Friendships With Different Genders Reduce Sexism


Perhaps one bittersweet lesson from the pandemic is how much we need our friends and how much we can miss them. Sure, family time is great, but friends bring that extra spice to our lives—the laughter, the conversation, the commiseration. This academic year, many children headed back to school, reuniting with dearly missed friends and getting the much-needed opportunity to make new friends.

Now, ask yourself: Who are your children’s friends? Most children tend to befriend only same-gender peers, which can promote gender biases in some children. But, if you are a parent or teacher, perhaps you should consider providing opportunities for children to be with others from different gender groups. Findings from our recent study suggest that early friendships with other-gender children can help address the roots of sexism. Gender bias in children is concerning for both its short-term and long-term effects on later relationships.

Gender-Diverse Friendships Can Decrease Prejudice

Our study examined the consequences to children who spend time with other-gender friends. We interviewed ethnically-diverse 2nd and 4th graders once at the beginning of the year and once at the end of the year. At both time points, children reported how many other-gender friends they had from school, home, in the neighborhood, or from extracurricular activities. They also reported their gender attitudes, which included how much they thought girls or boys were on qualities such as “smart,” “nice,” “dumb,” “mean,” “annoying,” and “tell the truth,” and how many girls or boys made them feel positive, negative, or anxious.

Over one-third of children reported having no other-gender friends. However, children who did have other-gender friends were less likely to hold negative attitudes towards others based on their gender. For example, compared to a boy with few friendships with girls, a boy with more girl friendships, for instance, showed less prejudice a year later. That is, he was more likely to report positive attitudes (such as saying that girls are “nice”) and less likely to report that other-gender peers made him feel negative. The same links to less prejudice were found for girls with more boy friendships.

Having One Good Friend From A Different Social Group Is Good, But Having More Is Better

Prejudice was especially reduced when children added more friendships with children from other gender groups. The good news is that these changes between diverse friendships and reduced prejudice seem to work in both directions—for example, girls with boys as friends became less prejudiced toward boys; being less prejudiced toward boys later motivated girls to seek out boys as friends, setting in motion a positive cycle between developing friendships and reducing prejudice. This positive cycle also is seen for boys with girls as friends.

These findings are important because children’s prejudices surrounding gender undermine social harmony. Children who act on their prejudices may tease and bully, act as gender police to monitor other children’s behavior, reject or exclude others, and unfairly divide resources. A concern is that the common behavior of gender segregation among children may contribute to as well as be a consequence of gender prejudice.  In classrooms, lunchrooms, and playgrounds, girls and boys seldom interact, and the more they segregate, the more they act in gender-stereotypical ways and the less likely they are to engage with other-gender peers.

Practical Tips For Parents And Teachers To Promote Gender-Diverse Friendships

Parents can provide opportunities for children to form gender-diverse friendships, such as through their choice of extracurricular activities. For example, if young children are open to trying new activities, instead of enrolling a daughter into ballet, a parent could consider encouraging her to join a chess club. Parents and teachers can easily promote mixed-gender situations by supporting and reinforcing diverse playmates when they occur naturally or arranging for situations where they are likely to occur.

One key to these interactions is ensuring that children feel good about themselves, happy, and comfortable when with children who are different from themselves. In our study, we found that it was experiencing positive feelings rather than reducing negative or anxious feelings that most strongly brought girls and boys together. For example, in a separate study, preschool teachers assigned children a “buddy” for the week with girls and boys paired to enjoy simple activities together, such as blowing bubbles or using a parachute to bounce a ball. These fun and cooperative activities helped slow the tendency for gender segregation to occur within classrooms over the course of a semester.

The pandemic shuttered our children indoors, physically away from classmates and friends. Children had many fewer opportunities to practice being kind, good, and social people. Let’s make a conscious effort, for our children’s sake, to maintain and increase those friendships that cross gender lines. Having these experiences early in life may be particularly effective in eliminating the roots of sexism before it spreads.


For Further Reading

Halim, M. D., Martin, C. L., Andrews, N., Zosuls, K. M., & Ruble, D. N. (2021). Enjoying each other’s company: Gaining other-gender friendships promotes positive other-gender attitudes among ethnically diverse children. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 47, 1635-1653. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167220984407

Martin, C. L., Fabes, R. A., Hanish, L. D., Gaertner, B., Miller, C. F., Foster, S., & Updegraff, K. A. (2017). Using an intergroup contact approach to improve gender relationships: A case study of a classroom-based intervention. In A. Rutland, D. Nesdale, & C. Brown (Eds.), Handbook of group processes in children and adolescents (pp. 435–454). Wiley-Blackwell.

Halim, M. L., Ruble, D., Tamis-LeMonda, C. S., Shrout, P. E., & Amodio, D. M. (2017). Gender attitudes in early childhood: Behavioral consequences and cognitive antecedents. Child Development, 88, 882–899. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12642


May Ling Halim is an Associate Professor of Psychology at California State University, Long Beach, and the Director of the Culture and Social Identity Development Lab, where she researches gender and racial/ethnic identity development. She is a mother of two.

