Observed Profiles of Infant Temperament: Stability,Heritability, and Associations With Parenting

Profiles of infant temperament were derived from 990 infants at 6 and 12 months of age using observed measures from the Laboratory Temperament Assessment Battery. Mothers and fathers completed questionnaires measuring parent affect and stress. Four profiles emerged at each age (typical, low negative, withdrawn/inhibited, and positive/active or low reactive) using latent profile analysis. Temperament profiles show some evidence of stability and heritability, particularly for the withdrawn/inhibited group. In addition, profiles relate to parent affect and stress in different ways for mothers and fathers. Results highlight the utility of a person-centered approach to temperamental research and are discussed in relation to developmental patterns of infant temperament.     

Infant Temperament Measured by Multiple Observations and Mother Report

Observers and mothers rated infant behavior ( n = 50) in the home on dimensions of temperament once a week for 8 weeks. Although week-to-week correlations were modest (intraclass correlations of .14–.36), aggregates of the 8 observations had high reliability for both observers and mothers. Mother reports were tied to our observation sessions by having mothers ( a ) rate their infants' behavior during the period when our observations were made and ( b ) use a questionnaire that mirrored the scoring system used for scoring the videotaped observation sessions. When direct observations were compared with mother reports (on the aggregated weekly reports and on 4 widely used questionnaires), little evidence of mother-observer correspondence was found. The interpretation of the large literature that has used maternal report is discussed, as well as the importance of direct observation of infant behavior when temperament is assessed.     

Infant Proneness-to-Distress Temperament, Maternal Personality, and Mother-Infant Attachment: Associations and Goodness of Fit

66 mother-infant pairs were examined when the infants were 9 and 13 months. The purpose of this report was to examine relations between infant proneness-to-distress temperament, maternal personality characteristics, and mother-infant attachment. There were no main-effect relations between infant proneness-to-distress temperament as assessed at 9 months and infant attachment classification at 13 months. This was true whether security of attachment (A and C vs. B) or proposed temperament (A1-B2 vs. B3-C2) groupings of attachment classifications were examined. Infant proneness-to-distress temperament, however, was associated with maternal behavior and personality. Furthermore, security of attachment could be predicted by an interaction between maternal personality and infant proneness-to-distress. The importance of considering goodness-of-fit relations in predicting attachment security is discussed.     

The Impact of Race,Gender, and Socioeconomic Status on School Counselors’ Alternative Learning Program Placement Decisions: An Experimental Study

As a form of exclusionary discipline, student placement into an alternative learning program (ALP) may lead to negative outcomes for students (e.g., lower academic achievement, attrition, involvement in the juvenile justice system; Anderson and Ritter in Educ Policy Anal Arch 25(49):1–33, 2017). School counselors are called to address inequitable policies, procedures, and conditions that may limit students’ personal/social and academic development, college access, and career readiness (ASCA, The ASCA national model: a framework for school counseling programs, 3rd edn. American School Counselor Association, Alexandria, VA, 2012). Additionally, school counselors should be unbiased in their decision-making (ASCA, Ethical standards for school counselors. American School Counselor Association, Alexandria, VA, 2016). The researchers utilized a true experimental design to examine the impact of student race (African American or White), gender (male or female), and socioeconomic status (SES; economically advantaged or disadvantaged) on practicing school counselors’ (N?=?334) decisions to place students in ALPs for disciplinary reasons. A factorial analysis of variance revealed no statistically significant differences in school counselors’ likelihood of placing students in ALPs for disciplinary reasons based these student demographic factors. The study also revealed a statistically significant positive relationship between school counselors’ belief in a just world, as measured by the Global Belief in a Just World Scale (GBJWS; Lipkus in Personal Individ Differ, 12(11): 1171–1178. https://doi.org/10.1016/0191-8869(91)90081-L, 1991), and likelihood of referring students to ALPs for disciplinary reasons. Implications for school counselors and educational stakeholders are discussed.

     

Infant Temperament and Genetics: An Objective Twin Study of Motor Activity Level

Child temperament theories generally presume genetic contributions to behavioral differences, but empirical support is based largely on parent ratings of twins. These subjective ratings may be biased by parental exaggeration of dizygotic differences or of monozygotic similarities. An objective assessment of the genetic hypothesis was undertaken with motor activity level, a core dimension of most temperament theories. The activity level of 60 infant twin pairs was measured both by parent ratings and by motion recorders over a 2-day period. Data from the motion recorders showed evidence of genetic influences (RMZ = .76, RDZ = .56), as did parent ratings (RMZ = .82, RDZ = .21). The motion recorder results confirm with instrumentation a critical assumption of temperament theories and identify the presence of genetic contributors to temperamentally relevant behavioral differences in infancy.     

