Research suggests that well-liked adolescents are less likely to be victimized by peers whereas disliked adolescents are at an increased risk for bullying victimization. Yet, bidirectional relations between likeability and bullying victimization remain understudied, particularly in non-Western countries. The main objective of this study was to…

Exploring the factors that facilitate empathy development during adolescence is of great significance. Connectedness to nature (CNT) represents one of the pivotal psychological mechanisms through which nature influences humans. Although existing research has already confirmed the notable facilitative effect of CNT on empathy, there is a lack of…

Background and aims: Gender differences in the written language of autistic individuals are an overlooked but important area of research. We contend that the gender differences in spoken language of autistic individuals may extend to written language, mirroring the gender differences of writing in the general population and reflecting the shared…

Sparse knowledge has been accumulated thus far on youth mentorship from the perspective of gender and the contribution of such relationships between young women and girls. What is more, leadership development programs barely refer to gender uniformity in mentor relations as a key toward meeting their goals. The objective of the present article is…

Background: The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of adverse childhood experiences (i.e., ACEs) and intersecting identities (i.e., gender and ethnicity) on school engagement among adolescents in the United States. Methods: We analyzed the 2021 National Survey of Children's Health Data. Results: We first identified four ACE classes,…

Values serve as guiding principles, motivating specific behaviors, and actions. Peers spend a considerable amount of time together, thus offering a unique platform for the acquisition and development of values. During adolescence, a stage of life when youth are actively defining their identities, peers emerge as vital social agents, contributing…

Academic performance is a complex outcome, driven by both cognitive skills and the emotional connections students form with peers, teachers, and their broader school community. The aim of this study is to examine the relationships between school belonging, peer bullying, teacher support, and academic performance, and to explore the effects of…

The present study was designed with the purpose of contributing to the existing scientific literature about the presence of Dark Tetrad personality traits--Machiavellianism, psychopathy, narcissism, and sadism--in aggressors and victims of school bullying, also taking into account the possible gender differences in both roles. The results,…

Purpose: Social media sites provide autistic youth a familiar space to interact that is devoid of many of the challenges that accompany face-to-face interactions. As such, it is important to determine whether the linguistic profiles observed during online interactions are consistent with face-to-face interactions. This preliminary study took a…

The increasing usage of social media has sparked interest in identifying characteristics that contribute to problematic social media use (PSMU). Using the Interaction Person-Affect-Cognition-Execution (I-PACE) model, the current study analyzes whether fear of missing out (FoMO) and dissociative experiences affect the link between trait emotional…

The mental health and well-being of children and adolescents are critical public health concerns globally. This cross-sectional study analysed nationally representative data from the combined 2016-2022 National Survey of Children's Health (n = 239,534) to produce estimates of parent-reported diagnoses of children's anxiety, depression and…

Using individual-level data from the Add Health surveys, we leverage idiosyncratic variation in gender composition across cohorts within the same school to examine whether being exposed to a higher share of female peers affects mental health and school satisfaction. We find that being exposed to a higher proportion of female peers, despite only…

During adolescence, access to safe environments is critical for healthy development. This study analyzed adolescents' perceptions of safety in personal and public spaces in the semi-rural community of Santa Ana, Colombia on the Island of Barú (95.8% of inhabitants live in poverty). We used thematic analysis to explore adolescents' experiences and…

Adolescents' mental health and academic performance are subjects of paramount interest. Previous studies have revealed a strong association between these constructs during school years. However, there is little evidence about the dual-factor model of mental health, which includes a combination of psychological well-being and distress indicators,…

Cyberbullying perpetration has emerged as a serious problem among adolescents worldwide. Living in Indonesia, a patriarchal country with approximately 260 million people, adolescents are at risk of being committed to cyberbullying. Cyberbullying behaviour and associated variables, including fathering style and peer attachment, were examined to…