Xinyin Chen

• Doctor of Philosophy
• University of Pennsylvania

Social initiative and behavioral control represent two major dimensions of children's social competence. Cultural norms and values with respect to these dimensions may affect the exhibition, meaning, and development of specific social behaviors such as sociability, shyness-inhibition, cooperation-compliance, and aggression-defiance, as well as the...

Behavioral inhibition data were collected from samples of 2-year-olds from the People's Republic of China and Canada. Information on child-rearing attitudes and beliefs was obtained from mothers of the children. Chinese toddlers were significantly more inhibited than their Canadian counterparts. Inhibition was associated positively with mothers' pu...

Research on children's temperament and personality has been growing substantially in the past several decades with the development of various child-oriented theories and sophisticated methodologies. As a result, we now have an extensive understanding of the organization of basic characteristics such as reactivity and self-regulation in childhood an...

In this article, I discuss major theoretical and methodological issues in the study of cultural meanings of children’s behaviors. Research in this area is conducted mainly through assessing individual beliefs using hypothetical vignettes or other self-report methods. I argue that it is important to investigate functional meanings of children’s beha...

The present study examined relations between concern for mianzi, or the social perception of one's prestige and standing in the group, and adjustment in Chinese adolescents. Participants were seventh- and ninth-grade students in rural and urban regions of China (n = 794, Mage = 14 years). Data were obtained from multiple sources including peer asse...

Shyness in childhood and adolescence is associated with problems in social, academic, and psychological adjustment in today’s China. However, the functional meaning of shyness needs to be examined in the developmental context. This 1 year longitudinal study explored the relations between self-reported shyness and indexes of adjustment in Chinese ch...

Few studies have comprehensively examined the reciprocal relation between specific parenting practices and children’s academic performance across parent and child gender. The present study investigated the bidirectional associations between parental warmth/control and children’s academic performance using a three-wave longitudinal multi-informant d...

Predictors of friendship stability from individual attributes and dyadic similarities were assessed using cross‐classified multilevel analyses in this 6‐ to 8‐month longitudinal study of 10‐year‐old US (White, Black, Asian, other; n = 477, 50% girls), Chinese ( n = 467, 59% girls), and Indonesian (Sudanese, Javanese, other; n = 419, 45% girls) chil...

This study examined parental autonomy support and psychological control and their relations with child biobehavioral functioning. Participants included 238 Chinese parent–child dyads ( M age‐child = 8.38 years, 42.0% girls) in two cohorts (2013 and 2021). Parents in the 2021 cohort displayed higher levels of autonomy support and psychological contr...

The ongoing social change in China may promote co-existence and integration of traditional and new values, which likely has a significant impact on individual socialization experiences and development. Different values may serve different functions in human development, helping individuals achieve personal goals and develop social connectedness. Fr...

Leadership in peer groups is an important issue in adolescent socioemotional development, yet it has received limited attention in research. This one-year longitudinal study examined peer group leadership and the roles of social, academic, and psychological characteristics in the dynamics of group leadership. Participants included 1061 Chinese stud...

Leveraging data from a longitudinal study of Chinese families ( n = 364), this research aims to understand the role of secure base script knowledge as a cognitive mechanism by which early caregiving experiences inform adolescents’ friendship quality and feelings of loneliness. Results showed that observed maternal sensitivity at 14 and 24 months ol...

A growing body of literature shows that adherence to some aspects of Western masculinity norms, including the suppression of emotional vulnerability, avoidance of seeking support from others, and exaggerated physical toughness, is associated with poorer psychological and social outcomes. While existing research suggests that parental gender beliefs...

Self- and group orientations represent distinct ways of perceiving the relations between the world and the self and are relevant to adolescents’ development. Most of the existing studies in this area are cross-sectional, providing little information about how self- and group orientations develop. This 3-year longitudinal study examined the developm...