The Effects of Age,Gender, and Economic Status on Generosity in the Presence of Exchange: A Pilot Study

In this field experiment, a confederate asked participants to provide a quarter for the confederate to make a telephone call. In the experimental condition, based on the concept of exchange, the confederate offered participants twenty-five pennies for the quarter. The researchers found that there was a significant difference in whether or not the confederate offered the pennies. Eighty-five percent of the participants complied when offered the pennies, while only 35 percent complied without the offer of exchange. Gender was not a factor. Participants over sixty-years-old complied more often than any other age group. Economic status was a factor in that those in the middle range tended to comply more often than those at either the low end or the upper end.     

Infant Temperament Profiles,Cultural Orientation,and Toddler Behavioral and Physiological Regulation in Mexican-American Families

This study sought to (a) replicate infant temperament profiles from predominantly White samples in a sample of low-income, predominantly first-generation Mexican-American families, (b) investigate associations between infant temperament profiles and toddler behavioral and physiological regulation, and (c) explore whether mothers’ cultural orientation would moderate those associations. Mothers and infants (n = 322; 46% male) were assessed during pregnancy and at infant ages 9, 12, and 24 months. Latent profile analysis yielded three temperament profiles that were consistent with those from extant research. Compared to the high positive affect, well-regulated profile, the negative reactive, low regulated profile was associated with poorer behavioral and parasympathetic (i.e., respiratory sinus arrhythmia) regulation, but associations depended on mothers’ Mexican and Anglo cultural orientation.     

The Relations among Infant Temperament, Security of Attachment, and Behavioral Inhibition at Twenty-Four Months

The purpose of this study was to examine the relations among infant temperament, attachment, and behavioral inhibition. 52 infants were seen at 2 days, 5, 14, and 24 months of age. Assessments were made of temperament at 2 days and 5 months of age, and attachment and behavioral inhibition were assessed at 14 and 24 months, respectively. EKG was recorded at each assessment, and measures of heart period and vagal tone were computed. Distress to pacifier withdrawal at 2 days of age was related to insecure attachment at 14 months. 2 types of distress reactivity at 5 months, reactivity to frustration and reactivity to novelty, were identified and related to high vagal tone. Attachment classification at 14 months was directly related to inhibited behavior at 24 months. Infants classified as insecure/resistant were more inhibited than those classified as insecure/avoidant. In addition, an interaction of infant reactivity to frustration and attachment classification was found to predict inhibition at 24 months. Infants classified as insecure/resistant and who had not cried to the arm restraint procedure at 5 months were the most inhibited at 24 months. These findings are discussed in terms of hypotheses regarding multiple modes of distress reactivity and regulation in early infancy and their different social and behavioral outcomes.     

Socioeconomic and Gender Effects on Science Achievement: An Australian Perspective

The purpose of this study is to investigate science achievement of Australian students and how this achievement can vary from school to school. The proposition that gender and socioeconomic inequities in Australia are the result of school systems designed to reproduce an unequal social order was examined with reference both to current sociological literature and methodological techniques which account for the hierarchical nature of students nested in schools. Additionally, student‐level and school‐level variables are investigated for their ability to explain gender and socioeconomic differences in science achievement, as well as general student variability. Even after adjusting for the students’ individual characteristics and home backgrounds, as well as the context of the school, there were significant gender and socioeconomic differences in science achievement across Australian schools. The importance of variability in science achievement between schools is shown in this study, with specific reference to how this variability can be attributed to the school system.     

Social Support and Socioeconomic Status Predict Secondary Students' Grades and Educational Plans Indifferently Across Immigrant Group and Gender

Social support and socioeconomic status (SES) have received considerable attention in explaining academic achievement and the achievement gap between students with ethic majority and immigrant background, and between boys and girls. Using a Structural Equation Modeling approach we examine (1) if there exist a gap in school achievements between these groups, (2) whether social support and SES is associated with achievements across these groups, (3) whether social support is associated with achievements after controlling for SES, and (4) whether achievement gaps are explained by group differences in social support and SES. Self-reported cross-sectional survey and register data from 8,574 10th graders in Norway was employed. Although we found group differences in achievements, and direct associations with social support and SES, we found no group differences in these associations. Controlling for SES and other sources of social support, teachers' support remained a significant positive influence on students' school outcomes.     

The Role of Socioeconomic Status in SAT–Freshman Grade Relationships Across Gender and Racial Subgroups

Recent research has shown that admissions tests retain the vast majority of their predictive power after controlling for socioeconomic status (SES), and that SES provides only a slight increment over SAT and high school grades (high school grade point average [HSGPA]) in predicting academic performance. To address the possibility that these overall analyses obscure differences by race/ethnicity or gender, we examine the role of SES in the test‒grade relationship for men and women as well as for various racial/ethnic subgroups within the United States. For each subgroup, the test‒grade relationship is only slightly diminished when controlling for SES. Further, SES is a substantially less powerful predictor of academic performance than both SAT and HSGPA. Among the indicators of SES (i.e., father's education, mother's education, and parental income), father's education appears to be strongest predictor of freshman grades across subgroups, with the exception of the Asian subgroup. In general, SES appears to behave similarly across subgroups in the prediction of freshman grades with SAT scores and HSGPA.     

