Emma Armstrong‐carter
Biographic Data
| ID | 4415671 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Emma Armstrong‐carter |
| GIVEN NAMES | Emma |
| FAMILY NAME | Armstrong‐carter |
| SIGNATURE | CARTER E A |
| AFFILIATIONS | Stanford University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5847-9486 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 24 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 29 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 24 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2020 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Adolescents' contributions to the family in a community‐based sample: Links with emotional well‐being and individual differences
We documented how many adolescents contribute to their families through chores, emotional support, earning wages, and caregiving for children and family members with chronic illness. Further, we examined whether adolescents who contribute to their families in more ways differ in mental health from peers, controlling for social and economic resources, and with attention to potential demographic moderators. We drew from a diverse survey of 1854 ado…
Objectively measured smartphone pickups among adolescents: Associations with daily positive and negative affect and mindfulness
Adolescents' caregiving for family: Associations with mental health and academic performance
This study investigated adolescents' experiences caregiving for family members with chronic illness, disability, or aging-related needs. We examined differences in caregiving by maternal education level and associations with mental health and academic performance. A large, diverse sample of middle and high school students in Colorado (N = 49,540, 46% girls; ages 11-18, 31% Latine) reported how frequently they were caregiving for family each week,…
The duration and intensity of adolescents’ childcare and eldercare responsibilities: Links to short- and long-term educational outcomes
This longitudinal study documents individual differences in the intensity and duration of adolescents' childcare and eldercare responsibilities from ages 14 to 18. Further, it investigates how adolescents' caregiving responsibilities are associated with socioeconomic background, and educational achievement in high school and at midlife. Participants ( N = 1,130, 52% female, 12% Asian, 9% Black, 4% Hispanic) were followed longitudinally from ages …
Understanding households in which very young children are contributing to the family
“I Missed School to Take Care of Someone Else”: Middle and High School Students' Caregiving Responsibilities as a Reason for Absenteeism
BACKGROUND: Middle and high school students who are involved in caregiving for aging, chronically ill, and/or disabled family members report more learning challenges compared to their non-caregiving peers. However, little is known about how many students miss school to take care of someone else, and which students are most likely to have this experience. Such knowledge could reveal an important, largely unrecognized reason for school absences and…
The challenge of identifying young carers in the US: How State Laws Put Families at Risk for Separation
Linking video chatting, phone calling, text messaging, and social media with peers to adolescent connectedness
For 14 days three times per day (6072 observations), adolescents (N = 207, M age = 15.45 years) reported their digital (i.e., video chatting, texting, social media, and phone calling) communication with peers and their social connectedness. Controlling for in-person interactions, adolescents felt more connected in hours when they had communicated with peers by video chatting, texting, or social media, but not phone calling. Girls communicated wit…
Momentary links between adolescents’ social media use and social experiences and motivations: Individual differences by peer susceptibility
This longitudinal ecological momentary assessment study examined whether adolescents' use of social media to interact with peers relates to their experiences of social connectedness, social craving, and sensation seeking on an hourly level. Further, we investigated whether these associations differ for adolescents who were nominated by their peers as more or less susceptible to social influences, because highly susceptible youth may be more stron…
A university-wide survey of caregiving students in the US: Individual differences and associations with emotional and academic adjustment
The United States (US) does not formally count, recognize, or support students in higher education who are caregivers, unlike England and Australia. This mixed-methods study presents results from a new survey of caregiving undergraduate and graduate students at a large university in the US. Students ( N = 7592; 62.7% White, 69.9% women) reported their caregiving responsibilities, depression, and anxiety, which were linked to administrative record…
Adolescents’ perceptions of social risk and prosocial tendencies: Developmental change and individual differences