Carol Martin is a Cowden Distinguished Professor of Social and Family Dynamics at Arizona State University, and is the Director of the Children’s Attitudes and Relationships in Education (CARE) Lab, where she researches gender identity, stereotyping, peer relationships, and schooling.

 

Mean Kids Become Mean Adults

Let’s be honest, young children are aggressive. Fortunately, although physical aggression in early childhood is common, most children stop by the time they reach the first grade. Less fortunately, however, the same cannot be said for what we call “indirect aggression.”

Indirect Aggression

You can think of indirect aggression as mean behavior—think “mean girls.” Although meanness can also be quite direct, as with in-your-face insults and put-downs, here we are concerned with more subtle and indirect ways of harming someone. Among adults, it is often called passive-aggressive behavior, although there is nothing passive about it. Indeed, indirect aggression includes nasty conduct such as excluding someone from the peer group, spreading malicious gossip, and using derisive body language like eye rolling to intentionally hurt others.

The subtle nature of indirect aggression can make it appear unintentional, such as not tagging a classmate on a social media post or not inviting a colleague to the group lunch. This way, if confronted, the aggressor can claim the behavior was just an accident or the accuser is overreacting.

Unlike physical aggression, which is heavily condemned by society, indirect aggression is more permitted. Plus, the plausible deniability of indirect aggression means that perpetrators are rarely scolded. These reasons contribute to why indirect aggression replaces physical aggression as children get older. In fact, indirect aggression is the most common form of aggression used in late childhood, adolescence, and adulthood—used across multiple settings from the playground to the boardroom.

Because this behavior is hard for others to detect and the intention appears ambiguous, victims are not given the same level of support as those who are attacked in a more direct manner. As a result, indirectly aggressive individuals can feel like they have free license to continue being cruel, while their victims continue to suffer alone.

The Suffering is Real

Being the victim of indirect aggression has a wide range of effects on well-being. For example, being a victim of indirect aggression is associated with low self-esteem, loneliness, anxiety, depression, suicidality, disordered eating, and somatic complaints (such as physical pain), just to name a few. Studies confirm that victims become unwell because of their poor treatment rather than (for example) their low self-esteem. Being excluded from the peer group is also associated with biological changes including how the body manages stress, increased inflammation, and increased activity in the brain regions that deal with rejection and humiliation.

When Mean Kids Grow Up

Not enough is known about the life course of meanness. We sought to fix this gap by examining mean behavior from childhood to adulthood in a sample of 704 Canadians who were assessed yearly from age 10 to 22. We found that that while all respondents admitted to using indirect aggression at some point in their life, over 9% of individuals consistently used indirect aggression from childhood to adolescence, with more girls than boys represented in the top group. Come adulthood, that number increased: over 17% of individuals often used indirect aggression, and this time there was no difference found between women and men.  

Often, but not always, it was those frequently mean kids who became cruel adults. Others seem to pick up the habit along the way. Thus, unlike our impressive record at reducing physical aggression use by the end of the first grade, our society seems to have failed at stopping the cruelty of indirect aggression.

Next Step

Physical aggression is easy to identify and as such, several effective community and school-based intervention programs exist. However, similar programs concentrating solely on indirect aggression do not. In fact, few address indirect aggression at all. Mean behavior, no matter how much it appears to be harmless to others, should be recognized as a legitimate source of harm with long-lasting consequences. When individuals identify or report “mean” behavior at school, in their family, or in the workplace, these incidents should not be dismissed as trivial. Ignoring the problem only worsens it.


For Further Reading

Farrell, A. H., & Vaillancourt, T. (2021). Examining the joint development of antisocial behavior and personality: Predictors and trajectories of adolescent indirect aggression and Machiavellianism. Developmental Psychology. doi: 10.1037/dev0001016

Vaillancourt, T., & Farrell, A. H. (2021; in press). Mean kids become mean adults: Trajectories of indirect aggression from age 10 to 22. Aggressive Behavior. doi: 10.1002/ab.21950

Vaillancourt, T., & Krems, J. A. (2018). An evolutionary psychological perspective of indirect aggression in girls and women. In S. Coyne & J. Ostrov (Eds.), The development of relational aggression (pp. 111-126). Oxford University Press.
 

Tracy Vaillancourt is a Full Professor and Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in School-Based Mental Health and Violence Prevention at the University of Ottawa. Her research examines the longitudinal links between bullying and mental health, with a focus on social neuroscience.

Ann Farrell is a post-doctoral Banting Fellow at the University of Ottawa. Her research examines the longitudinal associations between youth bullying and personality, including the social environmental contexts that contribute to these associations.