This study examined relations of affinity for solitude with social–behavioral, academic, and psychological adjustment in Chinese children and adolescents. The participants included 3,417 students (1,714 boys) in fourth, sixth, and eighth grades (Mages = 10, 12, and 14 years, respectively) in China. Data on affinity for solitude were collected from...

Loneliness is a perceived deficit in social relationships that is nested within broader cultural meaning systems. This longitudinal study examined predictors of loneliness in Chinese and U.S. children with the hypothesis that peer relationship parameters (number of friends, social preference, and popularity) mediate the associations between behavio...

Introduction As individuals enter adolescence, their preference for solitude (PFS) increases with age, which may be a result of balancing the need for social affiliation and the need for autonomy and independence. These needs are shaped by the social-cultural contexts, and thus the growth rate of PFS may differ across social-cultural contexts.This...

The goal of this longitudinal study was to examine developmental trajectories of emotional school engagement among Chinese elementary school children. In addition, we sought to explore the role of early peer relationships and academic achievement as predictors of these trajectories. Participants at the outset of the study were N = 1,136 second-grad...

Children's early temperamental characteristics have a pervasive impact on the development of socioemotional functioning. Through socialization and social interaction processes, cultural beliefs and values play a role in shaping the meanings of socioemotional characteristics and in determining their developmental patterns and outcomes. This Element...

This three-year longitudinal study explored the mediating role of depressive symptoms in the relations between IPC (IPC) and preference-for-solitude (PFS). Participants were 1,039 Chinese adolescents (53.9% boys) between 11 and 15 years old (MT1 = 12.37, SD = .58). Data were collected at three time points and included maternal reports of IPC, adole...

From late childhood, friendships as a distinct peer experience become increasingly salient in affecting individual development. This one-year longitudinal study examined same-domain and cross-domain effects of aggression and depression in friendships among early adolescents in China. Participants included 226 students (95 boys) within 113 friendshi...

Research in Western countries has shown a general declining trend of school satisfaction over time among adolescents, yet it remains unclear how social and school factors predict the developmental pattern. Moreover, relative to their Western counterparts, adolescents in China tend to report lower levels of school satisfaction, but little is known a...

This study examined the moderating effects of cultural orientations of peer groups on the relations between unsociability and psychological and school adjustment in Chinese children. Participants included 1,092 students (527 boys, M age = 12.21 years) in the sixth grade in elementary schools. Data on individualistic and collectivistic cultural orie...

This 1-year longitudinal study examined the effects of academic performance and depression in friendships among elementary school children in China. Participants included 1122 children (44% boys) within 561 stable friendship dyads initially in fourth and fifth grades (initial Mage = 11 years). Data on academic performance, depression, and friendshi...

Due to rapid urbanization and modernization, individual competitiveness has become increasingly important for individuals to acquire success in the contemporary Chinese society. This 1-year longitudinal study examined the relations between maternal encouragement of competitiveness and adjustment in Chinese adolescents (N = 1,493, 720 boys, Mage = 1...

The goal of this study was to explore longitudinal associations between preference for solitude (PFS) and depressive symptoms among early adolescents in mainland China, with a focus on separating between-person and within-person effects using a random intercept cross-lagged panel model (RI-CLPM). Participants were N = 1039 Chinese early adolescents...

The primary purpose of the present study was to examine the contributions of social, academic, and psychological characteristics of peer groups to individual development in the same and different domains in Chinese children. Participants included 1,864 elementary school students (945 boys, Mage = 11 years) in China. One-year longitudinal data on so...

Background Depression is a major mental disorder and poses a serious threat to public health. Bullying victimization is identified as one of the major risk factors for depression in adolescence. Understanding the mechanism that explain why bullying victimization leads to depression, and identifying protective factors that could alleviate the negati...

This 2‐year longitudinal study examined relations between enjoyment of learning in Chinese and mathematics, two major subjects in Chinese schools, and indexes of school performance. The participants included 1041 students (501 boys) initially in third, fifth, and seventh grades (mean age = 10.49 years) in China. Data on enjoyment of Chinese and mat...

