Psychometric Challenges in the Measurement of Constructs Underlying Criminal Responsibility in Children and Young Adults: A Cross-Sectional Study

At present, many countries have lowered the minimum age of criminal responsibility to deal with the trend of juvenile crime. In practical terms, whether countries advocate for lowering the age of criminal responsibility along with early puberty, or regulating the minimum age of juvenile criminal responsibility through their policies, their deep-rooted hypothesis is that age is tied to adolescents’ psychological growth, and, with the rise in age, the capacity for dialectical thinking, self-control, and empathy gradually improves. With this study, we aimed to test whether this hypothesis is valid. The participants were 3,208 students from junior high school, senior high school, and freshman in the S province of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). We subjected the gathered materials to independent-samples t-tests, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), linear regression analysis, and Bonferroni post hoc test. The influence of the age variable upon dialectical thinking, self-control, and empathy was significant (p = 0.002, p = 0.000, p = 0.072), but only empathy was positively correlated with age variable (B = 0.032); dialectical thinking ability (B = −0.057), and self-control ability (B = −0.212) were negatively correlated with the age variable. Bonferroni post hoc test confirmed these findings. Therefore, we concluded the following: (1) Juvenile criminal responsibility, based on the capacity for dialectical thinking, self-control, and empathy, is not positively correlated with age. (2) Age is not the only basis on which to judge a juvenile’s criminal responsibility. (3) More research that directly links age differences in brain structure and function to age differences in legally relevant capacities and capabilities(e.g., dialectical thinking, self-control, and empathy) is needed. (4) Political countries should appropriately raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility and adopt the doli incapax principle in the judicial process.

Grateful Expectations: Cultural Differences in the Curvilinear Association between Age and Gratitude

Recent research suggests that the association between age and gratitude might be curvilinear—despite gratitude ostensibly being higher in middle-age, it might be lower in older adulthood. It is unclear if this curvilinear pattern of age differences in gratitude is found in other samples and whether its manifestation depends on contextual (i.e., national/cultural) characteristics. The current study examined cultural variation in the curvilinear effect of age on gratitude in a sample of over 4.5 million participants from 88 countries. Participants from countries with lower levels of human development, a shorter-term orientation, and higher levels of indulgence reported higher levels of gratitude. Cultural moderation effects were very small, suggesting that curvilinear effects of age on gratitude may be relatively comparable across cultures.

Prevalence and self-reported reasons of cannabis use for medical purposes in USA and Canada

Rationale There has been increasing attention on cannabis use for medical purposes, but there is currently a lack of data on its epidemiology. Objectives To examine the epidemiology of self-reported cannabis use for medical purposes by (1) estimating its prevalence, (2) comparing gender and age differences, and (3) investigating what reasons they were used to manage. Methods Participants included 27,169 respondents (aged 16–65) who completed Wave 1 of The International Cannabis Policy Study (ICPS) conducted across Canada and the USA in 2018 via online surveys. Cannabis policy conditions were “US legal–recreational” (legal for both recreational and medical uses), “US legal–medical only”, “US illegal”, and “Canada–medical only”. Results The overall prevalence of self-reported ever cannabis use for medical purposes was 27%, with similar rates by sex and the highest prevalence in young adults. Prevalence was higher in US legal–recreational states (34%) than US illegal states (23%), US legal–medical only states (25%), and Canada (25%). The most common physical health reasons include use to manage pain (53%), sleep (46%), headaches/migraines (35%), appetite (22%), and nausea/vomiting (21%). For mental health reasons, the most common were for anxiety (52%), depression (40%), and PTSD/trauma (17%). There were 11% who reported using cannabis for managing other drug or alcohol use and 4% for psychosis. Conclusions A substantial proportion of the North American population self-reported cannabis use for medical purposes for a variety of medical reasons, including those living in jurisdictions without legal markets. Further research is needed to understand the safety and efficacy of these forms of medical cannabis use.

Pronoun production remains stable over the adult lifespan for contexts with topic continuity

A prevalent finding in the referential communication literature is that older adults produce more ambiguous pronouns than younger adults, likely because they have difficulty determining the prominence of referents. This finding has been widely understood to reflect a general age-related deficit in communication. However, all studies from this line of work have used materials involving topic shifts (i.e. when the to-be-named referent shifts from one character to another, which requires perspective-taking and can be cognitively costly). To determine the extent to which younger and older adults’ pronominal use diverges, we investigated whether other aspects of the discourse context influence age-related differences in referential choice, apart from topic shifts. Here we tested a large sample of adults (N=496, ages 18-82) using narrative elicitation tasks across four experiments and nine contexts of topic continuity (i.e. contexts in which the to-be-named referent remained the same). In Experiments 1 and 2, we varied the number of characters in the scene while keeping the sex/gender of the characters distinct and found that pronominal use did not differ by age for scenes with 1, 2, and 3 characters. In Experiments 3 and 4, we varied the number of characters, the sex/gender of those characters (such that they were the same or different), and the linguistic emphasis placed on the main character. Again, we found no age differences across all conditions. Taken together, our findings suggest that older adults’ difficulty with prominence estimates is not all- encompassing, but rather appears to be confined to contexts involving topic shifts.

