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Although much research has shown that parental psychological control undermines adolescents' routine disclosure to parents, past research has not examined whether the effects of psychological control on disclosure are domain-specific and mediated by the quality of adolescents' interactions with mothers and fathers. The present one-year longitudinal study examined whether parental support and negative interactions with each parent mediated longitudinal associations between adolescents' ratings of psychological control and adolescents' disclosure about routine prudential, personal, and multifaceted activities, as defined by social domain theory. These issues were examined over one year in 174 mostly White (74%), U.S. middle class middle adolescents (M = 15.70 years, SD = 0.63, 83 males). Greater parental psychological control was associated over time with less disclosure to both parents about personal activities and less disclosure to fathers about multifaceted issues. Perceived declines in support fully mediated the effects of psychological control on adolescent disclosure to mothers about personal issues and partially mediated the effects on disclosure to fathers about personal and multifaceted issues. In addition, negative interactions led to decreased disclosure about prudential issues. Thus, perceived psychological control and relationship quality had domain-specific and parent-specific longitudinal effects on adolescent disclosure to parents about their routine activities.

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INTRODUCTION: Whether adolescents' routine disclosure to parents is voluntary is assumed but rarely assessed. Researchers also have not examined whether disclosure and lying are premeditated, occurring before rather than after disclosure or lying, and whether adolescents use a single strategy consistently rather than applying multiple strategies when deciding whether to disclose or lie about their activities. This study investigated these significant gaps in the literature and tested whether voluntariness (for disclosure), timing, consistency, and parental psychological control are associated with lessons learned from disclosure and lying. METHODS: Narrative interviews were conducted in 2014-2015 with 131 primarily middle-class, mostly White US early and middle adolescents and college students (M's = 12.74, 15.81, 20.41 years). Narrated disclosure and lying interviews were reliably coded for voluntariness, timing, consistency, and lessons learned. Parental psychological control was assessed using an online survey. RESULTS: Disclosure was primarily strategic or voluntary and less often involuntary. Lying occurred more often before the narrated event, whereas disclosure occurred more often after. Youth typically reported using other strategies besides the elicited one. Disclosing after was associated with lessons learned. Voluntary disclosure was associated with psychological growth, and psychological control was associated with negative self-lessons. CONCLUSIONS: Disclosure and lying are complex and nuanced, varying in their timing, consistency, and voluntariness. These features contribute to adolescents' meaning-make from disclosure and lying. The findings have implications for future research on disclosure and secrecy.

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Adolescents' routine disclosure and self (non)disclosure to parents have been distinguished conceptually, but rarely empirically. Using latent profile analyses (LPA), these two types of (non)disclosure were operationalized and examined in terms of the patterns of reasons middle adolescents endorsed for not disclosing personal activities and personal feelings to mothers and fathers and their correlates. This was studied in a sample of 489 U.S. Chinese, Mexican, and European heritage middle adolescents (Mage = 16.37, SD = 0.77, 55% females). Three profiles emerged for both mothers and fathers: A majority profile for mothers consisting of adolescents who viewed personal activities and feelings as personal (i.e., private and not harmful), and much smaller sanction-driven and self-conscious profiles. With fathers, personal concerns were separated in the private profile, which also emphasized that fathers would not listen or understand, a harmless profile, and as with mothers, a sanction-driven profile. Overall, but varying in frequency for different profiles, middle adolescents emphasized personal concerns for not disclosing routine personal activities and psychological concerns for self nondisclosure. The profiles also differed by ethnicity/race, generational status, and trust in mothers and fathers. The father private profile and sanction-driven profiles with both parents were associated with more depressive symptoms and problem behavior relative to the other profiles. The results provide insight into why middle adolescents of diverse ethnicities do not disclose personal information to parents.

