Tracy L. Spinrad

Objective: The primary goals of the present study were to (a) differentiate types of adolescents' attachment‐related insecurity with their custodial grandmothers and (b) examine associations, including bidirectional relations, between grandchildren's attachment insecurity and their maladjustment symptoms 9 months later. Background: There is limited research on attachment‐related insecurity for adolescents in the care of custodial grandparents—a group that may be at heightened risk for insecure relationships and poor adjustment symptoms. Methods: Adolescent grandchildren ( n = 348; aged 11 to 18 years, 39.7% male) reported on the quality of their relationship with their custodial grandmother and their internalizing and externalizing symptoms at T1 and T2 (9 months later). Bifactor analyses were used to compute orthogonal indices of attachment‐related general insecurity, anxious‐ambivalence, and avoidance. Results: Within time, general insecurity predicted higher internalizing and externalizing symptoms. T1 general insecurity longitudinally predicted higher T2 externalizing and internalizing symptoms, with relations for externalizing symptoms moderated by length of care. Interestingly, T1 internalizing symptoms positively predicted T2 general insecurity. Conclusions: Consistent with attachment theory and prior research on parent–child relationships, grandchildren's relationship quality with their custodial grandmother predicted later maladjustment symptoms. Implications: Findings highlight the importance of attending to grandchildren's attachment‐related insecurity in providing supportive services and resources to custodial grandfamilies.

Objective: The goal was to examine configurations of racialized attitudes and practices between mothers and fathers in White families with young children to identify distinct couple profiles and investigate how profiles relate to demographic factors and children's anti‐Black attitudes and behaviors. Background: The relation of mothers' and fathers' conjoint racial attitudes and practices to children's racial attitudes/behavior in White families is understudied and relevant for familial socialization and interventions. Method: Latent profile analysis was used to examine profiles of mothers' and fathers' (136 non‐Hispanic, middle‐high income White families) racial attitudes and practices and their relations to parents' education and income, and to children's age, sex, implicit anti‐Black attitudes, and cross‐race friends. Results: Profiles were (a) antiracist parents (25%), (b) racially biased parents (22%), and (c) mixed group, reflecting moderately biased fathers and relatively antiracist mothers (53%). Parents' higher education was associated with a lower likelihood of racially biased profile assignment. Higher income was associated with a higher likelihood of this assignment. Children with antiracist parents had a higher proportion of cross‐race friends compared to racially biased parents. Conclusion: Findings support the disaggregation of education and income in studies of racial attitudes and behaviors and highlight the importance of assessing both adults in a family to contextualize children's racial socialization. Implications: Intervention and family life educators should consider that parents are often nonaligned in their attitudes and practices regarding antiracism and child socialization and that parental alignment predicts children's cross‐race social interactions.

White parents adopt various ethnic‐racial socialization (ERS) approaches that shape children's understanding of race and ethnicity, sometimes fostering awareness of ethnic‐racial inequalities and encouraging positive attitudes toward individuals from diverse backgrounds, and sometimes perpetuating a dominating perspective of whiteness as an invisible, natural privilege that is assumed while “othering” non‐White racial and ethnic groups. Whereas a growing body of research has examined ERS among White parents in the United States, less is known about these dynamics in European contexts, where ethnic‐racial relationships are increasingly salient. To address this gap, we examined ERS among White Italian parents and its association with children's prosocial behavior toward outgroup peers. The study involved 296 White Italian parents and their preschool children, recruited from different regions of Italy. Parents completed an adapted Italian version of the White Racial Socialization Questionnaire (WRSQ), assessing three ERS approaches: Conscious, Discussion‐hesitant, and Evasive. Children's prosocial behavior was measured through parental reports and a sticker‐sharing task, in which children were asked to share resources with ingroup and outgroup peers. Factor analysis confirmed three dimensions in our adapted version of the WRSQ. Results from a path analysis, controlling for children's age, sex, and parent education, showed positive and significant associations between parents’ conscious ERS and their children's prosocial behavior toward outgroup peers, as reflected in both parental reports and the sticker‐sharing task. Conversely, parents’ evasive and discussion‐hesitant approaches were not significantly related to their children's prosocial behavior toward outgroup peers. No significant associations emerged between ERS approaches and prosocial behavior toward ingroup peers. Findings provide further evidence for the role of parental ERS in young children's interpersonal behavior, providing valuable insights for fostering inclusive social development in early childhood.

Research and theory on the role of top-down self-regulation (TDSR) in children's developmental outcomes has received considerable attention in the last few decades. In this review, we distinguish TDSR (and overlapping self-regulatory processes) from bottom-up regulation. With a particular focus on Eisenberg et al.'s body of work, we review evidence for the role of individual differences in children's TDSR to a variety of developmental outcomes. Children's TDSR processes are consistently inversely related to externalizing problems and internalizing problems, although less consistently for the latter. Moreover, TDSR processes are positively associated with social competence, empathy-related responding and prosocial outcomes, and school-related outcomes. We briefly review complexities in these associations, such as bidirectional relations, mediators, and moderators. Key areas for future work are also discussed.

White children's effortful control (EC), parents' implicit racial attitudes, and their interaction were examined as predictors of children's prosocial behavior toward White versus Black recipients. Data were collected from 171 White children (55% male, M age = 7.13 years, SD = 0.92) and their parent in 2017. Prosocial behavior toward White peers was predicted by children's higher EC. When predicting prosocial behavior toward Black peers and prosocial disparity (the difference between White and Black recipients), parents' implicit racial attitudes moderated the relation between children's EC and children's prosocial behavior. Specifically, children's EC was positively associated with prosocial behavior toward Black peers (and negatively related to inequity in prosocial behavior) only when parents exhibited less implicit racial bias.

We examined the relation of White parents' color-blind racial attitudes (a global composite score and its subscales) and their implicit racial attitudes to their young children's race-based sympathy toward Black and White victims. One hundred and nighty non-Hispanic White children (54% boys, M_age = 7.13 years, SD = 0.92) reported their sympathy in response to short films depicting bullying toward White or Black children. Their primary caregivers' (mostly mothers') color-blind racial ideology (CBRI) was assessed through a questionnaire (reflecting global color blindness, as well as denial of institutional racism, White privilege, and blatant racial issues), and their implicit racial attitudes were assessed with a computerized test. Children's sympathy toward Black victims and their equitable sympathy (difference score toward Black vs. White victims) was predicted by parents' color blindness, implicit racial attitudes, and their interaction. Results indicated several interaction effects, such that parents' denial of blatant racial attitudes and global CBRI were negatively related to children's sympathy toward Black victims and equitable sympathy toward Black versus White victims, only when the parents held implicit racial attitudes that favored White people. In addition, parents' denial of White privilege was negatively related to children's sympathy toward Black victims. The findings are discussed in terms of potential ways to shape children's race-based sympathy and compassion, particularly with an eye toward ways White parents might socialize sympathy toward historically marginalized youth. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).