Work changes and employee age, maladaptive coping expectations, and well-being: a Swedish cohort study

Purpose Older workers are expected to suffer more from work changes than younger ones, but empirical evidence is lacking. Negative responses to work changes may result rather from maladaptive coping expectations. This study examined possible age differences in job and life satisfaction, and sleep disturbances, after work changes (voluntary and involuntary job changes, reorganizations) and the moderating role of maladaptive coping expectations. Methods Four biennial waves from the Swedish Longitudinal Occupational Survey of Health (SLOSH) including respondents who participated in all four waves (n = 3084). We used multilevel path analyses to estimate direct and moderated relationships between work changes and outcomes. Results Involuntary job changes were associated with lower job and life satisfaction and more sleep disturbances. Reorganizations were only associated with lower job satisfaction. Older employees were more satisfied with their jobs and lives than younger employees and experienced more sleep disturbances. After involuntary job changes, older employees had similar (lower) levels of well-being as younger ones, but they reported more sleep disturbances when having experienced reorganizations. Maladaptive coping expectations were related to lower job and life satisfaction and more sleep disturbances. Employees with maladaptive coping expectations reported more sleep disturbances after involuntary job changes and reorganizations. Conclusion Our results suggest that there are few age differences in well-being after work changes. Employee well-being seems to mostly depend on maladaptive coping expectations. Organizations aiming to prepare employees for job changes and reorganizations could focus their efforts on employees with maladaptive expectations rather than on older ones.

Age Differences in the Social Associative Learning of Trust Information

Trust is a key component of social interaction. Older adults, however, often exhibit excessive trust relative to younger adults. One explanation is that older adults may learn to trust differently than younger adults. Here, we examine how younger (N=33) and older adults (N=30) learn to trust over time. Participants completed a classic iterative trust game with three partners. Younger and older adults shared similar amounts but differed in how they shared money. Compared to younger adults, older adults invested more with untrustworthy partners and less with trustworthy partners. As a group, older adults displayed less learning than younger adults. However, computational modeling shows that this is because older adults are more likely to forget what they have learned over time. Model-based fMRI analyses revealed several age-related differences in neural processing. Younger adults showed prediction error signals in social processing areas while older adults showed over-recruitment of several cortical areas. Collectively, these findings suggest that older adults attend to and learn from social cues differently from younger adults.

Grateful expectations: Cultural differences in the curvilinear association between age and gratitude

Recent research suggests that the association between age and gratitude might be curvilinear—despite gratitude ostensibly being higher in middle-age, it might be lower in older adulthood. It is unclear if this curvilinear pattern of age differences in gratitude is found in other samples and whether its manifestation depends on contextual (i.e., national/cultural) characteristics. The current study examined cultural variation in the curvilinear effect of age on gratitude in a sample of over 4.5 million participants from 88 countries. Participants from countries with lower levels of human development, a shorter-term orientation, and higher levels of indulgence reported higher levels of gratitude. Cultural moderation effects were very small, suggesting that curvilinear effects of age on gratitude may be relatively comparable across cultures.

Ethnic Identity and Patriotism in Adolescents: The Role of Age, Group Status and Social Context

The aim of this study was to examine age differences of minority and majority adolescents regarding ethnic identity, in-group bias (as a form of ethnic attachment), and constructive and blind patriotism (as a form of national attachment). The study was conducted in four multi-ethnic contexts in Croatia: Croatian-Czech, Croatian-Hungarian, Croatian-Serbian and Croatian-Italian. The results of N = 924 students of primary (sixth, seventh and eighth grade) and secondary (second, third and fourth grade) schools were analysed. The average age was M = 14.99, SD = 2.17 years. Younger pupils express higher levels of ethnic identity and blind patriotism, whereas constructive patriotism was more expressed in older students. There were no age differences in in-group bias. Minority pupils exhibit lower levels of bias, while majority members are more prone to bias in the Croatian-Serbian and Croatian- -Hungarian contexts. Furthermore, majority pupils are more willing to express constructive, but also blind patriotism.