Friendships are a potential factor that influence maltreated children’s risk for psychopathology. This systematic review examined (1) how friendships influence the association between child maltreatment and psychopathology and (2) developmental differences in how friendships influence this association. Four databases were searched. Inclusion criteria were primary study, quantitative, measures of maltreatment and friendship up to the age of 18 years, measures of psychopathology up to the age of 24 years, and a non-maltreated sample. Exclusion criteria were qualitative, reviews or meta-analyses, no distinction between maltreatment and other trauma, and no differentiation between friendships and other support. Risk of bias was assessed. Data were narratively synthesized. Two hundred thirty-five articles were retrieved for full review. Fourteen met inclusion criteria (N = 98,676 participants). Eleven of the fourteen studies found that some aspect of friendships influenced the association between maltreatment and psychopathology, with positive qualities generally decreasing risk and negative qualities increasing risk for psychopathology. However, peer support exacerbated maltreated children’s risk for psychopathology in two studies. Only three studies assessed friendship prior to adolescence, which precluded conclusions regarding developmental differences. Future research should consider developmental differences and use findings and validated measures from the peer relations literature to better understand how friendships influence maltreated youth’s vulnerability to psychopathology.

Although research on the experiences of females on the autism spectrum is still developing, it is becoming increasingly apparent that their experiences are not comparable to their male counterparts. This scoping review aimed to collate research related to the peer interaction experiences of school-aged girls on the autism spectrum from their perspective. A database and journal search (2010–2020) found 21 studies. Key findings indicated that although school-aged girls on the autism spectrum generally desired friendship, they faced diverse peer interaction difficulties, including making and maintaining friendships, peer victimisation, and rejection. Given these challenges, appropriate peer interaction supports and further research into the complexities of their peer interaction experience is needed.

In the general population, irritability is associated with later depression. Despite irritability being more prevalent in autistic children, the long-term sequelae are not well explored. We tested whether irritability in early childhood predicted depression symptoms in autistic adolescents, and whether associations could be explained by difficulties in peer relationships and lower educational engagement. Analyses tested the longitudinal associations between early childhood irritability (ages 3–5) and adolescent depression symptoms (age 14) in a prospective inception cohort of autistic children (N = 390), followed from early in development shortly after they received a clinical diagnosis. Mediators were measured in mid-childhood (age 10) by a combination of measures, from which latent factors for peer relationships and educational engagement were estimated. Results showed early childhood irritability was positively associated with adolescent depression symptoms, and this association remained when adjusting for baseline depression. A significant indirect pathway through peer relationships was found, which accounted for around 13% of the association between early childhood irritability and adolescent depression, suggesting peer problems may partially mediate the association between irritability and later depression. No mediation effects were found for education engagement. Results highlight the importance of early screening and intervention for co-occurring irritability and peer problems in young autistic children.

Genetic factors contribute to the intergenerational transmission of alcohol misuse, but not all individuals at high genetic risk develop problems. The present study examined adolescent relationships with parents, peers, and romantic partners as predictors of realized resistance, defined as high biological risk for disorder combined with a healthy outcome, to alcohol initiation, heavy episodic drinking, and alcohol use disorder (AUD). Data were from the Collaborative Study on the Genetics of Alcoholism (N = 1,858; 49.9% female; mean age at baseline = 13.91 years). Genetic risk, indexed using family history density and polygenic risk scores for alcohol problems and AUD, was used to define alcohol resistance. Adolescent predictors included parent-child relationship quality, parental monitoring, peer drinking, romantic partner drinking, and social competence. There was little support for the hypothesis that social relationship factors would promote alcohol resistance, with the exception that higher father-child relationship quality was associated with higher resistance to alcohol initiation ( $$\hat \beta $$ = −0.19, 95% CI = −0.35, −0.03). Unexpectedly, social competence was associated with lower resistance to heavy episodic drinking ( $$\hat \beta $$ = 0.10, 95% CI = 0.01, 0.20). This pattern of largely null effects underscores how little is known about resistance processes among those at high genetic risk for AUD.