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Understanding distinctions between morality and conventions is an important milestone in children's moral development. The current meta-analysis integrated decades of social domain theory research (Smetana, 2006; Turiel, 1983) on moral and conventional judgments from early to middle childhood. We examined 95 effect sizes from 18 studies (2,707 children; Mage = 7.30 years; 51% females; 42% Whites). Along with these, effects from additional 28 studies were estimated with imputed correlations in a secondary analysis of 248 effect sizes from 46 studies (4,469 children; Mage = 7.34 years; 46% females; 32% Whites). Across all judgments, moral/conventional distinction effects were significant, positive, and moderate. Consistent with social domain theory definitions of morality, children evaluated moral transgressions as more wrong independent of authorities' commands or rules than conventional transgressions and moral rules as more generalizable and inalterable than conventional rules. Moral transgressions also were seen as more unacceptable and more deserving of punishment than conventional transgressions. The aggregated effects were also significant for each type of judgment. However, effects were stronger for criteria considered definitional of the domains than for acceptability or punishment judgments, which are not considered criteria. Moreover, children made greater domain distinctions with age across all types of judgments. When examined separately, age moderated effects only for criterion judgments, not for acceptability or punishment judgments. Effects for distinctions also were moderated by the types of moral and conventional rules assessed. Thus, moral/conventional distinctions were found across early and middle childhood, but there was variability in children's developing understanding. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

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Although Chinese parents are seen as employing guilt and shame induction to socialize children's culturally appropriate behavior, research has focused primarily on Chinese parents' use of these inductions and their links with child adjustment rather than on children's evaluations of them. Furthermore, this research typically does not examine variations in children's appraisals based on the type of behavior being socialized. The present study addressed these gaps in the literature by examining 206 Hong Kong Chinese children's and early adolescents' (Ms = 9.76, 13.35 years, SDs = 0.78, 0.54; 50% and 61% female, respectively) appraisals of maternal guilt induction (act- vs. parent-focused) and shame induction (social comparison vs. denigration) following a hypothetical moral and academic transgression. Overall, act-focused guilt induction was evaluated as more appropriate, respectful, effective, and reflective of mothers' love and concern than parent-focused guilting, and in turn, social comparison shaming, and then denigration and more so overall for the moral than the academic transgression. Early adolescents judged act-focused guilting for the moral transgression as more effective and eliciting more positive feelings than did children. Although culturally valued, social comparison shame (and also denigration) were judged as less appropriate, less effective, as reflecting less maternal love and concern, and as eliciting less positive feelings (but only for social comparison shaming in response to lower-than-expected academic performance) by early adolescents as compared to younger peers, suggesting that youth become more critical of these culturally appropriate practices in the transition to adolescence.

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Research on children's evaluations of parental discipline or parental responses to peer conflicts has focused on parents' responses to hypothetical or actual child behavior. These parent behaviors are typically depicted as fair, reasonable, and appropriate, but what if they are not? In daily life, parents do sometimes act unfairly, or children evaluate parents' responses as such. This study examined 90 4.5- to 10-year-old U.S. middle-class children's (Mage = 7.42 years, SD = 1.70) evaluations of four scenarios describing hypothetical mothers' unfair responses to peer conflicts (unjustified stealing; intentional harm; accidental harm; ambiguous harm). Across ages, children overwhelmingly judged mothers' directives, particularly regarding a straightforwardly immoral demand (unjustified stealing), as wrong and very unfair, based primarily on moral justifications or coordinated justifications involving recognition of different competing moral (or moral and nonmoral) concerns. With age, children increasingly viewed directives to retaliate for intended harm as more fair and those regarding ambiguous harm as more unfair; justifications recognizing different concerns also increased with age, although more for retaliation for accidental and intended harm than for other situations. Children largely endorsed disobedience and attributed negative emotions to actors who were described as complying. Thus, children prioritized moral concerns over obedience to authority when mothers asserted authority unfairly, although their responses showed variability with age and the situational context.

