Beiming Yang

Introduction: Ethnoracial discrimination is a persistent risk factor for adolescents' developmental problems, yet limited research has examined its prospective association with adolescents' cognitive functioning. The current research employed a two‐wave design to investigate whether ethnoracial discrimination predicted subsequent adolescent cognitive functioning and to explore whether these associations differed between White adolescents and adolescents from ethnoracially minoritized backgrounds. Methods: The sample consisted of 113 adolescents (mean age = 14.85 years, SD = 0.41 years; 36% boys, 63% girls, 1% non‐binary; 35% non‐Hispanic White, 65% ethnoracially minoritized) in the Midwestern United States from 2018 to 2020. Using a two‐wave follow‐up design with assessments 2 months apart, adolescents completed self‐report measures of perceived ethnoracial discrimination and executive functioning as well as performance‐based cognitive tests. Results: Higher perceived ethnoracial discrimination was associated with greater self‐reported executive‐functioning problems and worse speeded set‐shifting over time, after adjustment for baseline cognitive functioning and demographic covariates. Both associations remained significant after false discovery rate correction. However, interaction and stratified analyses did not provide robust evidence that the associations differed between White adolescents and adolescents from ethnoracially minoritized backgrounds. Conclusions: Taken together, the findings highlight the detrimental role of ethnoracial discrimination for adolescent cognition, underscoring the urgency of combating ethnoracial discrimination and supporting adolescents who are impacted by discriminatory environments.

How children come to evaluate social-affective cues is shaped within the family, yet the neural expression of this process and its dependence on family relationships remain unclear. We tested whether parent-child similarity in the neural coding of affective judgment varies with family environment, and whether it relates to youth affective distress. Twenty-five parent-child dyads (youth, mean age 11.8; parents mean age 42 years) judged faces morphed along an angry-to-happy continuum as positive or negative during fMRI. For each participant, we defined an evaluative choice axis distinguishing faces judged positive from negative, independent of expression intensity. Using searchlight-based parent-child cross-decoding, we tested whether one dyad member's evaluative coding predicted the other member's judgments, indexing shared evaluative coding rather than shared sensitivity to expression intensity. Inference focused a priori on medial prefrontal cortex. There was no reliable average parent-child neural similarity across the sample. Instead, higher family conflict was associated with lower parent-child neural similarity in ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC). Demonstrating specificity to negative relational strain, this effect was not observed for complementary dimensions of family cohesion or identity. Moreover, the effect was specific to true dyads rather than random pairings and to vmPFC rather than a face-selective network or other medial prefrontal regions. Lower vmPFC similarity showed a preliminary association with higher youth affective distress. These findings indicate that affective valuation, rather than sensory encoding, may be a representational level at which perceived family conflict is reflected in parent-child neural similarity.

Adolescent depression has risen sharply, especially among racial-ethnic minority youths. Although racial-ethnic discrimination is known to be linked with depression, there is limited understanding of how individual differences in brain development contribute to this process. Drawing on the framework of adolescent neurobiological susceptibility, in this study, we examined the moderating role of hippocampal volume in the longitudinal association between racial-ethnic discrimination and adolescent depression. Using longitudinal data of racial-ethnic minority youths from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study ( N = 5,061; age: M = 9.93 years; 52% female), we found that racial-ethnic discrimination was associated with adolescents’ increased depression 2 years later. A larger left hippocampal volume amplified the link between discrimination and depression. These findings highlight the detrimental role of racial-ethnic discrimination on adolescents’ psychological well-being and suggest that hippocampal volume may serve as a neurobiological marker of susceptibility, amplifying the negative impact of racial-ethnic discrimination among racial-ethnic minority youths.

Using three-wave longitudinal data of 554 Chinese youth (mean age = 13.35 years; 50% girls; T1 = July 2020, T2 = January 2021, T3 = July 2021), this study examined how youth's views of teens regarding family obligation predict their academic functioning and relationship with parents, with attention to the mediating role of youth's sense of responsibility to parents. Results showed that views of teens regarding family obligation predicted youth's greater academic delay of gratification, motivational response to academic failure, and attachment security to mother and father over time. Importantly, youth's sense of responsibility to parents mediated the longitudinal associations between views of teens and their academic and social adjustment. Taken together, the findings elucidate why and how views of teens matter for positive youth development in a culturally sensitive manner.

Parents’ internalizing symptoms, such as anxiety and depression, may contribute to similar symptoms in their youth. However, these associations vary, as youth with better emotion regulation may be more protected from negative parental influence. Yet, it remains unclear how youth’s neural correlates of emotion regulation, particularly in prefrontal regions—such as dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC), lateral orbitofrontal cortex (lOFC), and medial orbitofrontal cortex (mOFC)—play a role in these associations. To address this gap, this study used two-wave longitudinal data that spanned 2 yr from the nationwide Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development study including 7,932 youth (Mage = 9.96 yr, SD = 7.52; 49% females) and their parents. Results revealed significant longitudinal associations between parents’ and youth’s internalizing symptoms over 2 yr. Moreover, youth’s dlPFC, lOFC, and mOFC activity to negative emotions moderated these links. Youth with higher activity in these regions showed weaker parent-youth associations in internalizing symptoms over time. This study provides robust evidence that dlPFC, lOFC, and mOFC serve as neurobiological protective factors in the longitudinal links between parents and youth’s internalizing symptoms. Findings inform interventions targeting youth’s neural development in emotion regulation to promote emotional adjustment in families where parents face mental health challenges.

