Deviations in P300 activity have been implicated in depression and anxiety; however, much of this research has been conducted in adult samples and has primarily examined the association between P300 amplitude and internalizing symptoms between participants. We sought to simultaneously examine the between- and within-subject associations between depression and anxiety symptoms with P300. Self-report and neural data from a flanker task were collected at three timepoints over the course of two years in a large sample of adolescents (n = 490). Blunted P300 was robustly related to elevated between-subject depression. Conversely, elevations in within-subject anxiety were associated with larger P300. Results implicate the P300 as a reliable correlate of between-subjects level depression-related deficits in cognitive functions that is not susceptible to within-subject changes. Additionally, P300 also serves as a correlate of within-subject elevations in youth anxiety symptoms likely reflecting greater hyperarousal at the time of assessment.

Adolescents’ communication with friends increasingly occurs online and research has primarily focused on the quantity rather than the quality of interactions, such as feeling supported or ignored. Since feeling supported or ignored by friends offline affects adolescents’ well- and ill-being, it is essential to understand how these dynamics unfold in online contexts, particularly for adolescents with elevated depressive symptoms, who may be especially sensitive to these experiences. In this preregistered 100-day diary study, 479 adolescents (Mage = 15.98, 54.9% girls; 96.9% Dutch) reported daily on time spent communicating online with friends, their experiences of feeling supported and ignored by friends, and their well- and ill-being. Results showed that time spent communicating online with friends did not relate to adolescents’ well- and ill-being. Feeling supported by friends online resulted in higher well-being and lower ill-being, while feeling ignored by friends online was related to lower well-being and higher ill-being. Adolescents with elevated depressive symptoms experienced intensified effects, both positive and negative, suggesting more vulnerability to everyday online social experiences but also increased benefit from online support. Altogether, this underscores the importance for parents and clinicians to foster open conversations to help adolescents with elevated depressive symptoms navigate their digital social world.

This study examined adolescent–family relationship predictors of adult-era resilience in the face of the COVID pandemic, considering both mental and physical health outcomes. Adolescents (99 female, 85 male; 107 White, 53 African American, 15 mixed race/ethnicity, 9 from other minority groups) were followed from age 18 to 38 utilizing both observational and self-report assessments. After accounting for levels of functioning pre-COVID, adolescents who demonstrated a capacity to handle disagreements without becoming engaged in relatedness-undermining hostile behavior in mother-adolescent dyads went on as adults to experience relatively fewer depressive symptoms and better physical health quality post-COVID onset (Direct β’s = 0.28 and −0.17, respectively). Follow-up analyses suggested these effects were potentially mediated by maternal reports of adult-era quality of the mother-participant relationship, by level of ongoing maternal contact, and by lower levels of loneliness. Evidence was also found that maintaining contact with fathers in adulthood predicted better health outcomes post-pandemic. Results are taken as supporting a systems approach to understanding resilience, as Luthar has suggested, and identifying the mother–adolescent relationship as a potential long-term protective factor well into mid-adulthood.

Negative urgency is a transdiagnostic risk factor for a plethora of mental disorders. Internalizing symptoms are embedded in theories of negative urgency, yet we know little regarding how developmental changes in each coincide, and if changes in one predict changes in the other across middle adolescence. This study filled these voids in the literature, with N = 754 (52% female) community-recruited youth from the National Consortium on Alcohol NeuroDevelopment in Adolescence (NCANDA) study reporting internalizing symptoms and negative urgency annually. Negative urgency and internalizing symptoms were highly correlated at the between-person level, and between-person correlations were nearly double in size within male versus female adolescents. At the within-person level, changes in negative urgency and internalizing symptoms co-occurred across ages 14–18 but not age 13. Age 14 within-person changes in negative urgency prospectively predicted age 15 within-person changes in internalizing symptoms, and this effect was nearly double in size within female versus male adolescents. Findings held when accounting for externalizing symptoms, other impulsive personality traits, parenting, and school transitions. Results indicate that relations between negative urgency and internalizing symptoms were demonstrated across and within adolescents, with time-varying changes in negative urgency at age 14 being particularly impactful in terms of future internalizing symptoms.

Adolescence is characterized by heightened sensitivity to social belonging, making loneliness prevalent and consequential for youth. Maladaptive personality traits may further exacerbate loneliness. In this preregistered 14-day Ecological Momentary Assessment study, we examined loneliness across social contexts and timescales in relation to maladaptive personality traits among N = 294 adolescents aged 12–21 years (Mage = 17.5, SD = 2.64; 58.5% female; 86.73% born in Germany). Participants answered 27,503 of 32,340 momentary prompts, indicating high compliance (85.1%). Loneliness (βmomentary = 0.51; βdaily = 0.67) was higher when participants were alone, yet only the presence of close others (e.g., friends) – not weaker ties (e.g., classmates) – reduced loneliness (β = –0.39 to –0.62). Youth who were alone more frequently did not report higher overall loneliness. Maladaptive personality traits were associated with higher (βmomentary = 0.32; βend-of-day = 0.40) and more variable (βmomentary = 0.31; βend-of-day = 0.34) loneliness but amplified the effect of being alone on loneliness only on the between-person level (β = –1.13). Exploratory analyses indicated that social satisfaction partially mediated the association (β = 0.50). These findings underscore the importance of both structural and qualitative aspects of social environments, as well as personality-related vulnerabilities, to better understand loneliness dynamics in youth.