Many prosocial behaviors involve social risks such as speaking out against a popular opinion, bias, group norm, or authority. However, little is known about whether adolescents' prosocial tendencies develop over time with their perceptions of social risks. This accelerated longitudinal study used within-subject growth-curve analyses to test the link between prosocial tendencies and social risk perceptions, in a sample of adolescents who completed…
Black adolescents’ support to the family and educational outcomes: Differences by household income
Using a strengths‐based approach, this study investigated whether Black adolescents’ provision of different types of support to family (chores, childcare, emotional, financial support) was associated with their educational outcomes (school engagement, grades, suspensions), and whether these associations differed by household income levels. The study used the nationally representative National Survey of American Life Adolescent Supplement data ( N…
The affective harm account (AHA) of moral judgment: Reconciling cognition and affect, dyadic morality and disgust, harm and purity
Moral psychology has long debated whether moral judgment is rooted in harm versus affect. We reconcile this debate with the affective harm account (AHA) of moral judgment. The AHA understands harm as an intuitive perception (i.e., perceived harm), and divides "affect" into two: embodied visceral arousal (i.e., gut feelings) and stimulus-directed affective appraisals (e.g., ratings of disgustingness). The AHA was tested in a randomized, double-bli…
Examining a new prosocial risk‐taking scale in a longitudinal sample of ethnically diverse adolescents
INTRODUCTION: This longitudinal study designed and tested the validity of a new measure of prosocial risk taking - risks that individuals take in order to help others. METHODS: The sample was racially and ethnically diverse adolescents in the rural Southeastern United States (N = 867; Mage = 12.82 years, 10-14 years at Wave 1; 50% Girls, 33% White non-Latinx, 27% Latinx, 20% Black, 20% Mixed/Other race/ethnicity). Adolescents completed self-repor…
Young Children’s Prosocial Behavior Protects Against Academic Risk in Neighborhoods With Low Socioeconomic Status
Children raised in neighborhoods with low socioeconomic status (SES) are at risk for low academic achievement. Identifying factors that help children from disadvantaged neighborhoods thrive is critical for reducing inequalities. We investigated whether children’s prosocial behavior buffers concurrent and subsequent academic risk in disadvantaged neighborhoods in Bradford, UK. Diverse children (N = 1,175) were followed until age seven, with measur…
Β-Adrenergic Contributions to Emotion and Physiology During an Acute Psychosocial Stressor
OBJECTIVE: β-Adrenergic receptor signaling, a critical mediator of sympathetic nervous system influences on physiology and behavior, has long been proposed as one contributor to subjective stress. However, prior findings are surprisingly mixed about whether β-blockade (e.g., propranolol) blunts subjective stress, with many studies reporting no effects. We reevaluated this question in the context of an acute psychosocial stressor with more compreh…
Family Assistance Spills Over Into Prosocial Behaviors Toward Friends and Positive Academic Behaviors
We investigate how daily family assistance predicts prosocial behaviors toward friends and positive academic behavior. Adolescents (N = 375, 57% girls, M age = 14.57) completed diary checklists for 14 days, reporting whether they provided instrumental assistance or emotional support to family and friends, and their positive academic behaviors (e.g., studied). When adolescents provided emotional support to family, they were more likely to provide …
Adolescents Are More Likely to Help Others on Days They Take Risks and Crave Social Connections
This study examined how adolescents' risk-taking behaviors were related to their prosocial behaviors on a daily level and how this association differed depending on adolescents' daily and average levels of sensation seeking and social craving. Adolescents (N = 212; M age = 15 years) completed daily diaries for 14 days. Adolescents were more likely to engage in prosocial behavior on days when they also took risks, but only when they also felt high…
Early and concurrent home stimulation: Unique and indirect links with fine motor skills among 4-year-old children in rural Pakistan
Fine motor skills enable children to make precise and coordinated movements with their hands and support their ability to engage in everyday activities and learning experiences. In a longitudinal study of 1,058 4-year-old children in rural Pakistan (n = 488 girls), we examined how prior and concurrent levels of home stimulation relate to change in fine motor skills from ages 2 to 4 while controlling for family wealth, maternal education, number o…
Role Fulfillment Mediates the Association Between Daily Family Assistance and Cortisol Awakening Response in Adolescents
Family assistance (helping the family) is associated with both positive and negative psychological and biological outcomes during adolescence. However, the association between family assistance and the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis remains unstudied. Thus, we assess how helping the family relates to adolescents’ diurnal cortisol, an index of HPA activity, and psychological outcomes. Three hundred and seventy ethnically diverse adolesc…
