No abstract

This study examined bidirectional associations between cross‐racial friendships and children's social and academic adjustment. Participants were 583 elementary school‐age children in western Canada, or the midwestern United States (4–10 years; 279 girls; 143 Asian, 88 Black, 65 Hispanic or Latinx, 171 White, 116 mixed). Children's adjustment (social preference, academic enablers, academic performance) and friendship nominations (reciprocated, received, given) were measured in fall and spring over one school year from 2017 to 2018, or from 2018 to 2019. Regarding reciprocated nominations, fall adjustment positively predicted spring reciprocated cross‐racial friendships, but not vice‐versa. For received nominations, academic enablers and received cross‐racial friendship nominations were positively and bidirectionally related to one another. Fall same‐racial friendship nominations positively predicted spring academic performance and social preference. Effect sizes were small.

Recent research has linked mindfulness to adults' false memory formation. This study investigated the effects of mindfulness on adolescents' event memory and suggestibility by using an "extensive" 8-week mindfulness program, an active control group, and a participatory to-be-remembered event. Students aged 13 to 14 were randomly assigned to a mindfulness or active control condition (socioemotional learning). After the seventh week, students participated in a target event and were immediately interviewed during which misleading information was presented. A week later, those in the mindfulness condition incorrectly reported more false information compared with those in the control group. Mindful practice did not affect memory encoding but had a negative effect during retention and retrieval. These findings suggest that adolescents who are exposed to mindfulness exercises may be susceptible to memory intrusions. Professionals should therefore be especially careful to avoid using suggestive and leading questions during investigative interviews with mindful adolescents.

Immigrants from East Asia make up 14.21% of the total number of immigrants in Canada. These families face many challenges as they acculturate to North America, but, sadly, some of these children may be at risk for sexual abuse. In this article, we outline the ways in which East Asian children, compared with Western nonimmigrant children, are at a particular disadvantage when considering prosecution of those who perpetrate abuse. We focus specifically on 3 areas of concern: (1) cultural differences that can shape children’s memory recall, (2) cultural differences that can impact the path of disclosure of sexual abuse, and (3) language differences that reduce the chances that perpetrators will be prosecuted for sexual abuse. The consequences for East Asian immigrant youth who allege (or are suspected) that they are victims of abuse are serious. East Asian children face an uphill battle to see justice in sexual abuse cases. Thus, a significant portion of immigrant children will not see their abusers punished, and, worse, the knowledge that prosecution is unlikely may make East Asian immigrant children vulnerable.

Culture shapes children’s memories. However, scant attention has been given to the influence of culture on specific memory stages. Thus, we conducted two controlled experiments to examine cultural differences in memory recall at immediate and delayed retrieval phases. In Studies 1 and 2 (n = 217), 7‐ to 10‐year‐old Chinese and Euro‐Canadian children watched a story involving both social‐ and individual‐focused scenarios. Participants then recalled the story immediately afterwards (Study 1) and 5–7 days later (Studies 1 and 2). Findings reveal that Chinese children accurately reported more details from the social‐focused events than did their Euro‐Canadian counterparts in the immediate interview, and this result was replicated after a delay in both studies. Moreover, as expected, within‐country comparisons showed that Euro‐Canadian children had better memory for individual‐ than for social‐focused events in both studies. Chinese children, however, showed better memory for social‐ than for individual‐focused events only in the immediate interview in Study 1; their delayed retrieval was not affected by event focus. These findings reveal that cultural variations in memory are evident in both immediate and delayed retrieval. Implications for future research are discussed.