High school students (approximately 14-18 years old; N=2,568) completed questionnaires in which they reported on their involvement in substance use and delinquency, and their perceptions of parental warmth, control, monitoring, and knowledge. Three alternative models were compared describing the nature of relations among these variables. Problem…

The interactive effects of physiological reactivity and social support on children's memory were examined. Four- to 6-year-olds completed a laboratory protocol during which autonomic responses and salivary cortisol were measured. Memory was assessed shortly afterward and 2 weeks later. During the second interview, children were questioned by a…

One hundred seventy U.S. (M=16.1 years) and 125 middle-class Japanese (M=16.6 years) adolescents completed a questionnaire assessing perceptions of who (adolescent or parent) controls the personal, conventional, prudential, and overlapping domain behaviors of the adolescent. Participants also completed an inventory assessing self-reported…

This investigation tested the person-by-environment hypothesis that the joint influence of behavioral vulnerability (anxious solitude) and interpersonal adversity (peer exclusion) predicts heightened social avoidance and depression over time. The study assessed 519 fifth and sixth graders 3 times during 1 year. Teachers reported social behavior…

Attachment status of children exposed in utero to cocaine, opiates, and other substances was examined at 18 months (n=860) and 36 months (n=732) corrected age. Children exposed to cocaine and opiates had slightly lower rates of attachment security (but not disorganization), and their insecurity was skewed toward ambivalent, rather than avoidant,…

This research was designed to observe whether parents guide their children's understanding of spatial-graphic representations and, if so, to describe the quality of the strategies they use. Parents read a picture book to their preschoolers (3 or 5 years, N=31) and children completed spatial-graphic comprehension tasks. Observational data revealed…

Visual preference procedures were used to investigate development of perceptually based subordinate-level categorization in 3- to 7-month-old infants. Experiments 1 and 2 demonstrated that 3- to 4-month-olds did not form category representations for photographic exemplars of subordinate-level classes of cats and dogs (i.e., Siamese vs. Tabby,…

A randomized prevention trial contrasted families who took part in the Strong African American Families Program (SAAF), a preventive intervention for rural African American mothers and their 11-year-olds, with control families. SAAF is based on a contextual model positing that regulated, communicative parenting causes changes in factors protecting…

Individuals can infer what others are likely to know by clustering knowledge according to common goals, common topics, or common underlying principles. Although young children are sensitive to underlying principles, that manner of clustering might not prevail when other viable means are presented. Two studies examined how a sample of 256 children…

Five-year longitudinal patterns and the influence of developmental transitions on 76 middle-class African American late adolescents' (M18.43 years) relationships with parents were examined. Late adolescents were closer to mothers than to fathers. Controlling for age, late adolescent females who had left home reported less negative relationships…

Using a developmental systems approach, this study considered longitudinal links between adolescents' out-of-school care experiences and behavioral trajectories within a random sample of 819 adolescents ages 10 to 14 years at Wave 1 from low-income, urban families. Multiple aspects of context were considered, including the location, supervision,…

This study is an examination of family interdependence and its implications for academic adjustment among late adolescents and young adults in college (18 to 25 years). Survey data and university records were collected on 998 American youth with Asian Pacific, Latino, African/Afro-Caribbean, and European backgrounds. Results indicate that Asian…

Social information processing and moral domain theories have developed in relative isolation from each other despite their common focus on intentional harm and victimization, and mutual emphasis on social cognitive processes in explaining aggressive, morally relevant behaviors. This article presents a selective summary of these literatures with…

Social information processing theory has been posited as a description of how mental operations affect behavioral responding in social situations. Arsenio and Lemerise (this issue) proposed that consideration of concepts and methods from moral domain models could enhance this description. This paper agrees with their proposition, although it…

The Arsenio and Lemerise (this issue) proposal integrating social information processing (SIP) and domain theory to study children's aggression is evaluated from a domain theory perspective. Basic tenets of domain theory rendering it compatible with SIP are discussed as well as points of divergence. Focus is directed to the proposition that…