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Parent-adolescent relationships are related to adolescents' disclosure and concealment, but these associations may represent between-family differences (e.g., families with more negative interactions have adolescents who disclose less) or within-family processes (e.g., when a family has more negative interactions, their adolescent discloses less). This study used cross-lagged panel modeling (CLPM) and random-intercept cross-lagged panel modeling (RI-CLPM) to separate these elements. U.S. adolescents (N = 214, Mage = 16.0, 52% female) reported on their disclosure, concealment, positive relationships, and negative interactions with mothers 3 times over a year. Consistent with prior research, adolescent disclosure was transactionally associated with more positive and less negative relationships with mothers over time in between-family (CLPM) analyses. However, in the within-family (RI-CLPM) analyses, which controlled for the fact that more positive and less negative families had adolescents who disclosed more, changes in relationship quality within a family were not linked with changes in disclosure. In contrast, negative interactions and greater concealment were reciprocally related over time both between families and within families, even when considering that families with more negative interactions also had adolescents who concealed more. Positive relationships were associated with less adolescent concealment, but only relative to other families (at the between level) and not over time. Results confirm the importance of examining disclosure and concealment as separate processes, particularly at the within-family level, and indicate that the cycle of concealment and negative interactions among troubled families may be a particularly ripe area for intervention. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

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This study examined discrepancies between 4- and 7-year-olds' (n = 135; Mage  = 5.65) self-reported affect following hypothetical moral versus social-conventional transgressions and their associations with teacher-rated physical and relational aggression concurrently and 9-months later. Negative emotion ratings in response to prototypical moral transgressions were not associated with children's aggression. When transgressions were described as no longer prohibited by rules and authority figures, children reporting more negative affect in response to moral as compared to conventional violations were less physically aggressive at Wave 1 and showed relative and mean-level declines in physical aggression over time. Relational aggression was not associated with self-reported emotions. Findings indicate the importance of distinguishing between types of transgressions and forms of aggression in studying moral emotions.

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This study examined 106 5- and 6-year-olds' (M = 5.84 years, SD = 0.62) judgments and justifications about psychological harm (e.g., acts such as teasing or excluding others) assessed in three experimental harm salience conditions (highly salient harm, less salient harm, and no harm) crossed with two victims' vulnerability conditions (typical child and vulnerable child). We also examined interactions between these features and parent and child ratings of sympathy. Children evaluated highly salient harm as more unacceptable, more punishable, and more wrong independent of authority and as resulting in victims' more negative emotions than less salient harm and, in turn, no harm. Children reasoned about others' welfare most for highly salient harm stories, whereas children reasoned about less salient harm stories as involving moral and non-moral concerns. In considering victims' vulnerability, children evaluated harm done to typical victims as more wrong than harm done to vulnerable victims. Higher levels of child-reported sympathy were associated with ratings of transgressions as more unacceptable and wrong independent of authority, but only for less salient harm stories. The results demonstrate children's ability to incorporate different features of psychological harm into their moral judgments and highlight the importance of child sympathy in their understanding of more nuanced forms of harm.

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The patterning of 160 U.S. 4- to 9-year-olds' (M = 6.23 years, SD = 1.46) moral judgments regarding physical harm, psychological harm, and unfair resource distribution transgressions were examined in separate latent profile analyses. Judgments regarding physical harm yielded a single Prototypical profile, where transgressions were judged as very unacceptable, punishable, wrong even if not regulated, intentional, harmful, and as causing very negative emotions for victims. A similar Prototypical profile, as well as an Emergent profile, was extracted for both unfair resource distribution and psychological harm; children in the Emergent profile evaluated transgressions as more acceptable, particularly when rules and authority were removed, less punishable, less intentional, and less harmful than did Prototypical children. In addition, psychological harm was characterized by a small Inconsistent profile, where children judged moral transgressions as very acceptable but also as intentional and harmful. Profiles were differentiated by child age and authority independence justifications, but not by individual differences in social competence, gender, or act acceptability justifications. Children in the Inconsistent profile for psychological harm or in the Emergent profile for unfair resource distribution were younger than children in the other profile(s) for the respective harm type. Children who were classified in the Prototypical (or the Emergent) profile when judging unequal distribution were more likely than would be expected by chance to be classified in the equivalent profile when evaluating psychological harm transgressions. The results show that moral judgments are organized and reflect age differences in children's moral understanding of different types of harms. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

