This study investigated ethnic-racial identity developmental processes (i.e., exploration and resolution) as pathways for adolescents to develop global bicultural competence, or the ability to meet heritage and host cultural demands. The sample included 749 U.S. Mexican-origin youth (30% Mexico-born; 51% male) followed from early-to-late adolescence (Mage = 12.79 to 17.38 years). Longitudinal structural equation analyses revealed that youth’s sequential engagement in ethnic-racial identity exploration and resolution (from early-to-middle adolescence) promoted global bicultural competence in late adolescence. Findings highlight the benefits of achieving clarity about one’s ethnic-racial identity via self-exploration efforts for adolescents’ ability to respond effectively to bicultural demands. This study advances mechanisms via which ethnic-racial identity development may support youth adaptation to multiple cultural systems.
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Experience-dependent neurodevelopment of self-regulation in adolescence
Adolescence is a period of rapid biobehavioral change, characterized in part by increased neural maturation and sensitivity to one's environment. In this review, we aim to demonstrate that self-regulation skills are tuned by adolescents' social, cultural, and socioeconomic contexts. We discuss adjacent literatures that demonstrate the importance of experience-dependent learning for adolescent development: environmental contextual influences and training paradigms that aim to improve regulation skills. We first highlight changes in prominent limbic and cortical regions-like the amygdala and medial prefrontal cortex-as well as structural and functional connectivity between these areas that are associated with adolescents' regulation skills. Next, we consider how puberty, the hallmark developmental milestone in adolescence, helps instantiate these biobehavioral adaptations. We then survey the existing literature demonstrating the ways in which cultural, socioeconomic, and interpersonal contexts drive behavioral and neural adaptation for self-regulation. Finally, we highlight promising results from regulation training paradigms that suggest training may be especially efficacious for adolescent samples. In our conclusion, we highlight some exciting frontiers in human self-regulation research as well as recommendations for improving the methodological implementation of developmental neuroimaging studies and training paradigms.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1848004
- PAR ID:
- 10517186
- Publisher / Repository:
- Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience
- Volume:
- 66
- Issue:
- C
- ISSN:
- 1878-9293
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 101356
- Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
- Adolescence Brain development Puberty Social context Structural environment Training
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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