This project examined some of the common constraints on reliable cognitive assessment for children over time. Repeated measures design (n = 133) was with younger (5 & 6 year old, n = 64) and older (7 & 8 year old, n = 69) children. Results showed that children's self-concepts moderated the test-retest reliability over extended intervals for…

Adolescents from grade 9 in Sydney Australia (N = 60) were interviewed regarding why they would or would not consider pursuing maths-related careers. Open-ended interview data explored the comprehensiveness of explanations within the Expectancy-Value framework. The Expectancy-Value model is the major motivational framework for explaining students'…

The online learning environment provides the opportunity for remote groups of students to interact with instructors and each other. Most web based learning platforms facilitate synchronous online discussions between participants. These discussion forums are designed to replicate the face to face tutorial setting and provide a medium for the…

This study explores the impact of an exploratory, minimalist intervention based on the principles of social communication training that aimed at promoting positive interactions between mother and child and increasing child initiations in mother-child communication. Encouraging data indicated a shift towards a more positive interaction style…

Examined differences in attraction to same- and other-sex peers as a function of sex, age, individual characteristics, and context in adolescents studied longitudinally from elementary to middle school. Found attraction to aggressive peers and to peers standing out in observable ways increased with age and upon entry to middle school, whereas…

Six experiments examined infants' ability to associate nonsense words with two causal actions: pushing and pulling. Eighteen-month-olds, but not 14-month-olds, formed word-action associations. Fourteen-month-olds discriminated a change in label but not a change in action when the other was held constant. When language labels were replaced with…

Three experiments investigated children's understanding of inference as a knowledge source. Most 4- to 6-year-olds did not rate a puppet as more certain of a toy's color after the puppet looked at the toy or inferred its color than they did after the puppet guessed the color. Most 8- and 9-year-olds distinguished inference and looking from…

Used between-family analyses of data from adolescent twin girls to offer new evidence that early menarche is associated with earlier initiation and greater frequency of smoking and drinking. Found that association of pubertal timing with substance use could not be explained by between-family confounds, and pubertal timing influence on drinking…

Three experiments assessed the intersensory redundancy hypothesis in early infancy. Findings indicated that habituation to a bimodal rhythm resulted in discrimination of a novel rhythm, whereas habituation to the same rhythm presented unimodally resulted in no evidence of discrimination. Temporal synchrony between the bimodal auditory and visual…

Examined preschool children's recall of deictic verbs of motion presented within stories either consistently or inconsistently with the protagonist's viewpoint. Found that 3- and 4-year-olds accurately recalled verbs of motion (come, go, bring, take) that were consistent with the protagonist's viewpoint but made substitution errors of…

Examined variability in adolescent-friend similarity in African American, Asian American, and European American adolescents. Found greatest similarity for substance use, modest for academic orientation, and low for ethnic identity. Found that compared with other groups, African Americans chose friends who were less similar in academic orientation…

Examined young children's social development of effortful control in a longitudinal study. Found that between 22 and 33 months, effortful control improved considerably, its coherence increased, it was stable, and it was higher for girls. Found that children's focused attention at 9 months, mothers' responsiveness at 22 months, and mothers'…

Tested the hypothesis that friends are more similar in proactive aggression than in reactive aggression with 185 fourth- to sixth-grade boys and examined interpersonal processes that may account for this similarity. Suggested that proactively aggressive boys tended to select proactively aggressive peers as friends; however, mutual influence…

Examined sexual identities, attractions, and behaviors of sexual-minority women in 2-year follow-up of women first interviewed at 16-23 years. Found half the participants had changed sexual-minority orientations more than once; one- third changed identities since the first interview. Found changes in sexual attractions were larger among bisexuals…

Compared psychosocial outcomes for mothers and their infants who had been delivered vaginally or by planned or unplanned cesarean deliveries. Found that women low in neuroticism who delivered by unplanned cesarean showed less positive affect toward infants at 4 months than did women in other groups. Found some evidence that maternal appraisal of…