 

New study debunks myth that only children are more narcissistic than kids with siblings

The stereotype for only children is that they are selfish, or more self-centered than those with siblings. This stereotype is sometimes used as an argument for having more than one child, but researchers from Germany find there’s no evidence for the claim that only children are more narcissistic than children with sibling.  Michael Dufner (University of Leipzig), Mitja D. Back (University of Münster), Franz F. Oehme (University of Leipzig), Stefan C. Schmukle (University of Leipzig) recently published their findings in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science.

To start, the social and personality psychologists asked if people believe people who have no siblings are more narcissistic than people with siblings.

Dufner and colleagues focused on two core aspects of narcissism: people feeling grandiose about themselves more and people being more rivalrous.

Analyzing questionnaires from over 500 people, they found that both only children and those with siblings hold the view that only kids are more narcissistic in both aspects mentioned before, than those with siblings.

They then analyzed data from a large panel study of over 1800 people, and found the scores of narcissistic traits for only children were not that different from people with siblings. Even controlling for possible socioeconomic factors, these results held true.

“Some of the past research has reported no difference between only children and non-only children in terms of narcissism and some of the past research has reported such a difference,” says Dufner. Due to the nature of their sampling and research methods, “we can now say with rather high confidence that only children are not substantially more narcissistic than people with siblings.”

Narcissism is considered a socially maladaptive personality trait, so lumping only children as being narcissistic can put them at a disadvantage from their peers, suggest the researchers.

“When sociologists, economists, or policy makers discuss the downsides of low fertility rates, they should let go of the idea that growing up without siblings leads to increased narcissism,” write Dufner and colleagues.  

“There might of course be economic or societal costs associated with low birth rates, but increasing narcissism in the upcoming generation does not seem to be a factor that is relevant to the discussion,” says Dufner.

Study: The End of a Stereotype: Only Children are not More Narcissistic than People with Siblings


Dufner, M., Back, M. D., Oehme, F. F., & Schmukle, S. C. (2019). The End of a Stereotype: Only Children Are Not More Narcissistic Than People With Siblings. Social Psychological and Personality Science. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550619870785

 

Does Incarceration Impact Youth Personality Development?

Adolescence is a time full of transitional periods and growth. Generally, as we age we become more mature and stable. We experience life events that allow us to successfully fulfill our adulthood roles.

However, the life events we experience are not always positive. With over 70,000 youth incarcerated in the U.S. yearly, we cannot deny the depth of impact such a negative life event may create.

“Do correctional facilities correct our youth?” asked Kathryn Bollich (Seattle University) as she began her presentation titled Personality Behind Bars: Effects of Incarceration on Personality Development at the SPSP Annual Convention.

Bollich and colleague, Joshua Jackson (Washington University in St. Louis) set out to better understand the effects of the juvenile justice system contact on personality development.

They wanted to know the answers to three questions. First, are certain personalities more likely to end up involved in the justice system in the first place? Does this contact disrupt normal youth personality development? And last, are there better alternatives to incarceration that have less severe consequences on youth personality?

Using a large national dataset (CNLSY), they examined selection effects and socialization effects associated with youth incarceration and court-ordered community service.

As expected, sensation-seeking was a risk factor for incarceration and community service. Depression also predicted both, while impulsivity only predicted incarceration. These results suggest that youth higher in sensation-seeking, depression, and impulsivity will be more at risk to experience incarceration.

Now that we know which personality traits are associated with becoming incarcerated in the first place, one question remains. How do youth personalities transform once they have experienced contact with the justice system?

Congruent with normal adolescent development, youth experiencing incarceration or community service increased on self-esteem and sensation-seeking over time. These trajectories are consistent with normative maturation, suggesting that justice system contact may not substantially disrupt the development of these specific personality traits.

Further, incarceration predicted decreases in depression whereas there was no change in depression over time for the other two groups of youth. It is possible that incarceration is having some level of a rehabilitative effect.

Bollich also found that those with community service or no justice system contact decreased in impulsivity over time. Contrary to normal adolescent development, incarcerated youth increased on impulsivity. These findings raise concerns that the current juvenile justice system and the experiences youth have within that system may have some retrogressive effects on personality development.

Encouragingly, the findings from Bollich’s study also suggest that there may be positive alternatives, such as community service, which may to more normative changes for youth compared to incarceration.


Written by: Kristan Russell, PhD Student at the University of Nevada, Reno
 
Presentation: "Personality Behind Bars: Effects of Incarceration on Personality Development," held during the symposium Narratives of Changing Selves on March 3, 2018.
 
Speaker: Kathryn Bollich-Ziegler, PhD – Seattle University
 
Co-Author: Joshua Jackson, PhD, Emorie Beck, and Patrick Hill, PhD – Washington University in St. Louis

 

Do Gender Accepting Parents Have Less Anxious Children?