The purpose of this study was to examine the association between life satisfaction and positive student-teacher and peer relationships. Further, we aimed to test the mediating effects of student resilience in a multilevel model. The data were collected from elementary students in South Korea. To examine the mediating effects of student resilience, multilevel structural equation modelling was conducted. The results indicated that schools with positive student-teacher relationships correlated with higher life satisfaction for children. This relationship was fully mediated by student resilience. However, the mediating effects of student resilience in the relationship between peer relationships and life satisfaction was found to be at the individual level rather than by school climate. Practical implications on ways to improve students’ life satisfaction within the school and classroom settings are discussed.

This paper is a revised and updated edition of a previous description of the Quebec Newborn Twin Study (QNTS), an ongoing prospective longitudinal follow-up of a birth cohort of twins born between 1995 and 1998 in the greater Montreal area, Québec, Canada. The goal of QNTS is to document individual differences in the cognitive, behavioral, and social-emotional aspects of developmental health across childhood, their early genetic and environmental determinants, as well as their putative role in later social-emotional adjustment, school, health, and occupational outcomes. A total of 662 families of twins were initially assessed when the twins were aged 6 months. These twins and their family were then followed regularly. QNTS now has 16 waves of data collected or planned, including 5 in preschool. Over the last 24 years, a broad range of physiological, cognitive, behavioral, school, and health phenotypes were documented longitudinally through multi-informant and multimethod measurements. QNTS also entails extended and detailed multilevel assessments of proximal (e.g., parenting behaviors, peer relationships) and distal (e.g., family income) features of the child’s environment. QNTS children and a subset of their parents have been genotyped, allowing for the computation of a variety of polygenic scores. This detailed longitudinal information makes QNTS uniquely suited for the study of the role of the early years and gene–environment transactions in development.

This study examines how different roles in school bullying (e.g., bullies, victims, defenders) vary in cognitive and affective empathy and moral disengagement. Findings from this study revealed that levels of empathy and moral disengagement differed significantly among bullying groups for 702 6th, 7th, and 8th grade students in the United States. An analysis of variance showed differential patterns between bullying groups and outcome variables (i.e., cognitive and affective empathy and moral disengagement). In addition, the correlation between moral disengagement and empathy was statistically significant and negative. Affective empathy and cognitive empathy both significantly predicted moral disengagement; with every one unit increase in moral disengagement, affective empathy decreased by .38 and cognitive empathy decreased by .39. Students who scored higher in moral disengagement tended to score lower in empathy. The current findings confirm and extend the literature on the relation between moral disengagement, empathy, prosociality, and victimising behaviour. This information can inform school-wide and targeted intervention efforts.

This qualitative study explored students’ experiences in a small, early-college secondary school in the United States that intentionally aims to create a culture promoting accelerated academic achievement, particularly in the areas of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Past research in the fields of both educational and developmental psychology has suggested that students’ sense of belonging plays a significant role in their social and academic functioning. Few studies, however, have explored how students’ sense of belonging is supported in settings that emphasise accelerated academic performance. The present study focused on students’ own understanding of the factors that contribute to their sense of belonging in this academically rigorous environment and extends current accounts of belonging, most of which have been quantitative in nature. The results of the present study highlight a distinction between social and academic belonging. Social belonging originated from students’ descriptions of their relationships with teachers and friends, alongside a noted lack of bullying behaviour, and an open and accepting social environment. Academic belonging originated from students’ accounts of meeting rigorous expectations, participating in a range of educational opportunities, receiving academic support from teachers, and sharing similar academic interests with peers. Some students reported experiencing one type of belonging without the other, suggesting that social and academic belonging are distinct aspects of students’ overall sense of school belonging. Future research should examine whether academic belonging provides an alternative pathway to the sense of school belonging in academic environments beyond the context examined in the present study.

This study explored the predictive power of effortful control (EC) on empathy, academic performance, and social competence in adolescents. We obtained self-report measures of EC and dispositional empathy in 359 students (197 girls and 162 boys) aged between 12 and 14 years. Each student provided information about the prosocial behavior of the rest of his/her classmates and completed a sociogram. At the end of the school year, we calculated the mean grade of each student and the teacher responsible for each class completed a questionnaire on the academic skills of his/her students. The study confirmed the existence of a structural equation model (SEM) in which EC directly predicted academic performance and social competence. Additionally, empathic concern partially mediated the effect of EC on social competence. Finally, social competence significantly predicted academic performance. The article discusses the practical applications of the model proposed.