Grandparents are an important source of social support for parents’ adjustment to parenthood. In this study, we examine how urban Chinese mothers experience grandmother support in relation to their parenting stress, based on the interview and survey data of a sample of 352 first-time mothers with 14-month-old children living in Nanjing, China. We f...

Previous research indicates that parental emotion socialization (ES) practices play important roles in adolescents’ social and emotional development. However, longitudinal studies testing bidirectional effects are relatively scarce. Additionally, most studies have focused on people from Western societies. In the current three-year, multi-informant,...

Happiness is valued as one of the most important goals in raising children, but what factors make children happy? Inspired by philosophical conceptions of ‘eudaimonia’ in life, we investigated how children’s social and academic functioning, including prosocial behaviors, peer preference, and academic achievement, may be related to happiness, over a...

Establishing a clear self-view is a key developmental task of adolescent. Peer interactions provide them with a salient way to form and shape the views about who I am, and friendships are especially important in this process. The previous studies mostly focused on the relations on self-views and peer relations at a variable-centered level, which wa...

Despite empirical findings that prosociality is related to decreased depressive symptoms in children, little is known about the directionality of the relations and the mechanisms that may explain the relations. To address these gaps, this study examined bi-directional associations between prosociality and depressive symptoms and the mediating effec...

Preferring to spend time alone (for any reason) has been empirically linked to symptoms of internalizing problems among Chinese children and early adolescents. However, little is known about the implications of affinity for solitude (i.e., an enjoyment of solitude) in China. Moreover, it remains unclear how affinity for solitude and depressive symp...

Preferring to spend time alone (for any reason) has been empirically linked to symptoms of internalizing problems among Chinese children and early adolescents. However, little is known about the implications of affinity for solitude (i.e., an enjoyment of solitude) in China. Moreover, it remains unclear how affinity for solitude and depressive symp...

The outbreak of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has pervasive implications for the well-being of people, especially for the social withdrawn individuals. The present study examined changes of well-being among people in distinct subgroups of social withdrawal – shyness, unsociability, and social avoidance –in different phases of the COVID-19 pan...

The goal of the present study was to explore the potential moderating role of quality of Parent–child relationships in the relations between child shyness and peer difficulties across the transition to middle school. Participants were 215 children attending public primary schools in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China, who were followed from Grade...

Drawing on survey and interview data from mothers of 14-month infants in Nanjing, China, we explore women’s job trajectories as they juggle work and family responsibilities. Four profiles that emerge among our sample of 371 mothers (high stability, rapid cyclers, high-paid wage-growth, and intermittent) reflected not only their work career trajecto...

This study examined the reciprocal relations between the parenting styles and adolescents' interpersonal personality in China. A total of 722 sixth-grade Chinese junior high school students reported their interpersonal relatedness (IR) personality trait and perceived parenting styles of their parents. Of these students, 411 completed the survey aga...

Few studies have been conducted to examine the role shyness plays in friendship selection and influences processes, particularly how befriending shy peers affects individual’s psychological adjustment. To address these gaps, this study investigated the selection, de-selection, same behavior influence effects of shyness in the friendship network in...

This study examined toddlers' autonomy- and connectedness-oriented behaviors and mothers' encouragement of autonomy and connectedness in two cohorts (1995 and 2008) in urban China. Observational data were collected from Chinese children and their mothers in a laboratory free play session. The results showed that compared with children in the 1995 c...

This 1-year longitudinal study examined the relations between maternal encouragement of sociability and social, school, and psychological adjustment in nonmigrant (n = 355, Mage = 9.90 years) and migrant children (n = 248, Mage = 9.95 years) in urban China. Data were obtained from multiple sources, including mothers' reports, peer nominations, teac...

