Looking on the bright side: children's knowledge about the benefits of positive versus negative thinking

Five- to 10-year-olds (N = 90) listened to 6 illustrated scenarios featuring 2 characters that jointly experience the same positive event (and feel good), negative event (and feel bad), or ambiguous event (and feel okay). Afterward, one character thinks a positive thought and the other thinks a negative thought. Children predicted and explained each character's emotions. Results showed significant development between 5 and 10 years in children's understanding that thinking positively improves emotions and thinking negatively makes one feel worse, with earliest knowledge demonstrated when reasoning about ambiguous and positive events. Individual differences in child and parental optimism and hope predicted children's knowledge about thought-emotion connections on some measures, including their beliefs about the emotional benefits of thinking positively in negative situations.     

Parental Beliefs and Children's School Performance

Immigrant parents from Cambodia, Mexico, the Philippines, and Vietnam and native-born Anglo-American and Mexican-American parents responded to questions about child rearing, what teachers of first and second graders should teach their children, and what characterizes an intelligent child. Immigrant parents rated conforming to external standards as being more important to develop in their children than developing autonomous behaviors. In contrast, American-born parents favored developing autonomy over conformity. Parents from all groups except Anglo-Americans indicated that noncognitive characteristics (i.e., motivation, social skills, and practical school skills) were as important as or more important than cognitive characteristics (i.e., problem-solving skills, verbal ability, creative ability) were to their conceptions of an intelligent first-grade child. Parental beliefs about conformity were correlated with measures of kindergarten (5- and 6-year-olds) and first- (6- and 7-year-olds) and second-grader (7- and 8-year-olds) children's school performance (i.e., teacher ratings of children's classroom performance; Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills reading, math, and language scores; and Sternberg Triarchic Abilities Test scores).     

Grown-ups are not afraid of scary stuff, but kids are: young children's and adults' reasoning about children's, infants', and adults' fears

Three-, 5-, and 7-year-olds and adults ( N = 64) listened to stories depicting 2 protagonists of different ages (infant and child or child and grownup) that encounter an entity that looks like a real (e.g., a snake) or an imaginary (e.g., a ghost) fear-inducing creature. Participants predicted and explained each protagonist's intensity of fear. Results showed significant age-related increases in knowledge that infants and adults would experience less intense fears than young children and that people's fears are causally linked to their cognitive mental states. Across age, stories involving imaginary beings elicited more frequent mental explanations for fear than stories about real creatures. Results are discussed in relation to children's developing awareness of the mind as mediating between situations and emotions.     

Becoming Kinder: Prosocial Choice and the Development of Interpersonal Regret

Three experiments examined children's ability to feel regret following a failure to act prosocially. In Experiment 1, ninety 6- to 7-year-olds and one hundred seven 7- to 9-year-olds were given a choice to donate a resource to another child. If they failed to donate, they discovered that this meant the other child could not win a prize. Children in both age groups then showed evidence of experiencing regret, although not in control conditions where they had not made the choice themselves or their choice did not negatively affect the other child. In Experiment 2, eighty-five 5- to 6-year-olds and one hundred nine 7- to 9-year-olds completed the same task; only the older group showed evidence of regret. In Experiment 3, with one hundred thirty-four 6- to 7-year-olds, experiencing regret was associated with subsequently making other prosocial choices.     

Jimmy's baby doll and Jenny's truck: young children's reasoning about gender norms

To assess the flexibility of reasoning about gender, children ages 4, 6, and 8 years (N = 72) were interviewed about gender norms when different domains were highlighted. The majority of participants at all ages judged a reversal of gender norms in a different cultural context to be acceptable. They also judged gender norms as a matter of personal choice and they negatively evaluated a rule enforcing gender norms in schools. Older children were more likely to show flexibility than younger children. Justifications obtained from 6- and 8-year-olds showed that they considered adherence to gender norms a matter of personal choice and they viewed the rule enforcing gender norms as unfair.     