Parental burnout is a chronic condition of experiencing exhaustion, inefficacy, and emotional distance in one's parental role. Given the detrimental influence of parental burnout on both parents and children, it is important to study the antecedents and consequences of parental burnout, particularly at the within‐family level. Using a three‐wave sample of 443 Chinese parents (70% mothers; mean age = 41.81 years, SD = 3.81 years) of middle school adolescents (50% girls; mean age = 13.35 years, SD = 0.36 years), the present study examined the transactional processes between parental burnout and parent–adolescent conflict. Random intercept cross‐lagged panel modeling allowed the present study to focus on within‐family effects by using random intercepts to account for between‐family effects. In this way, this study can rule out time‐invariant confounds by focusing on whether the ups and downs of parental burnout at a family level contribute to the changes in parent–adolescent conflict, and vice versa. At the within‐family level, parental burnout predicted greater parent–adolescent conflict over time, and parent–adolescent conflict also predicted greater parental burnout over time. Notably, multigroup comparisons showed that the link from parent–adolescent conflict to parental burnout was only significant among parents with lower but not higher educational attainment, and the link from parental burnout to parent–adolescent conflict was only evident among mothers but not fathers. Taken together, the findings suggest that parental burnout and parent–adolescent conflict positively shape and sustain one another over time, highlighting the necessity to adapt the designs of family conflict interventions in treating and preventing parental burnout.

In past decades, the positive role of self‐control in students' academic success has attracted plenty of scholarly attention. However, fewer studies have examined the link between adolescents' neural development of the inhibitory control system and their academic achievement, especially using a longitudinal approach. Moreover, less is known about the role of parents in this link. Using large‐scale longitudinal data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study (N = 9574; mean age = 9.94 years at baseline, SD = .63; 50% girls), the current study took an integrative biopsychosocial approach to explore the longitudinal link between early adolescents' fronto‐striatal connectivity and their academic achievement, with attention to the moderating role of parental warmth. Results showed that weaker intrinsic connectivity between the frontoparietal network and the striatum was associated with early adolescents' worse academic achievement over 2 years during early adolescence. Notably, parental warmth moderated the association between fronto‐striatal connectivity and academic achievement, such that weaker fronto‐striatal connectivity was only predictive of worse academic achievement among early adolescents who experienced low levels of parental warmth. Taken together, the findings demonstrate weaker fronto‐striatal connectivity as a risk factor for early adolescents' academic development and highlight parental warmth as a protective factor for academic development among those with weaker connectivity within the inhibitory control system.

Adolescents' family obligation is a cultural strength that shows enduring prevalence in China. Given that the meaning of family obligation has undergone rapid changes in recent decades, it is crucial to examine the role of family obligation in adolescent adjustment in contemporary China. More importantly, although past research has investigated the consequences of family obligation on adolescents' adjustment, little is known about the antecedents of Chinese adolescents' family obligation. Using a two‐wave longitudinal sample of 450 Chinese adolescents (mean age = 13.78 years, SD = .71 years; 49% female) and their parents, the current research explored two questions. First, this study examined the role of family obligation in adolescents' academic achievement, externalizing problems, and internalizing problems over early adolescence. Second, this study explored the role of parents in predicting Chinese adolescents' family obligation, specifically whether parental expectations or parental acceptance was predictive of adolescents' family obligation over time. Third, this study investigated whether family obligation is an underlying mechanism between parenting and Chinese adolescents' adjustment. Results showed that Chinese adolescents' family obligation was longitudinally associated with increased academic achievement and reduced externalizing problems. Moreover, perceived parental acceptance, but not parental expectations, was longitudinally associated with Chinese adolescents' greater family obligation. Notably, family obligation mediated the longitudinal effect of parental acceptance on Chinese adolescents' externalizing problems. By studying both the consequences and antecedents of Chinese adolescents' family obligation, this study helps provide a comprehensive understanding of this cultural strength.

(1) Background: Parental involvement in adolescents’ learning generally benefits adolescents’ development, thus highlighting the importance of investigating why parents involve. Specifically, Chinese parents are highly involved in adolescents’ learning, which may be explained by their cultural beliefs. This longitudinal study provided a novel cultural understanding of the antecedents of Chinese mothers’ involvement in adolescents’ learning by examining the predicting effect of their expectations of adolescents’ family obligations over time, with attention to how adolescents’ academic performance moderated such effect. (2) Methods: Chinese mothers (N = 450; M_age = 39.52 years, SD = 3.96) of middle-school adolescents reported on their expectations of adolescents’ family obligations at Wave 1 and their involvement in adolescents’ learning twice over six months. Adolescents’ academic performance (i.e., grade) was obtained from teachers. (3) Results: Chinese mothers who had greater expectations of adolescents’ family obligations were involved more in adolescents’ learning over time. Moreover, adolescents’ academic performance moderated this longitudinal association, such that mothers’ expectations only predicted their greater involvement among adolescents with high, but not low, academic performance. (4) Conclusions: These findings highlight the cultural understanding of parents’ beliefs that motivate their involvement in adolescents’ learning in a non-Western society, as well as the moderating role of adolescents’ characteristics.