Social anxiety can be difficult to grapple with, especially during childhood. This is particularly true for children who don't conform to stereotypical gender norms and therefore may not be accepted by their peers. For example, a boy might like activities and clothing that are more like what the girls in his classroom like than the other boys. When children learn what boys and girls are supposed to say, do, and look like, gender-nonconforming youth tend to feel more anxious due to social rejection compared to children who do not defy gender norms.

We wondered whether parents' acceptance of gender atypicality could mitigate social anxiety among gender-expansive children. "Gender expansive" is a broad label that applies to any child who does not conform to gender stereotypic norms and can include children who are transgender although our study did not.

To explore this, we conducted a two-year longitudinal study of the links between children's gender atypicality, social anxiety, and parental acceptance. The study, which included 209 kindergarteners, 206 second graders, and 206 fourth graders, examined the connection between children's gender atypicality and their teachers' reports of children's social anxiety over the course of a year. We measured gender atypicality by asking children how similar they are to girls and to boys overall and on specific dimensions such as appearance, mannerisms, interests, and behavioral preferences. From these ratings we created measures of whether the children felt more or less like same-gender and other-gender peers.

Are Gender-Expansive Children More Socially Anxious?

Surprisingly, the answer is no. Contrary to our expectations, children's gender atypicality was not directly associated with their social anxiety one year later. This was true whether gender atypicality was due to children feeling more dissimilar to their own gender or similar to the other gender. Being gender expansive (not feeling like one's own-gender peers or feeling a lot like other-gender peers) did not necessarily lead to social anxiety.

Does Parents' Gender Diversity Acceptance Buffer Against Social Anxiety?

What role do parents play? We examined whether the link between children's gender typicality and social anxiety depends on parental acceptance and children's grade levels. Parents reported their acceptance of gender typicality by rating eight items about how acceptable it would be if they had a daughter/son who had a stereotypically feminine/ masculine personality; liked stereotypically feminine/masculine activities and interests; had stereotypically feminine/masculine mannerisms (like ways of talking or walking); and liked to dress in a stereotypically feminine/masculine way.

Overall, parent acceptance mattered more for younger children than older children. For kindergartners, parents' acceptance of gender atypicality protected children from social anxiety, regardless of their gender typicality. For second graders, parental rejection of gender atypicality, not acceptance, drove children's social anxiety scores. For 4th graders, parental acceptance did not protect gender atypicality from social anxiety.

It's possible that older gender-expansive students need social support beyond the family, including peers and mentors in the greater community, to buffer them from social rejection.

Implications for Mental Health of Gender-Expansive Children

Parental acceptance of gender nonconformity (and lack thereof) affects the mental health of even young children. Parents who embrace and support their children's interests and attitudes, regardless of gender norms, create a nurturing environment that fosters emotional resilience.

Parental acceptance involves acknowledging and encouraging children's unique preferences, whether playing with a wide range of toys, expressing themselves through clothing choices, or exploring activities that do not conform to traditional expectations.

Parents can foster acceptance by talking to children in ways that validate their feelings and experiences and reinforce the idea that it's okay to be different. Offering a safe space for open communication allows children to express themselves freely, knowing they have the support of their parents.

Parents can also challenge societal stereotypes by introducing their children to diverse perspectives and celebrating individuality.

Parental acceptance is reflected in everyday moments that shape a child's sense of self-worth and security. By fostering an environment where uniqueness is embraced, parents play a pivotal role in promoting the mental health and resilience of gender-expansive children.


For Further Reading

Xiao, S.X., Hoffer, A.L., Benoit, R.L., Scrofani, S., & Martin, C. L. (2023).  Parents matter: Accepting parents have less anxious gender expansive children. Sex Roles, 89, 459–474. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-023-01387-5

Xiao, S. X., Cook, R. E., Martin, C. L., & Nielson, G. M. (2019). Characteristics of preschool gender enforcers and peers who associate with them. Sex Roles, 81, 671-685. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-019-01026-y

Martin, C. L., Andrews, N. C., England, D. E., Zosuls, K., & Ruble, D. N. (2017a). A dual identity approach for conceptualizing and measuring children's gender identity. Child Development, 88, 167–182. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12568


Aubrey Hoffer is a graduate student at Arizona State University who studies body image with the aim of understanding how to promote a positive body image for people of all genders.

Sonya Xinyue Xiao is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychological Sciences at Northern Arizona University. Her research focuses on children's positive social development, especially as related to gender and race/ethnicity.

Stephan Scrofani has a PhD from Arizona State University in Human Development and Family Studies. His work focuses on promoting positive socio-emotional development for transgender youth. This includes identifying school climate supports in school spaces, and exploring the protective role of parent-child communication and support at home.

Carol Lynn Martin is a Cowden Distinguished Professor of Child Development in the T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics at Arizona State University. Her research and intervention work centers on gender development, peer relationships, and student academic success.