The present study examined the moderating effects of social sensitivity in the relations between cybervictimization and school and psychological adjustment in Chinese children. Participants were 577 elementary school students in fifth and sixth grades (287 boys; Mage = 11 years) in Sichuan, China. Self-report data were collected on cybervictimizati...

The aim of this study is to identify the transactional pathways among maternal authoritative parenting, children's self-esteem, and approach coping strategies (i.e., problem solving coping and social support seeking coping). We collected three waves of data over three years from N = 888 Chinese children (50.3% girls; Mage = 9.83 years, SDage = 1.28...

This one‐year longitudinal study examined relations between acculturation and adjustment in rural‐to‐urban migrant children in China. Participants included 335 migrant students (initial mean age = 12 years, 198 boys) in fourth to sixth grades in public schools in Shanghai, China. Data on acculturation were collected from children's self‐reports, an...

The goal of this study is to examine the role of friendship quality in the links between shyness and children's psychological adjustment, and the potential moderating role of gender. Participants were N = 787 children in Grades 4–8 (Mage = 12.69 years, SD = 1.54) in Shanghai, People's Republic of China. They completed peer nomination items assessin...

This 1‐year longitudinal study investigated whether children's positive interpretations of maternal autonomy support moderated its relations with later sociability and assertiveness in China. Third to sixth graders (N = 889; 50.4% girls; Mage = 10.82 years, SD = 1.29) residing in Shanghai, P.R. China, reported maternal autonomy support and their in...

This study examined relations between behavioral inhibition in toddlerhood and social, school, and psychological adjustment in late adolescence in China. Data on behavioral inhibition were collected from a sample of 2-year-olds (initial N = 247). Follow-up data were collected at 7 years for peer relationships and 19 years for adjustment across doma...

Using data from a 2017 survey in western China, we examine whether remittances received from migrant family members and household work burden play moderating roles in children’s depression. We also explore the extent to which interpersonal factors (parent-child communication and parenting practices) and child’s intrapersonal personality trait (asse...

The present study examined how maternal power assertion and autonomy support were associated with children's social, school, and psychological adjustment in Korea. The participants were 631 Korean elementary school students (306 boys; mean age = 10.15 years) and their mothers. Maternal power assertion and autonomy support were assessed through moth...

As a type of social withdrawal, shyness in childhood and adolescence is associated with, and predictive of, maladjustment across different domains, including low social status, peer victimization, academic underachievement, and internalizing problems, in Western societies. However, cultural norms and values may play a role in shaping the functional...

This study examined reciprocal contributions between academic self‐perceptions and academic achievement. Data were collected each year in four consecutive years from a sample of children in China (initial N = 1,156; 581 boys; initial Mage = 9.33 years). Analyses using random intercept cross‐lagged panel models revealed that the effects of academic...

The goal of this study was to evaluate a complex theoretical model linking gender, unsociability, peer relations, and indices of psychological maladjustment among children in the People's Republic of China. Participants were 711 (395 boys) Grade 4 to Grade 8 (Mage = 10.98 years, SD = 1.56) students selected from 4 public schools in Shanghai. Multi‐...

The present study examined the relations of shyness and unsociability with indexes of adjustment in migrant and non-migrant Chinese children. Participants were migrant (n = 413) and non-migrant students (n = 513) in fourth to seventh grades (M age = 11.4 years) in urban China. Data on shyness, unsociability, and adjustment were collected from multi...

Introduction Victims of peer victimization are likely to develop psychological adjustment difficulties. The primary goal of the present study was to examine the moderating effects of conflict resolution strategies (solution‐orientation, control, nonconfrontation) on the relations between peer victimization and psychological problems (depressive sym...

The purpose of the present study was to examine the role of depressive peer group context in individual social and school adjustment in a sample of 1,430 Chinese adolescents (672 boys, mean age = 15.43 years) from middle ( n = 430) and high ( n = 1000) schools. Peer groups were identified using the Social Cognitive Map technique. One-year longitudi...

