Developmental Psychology

A recent study published in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology suggests that while mothers and fathers are equally skilled at making preschoolers laugh, shared laughter is more strongly associated with secure emotional bonds in father-child relationships.

A new psychological study reveals how specific childhood experiences and inherent personality traits predict whether adults will use scientific evidence or religious faith to make sense of the world around them.

A new study suggests that growing up in poverty accelerates biological development. For adolescent girls, this early onset of puberty provides a pathway linking financial hardship to increased anxiety, behavioral issues, and lower academic achievement.

A massive new analysis of over 200,000 people reveals that the relative lengths of your index and ring fingers are linked to your sexual orientation, pointing to the powerful role of prenatal hormones in human development.

Using brain scans and parent surveys, scientists discovered that infants in households struggling to make ends meet show delayed brain maturation. A mother's feeling of income insufficiency proved to be the strongest predictor of these delays.

Few parenting topics spark as much debate as the "cry it out" method. While some experts warn it causes psychological harm, a study in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry argues it does not negatively affect infant development.

Breathing indoor air pollution during childhood tends to be linked to worse memory in older adulthood. A new study suggests that improving access to clean energy early in life might help protect the brain as it ages.

A new study finds that how fathers react when their toddlers are scared—whether they minimize the fear or become overly involved—is linked to distinct differences in the children's anxiety and behavior two years later.

Many teenagers sleep in on weekends to catch up on rest. New research associates this irregular schedule with differences in the physical structure and internal communication of the developing brain, which may relate to cognitive growth.

Researchers have mapped a pathway connecting infant screen time to teenage anxiety. The study associates early screen exposure with accelerated brain network maturation, which predicts more hesitant decision-making in childhood and greater anxiety in adolescence.

Three new studies highlight how the timing of cardinal knowledge mastery predicts school readiness. Researchers found that complex parent-child conversations aid development, whereas parental math anxiety is linked to lower preschool numeracy skills.

A new study finds that children exposed to violence show increased activity in the insula when seeing or hearing their parents. This suggests trauma changes how the developing brain processes caregiver signals.

Toddlers who consume processed meats and sugary snacks may face cognitive hurdles later in childhood. Research published in the British Journal of Nutrition suggests unhealthy eating at age two is linked to lower intelligence scores at school age.

New findings suggest digital media alters the specific categories of words toddlers acquire. Researchers found that video consumption is associated with knowing fewer body part words, regardless of the total number of words a child knows.

Researchers have created a detailed model of perinatal brain growth, revealing how white and gray matter trajectories shift during gestation. The study also identifies early sex-based differences in brain structure.