Stressors in Adolescence and Adult Obesity

We've all heard that diet and lifestyle contribute to obesity, but what if there was more to the story? And what if you could predict the risk of obesity from data collected 14 years earlier?

Adolescence is a formative time of development, and life stressors during these years may be linked to adult obesity. Habits that you develop, or very challenging stressors you encounter in adolescence, can affect your health for many subsequent years.

In our recent study, we measured stressors in middle and high school adolescents in grades 7- 12 in 80 high schools and 52 middle schools in the United States, and then followed them throughout their transition to young adulthood. Two sources of stress were of interest:

  • Interpersonal stressors include being a victim of a crime (e.g., being held up or mugged), the death of close relationships, and a parental figure being in jail.
  • Financial stressors include their family receiving public assistance or welfare, their parents being unemployed, and low parental educational attainment.

All of these are stressful situations and the more of these that you have experienced, the more stress you will feel.

In terms of positive and protective factors, we also measured social support—how much they felt that parents, teachers, other adults, and friends care about them—and also social cohesion in terms of how supportive their neighbors are.

Could Stressors During Adolescence Lead to Higher Adult Obesity?

BMI (Body Mass Index) uses a person's height and weight in a combined index to assess weight-related health risk factors. In our case, when following up with our participants 14 years later, our emphasis was on stressors experienced during adolescence in relation to their later BMI as an adult. Alongside interviewing study participants, we measured their BMI in their homes for accuracy.

Taking all our stress variables and demographic factors into account, we found that interpersonal stressors were directly linked to BMI 14 years later. Even more interesting, social support from friends and family and supportive neighborhoods counteracted the negative effect of stressors in adolescence, particularly interpersonal stress, when we predicted BMI 14 years later. Thus, feeling cared for by others or living in a supportive and safe neighborhood might soften the effects of interpersonal stress on one's later health. Parents, teachers, other trusted adults, friends, and family members can provide this social support. For young people, having a large, compassionate, and caring social network can be helpful in navigating times of crisis and can promote good psychological and physical health. 

Social cohesion, or the solidarity felt between the individual and their community, also can act as a protective factor. Communicating with neighbors, knowing your neighbors, and feeling that neighbors look out for one another are great measures of this, and can thereby be another route of support. Our study did not find a relationship between financial stressors in adolescence and BMI in adulthood.

Understanding the factors contributing to adult obesity can help people better prepare for potential health risks and even develop their own strategies to prevent the development of these stress pathways. Future research is needed, but it could be that targeted social interventions, such as greater time spent with friends and family or joining a local soccer club, at the time of intense interpersonal stressors could protect individuals from developing obesity and other health risks 14 years down the road. Even sessions with a psychotherapist could act as an interpersonal support system in times of hardship.

Adolescents who face major interpersonal stressors may be at higher risk for obesity as adults, a risk that is linked to a multitude of other health issues. To counter this effect, our research suggests that a supportive community and a friendly neighborhood among adolescents can promote positive health in adulthood.


For Further Reading

Stanton, M. V., Jones, A., & Shahani, D. (2022). Relationship among interpersonal stressors in adolescence, social support buffers, and obesity in adulthood 14 years later. Health Psychology. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/hea0001223
 

Michael V. Stanton is Associate Professor of Public Health at California State University, East Bay who studies health disparities, stress, and obesity.

Antwan Jones is Professor of Sociology, Epidemiology, and Public Policy at George Washington University who studies neighborhood effects, health disparities, and obesity.

Small Self, Big Heart

How can children become kinder and more generous versions of themselves? As the world is becoming increasingly individualistic, nurturing prosociality is one of the major challenges for parents and teachers around the world.

Our research shows that finding moments of awe can help children to feel more relaxed and able to set aside their own concerns to focus on the needs of others: Awe fosters children's kindness and generosity.

What is Awe and How Can it Make Children Kinder?

People experience awe when they encounter vast mysteries that are hard to grasp. The rainbow, waterfalls, fireworks, Van Gogh's Starry Night, Beethoven's symphonies, the harmony of planets' movement, and the mysteries of the life cycle are just a few examples that give people goosebumps and transfix them in front of sites greater and grander than the self. These awe-filled experiences soften the ego and make one feel small, making it possible to turn attention outwards and reach out to others. Past research shows that this humbling experience of "small self" makes adults more relaxed and willing to help others.

Although awe is a common experience in childhood, scientific research on children's reactions to awe was scarce. Our research filled this gap by studying reactions to awe-eliciting stimuli in children aged 8–13.

One of our main challenges was how to produce, and then measure, the experience of awe in children. We first constructed emojis that were easily understood by children and allowed us to measure experiences of awe and other emotions (anger, boredom, fear, joy, and sadness). We then asked 51 children to watch 15 different movie clips and asked them to rate each of these clips on the emotions they experienced using the emojis, after making sure the kids understood what we meant by awe. We selected a clip that the children rated highest on producing awe, another one that scored the highest on joy, and a third one that was rather neutral. Then we could compare these clips for their impact on children's behavior after seeing them.

