Odors are closely linked to emotions, yet there is limited understanding of how specific odors elicit emotions in children and adolescents. This study aims to analyze the number and types of important odors reported by children and adolescents and to explore sex- and age-related differences in how specific odors are linked to basic emotions. A total of 197 participants (100 boys, 97 girls) aged 11–17 were asked to name odors that elicit specific emotion, and verbal fluency was tested for control purpose. Mann–Whitney analysis showed that girls named more odors that were important to them than boys. Word content analysis showed sex-specific patterns that boys associated “food” odors with happiness more than girls, and girls more often linked sadness to “nature” odors. Furthermore, the emotion-odor association changed over development, with older adolescents showing patterns closer to those observed in adults. These findings highlight age- and sex-related variations in olfactory-emotional connections, reflecting developmental changes in odor-emotion linkages.

Properly assessing others’ sharing is crucial for social life. However, what constitutes generous sharing often lacks absolute standards, so people have to rely on available social cues to form their own judgments. Here, we explored how descriptive norm information (i.e., what most people commonly do) influenced Chinese individuals’ evaluation of others’ sharing ( N = 540, 263 female) and how this effect changes with development from childhood to adulthood. Participants read a vignette where a protagonist shared a specific amount, while the amount shared by a peer majority varied across conditions. The results showed that 5- to 11-year-old children evaluated the protagonist highest for sharing beyond the norm, next for matching the norm, and lowest for sharing below the norm. However, adolescents and adults were more conservative in their evaluations, being less positive about above-norm sharing and less negative about below-norm sharing. Analysis of the justifications showed that children mostly used descriptive norms to assess the magnitude of sharing. Adolescents and adults more often inferred the complex motivations behind the protagonist’s actions and considered its potential social consequences. These findings reveal that, with development, individuals increasingly use descriptive norms to evaluate others’ sharing in more complex and diverse ways, and those socialized in Chinese culture may have distinct approaches to assessing sharing behaviors.

This article provides an overview of the articles in the special section on Parenting Across Cultures: Bridging Commonalities and Specificities in Parental Control and Warmth. To advance developmental science, we recommend using the cultural commonality and specificity framework in examining how the forms and functions of parenting behaviors might manifest similarly or differently across cultural context. This special section begins with a concept paper that introduces the commonality and specificity framework. This article highlights the importance of using established and validated theoretical frameworks in parenting science as a starting point, in the quest for establishing commonality in how parental control and parental warmth may look and function similarly across cultural contexts. At the same time, we recognize that against the backdrop of identifying generality, robust theoretical frameworks would and should allow sufficient room to accommodate specificities. These specificities would naturally arise due to differences in values and beliefs that families hold about desirable child socialization goals, and the ways through which these goals may be met. In this special section, we include studies that involve families with children from early childhood to adolescence residing in four societies—Indonesia, Singapore, Türkiye, and Chinese immigrants in the United States. These studies also employ diverse methods of inquiry, and their findings demonstrate the full utility of the cultural commonality and specificity framework in documenting and explaining where and how similarities and differences may occur.

In this article, I argue that kindness provides a foundation for realizing our humane potential for goodness and contributes to a flourishing, humane society. Using data from diverse contexts, I describe the development of different dimensions of kindness, as well as central cognitive, biological, and socialization foundations and antecedents. Next, I describe the impacts of kindness on children’s thriving, mental health, and ethical development. Finally, I describe the need for relational practices of care and present attempts to nurture kindness through community-based interventions. Humanity needs to grow kindness to overcome the current age of division and end conflict and violence.

Few young adolescents are involved in romantic relationships, but many have a crush. Although an understudied romantic experience, crush experiences appear to be developmentally significant with unique psychological concomitants. Not all crush experiences are alike and may differ greatly in the extent to which interaction with the crush occurs ( crush interaction ) and whether the crush is aware of the affection ( crush awareness ). This empirical report study considers these two features of crush experiences and whether variability in these features is associated with variability in psychological outcomes during early adolescence. Cross-sectional survey data were collected from 179 young adolescents ( M age = 13.71; SD = 0.82; 54% female). Results showed that most young adolescents reported interacting sometimes with their crush ( crush interaction ) and were uncertain as to whether their crush was aware of their affection ( crush awareness ). Significantly, crush interaction was related negatively to loneliness. Crush awareness was related positively to depressive symptoms, but only at low levels of crush interaction. Findings show variability in two features of crush experiences during early adolescence and suggest that these features may independently, and at times, interactively, help to explain when crush experiences pose psychological risk versus benefits.

