Liane Peña Alampay

• PhD in Human Development and Family Studies
• Professor (Full) at Ateneo de Manila University

There is strong evidence of a positive association between corporal punishment and negative child outcomes, but previous studies have suggested that the manner in which parents implement corporal punishment moderates the effects of its use. This study investigated whether severity and justness in the use of corporal punishment moderate the associat...

Objectives This study examines the feasibility and acceptability of a local adaptation of a mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) program for Filipino school children, called Kamalayan, that was facilitated by trained public school teachers. It also presents preliminary evidence of program effects on the children’s depressive and anxiety sympt...

Rates of child maltreatment are higher in low- and middle-income countries due to risk factors such as social inequities, economic adversity, and sociocultural norms. Given the evidence showing the effectiveness of parenting interventions to prevent child maltreatment, this study embarked on a cultural adaptation of an evidence-based parenting prog...

We examined whether a policy banning corporal punishment enacted in Kenya in 2010 is associated with changes in Kenyan caregivers’ use of corporal punishment and beliefs in its effectiveness and normativeness, and compared to caregivers in six countries without bans in the same period. Using a longitudinal study with six waves of panel data (2008–2...

Background Parenting interventions and conditional cash transfer (CCT) programmes are promising strategies to reduce the risk of violence against children, but evidence of the effectiveness of combining such programmes is lacking for families in low- and middle-income countries with children over two years of age. This study examined the effectiven...

This study advances the understanding of risk and protective factors in trajectories of conduct problems in adolescence in seven countries that differ widely on a number of sociodemographic factors as well as norms related to adolescent behavior. Youth- and parent-report data from 988 adolescents in seven countries (Colombia, Italy, Kenya, Philippi...

Introduction Prosocial behavior (i.e., voluntary actions aimed at benefiting others, such as helping, comforting, and sharing) has proven beneficial for individuals' adjustment during the transition to adolescence. However, less is known about the role of the broader sociocultural context in shaping prosocial development across different cultures....

Relatively few studies have longitudinally investigated how COVID-19 has disrupted the lives and health of youth beyond the first year of the pandemic. This may be because longitudinal researchers face complex challenges in figuring out how to code time, account for changes in COVID-19 spread, and model longitudinal COVID-19-related trajectories ac...

One species-general life history (LH) principle posits that challenging childhood environments are coupled with a fast or faster LH strategy and associated behaviors, while secure and stable childhood environments foster behaviors conducive to a slow or slower LH strategy. This coupling between environments and LH strategies is based on the assumpt...

This study examined the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary outcomes of MaPaChat, a parent support intervention delivered using Viber group chat to caregivers in the Philippines during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Forty caregivers of children aged 4–17 from predominantly low‐income households participated in a culturally adapted version of the Pa...

This study investigated how individualism, collectivism and conformity are associated with parenting and child adjustment in 1297 families with 10-year-old children from 13 cultural groups in nine countries. With multilevel models disaggregating between- and within-culture effects, we examined between- and within-culture associations between matern...

This study investigated child-reported family obligation values (FOVs) in early adolescence as a moderator for associations between mother-, father-, and child-reported parental psychological control (PC) in early adolescence and child-reported internalizing and externalizing symptoms in middle and late adolescents in the Philippines. Data were dra...

An important question for parents and educators alike is how to promote adolescents’ academic identity and school performance. This study investigated relations among parental education, parents’ attitudes toward their adolescents’ school, parental support for learning at home, and adolescents’ academic identity and school performance over time and...

Introduction Creating romantic relationships characterized by high‐quality, satisfaction, few conflicts, and reasoning strategies to handle conflicts is an important developmental task for adolescents connected to the relational models they receive from their parents. This study examines how parent–adolescent conflicts, attachment, positive parenti...

This study examined whether Filipino mothers' and fathers' cultural values, namely individualism, collectivism and conformity values; are associated with parental warmth, rules/limit‐setting and expectations of family obligations; and child internalising and externalising behaviours. Children ( n = 103; M age = 10.52, SD age = .44) and their mother...

It is unclear how much adolescents’ lives were disrupted throughout the COVID-19 pandemic or what risk factors predicted such disruption. To answer these questions, 1,080 adolescents in 9 nations were surveyed 5 times from March 2020 to July 2022. Rates of adolescent COVID-19 life disruption were stable and high. Adolescents who, compared to their...