Interactions between Polygenic Scores and Environments: Methodological and Conceptual Challenges
Interest in the study of gene-environment interaction has recently grown due to the sudden availability of molecular genetic data-in particular, polygenic scores-in many long-running longitudinal studies. Identifying and estimating statistical interactions comes with several analytic and inferential challenges; these challenges are heightened when used to integrate observational genomic and social science data. We articulate some of these key cha…
Self‐regulated behavior and parent‐child co‐regulation are associated with young children's physiological response to receiving critical adult feedback
Using piecewise growth curve trajectory modeling, we investigated kindergartners' physiological responses to receiving critical feedback from an adult during a laboratory drawing task. Further, we tested how children's independent self‐regulated behavior, as well as the quality of parent‐child co‐regulation, related to physiological reactivity to and recovery from this challenge. We used respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) to measure parasympathet…
Daily Links Between Helping Behaviors and Emotional Well‐Being During Late Adolescence
We investigated daily associations between helping behaviors and emotional well-being during late adolescence, examining whether these links depend on the recipient of help (i.e., friend vs. roommate), type of help (i.e., instrumental vs. emotional), and individual differences in the helper (i.e., gender and empathy). First-year college students (N = 411, 63.5% women, M age = 18.62 years) completed diary checklists for eight days, reporting wheth…
Family meals buffer the daily emotional risk associated with family conflict
Family meals have been associated with positive adolescent outcomes in cross-sectional and longitudinal research. However, it is not known how adolescents experience family meals on a daily basis, and whether family meals buffer stresses associated with interpersonal conflicts on the daily level. To address this gap in the literature, adolescents ( N = 396, 58% female, M age = 14.57 years) completed diary checklists for up to 14 days, reporting t…
The affective harm account (AHA) of moral judgment: Reconciling cognition and affect, dyadic morality and disgust, harm and purity
Moral psychology has long debated whether moral judgment is rooted in harm versus affect. We reconcile this debate with the affective harm account (AHA) of moral judgment. The AHA understands harm as an intuitive perception (i.e., perceived harm), and divides "affect" into two: embodied visceral arousal (i.e., gut feelings) and stimulus-directed affective appraisals (e.g., ratings of disgustingness). The AHA was tested in a randomized, double-bli…
Daily Links Between Helping Behaviors and Emotional Well‐Being During Late Adolescence
We investigated daily associations between helping behaviors and emotional well-being during late adolescence, examining whether these links depend on the recipient of help (i.e., friend vs. roommate), type of help (i.e., instrumental vs. emotional), and individual differences in the helper (i.e., gender and empathy). First-year college students (N = 411, 63.5% women, M age = 18.62 years) completed diary checklists for eight days, reporting wheth…
Family meals buffer the daily emotional risk associated with family conflict
Family meals have been associated with positive adolescent outcomes in cross-sectional and longitudinal research. However, it is not known how adolescents experience family meals on a daily basis, and whether family meals buffer stresses associated with interpersonal conflicts on the daily level. To address this gap in the literature, adolescents ( N = 396, 58% female, M age = 14.57 years) completed diary checklists for up to 14 days, reporting t…
Momentary links between adolescents’ social media use and social experiences and motivations: Individual differences by peer susceptibility
This longitudinal ecological momentary assessment study examined whether adolescents' use of social media to interact with peers relates to their experiences of social connectedness, social craving, and sensation seeking on an hourly level. Further, we investigated whether these associations differ for adolescents who were nominated by their peers as more or less susceptible to social influences, because highly susceptible youth may be more stron…
Adolescents Are More Likely to Help Others on Days They Take Risks and Crave Social Connections
This study examined how adolescents' risk-taking behaviors were related to their prosocial behaviors on a daily level and how this association differed depending on adolescents' daily and average levels of sensation seeking and social craving. Adolescents (N = 212; M age = 15 years) completed daily diaries for 14 days. Adolescents were more likely to engage in prosocial behavior on days when they also took risks, but only when they also felt high…