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In line with increasing calls for within-family analyses of monitoring processes, this study examined profiles of (combined) adolescent information management strategies and parent knowledge-gathering strategies among 174 families with middle adolescents (Mage = 15.7 years; 164 mother-teen and 112 father-teen dyads). Three mother-adolescent profiles (open, intrusive, indirect) and two father-adolescent profiles (reserved, covert) emerged, with voluntary disclosure and snooping particularly differentiating profiles and fathers reporting gaining more knowledge from others. Profile membership was associated with adjustment and relationship quality both concurrently and over one year, controlling for prior levels. For mother-teen dyads, open communicators reported less behavioral control over time, intrusive communicators reported more negative interactions concurrently and greater depression and less maternal knowledge over time, and indirect communicators reported more problem behavior over time. For father-teen dyads, covert communicators reported more problem behavior concurrently and more negative interactions over time. Profile membership in mother-teen and father-teen dyads was not significantly associated. Results confirm the importance of disclosure and the problematic nature of snooping, while highlighting diverse ways that monitoring processes play out within families. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

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The current study investigated associations between children's preferences and evaluations of moral and social-conventional transgressors in a novel puppet task and their links with explicit judgments in a standard interview. Children aged 2-3.25 years (M = 2.53 years, SD = 0.35) and 3.5-5 years (M = 4.38 years, SD = 0.52) watched two pairs of live puppet shows depicting actors committing a moral transgression and a conventional transgression and chose which transgressor they liked more, preferred more as a friend, thought was more wrong, and should get in more trouble; they also distributed resources to the transgressors. At both ages, children allocated fewer resources to moral transgressors than to conventional transgressors, but younger children's other responses did not exceed chance levels. In contrast, older children chose the moral transgressor as more wrong, more deserving of punishment, and less likeable. Preferences were associated with evaluations in the puppet task, particularly among older children. In contrast, all children differentiated between moral and conventional transgressions in their explicit judgments, with age differences found only in rule independence. More mature moral judgments, as assessed by latent difference scores reflecting moral-conventional distinctions, were associated with preferring to befriend the conventional transgressor and evaluating the moral transgressor as more wrong. Together, these results show age-related increases in children's moral understanding of-and stronger associations between-preferences and evaluations with age.

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Drawing on the framework of social domain theory, this multi-method, multi-informant longitudinal study examined whether callous-unemotional (CU) tendencies moderated the association between U.S. 4 to 7 year olds' (n = 135; Mage = 5.65, 50% male; 75% White) ability to differentiate hypothetical, prototypical moral and conventional transgressions along theoretical criteria and teacher (n = 49) and parent (n = 128, 91% mothers) ratings of physical aggression. Deficits in domain distinction ability were associated with greater teacher-reported aggression both concurrently and 9 months later, but only for children high in CU traits. No main effects or interactions were found for parent reports. These findings build on a growing body of research demonstrating that children who use aggression in a deliberate and callous manner show deficits in their basic understanding of moral norms. (PsycINFO Database Record

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Children (n = 160, 4- to 9-year-olds; Mage  = 6.23 years, SD = 1.46) judged, justified, attributed emotions, and rated intent for hypothetical physical harm, psychological harm, and resource distribution transgressions against close friends, acquaintances, disliked peers, or bullies. Transgressions against bullies were judged more acceptable than against friends and disliked peers and less deserving of punishment than against acquaintances and disliked peers. Transgressions against friends were judged least intended and resulting in more negative emotions for transgressors; actors transgressing against disliked peers, as compared to bullies or acquaintances, were happy victimizers. Across relationships, children viewed moral transgressions as wrong independent of rules and authority, based primarily on welfare and fairness justifications. Peer context colors but does not fundamentally change moral evaluations.

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Heterogeneity in parenting was examined in 883 Arab refugee adolescents in Jordan (Mage  = 15.01 years, SD = 1.60). Latent profile analyses of five parenting dimensions rated separately for mothers and fathers yielded authoritative, authoritarian, indifferent, punitive, and for mothers, permissive profiles, with most mothers (60%) and fathers (66%) classified as authoritative. Parenting was more often authoritative for women than men and punitive (for fathers) or permissive (for mothers) of boys than girls. Authoritative fathers and authoritarian mothers were better educated than punitive parents, whose offspring reported more norm breaking and internalizing symptoms and lower academic achievement than other youth. Adjustment was better when adolescents had at least one authoritative parent than when parents were either consistent or discrepant but nonauthoritative.