We asked 159 children to watch one of the three clips online and then asked them to do two tasks that measured their willingness to help others at their own cost. The first task was to count items in a spreadsheet to help determine what had been donated to a university food drive for local refugees. The second task was to decide whether they wanted to donate a museum ticket that was offered to them as a reward for completing the study to a refugee family or to keep it to themselves. The results were clear: Children who watched the awe-inducing clip counted about 50% more items for the food drive and were at least twice as likely to donate their museum ticket to a refugee family than children who watched the joyful clip or the neutral clip.

Next, we went into a real-world setting, aiming to understand the physiological impact of awe on the body. The setting was the NEMO Science Museum in Amsterdam, as part of their Science Live Program, with 384 children who again watched one of three clips and completed two tasks measuring their helping behavior. We also measured children's physiological reactions using sensors attached to their bodies.

Although children who watched the awe clip did not count more items than children who watched the joyful or neutral clips, they showed greater helping behavior in the second task: They were more likely to donate a chocolate snack that was given to them as a reward for completing the study to a refugee children's organization. What is more, the children's physiological reactions differed: While watching the awe-inspiring clip they had more activation of the part of the nervous system known to make a person more relaxed and connected to others.

Are you a parent or teacher, and would you like to inspire kindness and generosity in your children or students? Encourage them to explore the wonders of the world—from rainbows to waterfalls, from paintings to symphonies, and from starry nights to sunrise.


For Further Reading  

Brummelman, E., & Sedikides, C. (2020). Raising children with high self-esteem (but not narcissism). Child Development Perspectives, 14, 83–89. doi:10.1111/cdep.12362

Keltner, D. (2023). Awe: The new science of everyday wonder and how it can transform your life. Penguin.

Stamkou, E., Brummelman, E., Dunham, R., Nikolic, M., & Keltner, D. (2023). Awe sparks prosociality in children. Psychological Science, 34 (4)https://doi.org/10.1177/09567976221150616  


Eftychia Stamkou is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Amsterdam. She studies how artworks influence our emotions, thoughts, and worldviews.

Eddie Brummelman is an Associate Professor at the Research Institute of Child Development and Education, University of Amsterdam. He studies the developing self.

Rohan Dunham is a PhD candidate in Social Psychology at the University of Amsterdam. He studies the social impact of art.

Milica Nikolic is an Assistant Professor at the Research Institute of Child Development and Education, University of Amsterdam. She studies how social emotions and social cognition influence the social lives of children.

Raising Black Children to Resist

As a new parent, I cannot deny that recently, I have been thinking deeper about what it means to raise a Black child in America. My child was born in the midst of the COVID-19 global pandemic, which coincided with worldwide movements for racial justice and opposing movements to abolish the teaching and discussion of structural racism in schools.

When I look into my child's eyes, I see the beauty of their innocence and pure joy unscathed by the racial turmoil in the United States. However, as a social worker and developmental psychologist who studies racial justice and Black youth well-being, I am cognizant of the reality that I cannot fully shield my child from racism; it is an omnipresent system that permeates the very core of American society. Nevertheless, like generations of Black parents before me, I can use cultural tools to prepare my child to contend with the ramifications of racism.

One such tool is racial socialization—verbal and nonverbal messages that teach people about race and racism. While researchers have identified racial socialization as a tool to support Black youth in being resilient to racism, in our study, my colleagues and I were interested in examining whether racial socialization could support youth in actively challenging racism. With the participation of 500 Black youth from across the United States, we used survey data to study whether youth's experiences of racial socialization from their caregivers were related to their sociopolitical development, which is the process of developing the knowledge, skills, and emotional capacity to analyze and respond to sociopolitical systems.

We found that youth who reported more messages from their caregivers that prepared them for racial bias and engaged in actions with their caregivers to promote cultural pride also reported higher awareness of racial inequality. Youth who reported more of these two forms of racial socialization also had higher confidence and motivation to address racism and be an agent of change in their community.

We also found that racial socialization was related to action but in different ways depending on the type of socialization. Receiving more verbal messages to prepare for discrimination was only directly related to higher political/communal racial justice action, such as participating in an organization focused on racial justice. However, receiving more actions from caregivers to promote cultural pride (such as being taken to Black cultural events) was directly related to higher engagement in three forms of action: political/communal action, interpersonal action (such as challenging individuals who make racist comments), and online actions (for example, posting about racial justice issues on social media).