This study examined the preliminary outcomes, feasibility, and acceptability of MaPaChat, a parent support group intervention delivered using Viber group chat delivered to Filipino caregivers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Forty caregivers of children aged 4-17 from predominantly low-income households participated in a culturally adapted version of...

Little is known about the developmental trajectories of parental self-efficacy as children transition into adolescence. This study examined parental self-efficacy among mothers and fathers over 3 1/2 years representing this transition, and whether the level and developmental trajectory of parental self-efficacy varied by cultural group. Data were d...

Primal world beliefs (“primals”) capture individuals’ basic understanding of what sort of world this is. How do children develop beliefs about the nature of the world? Is the world a good place? Safe or dangerous? Enticing or dull? Primals were initially introduced in social and personality psychology to understand beliefs about the world as a whol...

Parenting that is high in rejection and low in acceptance is associated with higher levels of internalizing (INT) and externalizing (EXT) problems in children and adolescents. These symptoms develop and can increase in severity to negatively impact adolescents’ social, academic, and emotional functioning. However, there are two major gaps in the ex...

Adolescent mental health problems are rising rapidly around the world. To combat this rise, clinicians and policymakers need to know which risk factors matter most in predicting poor adolescent mental health. Theory-driven research has identified numerous risk factors that predict adolescent mental health problems but has difficulty distilling and...

Purpose: This study examines the feasibility of a culturally adapted parenting intervention (MaPa Teens) within the national cash transfer system to reduce violence against adolescents, the first such program in the Philippines. Methods: Thirty caregiver-adolescent dyads who were beneficiaries of a government conditional cash transfer program pa...

Although previous research has identified links between parenting and adolescent substance use, little is known about the role of adolescent individual processes, such as sensation seeking, and temperamental tendencies for such links. To test tenets from biopsychosocial models of adolescent risk behavior and differential susceptibility theory, this...

In this study, we examine the predictions of a storm and stress characterization of adolescence concerning typicality and trajectories of internalizing, externalizing, and wellbeing from late childhood through late adolescence. Using data from the Parenting Across Cultures study, levels and trajectories of these characteristics were analyzed for 1,...

Background The International Society for Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (ISPCAN) Child Abuse Screening Tool (Children's Version), known as the ICAST-C Version 3, is used widely to assess violence against children, but there is limited psychometric evidence, especially on content validity. Objective This study aimed to assess the content val...

Parent and child endorsement of reactive aggression both predict the emergence of child aggression, but they are rarely studied together and in longitudinal contexts. The present study does so by examining the unique predictive effects of parent and child endorsement of reactive aggression at age 8 on child aggression at age 9 in 1456 children from...

Introduction We sought to understand the relation between positive parenting and adolescent diet, whether adolescents' internalizing and externalizing behaviors mediate relations between positive parenting and adolescent diet, and whether the same associations hold for both boys and girls and across cultural groups. Methods Adolescents (N = 1334)...

The Family Stress Model of Economic Hardship (FSM) posits that economic situations create differences in psychosocial outcomes for parents and developmental outcomes for their adolescent children. However, prior studies guided by the FSM have been mostly in high-income countries and have included only mother report or have not disaggregated mother...

Longitudinal data from the Parenting Across Cultures study of children, mothers, and fathers in 12 cultural groups in nine countries (China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, the Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the USA; N = 1331 families) were used to understand predictors of compliance with COVID-19 mitigation strategies and vaccine hesitancy. Co...

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted many young adults’ lives educationally, economically, and personally. This study investigated associations between COVID-19-related disruption and perception of increases in internalising symptoms among young adults and whether these associations were moderated by earlier measures of adolescent positivity and future...

Using a sample of 1338 families from 12 cultural groups in 9 nations, we examined whether retrospectively remembered Generation 1 (G1) parent rejecting behaviors were passed to Generation 2 (G2 parents), whether such intergenerational transmission led to higher Generation 3 (G3 child) externalizing and internalizing behavior at age 13, and whether...

Background: Grounded in interpersonal acceptance-rejection theory, this study assessed children's (N=1,315) perceptions of maternal and paternal acceptance-rejection in nine countries (China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, the Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States) as predictors of children's externalizing and internalizing behavio...