Although feeling younger has been found to be related with various health benefits, associations are complex, and most prior studies have used self-reported health indicators rather than objective, performance-based health measures and biomarkers. We investigated between-person and within-person associations of subjective age with pulmonary function (peak expiratory flow), a biomarker associated with mortality risk. Data from the German Aging Survey were used, with a sample of 9,782 middle-aged and older adults assessed up to four times over 9 years. Longitudinal multilevel regression models controlling for socio-demographic and health-related measures revealed predictive effects at the between-person level and at the within-person level, and in both directions. At the between-person level, study participants who felt overall younger showed better pulmonary functioning, and those with overall better pulmonary function felt younger. At the within-person level, on measurement occasions when participants felt younger, they exhibited better pulmonary function, and on measurement occasions when participants’ pulmonary function was better, they felt younger. Our findings thus suggest that there are meaningful between-person and within-person associations between pulmonary function and subjective age. Even subtle changes in biomarkers such as pulmonary function may affect how old people feel, which has consequences for their behaviors, health, and well-being.

Maternal depression is a global public health concern with far-reaching impacts on child development, yet our understanding of mechanisms remains incomplete. This study examined whether parenting mediates the association between maternal depression and child outcomes. Participants included 841 rural Pakistani mother–child dyads (50% female). Maternal depression was measured at 12 months postpartum, parenting behaviors (warmth, stimulation, and harsh parenting) were measured at 24 months, and child outcomes (mental health, socioemotional development, and cognitive skills) were measured at 36 months. Maternal depression predicted increased harsh parenting, child mental health difficulties, and child socioemotional concerns; however, there was little evidence for parenting as a mediator between maternal depression and child outcomes. Sex-stratified results are discussed, and findings are situated in context.

This study explores the development of children’s equity behaviors in the context of resource inequality. A total of 181 Asian children (50.8% female) aged 6–8 years and from medium socioeconomic backgrounds were randomly assigned to either resource-advantaged (rich) or resource-disadvantaged (poor) conditions. The children acted as allocators and distributed additional resources to recipients in both the first- and third-party allocation scenarios. The results showed that 8-year-olds, but not 6- and 7-year-olds, demonstrated a tendency to prioritize need-based allocation when they were wealthier, allocating a greater share to poor recipients. Even in third-party distribution tasks, children engaged more in need-based allocation behaviors because of their resource advantages. These findings emphasize how the social comparison of resources influences children’s distribution behavior and have theoretical implications for understanding the development of charitable human behavior in early childhood within the context of economic inequality.

Childhood is a critical period for the development of prosocial behavior, and the family serves as a crucial microsystem for fostering prosocial behavior in children. Prior research has indicated that parental monitoring, a specific family factor directly targeting children, can predict children’s prosocial behavior. However, the influence of the overall family climate on children’s prosocial behavior remains unclear. This study focuses on different levels of family factors and examines the dynamic longitudinal effects of both parental monitoring and family conflict, simultaneously, on children’s prosocial behavior. Three-wave data from 4,691 children (M baseline age = 9.480, SD = .507; 48.2% female) in the ABCD database were analyzed. The results of the cross-lagged panel model revealed significant longitudinal mutual predictive relations among family conflict, parental monitoring, and children’s prosocial behavior. After disentangling between-person associations, the findings from the random-intercept cross-lagged panel model showed that increasing parental monitoring consistently predicted future increases in child prosocial behavior from childhood to early adolescence, and reducing family conflict significantly predicted future increases in prosocial behavior during early adolescence. These findings underscore the importance of considering not only specific family factors that directly target the child, but also holistic family factors such as family conflict in shaping positive child development.

One important function of accommodative coping is to stabilize the quality of life in the face of age-related losses by adjusting control beliefs and action competence. Preparation for age-related changes is an important preventive resource for a higher degree of independence and quality of life in old age. This study examined the longitudinal associations between preparation for age-related changes, facets of accommodative coping (dispositional tendencies in general positive reappraisal, acceptance, downward comparison, reorientation), and goal detachment. Variables were assessed in a four-wave longitudinal study (intervals of approximately 1 year) with a sample of N = 248 adults, aged 30 to 78 years. In line with our hypotheses, latent growth models showed that increases in accommodative coping were associated with increases in preparation for age-related changes (correlations between the slopes). Cross-lagged panel models showed that mainly the change correlations (concurrent changes) remained significant, as compared with the mostly absent cross-lagged paths. The present findings highlight the interplay between proactive life-management strategies that aim to prevent age-related losses and accommodative-coping processes by which goals are adjusted to limitations in action resources. The adaptive role of both strategies and their implications for maximizing quality of life into old age are discussed in light of developmental-regulation models.