“Everything Happens for a Reason”: Children's Beliefs About Purpose in Life Events

Do children believe that “everything happens for a reason?” That is, do children endorse purpose‐based, teleological explanations for significant life events, as they do for social behavior, artifacts, biological properties, and natural kinds? Across three experiments, 5‐ to 7‐year‐olds (N = 80), 8‐ to 10‐year‐olds (N = 72), and adults (N = 91) chose between teleological and nonteleological accounts of significant life events and judged how helpful those accounts were for understanding an event's cause. Five‐ to 7‐year‐olds favored teleological explanations, but this preference diminished with age. Five‐ to 7‐year‐olds and 8‐ to 10‐year‐olds also found teleological explanations more helpful than did adults. Perceiving purpose in life events may therefore have roots in childhood, potentially reflecting a more general sensitivity to purpose in the social and natural worlds.     

Minimal Groups Increase Young Children's Motivation and Learning on Group‐Relevant Tasks

Three experiments (N = 130) used a minimal group manipulation to show that just perceived membership in a social group boosts young children's motivation for and learning from group‐relevant tasks. In Experiment 1, 4‐year‐old children assigned to a minimal “puzzles group” persisted longer on a challenging puzzle than children identified as the “puzzles child” or children in a control condition. Experiment 2 showed that this boost in motivation occurred only when the group was associated with the task. In Experiment 3, children assigned to a minimal group associated with word learning learned more words than children assigned an analogous individual identity. The studies demonstrate that fostering shared motivations may be a powerful means by which to shape young children's academic outcomes.     

Differential Effects of Salient Visual Events on Memory-Guided Attention in Adults and Children

Both salient visual events and scene-based memories can influence attention, but it is unclear how they interact in children and adults. In Experiment 1, children (N = 27; ages 7–12) were faster to discriminate targets when they appeared at the same versus different location as they had previously learned or as a salient visual event. In contrast, adults (N = 30; ages 18–31) responded faster only when cued by visual events. While Experiment 2 confirmed that adults (N = 27) can use memories to orient attention, Experiment 3 showed that, even in the absence of visual events, the effects of memories on attention were larger in children (N = 27) versus adults (N = 28). These findings suggest that memories may be a robust source of influence on children's attention.     

Measuring Beliefs in Centimeters: Private Knowledge Biases Preschoolers' and Adults' Representation of Others' Beliefs

A novel task, using a continuous spatial layout, was created to investigate the degree to which (in centimeters) 3‐year‐old children's (N = 63), 5‐year‐old children's (N = 60), and adults' (N = 60) own privileged knowledge of the location of an object biased their representation of a protagonist's false belief about the object's location. At all ages, participants' knowledge of the object's actual location biased their search estimates, independent of the attentional or memory demands of the task. Children's degree of bias correlated with their performance on a classic change‐of‐location false belief task, controlling for age. This task is a novel tool for providing a quantitative measurement of the degree to which self‐knowledge can bias estimates of others' beliefs.     

Accent,Language, and Race: 4–6‐Year‐Old Children's Inferences Differ by Speaker Cue

Three experiments examined 4‐ to 6‐year‐olds' use of potential cues to geographic background. In Experiment 1 (N = 72), 4‐ to 5‐year‐olds used a speaker's foreign accent to infer that they currently live far away, but 6‐year‐olds did not. In Experiment 2 (N = 72), children at all ages used accent to infer where a speaker was born. In both experiments, race played some role in children's geographic inferences. Finally, in Experiment 3 (N = 48), 6‐year‐olds used language to infer both where a speaker was born and where they currently live. These findings reveal critical differences across development in the ways that speaker characteristics are used as inferential cues to a speaker's geographic location and history.     

Longitudinal Relations Among Parents' Reactions to Children's Negative Emotions,Effortful Control,and Math Achievement in Early Elementary School

Panel mediation models and fixed‐effects models were used to explore longitudinal relations among parents' reactions to children's displays of negative emotions, children's effortful control (EC), and children's math achievement (N = 291; M age in fall of kindergarten = 5.66 years, SD = .39 year) across kindergarten through second grade. Parents reported their reactions and children's EC. Math achievement was assessed with a standardized achievement test. First‐grade EC mediated the relation between parents' reactions at kindergarten and second‐grade math achievement, beyond stability in constructs across study years. Panel mediation model results suggested that socialization of EC may be one method of promoting math achievement in early school; however, when all omitted time‐invariant covariates of EC and math achievement were controlled, first‐grade EC no longer predicted second‐grade math achievement.     