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, adolescents ( N = 1,330; M ages = 15 and 16; 50% female), mothers, and fathers from nine countries (China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, United States) reported on adolescents’ internalizing and externalizing problems, adolescents completed a lab-based task to assess tendency for risk...

Cultures and families are not static over time but evolve in response to social transformations, such as changing gender roles, urbanization, globalization, and technology uptake. Historically, individualism and collectivism have been widely used heuristics guiding cross-cultural comparisons, yet these orientations may evolve over time, and individ...

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented families around the world with extraordinary challenges related to physical and mental health, economic security, social support, and education. The current study capitalizes on a longitudinal, cross-national study of parenting, adolescent development, and young adult competence to document the association betwee...

The current cross-cultural study aimed to extend research on parenting and children’s prosocial behavior by examining relations among parental warmth, values related to family obligations (i.e., children’s support to and respect for their parents, siblings, and extended family), and prosocial behavior during the transition to adolescence (from ages...

Families from nine countries (N = 1,338) were interviewed annually seven times (Mage child = 7–15) to test specificity and commonality in parenting behaviors associated with child flourishing and moderation of associations by normativeness of parenting. Participants included 1,338 children (M = 8.59 years, SD = 0.68, range = 7–11 years; 50% girls),...

Ending all violence against children by 2030 is a core part of Sustainable Development Goals 5 and 16. A number of promising violence reduction strategies have been identified in research studies. However, we lack an understanding of the implementation and impact of these programs in respect to their delivery at a large scale or within existing ser...

This chapter uses evidence from the Parenting Across Cultures (PAC) project to illustrate ways in which longitudinal data can help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs.) The chapter begins by providing an overview of the research questions that have guided the international PAC as well as a description of the participants, procedures, an...

Introduction This chapter uses evidence from the Parenting across Cultures (PAC) project to illustrate ways in which longitudinal data can help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs; https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/). The chapter begins by providing an overview of the research questions that have guided PAC as well as a description...

Children, mothers, and fathers in 12 ethnic and regional groups in nine countries (N = 1,338 families) were interviewed annually for 8 years (Mage child = 8–16 years) to model four domains of parenting as a function of child age, puberty, or both. Latent growth curve models revealed that for boys and girls, parents decrease their warmth, behavioral...

This study explored age and gender as moderators of the effects of a school-based mindfulness program on Filipino youth’s depressive and anxiety symptoms, and emotion regulation capacities. Using a randomized controlled trial design, 186 public school children in the Philippines aged 9–16 were randomly assigned to either 8 weekly sessions of a mind...

This study tested culture-general and culture-specific aspects of adolescent developmental processes by focusing on opportunities and peer support for aggressive and delinquent behavior, which could help account for cultural similarities and differences in problem behavior during adolescence. Adolescents from 12 cultural groups in 9 countries (Chin...

We investigated the effects of parental warmth and behavioral control on externalizing and internalizing symptom trajectories from ages 8 to 14 in 1,298 adolescents from 12 cultural groups. We did not find that single universal trajectories characterized adolescent externalizing and internalizing symptoms across cultures, but instead found signific...

Internalizing and externalizing problems increase during adolescence. However, these problems may be mitigated by adequate parenting, including effective parent-adolescent communication. The ways in which parent-driven (i.e. parent behavior control and solicitation) and adolescent-driven (i.e. disclosure and secrecy) communication efforts are linke...

We investigated whether bidirectional associations between parental warmth and behavioral control and child aggression and rule‐breaking behavior emerged in 12 cultural groups. Study participants included 1,298 children (M = 8.29 years, standard deviation [SD] = 0.66, 51% girls) from Shanghai, China (n = 121); Medellín, Colombia (n = 108); Naples (...

The present study examines parents' self-efficacy about anger regulation and irritability as predictors of harsh parenting and adolescent children's irritability (i.e., mediators), which in turn were examined as predictors of adolescents' externalizing and internalizing problems. Mothers, fathers, and adolescents (N = 1,298 families) from 12 cultur...

The external environment has traditionally been considered as the primary driver of animal life history (LH). Recent research suggests that animals' internal state is also involved, especially in forming LH behavioural phenotypes. The present study investigated how these two factors interact in formulating LH in humans. Based on a longitudinal samp...

