ABSTRACT Guided by the Reflective–Impulsive Model (RIM), the present study examined how Theory of Mind (ToM), as a reflective cognitive resource, interacts with emotion contagion (EC), as an impulsive affective mechanism, to predict three subtypes of social withdrawal, shy withdrawal, unsociability, and passive withdrawal, in 4–5‐year‐old children. Participants were 286 preschool children (126 boys; M age = 5.02 years) from Beijing. Teachers reported children's social withdrawal and EC using the Early Childhood Social Behavior Questionnaire and the EC subscale of the Children's Empathy Questionnaire , respectively. In addition, children's ToM was assessed via a false‐belief task. Hierarchical regression analyses tested the main and interactive effects of ToM and EC on each withdrawal subtype. Results revealed that EC moderated the associations between ToM and all three subtypes of social withdrawal. Specifically, among children high in EC, ToM was positively associated with shy withdrawal and unsociability but negatively associated with passive withdrawal. In contrast, among children low in EC, higher ToM predicted lower shy withdrawal. By integrating cognitive and affective processes within the RIM framework, this study highlights EC as a key motivational mechanism that shapes how mental‐state understanding is translated into social behavior.

ABSTRACT Research characterises the child as an active learner who attends more to and selectively retains information they actively elicit better than information they passively receive. At the same time, children learn best from knowledgeable others who tailor information to children's learning progress. Bringing these disparate findings together requires examining children's active learning in social interactions. The current study examines whether the active learning advantage persists in social interactions with others and is influenced by the pedagogical status of their social partner (mother, father or friend). We tested 4‐ to 5‐year‐old children with their social partners ( N friend = 47, N mother = 44, N father = 53) during a word learning task using a novel setup where two participants can interact with visual objects on a transparent touchscreen while observing each other. Participants could either actively choose objects to hear their labels or passively observe their partner's choices. Early in the task, there was an overall active benefit, although this pattern appeared to be predominantly driven by interactions between peers. Later in the task, learning appeared to be dynamic and more influenced by the social partner with whom the child was interacting, especially when considering interactions with their peers and their fathers. Together, these findings underscore the temporal and social dynamics of an active learning benefit in children's social interactions.

ABSTRACT Interpersonal trust, a key factor in early social development, reflects children's expectations of others' reliability in social exchanges. However, existing research has not sufficiently characterized its dynamic mechanisms in preschoolers. Through three consecutive trust games ( N = 128, 128, and 142 children aged 4–6 years), this study systematically examined factors influencing trust in young children, including mechanisms of trust establishment, breach, and repair. Experiment 1 established baseline effects by examining how initial promises from familiar versus unfamiliar individuals (teachers vs. strangers) influence trust formation. Results showed that merely making promises enhances trust, particularly toward familiar adults. Experiment 2 examined how promise fulfillment outcomes dynamically shape trust maintenance or violation. Findings indicated that keeping promises strengthens trust, whereas broken promises by strangers significantly reduce children's trust. Experiment 3 investigated trust repair by comparing apologies with compensation after promise breaches. Results showed that compensation restores trust more effectively than apologies, especially in older preschoolers. Developmental analyses revealed emerging gender differences (girls preferred teachers more) and age‐related shifts in contingency monitoring. These findings outline a developmental trajectory: children's trust evolves from static role dependence to dynamic behavioral evaluation. This transition has crucial implications for early educational interventions targeting trust competencies.

ABSTRACT Adolescence is an important period for cognitive development. During this period, the development of an individual's belief in a just world (BJW) is a dynamic process predominantly influenced by cognitive development. Moreover, a substantial body of prior research has demonstrated that BJW impacts adolescents’ mental health and facilitates the establishment of long‐term goals. However, the factors influencing adolescents’ BJW, particularly the role of parental attachment, remain unclear. This study aimed to explore the following: (1) how general and personal BJW develop over time; and (2) how paternal and maternal attachment predict these two types of BJW? A total of 239 sixth‐grade adolescents ( M age = 11.35, SD age = 0.54) participated in a two‐wave longitudinal study, 1 year apart. The results showed that there were no significant changes in the levels of general or personal BJW across the two time points. There was no significant difference between general and personal BJW at Time 1 (T1), whereas general BJW was significantly lower than personal BJW at Time 2 (T2). Hierarchical multiple regression analysis showed that, after controlling for autoregressive effects and demographic variables, only paternal attachment at T1 uniquely and positively predicted general BJW at T2. While maternal and paternal attachment each separately predicted personal BJW, neither retained its unique predictive power when the other was included in the model. This study highlights the influence of parent–child attachment on the general and personal BJW of adolescents, with particular emphasis on the role of paternal attachment.