Knowing When to Be “Rational”: Flexible Economic Decision Making and Executive Function in Preschool Children

Failure to delay gratification may not indicate poor control or irrationality, but might be an adaptive response. Two studies investigated 3.5‐ and 4.5‐year‐old children's ability to adapt their delay and saving behavior when their preference (e.g., to delay or not delay) became nonadaptive. In Study 1 (N = 140), children's delay preference was associated with a risk of losing rewards. In Study 2 (N = 142), children's saving preference was associated with an inability to play an attractive game. Whereas baseline delaying and saving preferences were unrelated to a standardized executive function measure, children who switched to their nonpreferred choice scored higher, suggesting flexibility of decision‐making may be a more meaningful dependent variable than baseline performance in developmental research on self‐control.     

Does Parental Mind‐Mindedness Account for Cross‐Cultural Differences in Preschoolers’ Theory of Mind?

This study of 241 parent–child dyads from the United Kingdom (N = 120, M_age = 3.92, SD = 0.53) and Hong Kong (N = 121, M_age = 3.99, SD = 0.50) breaks new ground by adopting a cross‐cultural approach to investigate children's theory of mind and parental mind‐mindedness. Relative to the Hong Kong sample, U.K. children showed superior theory‐of‐mind performance and U.K. parents showed greater levels of mind‐mindedness. Within both cultures parental mind‐mindedness was correlated with theory of mind. Mind‐mindedness also accounted for cultural differences in preschoolers’ theory of mind. We argue that children's family environments might shed light on how culture shapes children's theory of mind.     

Carving Metacognition at Its Joints: Protracted Development of Component Processes

Two experiments investigated the development of metacognitive monitoring and control, and conditions under which children engage these processes. In Experiment 1, 5‐year‐olds (N = 30) and 7‐year‐olds (N = 30), unlike adults (N = 30), showed little evidence of either monitoring or control. In Experiment 2, 5‐year‐olds (N = 90) were given performance feedback (aimed at improving monitoring), instruction to follow a particular strategy (aimed at improving control), or both. Across conditions, feedback improved children's monitoring, and instruction improved both monitoring and control. Thus, children's poor metacognitive performance likely reflects a difficulty engaging the component processes spontaneously rather than a lack of metacognitive ability. These findings also suggest that the component processes are distinct, with both undergoing protracted development.     

Parent Praise to 1‐ to 3‐Year‐Olds Predicts Children's Motivational Frameworks 5 Years Later

In laboratory studies, praising children's effort encourages them to adopt incremental motivational frameworks—they believe ability is malleable, attribute success to hard work, enjoy challenges, and generate strategies for improvement. In contrast, praising children's inherent abilities encourages them to adopt fixed‐ability frameworks. Does the praise parents spontaneously give children at home show the same effects? Although parents' early praise of inherent characteristics was not associated with children's later fixed‐ability frameworks, parents' praise of children's effort at 14–38 months (N = 53) did predict incremental frameworks at 7–8 years, suggesting that causal mechanisms identified in experimental work may be operating in home environments.     

Kindergarten Children's Executive Functions Predict Their Second-Grade Academic Achievement and Behavior

Whether and to what extent kindergarten children's executive functions (EF) constitute promising targets of early intervention is currently unclear. This study examined whether kindergarten children's EF predicted their second-grade academic achievement and behavior. This was done using (a) a longitudinal and nationally representative sample (N = 8,920, M_age = 97.6 months), (b) multiple measures of EF, academic achievement, and behavior, and (c) extensive statistical control including for domain-specific and domain-general lagged dependent variables. All three measures of EF—working memory, cognitive flexibility, and inhibitory control—positively and significantly predicted reading, mathematics, and science achievement. In addition, inhibitory control negatively predicted both externalizing and internalizing problem behaviors. Children's EF constitute promising targets of experimentally evaluated interventions for increasing academic and behavioral functioning.     

A Developmental Neuroscience Study of Moral Decision Making Regarding Resource Allocation

Distinguishing between equity and equality is essential when making social and moral decisions, yet the related neurodevelopmental processes are unknown. Evaluations of contextually based third‐party distributions incorporating recipient need and resource importance were examined in children and adolescents (N = 82; 8–16 years). Spatiotemporal neurodynamic responses show distinct developmental profiles to viewing such distributions. Event‐related potentials (ERPs) differentially predicted real‐life behaviors based on age, where older children's (8–10 years) evaluations were related to a fairly rapid, automatic ERP component (early posterior negativity), whereas adolescent and preadolescent (11–16 years) evaluations, first‐person allocations, and prosocial behaviors were predicted by later, cognitively controlled ERP components (P3 and late positive potential). Together, these results reveal age‐related changes regarding the neural responses that correspond to distributive justice decisions.     

Does Parent–Child Discussion of Peer Provocations Reduce Young Children's Hostile Attributional Bias?

Two studies investigated whether parent–child discussion of peer provocations reduces young children's hostile attributional bias. Study 1 (N = 109, age 4–7)—an observational study—showed that parent–child discussion of nonhostile attributions (when reading a picture book) predicted reductions in children's hostile attributional bias from pre‐ to postdiscussion. Study 2 (N = 160, age 4–6)—an experimental study—showed that stimulating parents to discuss either nonhostile attributions or normative beliefs (vs. a control condition) reduced children's hostile attributional bias in response to hypothetical vignettes, but not in response to a staged peer provocation. These findings suggest that by framing social situations, parents may help their children perceive less hostility in their social worlds.     

