Social withdrawal during adolescence and early adulthood is particularly problematic due to the increasing importance of social interactions during these ages. Yet little is known about the changes, trajectories, or correlates of being withdrawn during this transition to adulthood. The purpose of this study was to examine the normative change and distinct trajectories of withdrawal in order to identify adolescents and early adults at greatest risk for maladjustment. Participants were from a Dutch population-based cohort study (Tracking Adolescents’ Individual Lives Survey), including 1917 adolescents who were assessed at four waves from the age of 16 to 25 years. Five items from the Youth Self Report and Adult Self Report were found to be measurement invariant and used to assess longitudinal changes in social withdrawal. Overall, participants followed a U-shaped trajectory of social withdrawal, where withdrawal decreased from ages 16 to 19 years, remained stable from 19 to 22 years, and increased from 22 to 25 years. Furthermore, three distinct trajectory classes of withdrawal emerged: a low-stable group (71.8%), a high-decreasing group (12.0%), and a low-curvilinear group (16.2%). The three classes differed on: shyness, social affiliation, reduced social contact, anxiety, and antisocial behaviors. The high-decreasing group endorsed the highest social maladjustment, followed by the low-curvilinear group, and the low-stable group was highly adjusted. We discuss the potential contribution of the changing social network in influencing withdrawal levels, the distinct characteristics of each trajectory group, and future directions in the study of social withdrawal in adolescence and early adulthood. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1007/s10802-018-0497-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Social withdrawal and social anxiety are believed to have a bidirectional influence on one another, but it is unknown if their relationship is bidirectional, especially within person, and if peer experiences influence this relationship. We investigated temporal sequencing and the strength of effects between social withdrawal and social anxiety, and the roles of peer victimization and acceptance in the pathways. Participants were 2,772 adolescents from the population-based and clinically referred cohorts of the Tracking Adolescents' Individual Lives Survey. Self- and parent-reported withdrawal, and self-reported social anxiety, peer victimization, and perceived peer acceptance were assessed at 11, 13, and 16 years. Random-intercept cross-lagged panel models were used to investigate within-person associations between these variables. There was no feedback loop between withdrawal and social anxiety. Social withdrawal did not predict social anxiety at any age. Social anxiety at 11 years predicted increased self-reported withdrawal at 13 years. Negative peer experiences predicted increased self- and parent-reported withdrawal at 13 years and increased parent-reported withdrawal at 16 years. In turn, self-reported withdrawal at 13 years predicted negative peer experiences at 16 years. In conclusion, adolescents became more withdrawn when they became more socially anxious or experienced greater peer problems, and increasing withdrawal predicted greater victimization and lower acceptance.

To examine the contributions of maternal and paternal age on offspring externalizing and internalizing problems, this study analyzed problem behaviors at age 10-12 years from four Dutch population-based cohorts (N = 32,892) by a multiple informant design. Bayesian evidence synthesis was used to combine results across cohorts with 50% of the data analyzed for discovery and 50% for confirmation. There was evidence of a

The aim of this study was to test a longitudinal, transactional model that describes how social withdrawal and friendship development are interrelated in late adolescence, and to investigate if post-secondary transitions are catalysts of change for highly withdrawn adolescents' friendships. Unilateral friendship data of 1,019 adolescents (61.3% female, 91% Dutch-origin) from the Tracking Adolescents' Individual Lives Survey (TRAILS) cohort were collected five times from ages 17 to 18 years. Social withdrawal was assessed at 16 and 19 years. The transactional model was tested withinThis is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.

Objective: Advanced parenthood increases the risk of severe neurodevelopmental disorders like autism, Down syndrome and schizophrenia. Does advanced parenthood also negatively impact offspring's general neurodevelopment? Method: We analyzed child-, father-, mother-and teacher-rated attention-problems (N = 38,024), and standardized measures of intelligence (N = 10,273) and educational achievement (N = 17,522) of children from four Dutch population-based cohorts. The mean age over cohorts varied from 9.73-13.03. Most participants were of Dutch origin, ranging from 58.7%-96.7% over cohorts. We analyzed 50% of the data to generate hypotheses and the other 50% to evaluate support for these hypotheses. We aggregated the results over cohorts with Bayesian research synthesis. Results: We mostly found negative linear relations between parental age and attention-problems, meaning that offspring of younger parents tended to have more attention problems. Maternal age was positively and linearly related to offspring's IQ and educational achievement. Paternal age showed an attenuating positive relation with educational achievement and an inverted U-shape relation with IQ, with offspring of younger and older fathers at a disadvantage. Only the associations with maternal age remained after including SES. The inclusion of child gender in the model did not affect the relation between parental age and the study outcomes. Conclusions: Effects were small but significant, with better outcomes for children born to older parents. Older parents tended to be of higher SES. Indeed, the positive relation between parental age and offspring neurodevelopmental outcomes was partly confounded by SES.

Involvement in romantic relationships is a salient developmental task in late adolescence and early adulthood, and deviations from normative romantic development are linked to adverse outcomes. This study investigated to what extent social withdrawal contributed to deviations from normative romantic development, and vice versa, and the interplay between withdrawal and couples’ relationship perceptions. The sample included 1710 young adults (55–61% female) from the Tracking Adolescents’ Individual Lives Survey cohort and their romantic partners. Data were collected across 4 waves, covering romantic relationships from ages 17 to 29 years. The results showed that higher withdrawal predicted a higher likelihood of romantic non-involvement by adulthood, consistently being single at subsequent waves, and entering one’s first relationship when older. Withdrawal moderately decreased when youth entered their first relationship. Male’s withdrawal in particular affected romantic relationship qualities and dynamics. These results provide new insights into the developmental sequelae of withdrawn young adults’ romantic relationship development.

There is a negative association between intelligence and psychopathology, implying that individuals with intellectual disability are at greater risk for psychopathology. We analyzed data on intelligence and psychopathology in seven-year-old twin pairs (npairs ≥ 616) to determine the degree to which genetic and environmental factors common to intelligence and psychopathology explain the association, and to examine whether genetic and environmental effects on psychopathology are moderated by intelligence. We found that intelligence correlated negatively with internalizing, externalizing, and neurodevelopmental psychopathology. The associations were mainly due to common genetic factors. Intelligence moderated genetic and environmental effects on internalizing psychopathology (anxiety and negative affect), but not those on externalizing and neurodevelopmental psychopathology. The heritability of anxiety and negative affect was greatest in individuals with below-average intelligence. We discuss mechanisms through which this effect could arise, and we end with some recommendations for future research.