Influence and Involvement in Children''s Discourse: Age, Gender, and Partner Effects

Children's discourse with peers was examined in relation to speaker gender, partner gender, and age level. 138 children were matched with either a same- or an other-gender peer at the early childhood and middle childhood age levels (median ages = 5 and 7 years) and asked to play with puppets for 10 min. Speech acts were coded as either collaborative (affiliative involvement and direct influence), controlling (distancing involvement and direct influence), obliging (affiliative involvement and nondirect influence), or withdrawing (distancing involvement and nondirect influence). Girls' and boys' communication patterns were more similar than different. However, gender-related differences with medium to large effect sizes were found. Gender-typed communications were more likely at the middle childhood than the early childhood age level and in same-gender than mixed-gender dyads. The findings are interpreted in terms of developmental and contextual accounts of gender and social behavior. Recommendations for future research are offered.     

Childhood Maltreatment,Gender Nonconformity,and Adolescent Sexual Orientation: A Prospective Birth Cohort Study

This study tested whether associations between childhood maltreatment and adolescent sexual orientation were accounted for by childhood gender nonconforming behavior (GNCB) in a prospective birth cohort (N = 5,007). Childhood parental maltreatment (physical and emotional) and GNCB were assessed on multiple occasions up to age 6 years, and sexual orientation at 15.5 years. Boys with a history of maltreatment were significantly more likely to be nonheterosexual. Using propensity score weighting, maltreatment was associated with a 3.5% (p = .03) increase in the prevalence of nonheterosexuality accounting for confounders not including GNCB, and by 2.9% (p = .06) when also accounting for GNCB. These findings suggest that maltreatment is associated with an increased prevalence of nonheterosexuality in boys but may be explained by confounding factors including GNCB.     

Academic Performance,Age, Gender,and Ethnicity in Online Courses Delivered by Two-Year Colleges

This study investigated the effects the demographic variables age, gender, and ethnicity and their interactions had on academic performance in online courses delivered by public two-year colleges in Kentucky. The study controlled for previous academic performance measured by cumulative grade point average (GPA). The study used a random sample (N = 320) of all students who had enrolled in at least one online course delivered by the institutions of the Kentucky Community and Technical College System in the spring 2008 semester. A linear hierarchical multiple regression acting as ANCOVA served as the main analysis, with the order entry as follows: cumulative GPA; independent variables (age, gender, ethnicity); interaction vectors; and product vectors. Final course grade served as the dependent variable. The results of the analysis indicated that only cumulative GPA was a significant predictor, explaining approximately 40% of the variance of the final grade. Although differences in final grades were present among the variables age and ethnicity, these differences disappeared when controlling for cumulative GPA. Significance of the results and recommendations for future research are discussed.     

The Interaction between Gender, Age, and Multimedia Interface Design

In this study we assumed that multimedia design contributes to an interest in learning by young children. Thirty kindergarten children were exposed to interactive multimedia stories. With the help of the Pollimeter tool (Lampert, 1981), we examined previous experience with computers, level of covert time-on-task, and level of satisfaction with various interfaces. The findings indicate that different interfaces have a different impact on boys and girls as regards covert time-on-task and level of satisfaction with the interface. Boys who are more familiar with computer games show a greater covert time-on-task than girls, as also a higher level of satisfaction. Younger boys and girls were found to show higher satisfaction than older children.     

出生次序、父母受教育程度与大学生认知方式

独生子女与非独生子女大学生认知方式差异显著,非独生子女大学生不同出生次序认知方式无显著差异;大学生认知方式与父亲受教育程度有关,父亲受教育程度中等的大学生认知方式得分显著高于父亲受教育程度较低的大学生,同时也高于父亲受教育程度较高的大学生,但差异并不显著;母亲受教育程度为高、中、低的大学生认知方式差异不显著。     

Parental Conceptions of School Readiness: Relation to Ethnicity,Socioeconomic Status,and Children's Skills

Research Findings: This study analyzed the school readiness beliefs of parents of 452 children from public pre-kindergarten and the relations of these beliefs to socioeconomic status and children's readiness skills. Parents conceived readiness largely in terms of the ability to name objects, letters, or numbers, but few included inferential skills. Readiness beliefs were related not to socioeconomic status but to ethnicity. Readiness beliefs about the importance of independence, social competence, nominal knowledge, and inferential skills were related in expected ways to children's skills. Practice or Policy: Infrequent inclusion of inferential skills among parents' readiness beliefs may not bode well for children. Informational programs for parents about the critical role of higher order cognitive skills and ways to promote them are needed.