As I contemplated the findings of this work, I thought about the youth organizers whom I have had the privilege to meet and those whose stories I've read. It felt important to determine how to illustrate the findings of this work amplifying the lived experiences and voices of young people. Below, I document our research findings by telling the stories of young people through a hip-hop song. Across the verses, I describe youth reflecting on the challenges of multiple manifestations of racism including racial profiling in schools and in their communities and vicarious trauma due to the constant news cycle documenting the murders of Black Americans. Through the youth's reflection, they are reminded of the racial messages and actions that their parents provided them to educate them about their culture and prepare them to encounter racism. These messages become the catalyst for youths' actions to challenge individuals who perpetuate racism and organize for racial justice online and in their communities.


For Further Reading

Anderson, R. E., & Stevenson, H. C. (2019). RECASTing racial stress and trauma: Theorizing the healing potential of racial socialization in families. American Psychologist, 74(1), 63–75. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000392

Anyiwo, N., Bañales, J., Rowley, S. J., Watkins, D. C., & Richards-Schuster, K. (2018). Sociocultural influences on the sociopolitical development of African American youth. Child Development Perspectives, 12(3), 165-170. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdep.12276

Watts, R. J., Griffith, D. M., & Abdul-Adil, J. (1999). Sociopolitical development as an antidote for oppression—theory and action. American Journal of Community Psychology, 27(2), 255-271. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1022839818873


Nkemka Anyiwo is an Assistant Professor of Social Work at Columbia University. She studies the roles of culture and community in how Black youth make meaning of themselves and engage in practices to promote joy, social justice, and personal and collective wellness.

Racial Discrimination Harms Adolescents’ Mental Health

Many Black youth in the United States experience racial discrimination. One recent study of Black adolescents found that they reported an average of approximately five racial discrimination experiences per day. What is the impact of these experiences on the mental health of Black youth over time?

My colleagues and I addressed this question in a recent study. Nearly 900 Black youth from Georgia and Iowa completed surveys when they were 10.5 years old and again when they were 12.5, 15.5, and 19 years old. At each time point, youth reported on their experiences of racial discrimination over the past year, such as having someone say something insulting because of their race, being treated in a disrespectful way because of their race, or being excluded from an activity because of their race. They also reported on their depressive symptoms over the past year, such as feeling sad, feeling irritable, or feeling like nothing was fun. Our goal was to see how racial discrimination and youths' depressive symptoms were connected over time. Understanding these associations during adolescence is important because adolescence is a key period for the emergence of mental health difficulties.

We first examined differences in depressive symptoms between youth experiencing different levels of racial discrimination. For example, imagine two adolescents—Mary and John—who are both Black and 13 years old, but Mary's surveys indicate that she has experienced more racial discrimination over the past year than John. Do these differences also predict differences in depressive symptoms?

Our findings indicated that youth who experienced more racial discrimination (like Mary) had more depressive symptoms than youth who experienced less racial discrimination (like John). Strikingly, these differences emerged when we considered depressive symptoms at the same point in time and at the next survey 2-3 years later. In other words, adolescents who experienced more racial discrimination had more depressive symptoms in the short- and longer-term compared to adolescents experiencing less racial discrimination.

We built on these findings to test whether there were differences in depressive symptoms as youth experienced varying degrees of racial discrimination over time. Returning to our example, imagine that Mary generally experiences a moderate level of racial discrimination, but there are times when she experiences more racial discrimination and times when she experiences less discrimination. We can then examine whether Mary's depressive symptoms change depending on whether she is experiencing more or less racial discrimination relative to her own average. Our analyses testing this question showed that these types of within-person shifts in experiences of racial discrimination corresponded to shifts in depressive symptoms. Youth reported more depressive symptoms when they experienced more racial discrimination than usual, and fewer depressive symptoms when they experienced less racial discrimination than usual. Furthermore, these effects persisted over time: after experiencing more racial discrimination than they usually did, youth continued to report more depressive symptoms 2-3 years later. And, after experiencing less racial discrimination than they usually did, youth reported fewer depressive symptoms 2-3 years later.

Youths' age and gender did not make much difference in these results. We also saw that youths'  depressive symptoms did not predict how much racial discrimination they experienced.

Racial discrimination is harmful to the mental health of Black adolescents. Youth experiencing more racial discrimination—whether that was relative to others or relative to their own average—reported more depressive symptoms at that point in time and more than two years later. These findings add to other work documenting the negative effects of racial discrimination on youths' health and well-being and underscore the need to eradicate racism and support Black youth in the face of racial discrimination.


For Further Reading

Lavner, J. A., Ong, M. L., Carter, S. E., Hart, A. R., & Beach, S. R. H. (2022). Racial discrimination predicts depressive symptoms throughout adolescence among Black youth. Developmental Psychology. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/dev0001456

Lavner, J. A., Hart, A. R., Carter, S. E., & Beach, S. R. H. (2022). Longitudinal effects of racial discrimination on depressive symptoms among Black youth: Between- and within-person effects. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 61(1),56–65. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaac.2021.04.020

English, D., Lambert, S. F., & Ialongo, N. S. (2014). Longitudinal associations between experienced racial discrimination and depressive symptoms in African American adolescents. Developmental Psychology, 50(4), 1190–1196. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0034703


Justin A. Lavner is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Georgia. He studies risk, resilience, and well-being among children and families from underserved and marginalized populations.