Linking video chatting, phone calling, text messaging, and social media with peers to adolescent connectedness
For 14 days three times per day (6072 observations), adolescents (N = 207, M age = 15.45 years) reported their digital (i.e., video chatting, texting, social media, and phone calling) communication with peers and their social connectedness. Controlling for in-person interactions, adolescents felt more connected in hours when they had communicated with peers by video chatting, texting, or social media, but not phone calling. Girls communicated wit…
Adolescents’ perceptions of social risk and prosocial tendencies: Developmental change and individual differences
Many prosocial behaviors involve social risks such as speaking out against a popular opinion, bias, group norm, or authority. However, little is known about whether adolescents' prosocial tendencies develop over time with their perceptions of social risks. This accelerated longitudinal study used within-subject growth-curve analyses to test the link between prosocial tendencies and social risk perceptions, in a sample of adolescents who completed…
Black adolescents’ support to the family and educational outcomes: Differences by household income
Using a strengths‐based approach, this study investigated whether Black adolescents’ provision of different types of support to family (chores, childcare, emotional, financial support) was associated with their educational outcomes (school engagement, grades, suspensions), and whether these associations differed by household income levels. The study used the nationally representative National Survey of American Life Adolescent Supplement data ( N…
Family Assistance Spills Over Into Prosocial Behaviors Toward Friends and Positive Academic Behaviors
We investigate how daily family assistance predicts prosocial behaviors toward friends and positive academic behavior. Adolescents (N = 375, 57% girls, M age = 14.57) completed diary checklists for 14 days, reporting whether they provided instrumental assistance or emotional support to family and friends, and their positive academic behaviors (e.g., studied). When adolescents provided emotional support to family, they were more likely to provide …
Self‐regulated behavior and parent‐child co‐regulation are associated with young children's physiological response to receiving critical adult feedback
Using piecewise growth curve trajectory modeling, we investigated kindergartners' physiological responses to receiving critical feedback from an adult during a laboratory drawing task. Further, we tested how children's independent self‐regulated behavior, as well as the quality of parent‐child co‐regulation, related to physiological reactivity to and recovery from this challenge. We used respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) to measure parasympathet…
Role Fulfillment Mediates the Association Between Daily Family Assistance and Cortisol Awakening Response in Adolescents
Family assistance (helping the family) is associated with both positive and negative psychological and biological outcomes during adolescence. However, the association between family assistance and the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis remains unstudied. Thus, we assess how helping the family relates to adolescents’ diurnal cortisol, an index of HPA activity, and psychological outcomes. Three hundred and seventy ethnically diverse adolesc…
Interactions between Polygenic Scores and Environments: Methodological and Conceptual Challenges
Interest in the study of gene-environment interaction has recently grown due to the sudden availability of molecular genetic data-in particular, polygenic scores-in many long-running longitudinal studies. Identifying and estimating statistical interactions comes with several analytic and inferential challenges; these challenges are heightened when used to integrate observational genomic and social science data. We articulate some of these key cha…
Self‐regulated behavior and parent‐child co‐regulation are associated with young children's physiological response to receiving critical adult feedback
Using piecewise growth curve trajectory modeling, we investigated kindergartners' physiological responses to receiving critical feedback from an adult during a laboratory drawing task. Further, we tested how children's independent self‐regulated behavior, as well as the quality of parent‐child co‐regulation, related to physiological reactivity to and recovery from this challenge. We used respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) to measure parasympathet…
Daily Links Between Helping Behaviors and Emotional Well‐Being During Late Adolescence
We investigated daily associations between helping behaviors and emotional well-being during late adolescence, examining whether these links depend on the recipient of help (i.e., friend vs. roommate), type of help (i.e., instrumental vs. emotional), and individual differences in the helper (i.e., gender and empathy). First-year college students (N = 411, 63.5% women, M age = 18.62 years) completed diary checklists for eight days, reporting wheth…