The Quebec Newborn Twin Study (QNTS) is an ongoing prospective longitudinal follow-up of a birth cohort of twins born between 1995 and 1998 in the greater Montreal area, Québec, Canada. The goal of QNTS is to document individual differences in the cognitive, behavioral, and social-emotional aspects of developmental health across childhood, their early bio-social determinants, as well as their putative role in later social-emotional adjustment, school and health outcomes. A total of 662 families of twins were initially assessed when the twins were aged 6 months. These twins and their family were then followed regularly. QNTS has 14 waves of data collected or planned, including 5 in preschool. Over the past 15 years, a broad range of physiological, cognitive, behavioral, school, and health phenotypes were documented longitudinally through multi-informant and multi-method measurements. QNTS also entails extended and detailed multi-level assessments of proximal (e.g., parenting behaviors, peer relationships) and distal (e.g., family income) features of the child's environment. This detailed longitudinal information makes QNTS uniquely suited for the study of the role of the early years and gene-environment transactions in development.

In this review I examine the role of play and assessment in the lives of young children. These two seemingly opposing constructs are first defined. Next, I address a particularly important form of assessment, “high stakes” assessment, and argue that if it must be used, we should use a variety of assessment methods. One such method that I discuss in great detail is the use of direct observations of children's play. Examples of reliable and valid inferences about children's social cognitive functioning made with this family of methods are provided. Two specific observational instruments (one for observing play in the classroom and one for observing play in the playground) are presented. Recommendations for their use by practitioners are made.

This Annotation highlights recent research on the role of peer group and friendship factors in the development of psychopathology in childhood and adolescence. Several processes are considered, including peer rejection (e.g., exclusion and victimization), social withdrawal and avoidance of peer interaction, and the socialization of deviant behavior and internalizing problems. The mediating influences of several proximal components are examined, including cognitive-perceptual factors and emotion regulation. In addition, the moderating influences of close friendship, age, gender, ethnicity, and group norms are considered. Several promising avenues for future directions in research are highlighted, including the examination of heterogeneity in developmental processes, further investigation of gender-based norms, and the application of multi-level modeling techniques and gene-environment process models.

In both theory and research the general issue of the extent to which children's problem behaviour is generalised across situations, and to what extent it is situation specific, has been neglected. In the clinical assessment of disordered children, too, little attention has been paid to the specific situations in which these children display their inappropriate behaviour. In this study the Taxonomy of Problematic Social Situations (TOPS) (Dodge, McClaskey, & Feldman, 1985) was employed. This is a questionnaire in which the child's teacher is asked to rate the likelihood of a child responding in an inappropriate manner in a specific situation. Characteristics of TOPS were investigated both in randomly selected normal school children and in boys with a conduct disorder. Four factors appeared to underlie the TOPS scores from 652 randomly selected boys and girls from grades 1 to 6, these being: teachers' scores for the types of problem situation Being Disadvantaged, Coping with Competition, Social Expectations of Peers, and Teacher Expectations. Because of the high internal consistency of the four factors, TOPS was abbreviated to a TOPS-Short Form (18 instead of 44 items). The four-factor model was cross-validated by means of a second sample of 326 boys and girls. A model with only one general problem behaviour factor did not fit the data of both samples. When the four specific factors were added a satisfactory fit resulted. Moreover, it was found that in the first sample 52% of the variance was explained by the general factor, whereas 18% of the variance was explained by the four specific factors together. Thus, the extent to which problem behaviour is situation specific should not be disregarded. In all four types of problem situation, boys showed more inappropriate behaviour than girls. With increasing age, children were rated as being more competent in dealing with the problem situation Being Disadvantaged. Teachers rated the four types of problem situation as more problematic for boys with a conduct disorder (N = 42) than for normal control boys (N = 67). Conduct disordered boys also differed individually in the number of situational types that were problematic for them. With respect to clinical implications, the identification of the particular social context in which a conduct disordered child displays his or her inappropriate behaviour may help refine treatment goals: more adequate social functioning should be aimed at specifically in those situations that are problematic.