Bidirectional associations between biased language exposure and school-based relationships across gender

Positive Teacher-Student Relationships Lead to Less Cyberbullying Perpetration: A Within-Person Perspective

Adolescence is usually the beginning of externalizing problems. At the same time, as adolescents mature it drives changes in teacher-student relationships. Even though bidirectional associations between teacher-student relationships and cyberbullying perpetration exist, studies examining this link at the within-person level are lacking. This longitudinal study tested the process of influence between teacher-student relationships and cyberbullying perpetration and examined whether teacher-student relationships predicted cyberbullying perpetration by using the random-intercept cross-lagged model. Participants included 2,407 Chinese adolescents (50.23% girl, M age = 12.75, SD = 0.58 at baseline) from seven schools at three-time points with one-year intervals. Results showed that initial levels and changes of teacher-student relationships significantly predicted cyberbullying perpetration. The relation between teacher-student relationships and cyberbullying perpetration was stable over time at the within-person level, but not at the between-person level. Furthermore, self-esteem significantly predicted cyberbullying perpetration at the between-person level, but not at the within-person level. The results indicate that adolescents with higher teacher-student relationships compared to their own average, tended to be those who later experienced lower cyberbullying perpetration and vice versa. Low self-esteem is not a risk factor for cyberbullying perpetration at the within-person level.

Pubertal Timing, Positive Contexts, and Emotional Symptoms in Early Adolescence: Examining Sex Differences With a Dual Grade Cohort Design

Earlier puberty predicts emotional symptoms during adolescence, with potential sex disparities in how developmental contexts moderate this relationship. Under the differential susceptibility framework, negative contextual amplifiers are well-documented, but positive contextual attenuators remain under-researched. Acknowledging girls' earlier pubertal onset, this study employed a dual grade cohort design (5th- and 7th-grade cohorts) to examine sex-specific positive contextual moderators (family members, general peers, teachers) in the longitudinal association between pubertal timing and emotional symptoms. This approach enabled sex comparisons at similar chronological ages (controlling for social timing) and at comparable pubertal stages (accounting for measurement timing). Multiple grade cohorts from a three-wave survey in China were analyzed, including six-month (5th: N = 10,544, 46.6% girls; 6th: N = 5991, 47.6% girls; 7th: N = 7028, 47.4% girls; 8th: N = 4832, 48.2% girls) and one-year (5th: N = 14,580, 45.8% girls; 6th: N = 11,845, 46.6% girls; 7th: N = 10,347, 47.6% girls) nested samples. Through within-grade and cross-grade comparisons, linear mixed-effects models tested each pubertal timing × positive context × sex interaction in predicting future emotional symptoms, adjusting for school-level clustering, socio-demographics, and baseline emotional symptoms. Results identified earlier puberty as a risk for both sexes. Results revealed schoolwide teacher-student relations as a positive contextual moderator only for 5th-grade girls, with no other significant contextual moderators observed for either sex. These findings underscore the importance of improving school-level teacher-student interactions to mitigate the emotional challenges faced by early-maturing girls.