The purpose of this study was to examine the contributions of independent and interdependent personalities at both individual and peer-group levels to loneliness in Chinese adolescents. Participants included 651 junior high school students (M age = 11.48, SD age = 0.62; 263 girls). The participants were administered self-report measures of personal...

Objective: This study explores the transformation of patrilineality in grandparents' child care in China, which was traditionally oriented almost exclusively toward caring for sons' children. Background: Since China's 1949 revolution, grandparent child care has undergone rapid transformation, shifting from strongly patrilateral to bilateral or even...

Social competence is commonly considered an important factor that impedes maladaptive development because individuals who lack adequate competence to direct or control their behaviors in social situations are likely to display problems. Despite the belief that social competence may be a multi-dimensional construct, existing research has not explore...

This study examined the relations between parental migration and the adjustment of left-behind children and the mediating role of parental support in rural China. Data were collected for 4,429 students (2,229 boys, M age = 12 years) in public schools from peer evaluations, teacher ratings, self-reports, and school records. The analyses revealed dif...

The goal of this study was to explore links among shyness, receptive vocabulary, and indices of socioemotional functioning in a sample of young children in mainland urban China. In particular, we sought to examine the potential moderating role of receptive language in these relations. Participants were N = 360 young children (200 boys, 160 girls, M...

Accessing resources in peer groups is essential for youth’s survival and reproduction. To date, little is known about the behavioral strategies used by socially prominent preadolescent and early adolescent resource controllers in peer cliques, groups of individuals who hang out together during free time at school. Theory suggests that clique hierar...

This 1‐year longitudinal study examined relations between maternal power‐assertive parenting and children's social, academic and psychological adjustment in China. Participants were 316 elementary school children (mean age = 11 years, 153 boys). Maternal power‐assertive parenting was assessed using children's self‐reports. Data on children's social...

This study examined trajectories of shyness-sensitivity and the contributions of peer relationships to these trajectories in Chinese children. Participants were 1061 school-age children (537 boys), initially in fifth grade (Mage = 11 years), in China. Longitudinal data on shyness-sensitivity were collected from peer assessments once a year for four...

The purpose of this study was to examine school adjustment of rural-to-urban migrant children and its relations with acculturation in China. Migrant children were those whose official hukou status was in a rural region outside the city. Data were collected for 1175 students (M age=11 years) in urban public schools from multiple sources including pe...

The goal of this study was to explore longitudinal associations among child shyness, harsh maternal and paternal parenting styles, and close teacher-child relationships in the cultural context of contemporary urban China. Participants were N = 1,154 third through seventh-grade students (566 boys, 588 girls; Mage = 10.78 years, SD = 1.55), recruited...

The longitudinal associations between popularity, overt aggression, and relational aggression were assessed in middle school and high school cohorts drawn from a large urban Northwest Chinese city. The middle school (n = 880; 13.33 years.) and high school samples (n = 841; 16.66 years.) were each followed for 2 years. In the concurrent regression a...

This study examined self- and group-orientations and their associations with social and psychological adjustment among children in urban and rural China. We expected that self-orientation would be more strongly associated with adjustment in urban children than in rural children whereas group-orientation would be more strongly associated with adjust...

The goal of this study was to explore the moderating role of perceived parental psychological control in the links between shyness and socio-emotional adjustment in Chinese adolescents. Participants were N = 462 Grade 7 and 8 Chinese adolescents (246 boys, Mage = 13.42 years, SD = 8 months) recruited from four randomly selected public schools in Sh...

This study evaluates a model linking shyness, aspects of peer relations, and internalizing problems among young adolescents in the People's Republic of China. Participants were 547 young adolescents from Shanghai, China (46% boys; Mage = 10.35 years, SD = 0.77 years) who completed peer nominations of shyness, rejection, and victimization, and self‐...

Shyness refers to anxious reactivity in challenging social situations. Whereas shyness is believed to be biologically rooted, individual socialization experiences play a role in shaping its development. In this paper, I discuss issues related to culture, different forms of shyness, and adjustment. Cultural beliefs and values, particularly those rel...