Multiple Collective Stressors Affect the Development of Young Adults

Young adults are in a critical period in life. If everything goes well, young adults select into social networks, initiate friendships and romantic relationships, and find their occupational niche. In other words: Young adulthood is full of exploration. But what happens if young adults suddenly find themselves exposed to collective stressors that heavily limit their opportunities for exploration? Addressing this question was the main goal of the present study.

It's Not Easy to Study This Question

Studying the effects of collective stressors is not simple, because ideally one needs a group of people who are exposed to stressors and a comparison group of people who are not exposed to stressors. In times when the stressors affect nearly everyone, having a group that is not exposed to stressors is literally impossible. Our study design had the unique advantage of having both groups: We had a comparison group of young adults (average age of 20) who were surveyed eight times in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic, and a high-stress group of young adults of similar age who were surveyed eight times in 2020, during the first grueling year of the pandemic. Furthermore, it was not only the pandemic that created stress: the 2020 group experienced yet other stressors: extreme wildfires, social tensions associated with the murder of George Floyd, and a contentious election. So, this study allowed us to compare the groups in their trajectories of psychosocial development. We studied both their psychological functioning in terms of subjective well-being and their social functioning in terms of social support and relationship satisfaction.

Young Adults Are Affected by Collective Stressors

Our findings showed that collective stressors may set young adults on a less fortunate path. Specifically, young adults of the high-stress group had disrupted developments in their emotional well-being and social functioning, such as decreasing positive feelings and decreasing relationship satisfaction. In general, the effects tended to be small, but also small effects can have lasting implications, especially when they occur in a sensitive life period.

What Are the Reasons for the Disrupted Development?

In exploratory analyses, we aimed to identify potential reasons for the disrupted developments and looked at COVID-19-related concerns (such as behavior change through the pandemic). Interestingly, these concerns explained some of the trends, but not all. Hence, while it is true that the pandemic was a severe and ongoing stressor in 2020, it was not the only one, and it was not the single driving force. Rather, it tended to be the multitude of stressors in 2020 that contributed to the less fortunate development among young adults.

It is About the Multitude of Stressors

Environmental conditions are critical for development because they provide the opportunities that individuals need to grow in a healthy way. If numerous collective stressors are present, as was the case in 2020, the opportunities are limited in a number of ways. For example, the pandemic severely constrained face-to-face contact and physical intimacy among young adults, and this likely impacted their daily social lives and social experiences. Moreover, the severe wildfires in Northern California, where the study was done, had a major impact on young adults' social lives, because young adults could not leave their houses due to the smoke or had to leave their houses for personal safety. These limitations were especially drastic during the lockdown because the limited ways to be social during the lockdown (such as going for a walk) were further restricted by the wildfires. Finally, experiencing limiting opportunities and being confronted with both health concerns and political tensions likely created fear and alertness among young adults, which resulted in lower emotional well-being.

Young Adulthood is a Particularly Sensitive Life Period

People of all ages likely are affected by collective stressors, but young adults are particularly affected by these stressors, because their development heavily depends on the conditions and opportunities that are available. In contrast to other developmental periods in life, young adults are still on their way to finding their path in life. Therefore, this research raises awareness to monitor young adults' psychosocial development more closely in times of collective stressors, for instance through counseling programs in companies and universities.

Needless to say, not every young adult was equally affected by the collective stressors. This, in turn, suggests that there are certain protective factors that help young adults to cope well with the stressors—but also that there are also certain risk factors that make it even more difficult for young adults to cope. Protective factors could be a close social network and risk factors could be the personality trait of neuroticism, which increases the tendency to worry. We need future research to identify the protective and risk factors and to implement them in intervention studies with young adults.


For Further Reading

Bühler, J. L., Hopwood, C. J., Nissen, A. T., & Bleidorn, W. (2022). Collective stressors affect the psychosocial development of young adults. Social Psychological and Personality Science. https://doi.org/10.1177/19485506221119018

Overall, N. C., Chang, V. T., Pietromonaco, P. R., Low, R. S. T., & Henderson, A. M. E. (2022). Partners' attachment insecurity and stress predict poorer relationship functioning during COVID-19 quarantines. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 13(1), 285–298. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550621992973

Romm, K. F., Park, Y. W., Hughes, J. L., & Gentzler, A. L. (2021). Risk and protective factors for changes in adolescent psychosocial adjustment during COVID‐19. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 31(3), 546–559. https://doi.org/10.1111/jora.12667


Janina Larissa Bühler is an Assistant Professor of Personality Psychology and Psychological Assessment at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. She studies the ways in which people's personalities and their social relationships develop over time.