Use of alcohol, tobacco, and drugs (i.e., substance use) is a leading cause of global health burden for 10-to-24-year-olds, according to the World Health Organization's index of number of years of life lost, leading international health organizations to prioritize the prevention of substance use before it escalates in adolescence. Pathways defined...

Background Studies of U.S. and European samples demonstrate that parental warmth and behavioral control predict child internalizing behaviors and vice versa. However, these patterns have not been researched in other cultures. This study investigates associations between parent warmth and control and three child‐reported internalizing behavior clust...

Filipino families place a high value on children’s educational achievement. Providing for children’s education is a primary goal of Filipino parents and conversely, children consider educational success as the means by which they can meet filial obligations and parental expectations. Interdependence in Filipino families is such that education-relat...

The current longitudinal study is the first comparative investigation across Low‐ and Middle‐ Income Countries (LMICs) to test the hypothesis that harsher and less affectionate maternal parenting (child age 14 years, on average) statistically mediates the prediction from prior household chaos and neighborhood danger (at 13 years) to subsequent adol...

In 2018, the Psychological Association of the Philippines developed a version of KKDK for plea bargainers (prisoners who were incarcerated on minor drug offenses and were conditionally released by the courts if they undergo community-based drug treatment). Called KKDK Intensive, our pilot in QC and Caloocan also revealed participants had lower subs...

In the original publication, the legends for Figs 4 and 5 were incorrect, such that each regression line was mislabeled with the incorrect country. Below are the correctly labeled countries. The authors apologize for any confusion or misinformation this error may have caused.

All countries distinguish between minors and adults for various legal purposes. Recent U.S. Supreme Court cases concerning the legal status of juveniles have consulted psychological science to decide where to draw these boundaries. However, little is known about the robustness of the relevant research, because it has been conducted largely in the U...

Safety is essential for life. To survive, humans and other animals have developed sets of psychological and physiological adaptations known as life history (LH) tradeoff strategies in response to various safety constraints. Evolutionarily selected LH strategies in turn regulate development and behavior to optimize survival under prevailing safety c...

The 2030 Global Agenda for Sustainable Development includes ending all forms of violence against children as an explicit goal (SDG target 16.2). This chapter highlights the scientific basis and potential of parent education and skills development programs to prevent child maltreatment, and describes the Parenting for Lifelong Health (PLH)-Philippin...

Promoting children's prosocial behavior is a goal for parents, healthcare professionals, and nations. Does positive parenting promote later child prosocial behavior, or do children who are more prosocial elicit more positive parenting later, or both? Relations between parenting and prosocial behavior have to date been studied only in a narrow band...

This study investigated the association between perceived material deprivation, children's behavior problems, and parents’ disciplinary practices. The sample included 1,418 8‐ to 12‐year‐old children and their parents in China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, the Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States. Multilevel mixed‐ and fixed‐effe...

This study used data from 12 cultural groups in nine countries (China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States; N = 1,298) to understand the cross‐cultural generalizability of how parental warmth and control are bidirectionally related to externalizing and internalizing behaviors from childhood to early...

Using multilevel models, we examined mother-, father-, and child-reported ( N = 1,336 families) externalizing behavior problem trajectories from age 7 to 14 in nine countries (China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, the Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States). The intercept and slope of children's externalizing behavior trajectories va...

This study examined longitudinal links between household income and parents’ education and children’s trajectories of internalizing and externalizing behaviors from age 8 to 10 reported by mothers, fathers, and children. Longitudinal data from 1,190 families in 11 cultural groups in eight countries (Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Philippines, Swed...

The authors examined the association between working memory and response inhibition on the Stroop task using a cross-sectional, international sample of 5099 individuals (49.3% male) ages 10–30 (M = 17.04 years; SD = 5.9). Response inhibition was measured using a Stroop task that included “equal” and “unequal” blocks, during which the relative frequ...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the effect of a community-based resilience intervention for Filipino displaced survivors of Super Typhoon Haiyan. Design/methodology/approach The researchers used a quasi-experimental and mixed-method design comparing a treatment group with a control group across three time periods: before, immedi...