Knowledge and management strategies in incest cases: A survey of physicians, psychologists and family counselors

A questionnaire was mailed to all 255 psychologists, psychiatrists, pediatricians, and family counselors listed in the 1983 telephone directory. Of the 108 private practitioners who responded, over one-half had treated a child or adult incest victim in the past year; 86% requested more training in this area. Practitioners had a high level of general knowledge about intrafamilial child sexual abuse. Nevertheless, one-third stated they would not refer to protective services a child who had first made, but then retracted, an incest allegation. While most pediatricians would recommend physical examination of a child who had retracted, only half of other professionals would do so. Women practitioners were more realistic about the high frequency of actual father-daughter incest and were more likely to report the hypothetical case of the retracted allegation.     

Social Information Processing in Compliance Situations by Mothers of Behavior-Problem Boys

This investigation examined differences between mothers of behavior-problem boys (MBP; n = 20) and mothers of average boys (MAB; n = 20) in processing information in compliance situations (mean ages; mothers = 30 years, children = 8 years). Mothers responded to videorecorded stimuli of child behavior cues. Compliant and oppositional stimuli were clear regarding whether the child was going to obey the mother; however, bargaining and complaining were ambiguous. MBPs made greater attributions of defiant intent toward the child and experienced more anger than did MABs in ambiguous stimulus situations. MBPs also expected more resistance from the child and experienced more anxiety than did MABs, in all stimulus situations (ambiguous and clear). Differences between group mean processing scores were greater under conditions of stimulus ambiguity than under conditions of stimulus clarity. Findings are discussed in terms of the interface of mother-child relationship history and the child's current behavioral cues.     

Attribution of causal and moral responsibility to victims of father-daughter incest: An exploratory examination of five factors

This study was designed to assess the extent to which victim characteristics, assault characteristics, and respondents' sex would affect attributions of causal and moral responsibility to an incest victim. The victim was either a 7- or 15-year-old child who responded in either a passive or resisting manner. The incestuous abuse involved either sexual intercourse or fondling, and either high or low levels of coercion. The subjects were undergraduate students (male = 240; female = 240) who responded to a vignette describing a sexual interaction between a father and daughter. The results indicate that significantly more causal and moral responsibility was attributed to the victim in cases where the victim responded passively. A breakdown of the significant form of responsibility x victim age x coerciveness interaction revealed a significant main effect for form of responsibility; significantly more causal (as opposed to moral) responsibility was attributed to the victim. The simple main effects for victim age were significant in all cases except for the moral responsibility, high coercion condition; and the simple main effects for coercion were significant in all cases except for the moral responsibility, 7-year-old victim condition. These findings are discussed in terms of their implications for public education and future research.     

When you shouldn't do what you want to do: young children's understanding of desires, rules, and emotions

This research investigated 4- through 7-year-olds' and adults' (n = 64) concepts about the emotional consequences of desire fulfillment versus desire inhibition in situations where people's desires conflict with prohibitive rules. Results revealed developmental increases in attributing positive or mixed emotions to story characters that make willpower decisions and negative or mixed emotions to characters that transgress. These developmental changes in emotion predictions were accompanied by age-related differences in emotion explanations. Whereas 4- and 5-year-olds largely explained emotions in relation to the characters' goals, 7-year-olds and adults further explained how rules and future consequences influence emotions. Results are discussed in relation to connections among children's psychological, deontic, and future-oriented reasoning about emotions as well as the development of self-control.     

Social Interactions in Preschool Classrooms and the Development of Young Children's Conceptions of the Personal

Two studies examined preschool teacher and child interactions regarding personal, moral, and social-conventional issues in the classroom and the development of personal concepts in young children. In Study 1, 20 preschool classrooms, 10 with 3-year-olds and 10 with 4-year-olds, were observed to assess children's and teachers' interactions regarding personal, moral, social-conventional, and mixed events. Teachers used more direct messages regarding moral and social-conventional events than personal and mixed events. Teachers offered children choices, but they rarely negotiated personal events with children. Children responded with personal choice assertions when adults offered them choices, but adults did not differ in the frequency that they negated or affirmed children's assertions of personal choice. In Study 2, 120 preschool children, nearly evenly divided between males and females at 3, 4, and 5 years of age, were interviewed regarding their conceptions of personal events in the classroom and home. With age, children judged that they should retain control over personal decisions in both contexts. In both judgments and social interactions, teachers and children identified a personal domain in which children can and should make choices about how to structure their activities and assert their independence in the classroom.     