ABSTRACTThis study explored the psychometric properties of the Farsi version of Parents' Beliefs About Children's Emotions Questionnaire (PBACE) in the Iranian setting. Considering the influence of cultural norms on parenting practices and beliefs, validating the PBACE in this context is essential for understanding how parents’ beliefs about emotions may shape children's development. The PBACE is a self‐report measure comprising seven subscales: Value of Anger, Cost of Positivity, Control, Parental Knowledge, Manipulation, Stability, and Autonomy. The psychometric properties of the PBACE, including reliability, content, criterion, and construct validity, were assessed in a sample of 374 mothers of children aged 5–11 years. Initially, data were collected from 397 parents. However, due to the small sample size of fathers (n = 23), which was insufficient for robust group comparisons, only data from 374 mothers were analyzed. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted to evaluate the factor structure of seven models and a general seven‐correlated model, which showed good model fit for the PBACE and its subscales, except for the Parental Knowledge subscale. The poor fit of the Parental Knowledge subscale led to testing a six‐correlated model without it, which demonstrated superior model fit compared to the seven‐correlated model. Content Validity Index (CVI) and Content Validity Ratio (CVR) indicated good content validity for the scale. Additionally, significant associations with children's emotion regulation established satisfactory criterion validity. Internal consistency, measured by the Omega coefficient, was acceptable for all subscales except Parental Knowledge, while the PBACE demonstrated overall excellent internal consistency. Although the poor fit and lower Omega coefficient for the Parental Knowledge subscale suggest that it should not be used, the PBACE is recommended for research and clinical purposes in Iran due to its sound psychometric properties.Summary We examined psychometric evidence for the Parents' Beliefs About Children's Emotions questionnaire (PBACE) in a sample of 397 Iranian parents. PBACE displayed criterion and content validity based on the agreements of 10 mental health professionals. Confirmatory factor analysis displayed a good fit for the seven‐correlated model and each separate model except for Parental Knowledge.

ABSTRACTAnxious shyness refers to social inhibition and wariness toward familiar peers or authority figures, possibly due to concerns about negative social evaluation. In contrast, regulated shyness is characterized by nonassertive, unassuming, and polite behavior, particularly in conspicuous and potentially conflictual situations. This 4‐year longitudinal study examined the trajectories of anxious and regulated shyness from first (T1) to fourth grade (T4) and how temperament and parenting practices at first grade might be related to these trajectories in Chinese children. The participants were 404 children (51% male; M age = 6.20 years at T1) recruited from Yinchuan, China. Overall anxious shyness decreased, whereas regulated shyness increased from T1 to T4. Temperamental shyness at T1 was associated with both intercepts, whereas attention shifting at T1 was related to the linear slope of anxious shyness (negatively) and quadratic slope of regulated shyness (positively). Shaming and encouragement of modesty at T1 were associated with the intercept of anxious and regulated shyness, respectively.

ABSTRACTResearch suggests that the fear of harsh punishment from parents encourages children's antisocial lie‐telling as they attempt to avoid the punishment for their transgressions. In contrast, warm and supportive parenting practices foster internalization of moral rules and norms and an ability to resist the temptation, so children have no need to lie to conceal it. This study aimed to examine short‐term (cross‐sectional) and longer‐term (longitudinal) influences of these contrasting parenting practices on children's actual antisocial lie‐telling to conceal a transgression, across a broad age range including children 8 years and under and over 8 years (3–15 years). Results revealed that parent's endorsement of using harsh punishment with their child was associated with a higher propensity for their child to lie in the short‐term (cross‐sectionally), but not in the long‐term (longitudinally). Conversely, warm and supportive parenting predicted children's lower propensity to tell lies 1 year later, but there was no short‐term (cross‐sectional) association. Together, these findings suggest that these contrasting parenting practices influence children's antisocial lie‐telling in different ways depending on the time interval. Finally, parenting practices were only related to antisocial lie‐telling in one situation, but not the other. Implications are discussed.

ABSTRACTThis research examines the developmental origins of a form of partiality that can threaten the integrity of merit‐based evaluations. In each of two studies, 3‐ to 6‐year‐old children (total N = 335) rated drawings made by child artists they had never met, with the degree of identification between evaluator and artist manipulated across trials. In Study 1, ratings were systematically inflated when the evaluator and artist were identified to each other, but not when only the artist was identified to the evaluator. Study 2 showed that merely identifying the evaluator was sufficient to produce inflated ratings. These results show that anonymity has implications for making fair evaluations as soon as early childhood, and that self‐relevant considerations can affect how children evaluate the work of others.

ABSTRACTAdults engage in psychological processes (including species‐based categorisation and post‐hoc reasoning) that result in ascribing high moral value to some animals while eating others. Do adolescents engage in similar processes? We compared adolescents’ (n = 89, M age = 13.54) and adults’ (n = 113, M age = 43.73) views on four measurements. Regarding moral judgements, we found that adolescents were (a) more speciesist than adults (i.e., believed moral worth was determined by species membership) and (b) reported that farmed animals ought to be treated less well than adults did. There were (c) no differences in how morally justified adults and adolescents found eating meat. Finally, we found that (d) adolescents were less likely than adults to report that in society, farmed animals are categorised as food rather than pets. Overall, this suggests that adolescents base their view on the treatment an individual deserves more on the species it belongs to than adults do, which may serve as a first attempt to make sense of the differential treatment different animals are subjected to in society.