Reports two studies investigating how performance information affects interpersonal attraction in children. In both experiments children worked on perceptual problems in simulated groups, received feedback about their own and other group members' performance, and then indicated their desire to interact with selected group members in various…

Explores the generalization of changes in children's preferences for easy or difficult goals, when their preferences are induced by exposure to peer models playing a novel athletic game. Subjects played the same game immediately after exposure, participated in a "spelling bee" three weeks later, and chose puzzles of differing levels of difficulty…

Investigates relationships between social status, social interaction, and knowledge of social relationships in preschool children. Forty-seven middle-class preschoolers were assessed on a sociometric test of popularity, an observational measure of social participation, a measure of referential communication, and an emotion-attribution task.…

Demonstrates sharing of meaning among boy toddlers. The question addressed is not, What can a toddler mean? but rather, What meanings can toddlers share? The study tests several hypotheses about shared meaning and its role in sustaining toddler interactions, and proposes a "dictionary" of meanings that toddlers can share. (Author/RH)

Second- and sixth-grade boys were paired with a friend or an acquaintance (N=120), and each dyad completed a problem-solving task under cooperative, competitive, or no reward contingencies. Communicative exchange, affective expression, synchrony of task-oriented behavior, and task performance were examined for evidence of purported mutuality in…

One hundred and fifty-six children between the ages of 18 and 76 months were observed three times for 10 minutes each during free play in an attempt to describe the helping behavior of preschool children. (Author/RH)

Observations were made in 10 schools at the second-, fifth-, and seventh-grade levels of the forms of responses teachers and children provided to moral and social conventional transgressions. It was found that the responses of both teachers and children to social conventional events differed from their responses to moral events. (Author/RH)

Describes the development and validation of an index of empathy for use with children and adolescents. Fifty-six first-graders, 115 fourth graders, and 87 seventh graders were studied. (Author/RH)

Sex differences in risk-taking were examined by observing 480 three- to 11-year-old children at four different risk-taking locations at the San Antonio zoo. While girls were just as likely as boys to enter the zoo, at all four of the risk-taking situations, significantly more boys than girls engaged in risk-taking behavior. (Author/RH)

Focusing on those elements of children's preferences which link gender to social structure, the present study analyzes children's letters to Santa Claus. Findings show boys' and girls' requests to be similar when aspects of the child's world are measured and quite different when qualities representing the adult social order are measured.…

Examines the choice behavior of White third graders who indicated either a preference or no preference for closeness to Whites over Blacks on a social distance measure. Several predictions based on conflict theory were made pertaining to choice behavior and latency of responding in the two preference groups. (Author/RH)

Attempts to achieve a relatively comprehensive empirical description of the mother-infant relationship at the age of six months, with special focus on possible correlates of infant developmental competence. One hundred and sixty-eight mother-infant pairs contributed data on a wide variety of measures. (Author/RH)

The purpose of this study was to test the effectiveness of the Brazelton exam as a parent education tool for mothers and fathers. Target parents in treatment groups were taught to perform the Brazelton exam on their own infant, with attention being drawn to the infant's most positive interactive and physical abilities. (Author/RH)

The effects of remarriage on the parent's and the child's social behavior were studied by comparing 12 children whose biological mothers had remarried, 12 children whose mothers were divorced but had not remarried, and 12 children from intact, father-present families. (Author/RH)

Sixteen children at each of ages two, three, and four years were observed being approached by and interacting with a friendly stranger during their mothers' presence and absence. While analyses of discrete behaviors yielded results consistent with those of earlier studies, analyses based on a behavioral systems approach identified age and…