Big girls don't cry: the effect of child witness demeanor on juror decisions in a child sexual abuse trial

OBJECTIVE: This study investigated the effect of child witness demeanor (defined as crying) on mock jurors' decisions in a simulated First-Degree rape trial. METHOD: One hundred and thirty-three undergraduates serving in the role of mock jurors read a trial summary in which the primary independent variable was the demeanor of the alleged child victim (i.e., calm, teary, hysterical crying). In addition to reading the summary, participants viewed pencil drawings of the witnesses that were presented as "courtroom drawings." RESULTS: The results showed that the teary condition led to more guilty verdicts and a greater belief in the alleged victim than the other demeanor conditions. CONCLUSIONS: Findings from this study indicate that demeanor can impact the perception of a child who is an alleged sexual assault victim in court. However, it is not simply the case that any display of demeanor will lead to a positive outcome for the alleged victim. Instead, it appears that too little or too much emotion from the alleged child victim negatively affected credibility in the eyes of the mock jurors.     

Impact of child noncompliance on stress appraisals, attributions, and disciplinary choices in mothers at high and low risk for child physical abuse

OBJECTIVE: The study investigated the impact of repeated child noncompliance on stress appraisals, attributions, and disciplinary choices in high- and low-risk mothers. METHOD: Fifty (25 high-risk and 25 demographically, matched low-risk) mothers responded to questions related to stress appraisals, attributions, and disciplinary choices following presentations of a child engaging in repeated noncompliance. RESULTS: After repeated child noncompliance, high-risk, compared to low-risk, mothers perceived more threat and uncontrollability, rated child behaviors as more stressful, and reported higher levels of negative affect. High-risk mothers also reported more stable, global, and intentional attributions, with a trend toward more internal attributions, but did not differ in their evaluations of wrongness and seriousness of the child's behavior. After repeated noncompliance, a risk group difference was found in estimates of future child compliance but not in the use of power assertive discipline. CONCLUSIONS: Results support the view that high-risk, relative to low-risk, mothers are differentially responsive to stressful situations and differ in their attributions for negative child behaviors and in their expectations of future child compliance. However, since risk group differences in disciplinary choices were not also found, additional research is needed to demonstrate the process through which risk group cognitive and affective differences are related to differences in disciplinary behavior.     

Seeing Is Believing: Children's Explanations of Commonplace, Magical, and Extraordinary Transformations

Children's magical explanations and beliefs were investigated in 2 studies. In Study 1, we first asked 4- and 5-year-old children to judge the possibility of certain object transformations and to suggest mechanisms that might accomplish them. We then presented several commonplace transformations (e.g., cutting a string) and impossible events (magic tricks). Prior to viewing these transformations, children suggested predominantly physical mechanisms for the events and judged the magical ones to be impossible. After seeing the impossible events, many 4-year-olds explained them as "magic," whereas 5-year-olds explained them as "tricks." In Study 2, we replaced the magic tricks with "extraordinary" events brought about by physical or chemical reactions (e.g., heat causing paint on a toy car to change color). Prior to viewing the "extraordinary" transformations, children judged them to be impossible. After viewing these events, 4-year-olds gave more magical and fewer physical explanations than did 5-year-olds. Follow-up interviews revealed that most 4-year-olds viewed magic as possible under the control of an agent (magician) with special powers, whereas most 5-year-olds viewed magic as tricks that anyone can learn. In a third study, we surveyed parents to assess their perceptions and conceptions of children's beliefs in magic and fantasy figures. Parents perceived their children as believing in a number of magic and fantasy figures and reported encouraging such beliefs to some degree. Taken together, these findings suggest that many 4-year-olds view magic as a plausible mechanism, yet reserve magical explanations for certain real world events which violate their causal expectations.     

Is There a Downside to Anticipating the Upside? Children's and Adults’ Reasoning About How Prior Expectations Shape Future Emotions

Four- to 10-year-olds and adults (N = 205) responded to vignettes involving three individuals with different expectations (high, low, and no) for a future event. Participants judged characters’ pre-outcome emotions, as well as predicted and explained their feelings following three events (positive, attenuated, and negative). Although adults rated high-expectation characters more negatively than low-expectation characters after all outcomes, children shared this intuition starting at 6–7 years for negative outcomes, 8–10 years for attenuated, and never for positive. Comparison to baseline (no expectation) indicated that understanding the costs of high expectations emerges first and remains more robust across age than recognition that low expectations carry benefits. Explanation analyses further clarified this developing awareness about the relation between thoughts and emotions over time.     