Understanding the structure of citizens’ trust in state institutions is essential for assessing its role in sustaining healthy, legitimate democracies. While research has revealed a puzzling duality in institutional trust among adults – being subdomain-specific yet unidimensionally ordered – little is known about how these patterns originate and develop. This study integrates evaluative and socialisation perspectives to investigate the development of institutional trust structures during adolescence. Using longitudinal data from the Dutch Adolescent Panel on Democratic Values (2018–2022), tracking adolescents from ages 12 to 16 (N = 1,092 individuals), we employ confirmatory factor analysis and Mokken scaling to assess how the subdomain-specific and hierarchical features of institutional trust evolve across time and cognitive resources (ie school track and political sophistication). Our results support an early macro-level socialisation account of trust development, showing that adolescents as young as 12 already distinguish between order and representative institutions and consistently rank them in ways that mirror adult trust structures. However, among adolescents with higher cognitive resources, these structures become more volatile in mid-to-late adolescence, suggesting the gradual onset of more individualised, evaluative trust judgements. Taken together, the findings show a dual process of institutional trust development, suggesting that early cultural imprinting provides a baseline blueprint of institutional trust, which may later be recalibrated by more sophisticated citizens through individual evaluation.

Adolescence represents a pivotal neurodevelopmental period marked by escalating anxiety symptoms and heightened approach motivations. Although anxiety is typically linked to avoidance, concurrent shifts in motivational systems and neurocircuitry may alter its behavioral and neural expression, shaping developmental trajectories and treatment response. This study investigated how approach motivations (Behavioral Activation System; BAS) interact with anxiety to influence behavior and brain function in N = 121 adolescents (ages 9–13; 44% girls; 33.1% White, 22.3% Latino, 19.8% Asian, 14.9% Black, 9.9% Mixed Race). Participants completed a decision-making task and resting-state fMRI. Dimensional analyses examined joint effects of anxiety and BAS on risk-taking behaviors, task-evoked neural activity and connectivity, and intrinsic connectivity at rest. Higher anxiety was associated with risk aversion and inhibition when BAS was low, but with risk-taking and impulsivity when BAS was high (risk-taking: β = 0.25, p = .012; inhibitory control: β = 0.13, p < .001). During risk-taking, anxiety and BAS showed interactive effects on striatal (β = −0.10, p = .006) and amygdala (β = 0.10, p = .005) activity alongside distinct effects on prefrontal–subcortical connectivity (β = −0.30, p = .014; β = 0.17, p = .01). Higher BAS was associated with stronger intrinsic prefrontal–striatal connectivity (β = 0.23, p = .012), while anxiety showed no significant resting-state effects. Findings underscore the role of reward-related systems in adolescent anxiety and support developmentally informed, personalized intervention strategies.

What is the mechanism by which a linguistic change advances across successive generations of speakers? We explore this question by using the model of incrementation provided in Labov 2001 and analyzing six current changes in English. Extending Labov's focus on recent and vigorous phonological changes, we target ongoing morphosyntactic(-semantic) and discourse-pragmatic changes. Our results provide a striking validation of the incrementation model, confirming its value as a key to understanding the evolution of linguistic systems. However, although our findings reveal the predicted peak in the apparent-time progress of a change and corroborate the female tendency to lead innovation, there is no absolute contrast between men and women with respect to incrementation. Instead, quantitative differences in the social embedding of linguistic change correlate with the rate of the change in the speech community.

Low socioeconomic status (SES) is linked to pubertal development, mental health issues, and academic performance. However, the role of early pubertal development in the link between low SES and mental health and academic outcomes is unclear. Using longitudinal data from the ABCD Study (9–10 years at baseline, N = 9,848, 52.2% males) across four time points, we examined associations between household and neighborhood disadvantage, pubertal development, and mental health and academic achievement. Greater household and neighborhood disadvantage were associated with more advanced pubertal status at baseline in both males and females. Among females, higher pubertal status at baseline mediated the association between lower household income and neighborhood disadvantage with greater mental health problems and poorer school performance. Additionally, slower pubertal tempo attenuated the relationship between neighborhood disadvantage and these outcomes in females. These findings underscore the importance of considering both household and neighborhood contexts in shaping adolescent development and highlight pubertal development as a potential pathway underlying socioeconomic disparities in mental health and academic achievement.

Friends and popular peers are important sources of influence across the transition into adolescence. The present study examines the assertion that the magnitude of influence from friends and popularity-based norms varies across behavioral domains. Participants were 543 (268 girls, 275 boys) students from 29 5th–8th grade (ages 10 to 14) classrooms in three Lithuanian public middle schools. Most were ethnic Lithuanians. Self-reports of socioemotional adjustment, including emotional problems, lack of emotional clarity, problem behaviors, social media use, and weight concerns, were collected in the fall and winter of a single academic year, approximately three months apart. Popularity and academic achievement were assessed through peer nominations. Top-ranked best friends were identified from outgoing nominations. Status-based norms, calculated separately for each socioemotional adjustment variable in the fall (Time 1), represented popularity-weighted classroom averages. Results from longitudinal Group Actor-Partner Interdependence Model analyses indicated that best friends and status-based norms exerted differing amounts of influence over different behaviors. When both were included in the same model (with shared effects removed), best friends influenced emotional problems, lack of emotional clarity, and problem behaviors. Among older adolescents, best friends also influenced academic achievement. Status-based norms influenced social media use and, among older adolescents, weight concerns.