An important issue in early socialization and human development is how parents exert control in parent-child interaction and how children comply with parental direction. Moreover, it is commonly believed that maternal control strategies may be affected by social-cultural contexts and their changes. Due to the dramatic social change in urban China o...

Existing Western literature about childcare reveals parents hire nannies to play the role of surrogate mother, reflecting Western-held assumptions that a mother caring for her child is the optimal arrangement, with nannies hired to fill this void in their absence. Through analysis of semi-structured interviews with 10 urban Chinese families, our st...

This study examined relations of social sensitivity to social, school, and psychological adjustment in rural Chinese, urban Chinese, and Canadian children. Participants were 4th to 6th grade students (Mage = 11 years) in China (n = 593 and 443 for the rural and urban samples) and Canada (n = 325). A self-report measure of social sensitivity was dev...

Relative to personality and many behavioral attributes, temperament is believed to be determined to a greater extent by genetic and other biological factors. Nevertheless, personal and social experiences are involved in temperamental development. In this paper, I discuss issues related to culture, temperament, and adjustment mainly from a contextua...

This 1-year longitudinal study examined maternal involvement in children’s leisure activities and its relations with children’s adjustment in rural China. Participants included 184 children (93 boys and 91 girls) initially in third grade (mean age = 9.31 years). Children were asked to report the frequencies of mothers’ involvement in leisure activi...

This study explored the longitudinal relations among peer victimization, depression, and academic achievement in Chinese primary school students. Participants were N = 945 fourth‐grade students (485 boys, 460 girls; M age = 10.16 years, SD = 2 months) attending elementary schools in Shanghai, People's Republic of China. Three waves of data on peer...

This study examined aspects of peer clique participation that mitigated victimization by peers over a school year. Participants were 1,033 children age 8–14 years (Mage = 11.81; 444 boys and 589 girls), including 128 (66 boys) victimized children. Cliques (N = 162) and clique participation were assessed by using the Social Cognitive Map, friendship...

Over the last several decades, theoretical and methodological advances in the fields of neuroscience, psychophysiology, and molecular genetics have extended into the study of cross-cultural differences in emotion. These advances have accompanied a rise in the use of biological methods and measures to examine cross-cultural differences of emotion pa...

The present study aimed to test whether monoamine oxidase A ( MAOA ) gene polymorphism was a marker of the genetic vulnerability model or the differential susceptibility model by investigating the interaction of MAOA gene polymorphism with maternal parenting on externalizing and internalizing problems and social competence among Chinese children. P...

Peer group interactional style was examined as a moderator of the relation between peer group school misconduct and group members' school misconduct. Participants were 705 students (Mage = 11.59 years, SD = 1.37) in 148 peer groups. Children reported on their school misconduct in fall and spring. In the winter, group members were observed in a limi...

This chapter focuses on the involvement of cultural factors in socioemotional development. According to the contextual-developmental perspective, whereas children display biases in early disposition, social interaction ascribes meaning to individual behaviors and determines, to a large extent, their developmental patterns. During social interaction...

Although childhood shyness has been associated with school-adjustment difficulties in contemporary research in China, the conceptual mechanisms that may underlie these relations remain underinvestigated. The goal of this study was to examine a complex theoretical model that explicates the roles of both peer preference and teacher–child relationship...

The purpose of this study was to explore the longitudinal links among Chinese children's self-control, social experiences, and loneliness, largely from a developmental cascades perspective (which postulates mechanisms about how effects within a particular domain of functioning can impact across additional domains over time). Participants were N = 1...

This study examined how shyness–sensitivity and unsociability were associated with social, school, and psychological adjustment in Chinese children and adolescents. Participants included 564 children (272 boys, M age=9 years) and 462 adolescents (246 boys, M age=13 years) in a suburban region in China. Data were obtained from peer assessments, soci...