Moving more deeply into the 21st century and acknowledging the ongoing patterned needs of children, there continues to be broadly voiced sentiments about the importance of all children’s thriving, adaptive coping, and resiliency. This paper notes that social science more broadly and developmental science specifically is a major resource determinative of the nature of remedies conceptualized, designed, and implemented. Evident is that the harms experienced by children and the solutions implemented by delivery systems are frequently unaligned. Efficacy and impact do not appear to be improved by multisystem integration delivery. This paper explores the benefits of incorporating inclusive and shared human development theory. As well, it examines the need to question the character virtue of the multisystem integration efforts intended to afford supportive solutions required for youths’ thriving and resiliency. Specifically, it addresses whether democratic and equity relevant character values are integrated into public and privately funded intended supportive systems. The position taken is that whether considered under conditions of trauma illustrated by the global COVID pandemic or the efficacy of systems intended to aid the most vulnerable youngsters, the character of the content of support and its delivery matter and can benefit from inclusive human development interrogation and theorizing.

In explaining the “parenting – callous-unemotional traits – antisocial behavior” axis, recent theoretical advances postulate a critical role for affiliative reward. Existing empirical studies focus on early childhood and the appetitive phase of the reward process (i.e. affiliation-seeking behavior) rather than the consummatory phase (i.e. affective rewards). This study focuses on experienced affiliative reward (i.e. companionship, intimacy, affection, and worth) in relation to parents and best friends in early adolescence. The Alabama Parenting Questionnaire, Network of Relationships Inventory, Inventory of Callous and Unemotional Traits, and Youth Self Report were completed by 1132 12-year-olds and analyzed via structural equation models. In this cross-sectional sample, parent-related affiliative reward mediated the path from perceived parenting practices to callousness and further to aggression and rule-breaking. Parent-related affiliative reward was also related to uncaring traits and further to aggression and rule-breaking. In contrast, friend-related affiliative reward was not a mediator in this theoretical causal chain and largely not related to perceived parenting practices or CU traits. Low parent-related experienced affiliative reward is a mechanism through which corporal punishment, poor monitoring, and low involvement translate into callousness, and therefore to aggression and rule-breaking. Friend-related affiliative reward does not yet play a role in early adolescence.

Maternal depressive symptoms are a crucial risk factor for children’s internalizing problems, though positive mother–child relationships may buffer this risk transmission. Mother–child physiological coregulation (e.g., synchrony) has emerged as a potentially important mechanism of developmental psychopathology and may play a role in the transmission of internalizing symptoms. In this two-wave longitudinal study, we examined whether and how mother–infant physiological synchrony (of respiratory sinus arrhythmia; RSA) moderated the association between maternal postnatal depressive symptoms and children’s internalizing problems in a rural, low-SES community sample (N = 166 dyads). At 6 months, mother–infant RSA synchrony and infant negative affect were assessed during free play. Mother reported their depressive symptoms at 6 months and children’s internalizing problems at 24 months. Multilevel structural equation models indicated that mother–infant dyads demonstrated significant and positive RSA synchrony on average and RSA synchrony significantly moderated the association between maternal depressive symptoms and children’s internalizing problems even after controlling for infant negative affect. Greater maternal depressive symptoms were associated with higher child internalizing problems when RSA synchrony was lower but not when it was higher. This finding suggests that mother–infant RSA synchrony may operate as a resilience factor for the intergenerational transmission of internalizing symptoms in community samples.

This longitudinal study aimed to validate the biosocial theory of borderline personality disorder (BPD) by examining the transactional relationship between individual vulnerabilities and parental invalidation, and their links to BPD symptoms. We recruited a sample of 332 adolescents (mean age = 14.18 years; 58.3% female) residing in Singapore and administered self-report measures across three time-points (six months apart). Results from our path analytic model indicated that parental invalidation, impulsivity, and emotional vulnerability exhibited unique predictive associations with emotion dysregulation six months later. There was also a reciprocal prospective relationship between emotion regulation difficulties and BPD symptoms. Using random-intercepts cross-lagged panel models, we found partial evidence for a within-individual reciprocal relationship between parental invalidation and emotional vulnerability, and a unidirectional relationship of within-individual changes in impulsivity positively predicting changes in parental invalidation six months later. Overall, the study provided partial empirical support for the biosocial model in a Singaporean context.