The Role of Mothers' Child-Based Worth in Their Affective Responses to Children's Performance

This research examined whether American and Chinese mothers' tendencies to base their worth on children's performance contributes to their affective responses to children's performance. Study 1 used daily interviews to assess mothers' warmth (vs. hostility) and children's school performance (N = 197; M_age = 12.81 years). In Study 2, such affect was observed in the laboratory following children's manipulated performance on cognitive problems (N = 128; M_age = 10.21 years). The more mothers based their worth on children's performance, the more their warmth (vs. hostility) decreased when children failed in Study 1. This pattern was evident only among Chinese mothers in Study 2. In both studies, child-based worth did not contribute to mothers' affective responses to children's success.     

Early Attachment Organization With Both Parents and Future Behavior Problems: From Infancy to Middle Childhood

Links between children's attachment security with mothers and fathers, assessed in Strange Situation with each parent at 15 months (N = 101), and their future behavior problems were examined. Mothers and fathers rated children's behavior problems, and children reported their own behavior problems at age 8 (N = 86). Teachers rated behavior problems at age 6½ (N = 86). Insecurity with both parents had a robust effect: “Double‐insecure” children reported more overall problems, and were rated by teachers as having more externalizing problems than those secure with at least 1 parent. Security with either parent could offset such risks, and security with both conferred no additional benefits. High resistance toward both parents in Strange Situation may confer “dual risk” for future externalizing behavior.     

I Don't Want to Pick! Introspection on Uncertainty Supports Early Strategic Behavior

Although some evidence indicates that even very young children engage in rudimentary forms of strategic behavior, the underlying mechanisms remain largely unknown. This study tested the hypothesis that uncertainty monitoring underlies such behaviors. Three‐, four‐, and five‐year‐old children (N = 88) completed a perceptual discrimination task. Results indicated that children are more likely to withhold (vs. volunteer) responses on trials for which, when forced to provide an answer, they report subjective uncertainty (vs. subjective certainty). Furthermore, uncertainty monitoring positively predicted the strategic regulation of accuracy via withholding of incorrect responses, even when controlling for individual differences in inhibitory control. Overall, results suggest that children's awareness of their own knowledge states contributes to early strategic behavior.     

Mind‐Mindedness and Theory of Mind: Mediating Roles of Language and Perspectival Symbolic Play

Relations among indices of maternal mind‐mindedness (appropriate and nonattuned mind‐related comments) and children's: (a) internal state vocabulary and perspectival symbolic play at 26 months (N = 206), and (b) theory of mind (ToM) at 51 months (n = 161) were investigated. Appropriate comments were positively associated with ToM, but were unrelated to internal state language and perspectival symbolic play. Nonattuned comments were negatively correlated with internal state language and perspectival symbolic play, but were unrelated to ToM. Path analyses indicated that the best fit model assumed: (a) indirect links between nonattuned comments and ToM via children's perspectival symbolic play, (b) a direct link between appropriate comments and ToM, and (c) an indirect link between appropriate comments and ToM via children's concurrent receptive verbal ability.     

Waiting for the Second Treat: Developing Culture‐Specific Modes of Self‐Regulation

The development of self‐regulation has been studied primarily in Western middle‐class contexts and has, therefore, neglected what is known about culturally varying self‐concepts and socialization strategies. The research reported here compared the self‐regulatory competencies of German middle‐class (N = 125) and rural Cameroonian Nso preschoolers (N = 76) using the Marshmallow test (Mischel, 2014). Study 1 revealed that 4‐year‐old Nso children showed better delay‐of‐gratification performance than their German peers. Study 2 revealed that culture‐specific maternal socialization goals and interaction behaviors were related to delay‐of‐gratification performance. Nso mothers’ focus on hierarchical relational socialization goals and responsive control seems to support children's delay‐of‐gratification performance more than German middle‐class mothers’ emphasis on psychological autonomous socialization goals and sensitive, child‐centered parenting.     

The Effect of Teachers' Memory‐Relevant Language on Children's Strategy Use and Knowledge

Building on longitudinal findings of linkages between aspects of teachers' language during instruction and children's use of mnemonic strategies, this investigation was designed to examine experimentally the impact of instruction on memory development. First and second graders (N = 54, M_age = 7 years) were randomly assigned to a science unit that varied only in teachers' use of memory‐relevant language. Pretest, posttest, and 1‐month follow‐up assessments revealed that although all participating children learned new information as a result of instruction, those exposed to memory rich teaching exhibited greater levels of strategic knowledge and engaged in more sophisticated strategy use in a memory task involving instructional content than did students exposed to low memory instruction. The findings provide support for a causal linkage between teachers' language and children's strategic efforts.