Family meals buffer the daily emotional risk associated with family conflict
Family meals have been associated with positive adolescent outcomes in cross-sectional and longitudinal research. However, it is not known how adolescents experience family meals on a daily basis, and whether family meals buffer stresses associated with interpersonal conflicts on the daily level. To address this gap in the literature, adolescents ( N = 396, 58% female, M age = 14.57 years) completed diary checklists for up to 14 days, reporting t…
Examining a new prosocial risk‐taking scale in a longitudinal sample of ethnically diverse adolescents
INTRODUCTION: This longitudinal study designed and tested the validity of a new measure of prosocial risk taking - risks that individuals take in order to help others. METHODS: The sample was racially and ethnically diverse adolescents in the rural Southeastern United States (N = 867; Mage = 12.82 years, 10-14 years at Wave 1; 50% Girls, 33% White non-Latinx, 27% Latinx, 20% Black, 20% Mixed/Other race/ethnicity). Adolescents completed self-repor…
Young Children’s Prosocial Behavior Protects Against Academic Risk in Neighborhoods With Low Socioeconomic Status
Children raised in neighborhoods with low socioeconomic status (SES) are at risk for low academic achievement. Identifying factors that help children from disadvantaged neighborhoods thrive is critical for reducing inequalities. We investigated whether children’s prosocial behavior buffers concurrent and subsequent academic risk in disadvantaged neighborhoods in Bradford, UK. Diverse children (N = 1,175) were followed until age seven, with measur…
Β-Adrenergic Contributions to Emotion and Physiology During an Acute Psychosocial Stressor
OBJECTIVE: β-Adrenergic receptor signaling, a critical mediator of sympathetic nervous system influences on physiology and behavior, has long been proposed as one contributor to subjective stress. However, prior findings are surprisingly mixed about whether β-blockade (e.g., propranolol) blunts subjective stress, with many studies reporting no effects. We reevaluated this question in the context of an acute psychosocial stressor with more compreh…
Family Assistance Spills Over Into Prosocial Behaviors Toward Friends and Positive Academic Behaviors
We investigate how daily family assistance predicts prosocial behaviors toward friends and positive academic behavior. Adolescents (N = 375, 57% girls, M age = 14.57) completed diary checklists for 14 days, reporting whether they provided instrumental assistance or emotional support to family and friends, and their positive academic behaviors (e.g., studied). When adolescents provided emotional support to family, they were more likely to provide …
Adolescents Are More Likely to Help Others on Days They Take Risks and Crave Social Connections
This study examined how adolescents' risk-taking behaviors were related to their prosocial behaviors on a daily level and how this association differed depending on adolescents' daily and average levels of sensation seeking and social craving. Adolescents (N = 212; M age = 15 years) completed daily diaries for 14 days. Adolescents were more likely to engage in prosocial behavior on days when they also took risks, but only when they also felt high…
Early and concurrent home stimulation: Unique and indirect links with fine motor skills among 4-year-old children in rural Pakistan
Fine motor skills enable children to make precise and coordinated movements with their hands and support their ability to engage in everyday activities and learning experiences. In a longitudinal study of 1,058 4-year-old children in rural Pakistan (n = 488 girls), we examined how prior and concurrent levels of home stimulation relate to change in fine motor skills from ages 2 to 4 while controlling for family wealth, maternal education, number o…
A university-wide survey of caregiving students in the US: Individual differences and associations with emotional and academic adjustment
The United States (US) does not formally count, recognize, or support students in higher education who are caregivers, unlike England and Australia. This mixed-methods study presents results from a new survey of caregiving undergraduate and graduate students at a large university in the US. Students ( N = 7592; 62.7% White, 69.9% women) reported their caregiving responsibilities, depression, and anxiety, which were linked to administrative record…
Adolescents’ perceptions of social risk and prosocial tendencies: Developmental change and individual differences
Many prosocial behaviors involve social risks such as speaking out against a popular opinion, bias, group norm, or authority. However, little is known about whether adolescents' prosocial tendencies develop over time with their perceptions of social risks. This accelerated longitudinal study used within-subject growth-curve analyses to test the link between prosocial tendencies and social risk perceptions, in a sample of adolescents who completed…
Black adolescents’ support to the family and educational outcomes: Differences by household income