Children's judgements of psychological harm in normal and noncanonical situations

This study investigated children's (3-, 5-, and 7-year-olds) and adults' (total N = 92) integration of information about intentions, acts, and outcomes in moral judgments of psychological harm. Behavioral and emotional predictions and judgments of act acceptability and punishment were made under normal and noncanonical causal conditions. Participants at all ages judged it wrong to inflict negative psychological reactions of fear or embarrassment on unwilling participants, even when these reactions were idiosyncratic or noncanonical. When assigning punishment, younger children tended to use an outcome rule, whereas older participants were more likely to use an intention rule or a conjunction rule (if outcome is negative and intention is negative, then punish). The results show that children as young as 3 years are able to take into account other people's idiosyncratic perspectives when making moral judgments of psychological harm.     

Factors influencing mothers' reactions to intrafamily sexual abuse

A mother's question of whether to believe her child's disclosure of intrafamily child sexual abuse is complex, with many factors influencing her conclusion. Variables related to the abuse and to the family's functioning are examined to determine if particular circumstances are too threatening to mothers, resulting in their disbelief. The findings indicate that the age of the victim, nature of the abuse, presence of the mother in the home during the abuse, relationship of the victim to the offender, prior physical abuse of the child, and alcohol abuse by the offender all contribute to mother's conclusion regarding the reported abuse. The majority of mothers do believe their child, with difficult situations and other family stressors occasionally detracting from a mother's willingness to accept the report.     

Defining Social Goods and Distributing Them Fairly: The Development of Conceptions of Fair Testing Practices

Conceptions of fair educational practices develop differently for testing and learning situations. After about age 8, children judged peer tutoring to be an unfair practice during a test. (Most 6–8-year-olds judged it fair). Yet, peer tutoring was seen as the most fair way to help students learn until at least age 17. In addition, 4 levels of conceptions of fair testing practices were found. Adult-like conceptions of fair testing practices emerged at about age 11, which contrasts with about 18 for conceptions of fair learning practices. Conceptions of fair testing practices parallel the development of the concepts of ability and effort as factors limiting immediate performance; whereas conceptions of fair learning practices parallel the development of concepts concerning the long-term acquisition of intelligence. These findings support the conclusion that children's understanding of different types of situations is reflected in their conceptions of social justice.     

Children''s Use of Anatomically Detailed Dolls to Recount an Event

The use of anatomically detailed dolls in child sexual abuse investigations has raised several controversial issues related to important theoretical questions in developmental psychology. The present study was designed to examine some of these issues in a methodologically sound experiment. 80 3- and 5-year-old children experienced a social interaction with a male confederate and were later tested under 1 of 4 recall conditions: reenactment with anatomically detailed dolls, reenactment with regular dolls, free recall with visual cues, or free recall without visual cues. The children were also asked a variety of specific and misleading questions, some of them dealing with acts associated with abuse ("He took your clothes off, didn't he?"). Both anatomically detailed and regular dolls along with other props aided 5-year-olds more than 3-year-olds in recounting the event. To use increased rather than decreased age differences. Anatomically detailed dolls did not foster false reports of abuse. Overall, 3-year-olds were more suggestible than 5-year-olds. The findings have implications for children's testimony in child abuse cases and for psychological theories concerning the effects of stimulus support on children's memory.     

Children's intuitive mathematics: the development of knowledge about nonlinear growth

This study is concerned with the development of children's intuitive understanding of nonlinear processes. The ability to estimate linear and exponential growth was examined in 7-, 9-, 11-, and 13-year-old children and adults (N=160). Whereas linear growth was judged correctly at all ages, estimations of exponential growth were in line with mathematically correct values only in 13-year-olds and adults. However, 9-year-olds already judged the result of exponential growth as being significantly higher than that of linear growth, and even a remarkable proportion of 7-year-olds showed such discrimination between the two types of functions. Results point to the existence of an early intuitive knowledge about the characteristics of nonlinear growth, long before those functions are taught in school.