While many studies have found an association between childhood emotional abuse and alcohol use disorders (AUD) during adulthood, underlying psychological mechanisms linking the two remain inadequately understood. Drawing on the developmental psychopathology perspective, this study examined the relationship between childhood emotional abuse and AUD during adulthood with a national sample of women in Nepal (N = 1,100, M age = 37.73), focusing on the mediating role of borderline personality traits. Mediation analyses were performed using the Karlson-Holm-Breen (KHB) method and bootstrapping confidence intervals. Results indicated that Nepali women’s borderline personality traits significantly mediated the relationship between childhood emotional abuse and AUD. Hence, emotional abuse in childhood increases the risk for AUD during adulthood for Nepali women by increasing the risk of borderline personality traits. Findings underscore the necessity of continued emphasis on developing and implementing early interventions for childhood emotional abuse and therapeutic interventions for borderline personality traits in reducing AUD among vulnerable women in Nepal.

The effects of school and classroom racial/ethnic diversity on peer victimization, self-blame, and perceived school safety were examined in a racially/ethnically diverse sample of students followed over the three years of middle school. Sixth grade students (N = 5,991, 52% female; M = 11.63 years) were recruited from 26 urban middle schools that systematically varied in racial/ethnic diversity. Based on student self-report, the sample was 31.6% Latino/Mexican, 19.6% White, 17.4%, Multiethnic/Biracial, 13% East/Southeast Asian, 10.9% Black, and 6.9% Other very small racial/ethnic groups. Each school had a structural diversity score based on the number and size of racial/ethnic groups enrolled. Using a novel method based on course schedules and class rosters, each student’s individual exposure to diversity in their classes was assessed to capture dynamic diversity. Latent growth modeling showed that structural school diversity and dynamic classroom diversity were both related to less victimization at the start of middle school and a decrease over time. Dynamic classroom diversity buffered the associations between victimization and self-blame and between victimization and perceiving school as unsafe. Dynamic classroom diversity was more protective than structural school diversity. Implications for practice, intervention and policies to promote school racial/ethnic diversity were discussed.

African American families navigate not only everyday stressors and adversities but also unique sociocultural stressors (e.g., “toxic upstream waters” like oppression). These adverse conditions are consequences of the historical vestiges of slavery and Jim Crow laws, often manifested as inequities in wealth, housing, wages, employment, access to healthcare, and quality education. Despite these challenges, African American families have developed resilience using strength-based adaptive coping strategies, to some extent, to filter these waters. To advance the field of resilience research, we focused on the following questions: (1) what constitutes positive responses to adversity?; (2) how is resilience defined conceptually and measured operationally?; (3) how has the field of resilience evolved?; (4) who defines what, when, and how responses are manifestations of resilience, instead of, for example, resistance? How can resistance, which at times leads to positive adaptations, be incorporated into the study of resilience?; and (5) are there case examples that demonstrate ways to address structural oppression and the pernicious effects of racism through system-level interventions, thereby changing environmental situations that sustain toxic waters requiring acts of resilience to survive and thrive? We end by exploring how a re-conceptualization of resilience requires a paradigm shift and new methodological approaches to understand ways in which preventive interventions move beyond focusing on families’ capacity to navigate oppression and target systems and structures that maintain these toxic waters.

