Developing a Global Indicator on Bullying of School-aged Children

The rate of bullying among children is a key indicator of children’s well-being and an important marker for comparing global social development: both victims and perpetrators of bullying in childhood suffer across various dimensions, including personal social development, education, and health, with negative effects persisting into adulthood. For policymakers and professionals working with children, high rates of bullying amongst children should raise warning flags regarding child rights’ failings. Moreover, bullying amongst school-aged children highlights existing inefficiencies in the social system, and the potential for incurring future social costs in the communities and schools in which children live their lives. Inevitably, these concerns have contributed to bullying becoming a globally recognized challenge – every region in the world collects information on children’s experiences of bullying. Yet, despite the identification and monitoring of bullying having global appeal, so far, a validated global measure has not been produced. To fill this gap in knowledge, this paper develops a global indicator on bullying amongst children using existing school-based surveys from around the world. The findings of this paper show that bullying is a complex phenomenon that takes multiple forms, and is experienced to widely varying degrees across the world

Relationship Reciprocation Modulates Resource Allocation in Adolescent Social Networks: Developmental Effects

Adolescence is characterized as a period of social reorientation toward peer relationships, entailing the emergence of sophisticated social abilities. Two studies (Study 1: N = 42, ages 13–17; Study 2: N = 81, ages 13–16) investigated age group differences in the impact of relationship reciprocation within school-based social networks on an experimental measure of cooperation behavior. Results suggest development between mid- and late adolescence in the extent to which reciprocation of social ties predicted resource allocation. With increasing age group, investment decisions increasingly reflected the degree to which peers reciprocated feelings of friendship. This result may reflect social-cognitive development, which could facilitate the ability to navigate an increasingly complex social world in adolescence and promote positive and enduring relationships into adulthood

Adolescent social cognition across cultures: East vs. West

Background: Adolescence is a period during which humans undergo significant changes in the social cognitive domain – changes that are likely to be adaptive, by allowing adolescents to respond adequately to new challenges as they gain independence from the family, and establish themselves in society. Recent neuroscience data suggest protracted maturation of key brain circuits during adolescence, which are involved in the underlying cognitive processes of social understanding. While these age-associated changes are commonly recognised to arise from a biological program unravelling across time, it is also possible that development is driven by experience. To date, few studies have empirically studied the development of social cognition in adolescence, especially as compared to infancy and childhood. Outstanding questions also remain on whether variability in the experience of adolescence, such as is present across different cultures, can modulate the expression of adolescent-associated maturational changes in social cognition. Aims: The purpose of this thesis was i) to investigate developmental changes in social cognition during adolescence, and ii) to examine sociocultural factors that may influence this ability and its developmental trajectory. Methods: In total, 668 young people (aged 9 to 21 years) from the United Kingdom, China, and Malaysia took part in the studies outlined in this thesis. In Chapter 2 (UK: N = 226; China: N = 175; Malaysia: N = 225), the self-construal scale (Singelis, 1994) was administered to explore the adolescent ‘self’ as an independent entity as well as an interdependent social agent across all cultures. Chapters 3 and 4 consisted of a battery of cognitive and affective theory of mind as well as domain general cognitive tasks, which were completed by adolescents from the UK (N = 188) and China (N = 116). In Chapter 5, a novel social networks paradigm was used with a Game Theory task to investigate the impact of social reciprocity on cooperative investment in authentic adolescent school-based networks from the UK (5 classes; N = 70) and Malaysia (7 classes; N = 147). Results: First, young people from different cultures were characterised by culture-dependent construals of the self. In particular, youths from China defined themselves as more interdependent, i.e. in relation to others and in terms of social roles, than those from the UK and Malaysia. Second, although Chinese adolescents reported overall lower performance, they showed similar age associated changes in cognitive and affective theory of mind as UK adolescents. Finally, social reciprocity predicted cooperative investment behaviour within authentic adolescent networks in both the UK and Malaysia. Interestingly, there were no age effects or differences between cultures in the impact of social reciprocity on cooperative behaviour. Conclusions: Results from this combination of studies paint a multifaceted picture of adolescent social cognition across cultures. They suggest a complex interplay of factors both at the individual and sociocultural level that give rise to the sophisticated ability of social cognition as it matures across adolescence. They also highlight methodological issues in multicultural research.</p

