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Recent studies showed that attachment security can change within persons, suggesting that there might be an interplay between a rather stable (trait) and rather variable (state) part of attachment. The study's first aim was to investigate whether attachment priming could influence the level of state attachment. The second aim was to explore possible moderators explaining individual differences in the relation between state attachment responses to attachment versus neutral primes. This can shed light on individual differences in attachment prime-induced state attachment. We conducted a within-subjects priming study in which children (9-13 years) were allocated to three priming procedures (neutral, secure, avoidant). Results showed an increase in secure state attachment after secure attachment priming. Individual differences in the strength of this effect were moderated by trait attachment and state attachment volatility. First findings cautiously suggest that state attachment security can change in response to environmental cues under certain circumstances.

Grandmothers are important in Chinese families. This study explored the early emerging mother-grandmother-infant network and its association with child's socioemotional development in multigenerational families in a non-WEIRD country. The analytic sample included 60 children (T1: M[subscript age] = 6.5 months) and their caregivers residing in Beijing. Measures used were the Strange Situation Procedure (SSP), the Lausanne Trilogue Play (LTP), the Maternal Behavior Q-Sort (MBQS), and the Infant-Toddler Social and Emotional Assessment. Structural equation and path modeling revealed that (1) more grandmaternal neutral/watching coparenting behaviors at the first assessment were related to more secure infant-mother attachment relationships at the second assessment (T2: M[subscript age] = 1 year); (2) maternal sensitivity at T2 was a partial mediator between earlier undermining and neutral/watching coparenting behaviors and young children's externalizing problems at the final assessment (T3: M[subscript age] = 2 years). Findings are discussed in terms of the roles played by mother-grandmother coparenting network in the children's socioemotional development.

An unsettled question in attachment theory and research is the extent to which children's attachment patterns with mothers and fathers "jointly" predict developmental outcomes. In this study, we used individual participant data (IPD) meta-analysis to assess whether early attachment networks with mothers and fathers are associated with children's internalizing and externalizing behavioral problems. Following a pre-registered protocol, data from 9 studies and 1,097 children (mean age: 28.67 months) with attachment classifications to both mothers and fathers were included in analyses. We used a linear mixed effects analysis to assess differences in children's internalizing and externalizing behavioral problems as assessed via the average of both maternal and paternal reports based on whether children had two, one, or no insecure (or disorganized) attachments. Results indicated that children with an insecure attachment relationship with one or both parents were at higher risk for elevated internalizing behavioral problems compared with children who were securely attached to both parents. Children whose attachment relationships with both parents were classified as disorganized had more externalizing behavioral problems compared to children with either one or no disorganized attachment relationship with their parents. Across attachment classification networks and behavioral problems, findings suggest (a) an increased vulnerability to behavioral problems when children have insecure or disorganized attachment to both parents, and (b) that mother-child and father-child attachment relationships may not differ in the roles they play in children's development of internalizing and externalizing behavioral problems. [This article was co-authored by the Collaboration on Attachment to Multiple Parents and Outcomes Synthesis.]

Background: Participant and Public Involvement in youth mental health research aims at making research more responsive to the needs of youth struggling with mental health issues, their parents, and mental health professionals and other stakeholders. Do characteristics of Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) in youth mental health research align with transparency and replication prerequisites as necessary conditions for translation? Relatedly, the question is addressed whether co‐authorship should be assigned to youth involved in the study. Methods: Here we address these questions re‐visiting 50 PPI studies included in two recent systematic reviews of PPI on characteristics that are pertinent to questions about transparency, replicability, translatability, and co‐authorship in PPI research. Results: Almost two‐third of the studies on youth mental health incorporating PPI translate their results to policy or practice, mostly as recommendations but sometimes also by dissemination of (online) interventions. At the same time the authors of a substantial majority of the studies (70%) also suggest the need for further work on their results, for example, in randomized controlled trials to validate the outcome of their exploratory inquiry. Only a quarter of the studies using PPI met the conditions for replicability, thus a majority of the PPI studies suggest premature translation of results. Authorship to involved participants was assigned in 24% of the studies. Conclusions: "Anything goes" for PPI in an exploratory stage to generate fruitful hypotheses. Translation of the findings of PPI studies however require a firm evidence base of replicated results. Radical merging of research and action in participatory action research seems incompatible with replicable and therefore translatable inquiry. Assigning co‐authorship to PPI representatives is often at odds with current guidelines for authorship. More evidence from randomized trials on the translational impact of PPI is needed before grant foundations should require PPI in grant proposals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cost-utility analyses are slowly becoming part of randomized control trials evaluating physical and mental health treatments and (preventive) interventions in child and adolescent development. The British National Institute of Health and Care Excellence, for example, insists on the use of gains in Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALYs) to compute the "value for money" of interventions. But what counts as a gain in quality of life? For one of the most widely used instruments, the EuroQol 5 Dimensions scale (EQ-5D), QALYs are estimated by healthy individuals who provide utility scores for specific health states, assuming that the best life is a life without self-experienced problems in five domains: mobility, self-care, usual activities, pain/discomfort, and anxiety/depression. The worst imaginable outcome is defined as "a lot of problems" in each of these five domains. The impact of the individual's problems on the social network is not weighted, and important social-developmental domains (externalizing problems, social competence) are missing. Current cost-utility computations based on EQ-5D favor physical health over mental health, and they rely on adult weights for child and adolescent quality of life. Thus, a level playing field is absent, and developmental expertise is sorely missing.

Although developmental science has always been evolving, these times of fast-paced and profound social and scientific changes easily lead to disorienting fragmentation rather than coherent scientific advances. What directions should developmental science pursue to meaningfully address real-world problems that impact human development throughout the lifespan? What conceptual or policy shifts are needed to steer the field in these directions? The present manifesto is proposed by a group of scholars from various disciplines and perspectives within developmental science to spark conversations and action plans in response to these questions. After highlighting four critical content domains that merit concentrated and often urgent research efforts, two issues regarding "how" we do developmental science and "what for" are outlined. This manifesto concludes with five proposals, calling for "integrative," "inclusive," "transdisciplinary," "transparent," and "actionable" developmental science. Specific recommendations, prospects, pitfalls, and challenges to reach this goal are discussed.

The evidence for negative influences of maternal stress during pregnancy on child cognition remains inconclusive. This study tested the association between maternal prenatal stress and child intelligence in 4,251 mother-child dyads from a multiethnic population-based cohort in the Netherlands. A latent factor of prenatal stress was constructed, and child IQ was tested at age 6 years. In Dutch and Caribbean participants, prenatal stress was not associated with child IQ after adjustment for maternal IQ and socioeconomic status. In other ethnicities no association was found; only in the Moroccan/Turkish group a small negative association between prenatal stress and child IQ was observed. These results suggest that prenatal stress does not predict child IQ, except in children from less acculturated minority groups.