Conduct problems and head injuries increase the risk of delinquency and share a bidirectional association. However, how they link across development is unknown. The present study aimed to identify their linked developmental pathways and associated risk factors. Latent class analysis was modeled from Millennium Cohort Study data (n = 8,600) to identify linked pathways of conduct problem symptoms and head injuries. Head injuries were parent-reported from ages 3 to 14 and conduct problems from ages 3 to 17 using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). Multinomial logistic regression then identified various risk factors associated with pathway membership. Four distinct pathways were identified. Most participants displayed low-level conduct problem symptoms and head injuries (n = 6,422; 74.7%). Three groups were characterized by clinically relevant levels of conduct problem symptoms and high-risk head injuries in childhood (n = 1,422; 16.5%), adolescence (n = 567; 6.6%), or persistent across development (n = 189; 2.2%). These clinically relevant pathways were associated with negative maternal parenting styles. These findings demonstrate how pathways of conduct problem symptoms are uniquely linked with distinct head injury pathways. Suggestions for general preventative intervention targets include early maternal negative parenting styles. Pathway-specific interventions are also required targeting cumulative risk at different ecological levels.

In spring 2020, U.S. schools universally transitioned to online learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic’s onset, thus creating a natural experiment for examining adolescents’ risk and resilience during an ongoing school crisis response. This longitudinal study used a daily-diary approach to investigate the role of social support in the link between remote learning and psychological well-being across 64 days among a national sample of adolescents (n = 744; 42% Black, 36% White, 22% Other ethnicity/race; 41% boys; 72% eligible for free/reduced-priced lunch; Mage=14.60, SDage=1.71, age-range = 12–17 years). On days when youth attended remote learning, they reported lower daily positive affect, more daily stress, and higher parent social support. There were no significant differences in the effect of remote learning on affect or stress by race or economic status. On days when youth experienced more parent support, they reported lower daily stress and negative affect and higher daily positive affect. On days when youth experienced more peer support, they reported higher daily positive affect. Overall, the study highlights the impact of pandemic-onset remote learning on adolescents’ psychological well-being and emphasizes the need for future research on school crisis contingency planning to address these challenges.

We present an ‘Ecological Resilience Framework’ (ERF) to demonstrate how resilience is created through the Justice Ambassadors Youth Council (JAYC) program. JAYC is a platform in which New York government representatives collaboratively learn and develop policy solutions alongside emerging adults who are criminal legal system impacted and reside in predominantly Black and Hispanic communities characterized by chronically high levels of poverty, violence, and incarceration. We focus our work on the process of developing resilience in the context of structural social inequity and injustice. We argue that resilience can best be understood in the context of the adversity to which it is a response, not as an isolated individual quality. Therefore, resilience science is at its best when it incorporates a multi-disciplinary scientific perspective, one that addresses a continuum from individual- to community- to society-level physical, cognitive, relationship, and mental health variables. To demonstrate how our ERF incorporates this approach, we outline how JAYC not only supports young adult participants in understanding their individual life trajectories and narrative identity, but also actively connects them within a diverse social network of mentors and to various opportunities that support a healthy transition to adult resilience.

During early life-sensitive periods (i.e., fetal, infancy), the developing stress response system adaptively calibrates to match environmental conditions, whether harsh or supportive. Recent evidence suggests that puberty is another window when the stress system is open to recalibration if environmental conditions have shifted significantly. Whether additional periods of recalibration exist in adulthood remains to be established. The present paper draws parallels between childhood (re)calibration periods and the perinatal period to hypothesize that this phase may be an additional window of stress recalibration in adult life. Specifically, the perinatal period (defined here to include pregnancy, lactation, and early parenthood) is also a developmental switch point characterized by heightened neural plasticity and marked changes in stress system function. After discussing these similarities, lines of empirical evidence needed to substantiate the perinatal stress recalibration hypothesis are proposed, and existing research support is reviewed. Complexities and challenges related to delineating the boundaries of perinatal stress recalibration and empirically testing this hypothesis are discussed, as well as possibilities for future multidisciplinary research. In the theme of this special issue, perinatal stress recalibration may be a mechanism of multilevel, multisystem risk, and resilience, both intra-individually and intergenerationally, with implications for optimizing interventions.

