The transition to high school is disruptive for many adolescents, yet little is known about the supportive relational processes that might attenuate the challenges students face as they move from middle to high school, particularly for students from more diverse backgrounds. Identifying potential buffers that protect youth across this critical educational transition is important for informing more effective support services for youth. In this study, we investigated how personal characteristics (gender, nativity, parent education level) and changes in support from family, friends, and school influenced changes in socioemotional adjustment and academic outcomes across the transition from middle to high school. The data were drawn from 252 students (50% females, 85% Latina/o). The results revealed declines in students’ grades and increases in depressive symptoms and feelings of loneliness across the high school transition, with key variation by student nativity and gender. Additionally, stable/increasing friend support and school belonging were both linked to less socioemotional disruptions as students moved from middle to high school as compared to experiencing decreases in these sources of support. Increasing/stable school belonging was also linked to increases in school engagement across the high school transition. These findings suggest that when high school transitions disrupt supportive relationships with important others in adolescents’ lives, adolescents’ socioemotional well-being and, to a lesser extent, their academic engagement are also compromised. Thus, in designing transition support activities, particularly for schools serving more low-income and race/ethnic minority youth, such efforts should strive to acclimate new high school students by providing inclusive, caring environments and positive connections with educators and peers.

Tightening social norms is thought to be adaptive for dealing with collective threat yet it may have negative consequences for increasing prejudice. The present research investigated the role of desire for cultural tightness, triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, in increasing negative attitudes towards immigrants. We used participant-level data from 41 countries ( N = 55,015) collected as part of the PsyCorona project, a cross-national longitudinal study on responses to COVID-19. Our predictions were tested through multilevel and SEM models, treating participants as nested within countries. Results showed that people's concern with COVID-19 threat was related to greater desire for tightness which, in turn, was linked to more negative attitudes towards immigrants. These findings were followed up with a longitudinal model ( N = 2,349) which also showed that people's heightened concern with COVID-19 in an earlier stage of the pandemic was associated with an increase in their desire for tightness and negative attitudes towards immigrants later in time. Our findings offer insight into the trade-offs that tightening social norms under collective threat has for human groups.

The aim of this study was to examine family qualities and self-deprecation in relation to depressive symptoms of young adult Zoroastrians from immigrant families in North America. Using snowball sampling and online surveys, self-report data were collected from 171 Zoroastrian young adults (i.e., 18-30 years old) about their perception of cohesion in their families, conflict with their parents, and the extent that they met parental general expectations (e.g., not embarrassing the family). The findings from a path analysis showed that parent-child conflict and meeting parental expectations were indirectly related to depressive symptoms through self-deprecation. Also, higher family cohesion predicted lower levels of depressive symptoms among Zoroastrian young adults. These results are similar to findings in studies with non Zoroastrians. The results suggested prevention and interventions to decrease depressive symptoms could target self-deprecating thoughts as well as perceived family dynamics.

The numbers of university students from immigrant families have been increasing in the United States, yet little research exists on factors influencing their life quality. Self‐report data were collected from 2,210 students from one university in California. Direct effects of four contextual stressors (i.e., ethnic discrimination, parent–child cultural conflict, family disengagement, and family financial stress) were examined in relation to life quality. Also, the potential moderating and mediating role of perceived stress was examined, as well as the potential moderating role of students' generational status. The results provided strong support for mediation, showing contextual stressors influenced students' life quality through their perceived stress. Some evidence was found for moderation, showing the complex role of perceived stress. Generational status did not play a moderating role.

The current study examined how schoolwide norms came together into distinct profiles and how norm profile membership was linked to adolescent well-being. Using school-level (N = 786) and student-level data (N = 174,587 12th grade students; 52% female; 64% White, 13% Latino, 12% Black, 12% other) from Monitoring the Future (MTF), we identified four distinct school profiles-average, academic, prepped-for-college, party-that had unique patterns of shared norms. Compared with average schools, academic schools (high academics and low substance use and social integration norms) were most advantageous for students, prepped-for-college schools (high academics, substance use, and social integration norms) had both benefits and drawbacks, and party schools (low academics and high substance use and social integration norms) were most detrimental.