Studies show that life satisfaction declines during early adolescence, yet the factors driving these changes remain poorly understood. This period is also critical for the development of emotion regulation habits, which may play a role in shaping well-being. Adolescents who adopt adaptive emotion regulation strategies, such as cognitive reappraisal, may be protected from significant declines in life satisfaction. In contrast, maladaptive strategies like expressive suppression may be linked to greater decreases in life satisfaction. The first goal of this study is to examine the covariation between changes in life satisfaction and the use of emotion regulation strategies during early adolescence. The second goal is to investigate reciprocal links between life satisfaction and emotion regulation strategies.

This work is a part of the TEEN-WELL project, and it is based on data from a three-wave CHILD-WELL project with adolescents (N = 1535, 51% girls) aged 9 to 12 years (M = 11.03, SD = 1.15) at the first wave. Adolescents were followed over the two years, and they reported on their life satisfaction and emotion regulation strategies. We used a latent growth curve model to assess how life satisfaction and emotion regulation strategies changed together over time. Additionally, a random-intercept model was employed to further explore reciprocal links between these constructs.

The slope factors of life satisfaction and both emotion regulation strategies were significantly correlated: greater declines in life satisfaction were associated with greater declines in cognitive reappraisal and greater increases in expressive suppression. Additionally, there were concurrent and trait-level positive associations between life satisfaction and cognitive reappraisal. Expressive suppression and life satisfaction exhibited negative reciprocal longitudinal links—prior increases in expressive suppression predicted later decreases in life satisfaction, and vice versa. This study provides longitudinal evidence that life satisfaction and emotion regulation strategies co-develop in early adolescence.

Children across the industrialized world receive education that is adjusted to their ability. The earliest form of differentiation happens within the classroom, often by assigning children to ability groups. The rationale behind differentiation is that children learn more if their education is adjusted to their needs. However, evidence on the effectiveness is mixed and it may even be detrimental for low achieving children. Furthermore, the psychological effects of ability grouping have not been addressed. We tested a novel theoretical framework and hypothesized that when schools differentiate by assigning children to ability groups this can lead to social essentialism (i.e., the idea that groups are determined by underlying, stable essences). Essentialism could lead children to assume ability is fixed, which in turn undermines intrinsic motivation.

To test this idea, we showed children (6-11 years, N=204, preregistered) animated videos of classrooms. Peers in the classrooms worked on a novel activity (e.g., zarpen) and were either grouped (“The circle group is not so good at zarpen, the triangle group is very good at zarpen”) or not grouped by achievement (between-subjects). We then assessed how children perceived high and low achieving peers. Mixed linear regression models showed that children of all ages thought that low performance was more stable when peers were grouped by ability (vs. when they were not). Children were also less likely to attribute low performance to external factors in grouped classrooms (i.e., they were less likely to think low performance was due to bad luck). Children did not, however, generalize these inferences to other domains (i.e., math and reading abilities).

Taken together our work is the first to provide experimental evidence that ability grouping changes how children think about learning and can cause essentialist thinking about achievement. We are conducting a second study to replicate and extend these findings.

There has been significant interest in understanding the contextual and social correlates of children's well-being. Numerous studies have found relationships between children's free-time activities and their developmental outcomes. This study focuses on the relationship between children's leisure time and their well-being, considering parental involvement as an important mediator in the proposed model.

Data were collected within the three-wave longitudinal project DigiLitA. Participants included 221 parents of first-grade elementary school students (82.4% mothers). We report findings from the first and second waves of the project. On both occasions, parents reported on their children's free-time activities (time spent in physical activity, reading, and digital device use), their parental involvement (love and support), and provided information about indicators of children's well-being (emotional intelligence, assertiveness, and emotional stability).

The results revealed an indirect effect between children’s time spent in physical activity and their well-being, mediated by parental involvement. This finding suggests that parents of children who are more physically active show more love and support, which contributes to their children’s better socioemotional well-being. Furthermore, parental love and support did not mediate the relationship between children’s time spent reading or using digital devices and their socioemotional well-being. In accordance with previous research, parental love and support were found to predict children's well-being (emotional intelligence, assertiveness, and emotional stability), while children’s time spent in physical activity directly predicted emotional intelligence and emotional stability.

This study extends past research on children's well-being and contributes to a better understanding of important developmental aspects in middle childhood, with the goal of advancing the development of parent- and child-focused intervention programs.

Institutional discrimination – that is, awareness of systematically embedded discrimination in institutional rules and practices – compromises the opportunities and prospects of individuals based on their group membership. Among adults, the mere awareness of institutional discrimination against one's group can compromise well-being and mental health. How early does this detrimental dynamic emerge? In the current study, we examined the impact of growing up as a member of a disadvantaged minority that suffers from institutional discrimination on children's well-being. Specifically, we investigated how early awareness of institutional discrimination emerges, and what impact such early awareness has on emotional difficulties, behavioral difficulties, and social belongingness aspirations. We tested this in a sample of 113 Arab-Palestinian 8–13-year-old citizens of Israel. Using a child-friendly story, children were asked to estimate how the Israeli government would allocate different desirable and scarce public resources between a Jewish and an Arab town, and children's social belongingness aspirations (e.g. wanting to leave the country when they grow up). Mothers reported on their child's emotional and behavioral wellbeing. We found that awareness of institutional discrimination increased with age, with children older than 11 being almost twice as likely to expect the Israeli government to prioritize the Jewish over the Arab town than younger children. Importantly, expectation of institutional discrimination predicted greater emotional (but not behavioral) difficulties among the early teens, but not among the younger children. A similar pattern was found for belongingness aspirations. These results suggest that the awareness of institutional discrimination starts early for children of a disadvantaged minority, and that the negative psychological impact of such awareness is evident already among early teens, with emotional and social expressions. These findings further emphasize the extent that institutional discrimination can impact both individuals and society as a whole.