An understanding of child psychopathology and resilience requires attention to the nested and interconnected systems and contexts that shape children’s experiences and health outcomes. In this study, we draw on data from the National Survey of Children’s Health, 2016 to 2021 (n = 182,375 children, ages 3– to 17 years) to examine associations between community social capital and neighborhood resources and children’s internalizing and externalizing problems, and whether these associations were moderated by experiences of racial discrimination. Study outcomes were caregiver-report of current internalizing and externalizing problems. Using logistic regression models adjusted for sociodemographic characteristics of the child and household, higher levels of community social capital were associated with a lower risk of children’s depression, anxiety, and behaviors. Notably, we observed similar associations between neighborhood resources and child mental health for depression only. In models stratified by the child’s experience of racial/ethnic discrimination, the protective benefits of community social capital were specific to those children who did not experience racial discrimination. Our results illustrate heterogeneous associations between community social capital and children’s mental health that differ based on interpersonal experiences of racial/ethnic discrimination, illustrating the importance of a multilevel framework to promote child wellbeing.

The narrative surrounding the impact racism has had on the well-being of Black youth has shifted across sociocultural and historical context. Early discourse around these topics were problem-saturated, focusing on deficits “within” Black youth. Over time, an important narrative shift occurred: greater attention was paid to the inherent assets of Black youth, their families, and communities, including how racial-ethnic protective factors such as racial socialization afforded them resilience. What resulted was decades of research seeking to understand the mechanisms that allow Black youth to bounce back in spite of racism-related adversity. Notwithstanding the viable practice and policy implications that have emerged from such inquiry, at what point does our focus on the resilience of Black youth – whether individual or multisystemic – fall short? It is with this question in mind that this paper challenges those committed to the optimal development of Black youth to consider yet another narrative shift: one that stands upon the legacy of cultural ecological frameworks and the seminal models underlying resilience research, and calls us toward not supporting Black youth’s adaptation to racism, but toward collective efforts to transform our approach, pushing back against the perniciousness of racism.

Over the past decade, transdiagnostic indicators in relation to neurobiological processes have provided extensive insight into youth’s risk for psychopathology. During development, exposure to childhood trauma and dysregulation (i.e., so-called AAA symptomology: anxiety, aggression, and attention problems) puts individuals at a disproportionate risk for developing psychopathology and altered network-level neural functioning. Evidence for the latter has emerged from resting-state fMRI studies linking mental health symptoms and aberrations in functional networks (e.g., cognitive control (CCN), default mode networks (DMN)) in youth, although few of these investigations have used longitudinal designs. Herein, we leveraged a three-year longitudinal study to identify whether traumatic exposures and concomitant dysregulation trigger changes in the developmental trajectories of resting-state functional networks involved in cognitive control (N = 190; 91 females; time 1 Mage = 11.81). Findings from latent growth curve analyses revealed that greater trauma exposure predicted increasing connectivity between the CCN and DMN across time. Greater levels of dysregulation predicted reductions in within-network connectivity in the CCN. These findings presented in typically developing youth corroborate connectivity patterns reported in clinical populations, suggesting there is predictive utility in using transdiagnostic indicators to forecast alterations in resting-state networks implicated in psychopathology.

Mental ill health is more common among juvenile offenders relative to adolescents in general. Little is known about individual differences in their long-term psychological adaptation and its predictors from multiple aspects of their life. This study aims to identify heterogeneous trajectories of probable psychiatric conditions and their predictors. Participants included 574 juvenile offenders who were first convicted for serious crimes and without detention history. The participants were assessed at 11 timepoints over seven years (2000–2010). Growth mixture modeling revealed the same three trajectories for both probable anxiety and probable depression: stable low trajectory (75.96%; 75.78%), stable high trajectory (15.16%; 10.98%), and recovery (8.89%, 13.24%). Least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) logistic regression identified three multilevel predictors for memberships of different trajectories. Risk factors against stable low trajectory lay within personal (e.g., neuroticism), relationship (e.g., parental hostility), and contextual levels (e.g., chaotic neighborhood). Resilience factors for stable low trajectory included strong work orientation and low education level of father. Recovery was predicted by Black race, self-identity, high education level of father, and nonincarcerated sentencing. Our findings suggest that both psychopathology and psychological resilience could be predicted by multiple personal, relationship, and contextual factors in the social ecology of juvenile offenders.

