behaviour and TSR quality.\ud \ud Conclusions: Interventions for behaviour difficulties should consider teacher-student relationships in the classroom. Strategies which aim to improve teacher-student closeness as well as reduce teacher-student conflict may be of particular value to students with high CU traits.

Research that informs policies in regard to public health should be conducted with scientific rigour and integrity. The consequence of this can lead to policies being implemented incorrectly and can remain in place for many years before being reversed or amended. When understanding the effect screen time has on wellbeing, it suffers from the ‘many voices’ problem, whereby academic interest has resulted in a spike of research on the subject. However, high quality research has been diluted by the many studies which use methodologies that are quick and easy to implement. An example of this is online questionnaires that adopt rating scales or ask people to estimate the time they spend on their devices, to get a proxy of people’s engagement with their technologies. However, contemporary research shows that these in fact do not measure usage at all, but instead capture people’s perceptions, worries and appraisals towards their use. Of greater concern, our latest project shows that these measures generate misleading results when linking smartphone use to mental health. To elaborate, when measuring smartphone use directly via objective logs gathered from the device itself, findings showed a person’s daily smartphone pickups or screen time did not predict anxiety, depression, or stress symptoms. However, people’s concerns and worries about their smartphone use, measured via a ‘problematic smartphone use scale’, showed noteworthy effects on mental wellbeing. Alarmingly, many studies confound the latter as a measure of ‘smartphone use’ and conclusions derived from this misconception dominates much of the field. Overall, this makes it difficult to make concrete policy recommendations but can also incorrectly promote the agenda that increased smartphone screen time is a public health crisis. Unfortunately, the same pattern of ‘fast’ research has now become focal during the COVID-19 pandemic. Whereby, academics pursuing high impact research are adopting measures that may be inappropriate for their research question. Whilst some research is time-sensitive, research still requires careful and considerate thought, preferably from existing experts, as it takes time for any academic to become acquainted to a new field research. However, as with the case of screen time, research of higher quality is often not elevated beyond the sea of ‘quick and questionable’ research, which may have attractive conclusions and are rapidly promoted across mass media.

Children differ in their response to environmental exposures, with some being more sensitive to contextual factors than others. According to theory, such variability is the result of individual differences in neurobiological sensitivity to environmental features, with some individuals generally more affected by both negative and/or positive experiences. In this exploratory study we tested whether left and right amygdala and hippocampus volumes (corrected for total brain size) account for individual differences in response to environmental influences in a sample of 62 boys. Cumulative general environmental quality, ranging from low to high, was measured across the first 9 years and child behavior was reported by teachers when boys were 12–13 years old. According to analyses, only the left amygdala volume – not any of the other brain volumes – emerged as an important brain region for sensitivity to positive environmental aspects. Boys with a larger left amygdala benefited significantly more from higher environmental quality than boys with a smaller left amygdala whilst not being more vulnerable to lower quality. Besides providing preliminary evidence for differences in environmental sensitivity due to brain structure, the results also point to the left amygdala as having a specific role regarding the response to environmental influences.

A growing number of self-report measures aim to define interactions with social media in a pathological behavior framework, often using terminology focused on identifying those who are 'addicted' to engaging with others online. Specifically, measures of 'social media addiction' focus on motivations for online social information seeking, which could relate to motivations for offline social information seeking. However, it could be the case that these same measures could reveal a pattern of friend addiction in general. This study develops the Offline-Friend Addiction Questionnaire (O-FAQ) by re-wording items from highly cited pathological social media use scales to reflect "spending time with friends". Our methodology for validation follows the current literature precedent in the development of social media 'addiction' scales. The O-FAQ had a three-factor solution in an exploratory sample of N = 807 and these factors were stable in a 4-week retest (r = .72 to .86) and was validated against personality traits, and risk-taking behavior, in conceptually plausible directions. Using the same polythetic classification techniques as pathological social media use studies, we were able to classify 69% of our sample as addicted to spending time with their friends. The discussion of our satirical research is a critical reflection on the role of measurement and human sociality in social media research. We question the extent to which connecting with others can be considered an 'addiction' and discuss issues concerning the validation of new 'addiction' measures without relevant medical constructs. Readers should approach our measure with a level of skepticism that should be afforded to current social media addiction measures.

This study explores outcomes related to musical learning in a child with complex special educational needs. CB is a boy who was eight-years-old at the start of the study, and who was diagnosed with co-morbid Autism Spectrum Disorder, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Sensory Processing Difficulties, Dyslexia and Dyspraxia during the study. He was evaluated on a battery of developmental measures before and after one year of music learning. At pretesting CB obtained a high musical aptitude score and an average IQ score. However, his scores on tests measuring motor abilities, executive function, and social-emotional skills were low. Post-testing revealed improvements in CB’s fluid intelligence and motor skills, and whilst teacher and parent reports suggested a decline in his social-emotional functioning, his musical progress was good. The results are discussed in the context of impairments in developmental disorders, the importance of flexible teaching approaches and family support for music learning during childhood.

This study investigated the effects of musical instrument learning on the concomitant development of cognitive, behavioural and socio-emotional skills in 38 seven- to nine-year-old children. Pre- and post-test measures of intelligence, memory, socio-emotional behaviour, motor ability and visual-motor integration were compared in children who received either extra-curricular musical training (EMT: n = 19) or statutory school music group lessons (SSM: n = 19). Results showed a significant association between musical aptitude and intelligence overall. The EMT group showed a significant increase in IQ (7 points), in comparison to 4.3 points for the SSM group, suggesting an effect of musical learning on intelligence. No effects were found for memory, or for visual motor integration or socio-emotional behaviour. However, significant improvements in gross motor ability where revealed for the EMT group only, for the aiming and catching composite. With regard to the measure of fluid intelligence, these findings support previous studies. The novel use of the Movement Assessment Battery for Children provides evidence that musical learning may support development in a child’s ability to judge distance, consider velocity, focus and use their proprioceptive, interoceptive and exteroceptive nervous systems.

