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This research examined children's socialization toward culturally valued goals during adolescence in the United States and China. Two hundred and twenty‐three mothers listed and ranked their five most important goals for their children (mean age = 12.85 years). Children ranked the importance of the goals listed by their mothers and explained why they were or were not important to them. American mothers placed heightened emphasis on their children maintaining feelings of worth and pursuing what they enjoy. Chinese mothers stressed their children achieving outcomes, as did African American mothers. European American children's rankings of importance were the least similar to those of their mothers, and they gave the fewest autonomous reasons for importance, suggesting that their adoption of mothers' goals was weakest.

Shared psychological processes between individuals occur most between a mother and her child because the mother–child bond is one of the closest forms of human attachment, in which a mother and her child are essentially wired to connect. We recruited mother–child pairs (Ndyad = 19; adolescent: Mage = 13.74, 11 males; mothers: Mage = 44.26), who each completed an fMRI scan. We examined dyadic neural representational similarity as adolescents completed a stress task and mothers observed their child's performance during the same task. On average, mothers and their children did not show similar neural patterns during stress. However, neural similarity varied depending on family connectedness, such that only dyads reporting high family connectedness showed similar neural profiles. Importantly, increased neural similarity was associated with reduced stress in youth, suggesting that shared neural profiles in mother–child dyads enhance adolescents' psychological well‐being.

AbstractAdolescents' family obligation is a cultural strength that shows enduring prevalence in China. Given that the meaning of family obligation has undergone rapid changes in recent decades, it is crucial to examine the role of family obligation in adolescent adjustment in contemporary China. More importantly, although past research has investigated the consequences of family obligation on adolescents' adjustment, little is known about the antecedents of Chinese adolescents' family obligation. Using a two‐wave longitudinal sample of 450 Chinese adolescents (mean age = 13.78 years, SD = .71 years; 49% female) and their parents, the current research explored two questions. First, this study examined the role of family obligation in adolescents' academic achievement, externalizing problems, and internalizing problems over early adolescence. Second, this study explored the role of parents in predicting Chinese adolescents' family obligation, specifically whether parental expectations or parental acceptance was predictive of adolescents' family obligation over time. Third, this study investigated whether family obligation is an underlying mechanism between parenting and Chinese adolescents' adjustment. Results showed that Chinese adolescents' family obligation was longitudinally associated with increased academic achievement and reduced externalizing problems. Moreover, perceived parental acceptance, but not parental expectations, was longitudinally associated with Chinese adolescents' greater family obligation. Notably, family obligation mediated the longitudinal effect of parental acceptance on Chinese adolescents' externalizing problems. By studying both the consequences and antecedents of Chinese adolescents' family obligation, this study helps provide a comprehensive understanding of this cultural strength.

AbstractIn past decades, the positive role of self‐control in students' academic success has attracted plenty of scholarly attention. However, fewer studies have examined the link between adolescents' neural development of the inhibitory control system and their academic achievement, especially using a longitudinal approach. Moreover, less is known about the role of parents in this link. Using large‐scale longitudinal data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study (N = 9574; mean age = 9.94 years at baseline, SD = .63; 50% girls), the current study took an integrative biopsychosocial approach to explore the longitudinal link between early adolescents' fronto‐striatal connectivity and their academic achievement, with attention to the moderating role of parental warmth. Results showed that weaker intrinsic connectivity between the frontoparietal network and the striatum was associated with early adolescents' worse academic achievement over 2 years during early adolescence. Notably, parental warmth moderated the association between fronto‐striatal connectivity and academic achievement, such that weaker fronto‐striatal connectivity was only predictive of worse academic achievement among early adolescents who experienced low levels of parental warmth. Taken together, the findings demonstrate weaker fronto‐striatal connectivity as a risk factor for early adolescents' academic development and highlight parental warmth as a protective factor for academic development among those with weaker connectivity within the inhibitory control system.