While peer interaction differences are considered a central feature of autism, little is known regarding the nature of these interactions via directly-observed measurement of naturalistic (i.e., minimally-structured) groups of autistic and non-autistic adolescent peers. 148 autistic and non-autistic adolescents (111 male, Mage = 14.22, SDage = 1.90; MIQ = 103.22, SDIQ = 15.80) participated in a 50-minute, minimally-structured, naturalistic peer interaction paradigm with activities of varying social demands: an incidental social demand (eating in a room with peers), a physical social demand (playing a physically-interactive game), and a verbal social demand (playing a verbal game). While autistic youth exhibited fewer overall interaction behaviors than non-autistic youth, the two groups did not differ in amount of positive, negative, and low-level interaction behaviors. Within activities, autistic and non-autistic youth only differed in positive interaction behaviors during the context of a verbal social demand. Youth who displayed more positive interaction behaviors during this same activity had less autism spectrum disorder symptomatology, controlling for nested group effects and relevant covariates. These results point toward subtle differences in social demands across naturalistic settings that can either support or impede prosocial interaction for autistic youth, providing a guidepost for identifying settings that best promote social success for neurodiverse populations.

Research links life stressors, including acute, chronic, and early life stress, to the development of ruminative brooding. However, singular forms of life stress rarely occur in isolation, as adolescents typically encounter stressors that vary on important dimensions (e.g., types, timings, quantities) across development. The current study employs latent profile analysis (LPA) to identify natural clusters of life stress that, over time, may be differently associated with ruminative brooding. Evaluations of episodic, chronic, and early life stress were conducted with community-recruited mid-adolescents (N = 241, Mage = 15.90 years, 53% female) and their parents using the UCLA Life Stress Interview and lifetime adversity portions of the Youth Life Stress Interview. Analyses identified four distinct patterns: low stress, high peer stress, moderate home / family stress, and multifaceted / high school stress. Adolescents in the high peer stress and moderate home / family stress profiles were at highest risk for developing a brooding style over time. Despite high overall levels of stress, teens in the multifaceted / high school stress profile were at not at elevated risk for developing a brooding style. Findings demonstrate the utility of person-centered approaches to identify patterns of stress exposure that heighten risk for brooding over time.

This study evaluated whether the Family Bereavement Program (FBP), a prevention program for parentally bereaved families, improved parenting attitudes toward parental warmth and physical punishment in young adult offspring 15 years after participation and identified mediational cascade pathways. One hundred fifty-six parents and their 244 offspring participated. Data were collected at pretest (ages 8–16), posttest, and six- and 15-year follow-ups. Ethnicity of offspring was: 67% non-Hispanic Caucasian, 16% Hispanic, 7% African American, 3% Native American, 1% Asian or Pacific Islander, and 6% other; 54% were males. There was a direct effect of the FBP on attitudes toward physical punishment; offspring in the FBP had less favorable attitudes toward physical punishment. There were also indirect effects of the FBP on parenting attitudes. The results supported a cascade effects model in which intervention-induced improvements in parental warmth led to fewer externalizing problems in adolescence/emerging adulthood, which in turn led to less favorable attitudes toward physical punishment. In addition, intervention-induced improvements in parental warmth led to improvements in anxious romantic attachment in mid-to-late adolescence/emerging adulthood, which led to more favorable attitudes toward parental warmth in emerging/young adulthood. These findings suggest that the effects of relatively brief prevention programs may persist into subsequent generations.