Adolescent social cognition across cultures: East vs. West

Background: Adolescence is a period during which humans undergo significant changes in the social cognitive domain â changes that are likely to be adaptive, by allowing adolescents to respond adequately to new challenges as they gain independence from the family, and establish themselves in society. Recent neuroscience data suggest protracted maturation of key brain circuits during adolescence, which are involved in the underlying cognitive processes of social understanding. While these age-associated changes are commonly recognised to arise from a biological program unravelling across time, it is also possible that development is driven by experience. To date, few studies have empirically studied the development of social cognition in adolescence, especially as compared to infancy and childhood. Outstanding questions also remain on whether variability in the experience of adolescence, such as is present across different cultures, can modulate the expression of adolescent-associated maturational changes in social cognition. Aims: The purpose of this thesis was i) to investigate developmental changes in social cognition during adolescence, and ii) to examine sociocultural factors that may influence this ability and its developmental trajectory. Methods: In total, 668 young people (aged 9 to 21 years) from the United Kingdom, China, and Malaysia took part in the studies outlined in this thesis. In Chapter 2 (UK: N = 226; China: N = 175; Malaysia: N = 225), the self-construal scale (Singelis, 1994) was administered to explore the adolescent âselfâ as an independent entity as well as an interdependent social agent across all cultures. Chapters 3 and 4 consisted of a battery of cognitive and affective theory of mind as well as domain general cognitive tasks, which were completed by adolescents from the UK (N = 188) and China (N = 116). In Chapter 5, a novel social networks paradigm was used with a Game Theory task to investigate the impact of social reciprocity on cooperative investment in authentic adolescent school-based networks from the UK (5 classes; N = 70) and Malaysia (7 classes; N = 147). Results: First, young people from different cultures were characterised by culture-dependent construals of the self. In particular, youths from China defined themselves as more interdependent, i.e. in relation to others and in terms of social roles, than those from the UK and Malaysia. Second, although Chinese adolescents reported overall lower performance, they showed similar age associated changes in cognitive and affective theory of mind as UK adolescents. Finally, social reciprocity predicted cooperative investment behaviour within authentic adolescent networks in both the UK and Malaysia. Interestingly, there were no age effects or differences between cultures in the impact of social reciprocity on cooperative behaviour. Conclusions: Results from this combination of studies paint a multifaceted picture of adolescent social cognition across cultures. They suggest a complex interplay of factors both at the individual and sociocultural level that give rise to the sophisticated ability of social cognition as it matures across adolescence. They also highlight methodological issues in multicultural research.</p

Adolescent social cognition across cultures: East vs. West: Cross-cultural adolescent social cognition

Background: Adolescence is a period during which humans undergo significant changes in the social cognitive domain – changes that are likely to be adaptive, by allowing adolescents to respond adequately to new challenges as they gain independence from the family, and establish themselves in society. Recent neuroscience data suggest protracted maturation of key brain circuits during adolescence, which are involved in the underlying cognitive processes of social understanding. While these age-associated changes are commonly recognised to arise from a biological program unravelling across time, it is also possible that development is driven by experience. To date, few studies have empirically studied the development of social cognition in adolescence, especially as compared to infancy and childhood. Outstanding questions also remain on whether variability in the experience of adolescence, such as is present across different cultures, can modulate the expression of adolescent-associated maturational changes in social cognition. Aims: The purpose of this thesis was i) to investigate developmental changes in social cognition during adolescence, and ii) to examine sociocultural factors that may influence this ability and its developmental trajectory. Methods: In total, 668 young people (aged 9 to 21 years) from the United Kingdom, China, and Malaysia took part in the studies outlined in this thesis. In Chapter 2 (UK: N = 226; China: N = 175; Malaysia: N = 225), the self-construal scale (Singelis, 1994) was administered to explore the adolescent ‘self’ as an independent entity as well as an interdependent social agent across all cultures. Chapters 3 and 4 consisted of a battery of cognitive and affective theory of mind as well as domain general cognitive tasks, which were completed by adolescents from the UK (N = 188) and China (N = 116). In Chapter 5, a novel social networks paradigm was used with a Game Theory task to investigate the impact of social reciprocity on cooperative investment in authentic adolescent school-based networks from the UK (5 classes; N = 70) and Malaysia (7 classes; N = 147). Results: First, young people from different cultures were characterised by culture-dependent construals of the self. In particular, youths from China defined themselves as more interdependent, i.e. in relation to others and in terms of social roles, than those from the UK and Malaysia. Second, although Chinese adolescents reported overall lower performance, they showed similar age associated changes in cognitive and affective theory of mind as UK adolescents. Finally, social reciprocity predicted cooperative investment behaviour within authentic adolescent networks in both the UK and Malaysia. Interestingly, there were no age effects or differences between cultures in the impact of social reciprocity on cooperative behaviour. Conclusions: Results from this combination of studies paint a multifaceted picture of adolescent social cognition across cultures. They suggest a complex interplay of factors both at the individual and sociocultural level that give rise to the sophisticated ability of social cognition as it matures across adolescence. They also highlight methodological issues in multicultural research

Social cognition and psychopathology in adolescence

Adolescence is a period of transition, with developmental changes occurring at multiple levels simultaneously (e.g., hormonal, cognitive, neuronal, and socio-environmental). The co-occurrence of these transformational processes could compound risk for mental health problems for a subset of teens, especially towards developing mood and anxiety disorders. In order to progress towards identifying symptoms early and providing age-appropriate interventions, we need to map out trajectories of social-cognitive and affective change and associated neural maturation more comprehensively