This longitudinal study examined the impact of L2 acquisition on the narrative development of L1-Turkish dominant children who were exposed to L2-English immersion compared to their peers who were not exposed to L2-English immersion but to L1-Turkish. The study involved 155 children, aged 5, 7, and 9 at Time 1, assessing their narrative production, linguistic complexity, and narrative comprehension over a one-year period. Children who were exposed to L2-English immersion received intensive L2-English instruction from a young age while living in an L1-Turkish dominant society. For both time points, L2-English immersion children performed better than L1-Turkish dominant children for L1 narrative production. While no overall group differences emerged in linguistic complexity, L2-English immersion children exhibited higher complexity in L1 relative to their L2 for both time points, suggesting a facilitative effect of early L2 exposure on L1 narrative structure. These findings support the idea that bilingualism may foster narrative skills. These results highlight the importance of early bilingual education, especially when both languages are equally supported, contributing to children’s overall language development.

Variability in the second language (L2) referential choice could be due to lower language proficiency in the L2 or cross-linguistic influence. We compare the L2 English referential choices of bilinguals of typologically different languages (Spanish and English, null subject and non-null subject) to those of bilinguals of typologically similar languages (Dutch and English, both non-null subject and both using pronouns similarly in the target context). Bilinguals’ performance was further compared to that of a group of functional monolingual English speakers. Both bilingual groups were highly proficient, to explore whether high proficiency would attenuate differences with monolinguals. Participants completed a picture-description task eliciting references to antecedents in two-character contexts. Performance was comparable among all three groups in all conditions—evidence that cross-linguistic influence did not play a role for bilingual referential choices. These results thus show that highly proficient bilinguals of both typologically different and similar languages can perform comparably to monolinguals.

The increasing levels of job demands and work stress experienced daily by workers in multiple contexts have increased the experience of the need for recovery after work. This study aims to provide validity evidence for the Danish Need for Recovery (NFR) Scale. We analyzed the psychometric properties of the scale, its factor structure, internal consistency, measurement invariance, and validity based on relationships with other variables (job stress, general health, and affective states) in two samples of Spanish workers. The results obtained through exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses strongly support the unidimensional structure of the Spanish version of the NFR in its full eight-item version after eliminating one item not applicable in our cultural context, with good data fit. The values obtained regarding internal consistency, besides measurement invariance across groups, ensure the scale’s reliability and applicability. The validity and associations with other constructs tested were also confirmed in the hypothesized relationships with the respective variables analyzed. However, the short three-item version does not present a better fit compared to the full version in its Spanish validation. The Spanish adaptation of the Danish NFR scale in its full eight-item version constitutes a reliable and valid instrument for the assessment of this construct. The methodological and practical implications of the Spanish version of the NFR scale are detailed in the discussion.

Researchers have long speculated about the evolutionary benefits of religiosity. One explanation for the evolution of religious ritual is that rituals signal commitment to co-religionists. As a major domain of prosocial behavior, alloparental care – or care directed at children by non-parents – is a plausible benefit of religious signaling. The religious alloparenting hypothesis posits that parents who signal religious commitment receive greater alloparental support. Prior research on religiosity, cooperation, and allocare tends to treat individuals as isolated units, despite the inherent collective nature of religious cooperation. Here, we address this limitation in a survey-based study of 710 parents in rural Bangladesh. Instead of focusing only on mothers, we consider the interplay between both mothers and fathers in eliciting allocare, and leverage variation in the covertness of religious rituals to test a key mechanistic assumption linking religious ritual with cooperation. We find that parents who practice religious rituals more frequently receive greater alloparental support from co-religionists. This effect is moderated by parent gender, as well as variation in the visibility of religious rituals. Women’s private practices positively affect only those alloparents with whom they share a household, while men’s public practices positively affect alloparents more broadly.