Using a strengths‐based approach, this study investigated whether Black adolescents’ provision of different types of support to family (chores, childcare, emotional, financial support) was associated with their educational outcomes (school engagement, grades, suspensions), and whether these associations differed by household income levels. The study used the nationally representative National Survey of American Life Adolescent Supplement data ( N…
The affective harm account (AHA) of moral judgment: Reconciling cognition and affect, dyadic morality and disgust, harm and purity
Moral psychology has long debated whether moral judgment is rooted in harm versus affect. We reconcile this debate with the affective harm account (AHA) of moral judgment. The AHA understands harm as an intuitive perception (i.e., perceived harm), and divides "affect" into two: embodied visceral arousal (i.e., gut feelings) and stimulus-directed affective appraisals (e.g., ratings of disgustingness). The AHA was tested in a randomized, double-bli…
Linking video chatting, phone calling, text messaging, and social media with peers to adolescent connectedness
For 14 days three times per day (6072 observations), adolescents (N = 207, M age = 15.45 years) reported their digital (i.e., video chatting, texting, social media, and phone calling) communication with peers and their social connectedness. Controlling for in-person interactions, adolescents felt more connected in hours when they had communicated with peers by video chatting, texting, or social media, but not phone calling. Girls communicated wit…
Momentary links between adolescents’ social media use and social experiences and motivations: Individual differences by peer susceptibility
This longitudinal ecological momentary assessment study examined whether adolescents' use of social media to interact with peers relates to their experiences of social connectedness, social craving, and sensation seeking on an hourly level. Further, we investigated whether these associations differ for adolescents who were nominated by their peers as more or less susceptible to social influences, because highly susceptible youth may be more stron…
“I Missed School to Take Care of Someone Else”: Middle and High School Students' Caregiving Responsibilities as a Reason for Absenteeism
BACKGROUND: Middle and high school students who are involved in caregiving for aging, chronically ill, and/or disabled family members report more learning challenges compared to their non-caregiving peers. However, little is known about how many students miss school to take care of someone else, and which students are most likely to have this experience. Such knowledge could reveal an important, largely unrecognized reason for school absences and…
The challenge of identifying young carers in the US: How State Laws Put Families at Risk for Separation
Objectively measured smartphone pickups among adolescents: Associations with daily positive and negative affect and mindfulness
Adolescents' caregiving for family: Associations with mental health and academic performance
This study investigated adolescents' experiences caregiving for family members with chronic illness, disability, or aging-related needs. We examined differences in caregiving by maternal education level and associations with mental health and academic performance. A large, diverse sample of middle and high school students in Colorado (N = 49,540, 46% girls; ages 11-18, 31% Latine) reported how frequently they were caregiving for family each week,…
The duration and intensity of adolescents’ childcare and eldercare responsibilities: Links to short- and long-term educational outcomes
This longitudinal study documents individual differences in the intensity and duration of adolescents' childcare and eldercare responsibilities from ages 14 to 18. Further, it investigates how adolescents' caregiving responsibilities are associated with socioeconomic background, and educational achievement in high school and at midlife. Participants ( N = 1,130, 52% female, 12% Asian, 9% Black, 4% Hispanic) were followed longitudinally from ages …
Understanding households in which very young children are contributing to the family
Adolescents' contributions to the family in a community‐based sample: Links with emotional well‐being and individual differences
We documented how many adolescents contribute to their families through chores, emotional support, earning wages, and caregiving for children and family members with chronic illness. Further, we examined whether adolescents who contribute to their families in more ways differ in mental health from peers, controlling for social and economic resources, and with attention to potential demographic moderators. We drew from a diverse survey of 1854 ado…
Psychology (22 works) · Developmental psychology (19 works) · Social Psychology (13 works) · Medicine (9 works) · Social Psychology (9 works) · Clinical Psychology (8 works) · Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development (7 works) · Family Support in Illness (7 works) · Early Childhood Education and Development (5 works) · Prosocial behavior (5 works)