Examined factors associated with harmony in 60 adolescent girls' relationships with their mothers and their best friends. Harmonious (versus disharmonious) mother-daughter partners had more similar needs, felt their needs were better met, perceived their partners as more socially skilled and had more similar interests. A similar pattern was found…

First- and fifth-grade only-children and children with siblings completed 11 cognitive tasks to investigate differences in cognitive abilities that may exist due to the Chinese 1-child family planning program. Superiority of grade one only-children over children with siblings appeared for memory processes, language skills, and mathematics.…

Examined differences in intelligence test scores of black and white five-year-olds born premature with low birth weight. Found that black children's IQ scores were 1 SD lower than those of white children. Adjustments for ethnic differences in poverty reduced the differential by half; adjustments for differences in home environment reduced it by…

Used the sibling adoption design to investigate teacher and tester ratings of child temperament. Ratings on the Colorado Childhood Temperament Inventory were obtained from a teacher and a tester for pairs of adopted and nonadoptive seven-year-old siblings. Significant genetic influence emerged for tester ratings of Activity and Sociability and for…

Compared measures of peer relationships and emotional well-being of children with sickle cell disease (SCD) to those of same-classroom peers. Found that, compared to nondiseased subjects, SCD females were perceived as less sociable and less well accepted; SCD males were perceived as less aggressive. No other differences were identified for…

Examined 5- to 7- and 9- to 12-year-olds' responses to videotaped interadult conflicts in which the content and emotion of endings were either consistent or discrepant. Both younger and older children responded to content and emotion cues with their perceptions of adults' anger and conflict resolution, with positive emotion and nonconflictual…

Evaluated emotional expressiveness, empathy, and prosocial behavior in 9-, and 13-year-olds. As expected, emotional expressiveness, emotional insight, and role taking were strong predictors of latent empathy. Boys' empathy was a strong predictor of prosocial behavior, whereas girls' empathy was related to prosocial behaviors with friends but not…

Examined peer-related social interactions of preschool children with communication disorders. Found that subjects engaged in fewer positive social interactions and conversed with peers less often during nonplay activities than did normal peers, were less successful in their social bids, and appeared to be less directive with their peers. However,…

Examined inhibitory control as a quality of temperament that contributes to internalization in toddler and preschool children. Children's internalization was observed while they were alone with prohibited objects, and in scenarios that occasioned violating standards of conduct, and were assessed using maternal reports. Found that inhibitory…

Examined role of mother-toddler attachment in moderating the relationships between behavioral inhibition and changes in salivary cortisol levels in response to novel events. Subjects were 77 infants 18 months old. Found elevations in cortisol only for inhibited toddlers in insecure attachment relationships. Mothers in these relationships appeared…

Examined affective and motoric reactivity hypothesized to be associated with later inhibited and uninhibited behavior. Affect and reactivity were classified at four months. Brain electrical activity was assessed at 9 months, and behavior toward novelty, at 14 months. Found that greater activation in both the left and right frontal hemispheres was…

Tested 90 infants in the Strange Situation Procedure (SSP) with both parents. Found that mothers' Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) scores predicted infant-mother SSPs and fathers' AAIs predicted infant-father SSPs. Counter to expectation, infant-father SSPs were associated with infant-mother SSPs, which might be explained by the influence of…

Examined parent-child interaction during toddlers'"terrible twos" stage. Found that families experiencing difficulty could be identified, troubled behavior could be predicted based on family ecology, and families at moderate and high contextual risk were more likely to experience troublesome behavior when the child experienced 20 or more hours per…

Examined first-born preschoolers' adjustment to siblinghood, as indexed by security of attachment, in 194 2-parent families. Security of firstborn attachment decreased significantly after a secondborn's birth, but the decrease was smaller among firstborn under 24 months than among 2- to 5-year-olds. Mothers' marital harmony, affective involvement,…

Examined associations between mothers' and trained observers' Attachment Q-Set (AQS) sorts for preschoolers and assessed mother-observer concordance in relation to observers' confidence about how representative the behavior they witnessed was of the domain of AQS items. Found that mothers' and observers' sorts were significantly intercorrelated;…