Training was found to increase both parents' and infants' competence in the parent-infant dyad. A reciprocal relationship between increases in the trained fathers' interactions and decreases in the trained mothers' interactions was found, indicating that the triad may be the crucial unit for studies of parental competence. (Author/RH)

A sample of 41 fourth- through sixth-grade children participated in structured situations and were rated by themselves and their teachers on the same four facets of prosocial conduct (donating, helping, sharing, and cooperating). Among the results, the relationship between need for approval and prosocial conduct varied inversely with the…

Seventh-grade children participated under two successive incentive conditions (self-prize and other prize) in a study of transgression behavior in a temptation task in which children were alternately offered a self-gratifying and an altruisitic incentive for successful performance. Most subjects behaved consistently across the incentive…

Thirty-six pairs of mixed-sex siblings were observed for two 1-hour periods in their homes. The younger siblings averaged 20 months of age and the interval between siblings was either large or small. Results are compared with a previous study of same-sex sibling interaction. (Author/RH)

In a simulated emergency situation, 38 introverted and 38 extroverted sixth-grade children were tested in the presence or absence of same-sex confederate peer. In the presence of a peer, more extroverts actively helped than introverts, with no difference occurring for children tested alone. Introverts and extroverts preferred passive and active…

Preschoolers named and gave reasons for liking/ disliking an actual best friend and an actual enemy. Questioning of parents and observation of subjects' free play were conducted to verify the existence of close, reciprocal friendships. Content analyses of subjects' responses revealed that different dimensions underlie unilateral and reciprocal…

Patterns of speech from lower socioeconomic status mothers to their infants were analyzed to determine correlations with infant risk of mental retardation. Measures of maternal language included sentence form, amount of speech, and syntactic complexity. The proportion of imperatives was positively correlated with risk status and negatively…

Investigated the interrelationships among young adults' levels of moral reasoning, their preferred discipline style, and the way they say they would reason with children on moral issues. (Author/DB)

College students who took the Defining Issues Test (DIT) were instructed to simulate the responses of 11-, 15-, and 19-year-old adolescents; other college students selected moral issues which they believed should be presented to adolescents in those age groups who were faced with the moral dilemmas in the DIT. (Author/DB)

When presented visual patterns for 100-msec followed by a 100-msec patterned masker at intervals of 0, 250, 500, and 2,000 msec after the offset of the stimulus, only infants in the 2,000-msec stimulus-masker interval condition significantly fixated a novel stimulus longer than a familiar stimulus. Results suggest visual processing in infants is…

Newborn infants' fixation of a graduated series of visual stimuli significantly differed in the absence and presence of white-noise bursts. Relative to the no-sound condition, sound resulted in the infants' tendency to look more at the low-intensity visual stimulus and less at the high- intensity visual stimulus. (Author/DB)

Investigated the ability of preschool and early grade school children to use logical search strategies to find a missing object on a familiar playground. Results indicated that children of all ages studied could deduce a critical search area and were not guided primarily by strong spatial associations. (Author/DB)

Sixty-four 3- and 4-year-olds were asked to identify another's view of a spatial array either verbally or by picture selection. Results indicate that verbalization leads to substantially more correct responses. Girls' performance was significantly better than boys' performance across both response modes. (Author/DB)

Examined reasons for discrepancies in the literature regarding the emergence of the scheme for multiple sufficient causes. Children between 4.3 and 5.4 years of age were asked to predict their own and another child's behavior in real and hypothetical situations when a reward was present or missing. (Author/DB)

Argues that developmental psychologists need attitudes, methods, and conceptual schemes that integrate the distinctive contributions of both nature and nurture in order to study change and consistency in developmental functions, as well as individual differences in behaviors of interest. A conceptual scheme for early mental development is…