Objective:\ud \ud To investigate the unique contribution of narcissism and impulsivity, in addition to callous-unemotional (CU) traits, in explaining concurrent prosocial and antisocial behavior.\ud \ud Method:\ud \ud Two hundred and forty-nine schoolchildren (53% female; age 9-12 years) completed the self-report Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) and the Antisocial Process Screening Device (APSD). Two statistical models were tested, predicting conduct problems (CP) and prosocial behavior (PB). In the first one, CU traits and gender were entered into the equation. The second model added narcissism and impulsivity.\ud \ud Results:\ud \ud Gender, narcissism and impulsivity, but not CU, were statistically significant predictors of CP in the second model (F3,226 = 45.07, p < 0.001, R2 = 43.7%; betas: gender = -0.20, narcissism = 0.29, impulsivity = 0.36, CU = 0.06). PB was significantly predicted by all domains except gender (F3,226 = 42.57, p < 0.001, R2 = 42.4%; betas: gender = 0.08, narcissism = -0.16, impulsivity = -0.23, CU = -0.41).\ud \ud Conclusion:\ud \ud Our results confirmed that CU traits refer to a distinct manifestation of psychopathy in youth, but we also found that narcissism and impulsivity are equally important when predicting CP. Previous reports of sex differences on APSD and SDQ domains were also corroborated.

This paper aims to convey an introduction to the psychology of music. At a very basic level, sound informs our model of the world, aiding survival. Musical sound and practice further offers a merging of exogenous and endogenous temporal states and templates, employing multiple complex neural mechanisms. Here we provide an overview of the literature exploring why music matters to our minds and bodies.

This study assessed the relationships between psychopathic personality traits and perceived stress amongst 264 young adults. A hypothesised mediation role for emotion and empathy deficits in the psychopathy-stress association was also investigated. Results indicated stronger associations between perceived stress with secondary psychopathy compared with primary psychopathy. Partial mediation effects of alexithymic traits on the relationship between stress and psychopathic personality traits are reported. Although the current study showed that both primary and secondary traits are significantly association with higher levels of self-reported stress, it is the latter which seems to be most important, lending more weight to the need to consider mental health outcomes in those with high levels of secondary psychopathy characteristics.

Research has suggested that differences in personality traits among western musicians, in comparison to the general population, may be related to gender. For example, studies suggest male classical musicians are more introverted than popular musicians, though female musicians may be more extroverted than population norms. Contemporary musical learning can be formal and/or informal, and changes in music education may have impacted upon traditional gender-based stereotypes. This study investigated similarities and differences between formal/informal musical learning, gender and musicians’ personalities. The sample included 275 musicians (87 female, mean age 40.2 years, range 19-81, learning duration > 6 years). The participants were either self-taught (n = 74), formally taught (n = 62), or a mixture of the two (n = 139). A comparison of two brief inventories (TIPI and BFI-10) provided reliability and validity. Contrary to previous research, no gender differences were found for the trait of Extraversion. Group differences according to formal/informal learning styles were apparent. Higher levels of Conscientiousness were associated with formal music learning. Overall musicians had higher levels of Openness to Experience than population norms. Further research will be required to understand whether this is an artifact of access and provision to music education, or a systematic personality difference among musicians.

Interest in studies investigating the indirect effect of music education, evaluated theoretically as ‘transfer effects’ (Barnett & Ceci, 2002) has been re-energised by the recent changes in policy that require musical provision to be justified (Branscombe, 2012). Here we take a holistic approach to musical learning, nesting neuro-psychological measures of near and far transfer within one battery of tests. The mixed design considered the multi-modal characteristics of musicality along a continuum assessing changes over time for behavioural visuo and psycho-motor skills and factors of both intelligence and memory in children in a pilot study. Participants (N=38) aged between 7 to 9 years were tested over a period of one UK academic year. Groups were assigned based on the amount of musical training they received. Results suggest an advantage for those participants taking music lessons over and above statutory provisions, particularly for hand/eye co-ordination and non-verbal reasoning.

To date, very few studies have explored the incidence of motor impair- ment amongst children with social, emotional and behavioural difficul- ties (social, emotional and mental health (SEMH); formerly SEBD in England). Following research that suggests an increase in motor difficul- ties in young children and adolescents with SEMH difficulties, this study compares profiles of motor ability using the Movement ABC-2 assess- ment in children attending a specialist SEMH primary school with a typically developing comparison group and children with a diagnosis of developmental coordination disorder. We report an increased preva- lence of borderline or clinically significant motor impairment amongst children with SEMH difficulties compared to the comparison group, with 44% of the SEMH special school sample falling within these ranges. We suggest that bearing in mind the increased likelihood for motor impair- ment is important in SEMH education, as it has likely impact on class- room functioning and ability and motivation to take part in socially and academically relevant activities.

This chapter provides an overview of the research relating to social relationships in children with autism. Understanding what children with autism understand by, or desire, in terms of friendships is an important starting point. Many children with autism report difficulty making and maintaining social relationships, and we consider factors that predict social outcomes, as well as the consequences of experiencing social exclusion. Finally, there will be discussion about interventions that have a focus on building social relationships. In particular, school-based, peer-mediated strategies appear to hold the most promise.