ABSTRACT
Longitudinal mediation models are needed to test the mechanisms of developmental sequence. Typically, long-term mediational models are used to explain developmental sequence across years or a couple of months. This chapter also introduces some new approaches to longitudinal mediation: short-term mediation models for one developmental process, short-term mediation models for multiple processes, and real-time mediational models for one developmental process. In short-term mediation models for one developmental process, short-term mechanisms are used to explain the long-term stability of one developmental process. Short-term mediation models for multiple processes aim to test the role of short-term dynamics in the links between various developmental processes. Finally, real-time mediational models for one developmental process take the same form as short-term mediation models, with the only difference being that they use a real-time mediator instead of a short-term mediator. Obviously, longitudinal mediation models emerged after developmental sequence models in the study of adolescent development, from 2005 onwards. The chapter identifies two developmental patterns: for instance, that variability of single emotions is the mechanism of persistence in anxiety, and that variability across emotions leads to negative interactions with parents and relative increases of depression and anxiety later in adolescence.