Epidemiological data indicate that risk behaviors are among the leading causes of adolescent morbidity and mortality worldwide. Consistent with this, laboratory-based studies of age differences in risk behavior allude to a peak in adolescence, suggesting that adolescents demonstrate a heightened propensity, or inherent inclination, to take risks. U...

Using data from 1,177 families in eight countries (Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, the Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States), we tested a conceptual model of direct effects of childhood family adversity on subsequent externalizing behaviors as well as indirect effects through psychological mediators. When children were 9 years old,...

To examine whether the cultural normativeness of parents’ beliefs and behaviors moderates the links between those beliefs and behaviors and youths’ adjustment, mothers, fathers, and children (N = 1,298 families) from 12 cultural groups in 9 countries (China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States) were...

This study examined how the experience of harsh discipline from teachers is related to students' experience of bullying victimization in a Philippine high school. Respondents were 401 first- to fourth-year high school students of an urban public school in the Philippines. Using structural equation modeling, a hypothesized model with direct associat...

This study grapples with what it means to be part of a cultural group, from a statistical modeling perspective. The method we present compares within- and between-cultural group variability, in behaviors in families. We demonstrate the method using a cross-cultural study of adolescent development and parenting, involving three biennial waves of lon...

The dual systems model of adolescent risk-taking portrays the period as one characterized by a combination of heightened sensation seeking and still-maturing self-regulation, but most tests of this model have been conducted in the United States or Western Europe. In the present study, these propositions are tested in an international sample of more...

Background: Most studies of the effects of parental religiousness on parenting and child development focus on a particular religion or cultural group, which limits generalizations that can be made about the effects of parental religiousness on family life. Methods: We assessed the associations among parental religiousness, parenting, and childre...

This chapter describes the theoretical background, methodology, and select empirical findings from the Parenting Across Cultures project, a longitudinal study of mothers, fathers, and youth in nine countries (China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and United States). The design of the study is well suited to addressin...

According to the dual systems model of adolescent risk taking, sensation seeking and impulse control follow different developmental trajectories across adolescence and are governed by two different brain systems. The authors tested whether different underlying processes also drive age differences in reward approach and cost avoidance. Using a modif...

In the present analysis, we test the dual systems model of adolescent risk taking in a cross-national sample of over 5,200 individuals aged 10 through 30 ( = 17.05 years, = 5.91) from 11 countries. We examine whether reward seeking and self-regulation make independent, additive, or interactive contributions to risk taking, and ask whether these rel...

This study investigates the relation between parental verbal punishment and externalizing and internalizing behavior problems in Filipino children, and the moderating role of parental warmth in this relation, for same-sex (mothers-girls; fathers-boys) and cross-sex parent-child groups (mothers-boys; fathers-girls). Measures used were the Rohner Par...

The authors tested a model in which Filipino mothers' self-efficacy in managing anger/irritation influenced child delinquency via two parenting variables: parental self-efficacy and parental rejection. Structured interviews were conducted with 99 mothers twice with an interval of one year with efficacy beliefs and rejection measured in the first ye...

This study advances understanding of predictors of child abuse and neglect at multiple levels of influence. Mothers, fathers, and children ( N = 1,418 families, M age of children = 8.29 years) were interviewed annually in three waves in 13 cultural groups in nine countries (China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and t...

Background: Research supports the beneficial role of prosocial behaviors on children's adjustment and successful youth development. Empirical studies point to reciprocal relations between negative parenting and children's maladjustment, but reciprocal relations between positive parenting and children's prosocial behavior are understudied. In this...

Significance Interpersonal conflict and violence occur within and between groups around the world. Although not proving causation, this study is significant because it suggests a key psychological mechanism in children’s chronic aggression that might be targeted for intervention: one’s attribution that a peer is acting with hostile intent. When chi...

Children's family obligations involve assistance and respect that children are expected to provide to immediate and extended family members and reflect beliefs related to family life that may differ across cultural groups. Mothers, fathers and children (N = 1432 families) in 13 cultural groups in 9 countries (China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya,...

It is generally believed that parental rejection of children leads to child maladaptation. However, the specific effects of perceived parental acceptance-rejection on diverse domains of child adjustment and development have been incompletely documented, and whether these effects hold across diverse populations and for mothers and fathers are still...