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This article examined links between 4- and 6-year-olds' (n = 101; Mage  = 5.12 years, SD = 0.67; 53% male) ability to distinguish moral and conventional transgressions along different criteria and teacher ratings of proactive and reactive aggression. Latent difference score modeling revealed that moral transgressions were judged more unacceptable and wrong independent of rules and authority than conventional violations, but significant variability in moral-conventional distinctions was also observed. Proactive aggression was associated with less-and reactive aggression was associated with greater-differentiation in moral and conventional concepts. Proactive aggression was not associated with deficits in moral knowledge when other common assessments of early moral understanding were employed, highlighting the importance of using theoretically informed measures of moral judgments and aggression.

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This commentary discusses Gutman et al.'s monograph on developmental trajectories of African American and European American youth. Conceptual and methodological strengths of the monograph are highlighted, and the historical context of the study, including societal and technological changes that have altered the experience of adolescence and advances in developmental science that have occurred since the MADICS was conducted, are discussed. Finally, several suggestions are offered for ways Gutman et al.'s analyses could be elaborated to address further questions about adolescent development in context.

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The degree to which social norms are processed by a unitary system or dissociable systems remains debated. Much research on children's social-cognitive judgments has supported the distinction between "moral" (harm/welfare-based) and "conventional" norms. However, the extent to which these norms are processed by dissociable neural systems remains unclear. To address this issue, 23 healthy participants were scanned with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while they rated the wrongness of harm/welfare-based and conventional transgressions and neutral vignettes. Activation significantly greater than the neutral vignette baseline was observed in regions implicated in decision-making regions including rostral/ventral medial frontal, anterior insula and dorsomedial frontal cortices when evaluating both harm/welfare-based and social-conventional transgressions. Greater activation when rating harm/welfare-based relative to social-conventional transgressions was seen through much of ACC and bilateral inferior frontal gyrus. Greater activation was observed in superior temporal gyrus, bilateral middle temporal gyrus, left PCC, and temporal-parietal junction when rating social-conventional transgressions relative to harm/welfare-based transgressions. These data suggest that decisions regarding the wrongness of actions, irrespective of whether they involve care/harm-based or conventional transgressions, recruit regions generally implicated in affect-based decision-making. However, there is neural differentiation between harm/welfare-based and conventional transgressions. This may reflect the particular importance of processing the intent of transgressors of conventional norms and perhaps the greater emotional content or salience of harm/welfare-based transgressions.

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Parental induction of empathy-related guilt plays an important role in children's moral development. However, guilt induction can also be psychologically controlling and detrimental for youth adjustment. This study provided a more nuanced view of parental guilt induction by examining how the nature of a child's misdeed and the structure and content of the parental guilt inductive statement impact children's perceptions of it. Using hypothetical vignettes, this study experimentally examined the impact of the type (domain) of child behavior, highlighted victim, and focus of parental criticism on 156 children's and early and middle adolescents' (age: Ms = 8.82, 12.11, and 15.84 years) perceptions of maternal guilt induction. Attributions of guilt and shame increased most for younger children, when mothers focused on indirect harm to themselves about personal issues, and when mothers criticized their child as a person (shame only). Youth evaluated guilt induction least positively for personal issues and when mothers criticized the child's personality while focusing on indirect harm to themselves. With age, youth were less accepting of maternal guilt induction and more likely to endorse negative and parent-centered intentions, especially for personal issues. Older youth also drew less distinction between guilt induction over multifaceted and personal issues. Guilt induction over moral issues was generally perceived most positively. Additional interactions also emerged. These findings suggest that the meaning and effects of guilt induction on children's development may depend on the way in which it is enacted. (PsycINFO Database Record

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For decades, parenting has been characterized in terms of broad global styles, with authoritative parenting seen as most beneficial for children's development. Concerns with greater sensitivity to cultural and contextual variations have led to greater specificity in defining parenting in terms of different parenting dimensions and greater consideration of the role of parenting beliefs in moderating links between parenting and adjustment. New research includes 'domain-specific' models that describe parents as flexibly deploying different practices depending on their goals, children's needs, and the types of behaviors towards which parenting is directed. These trends are described, and directions for future research are discussed.