Examined development of concern and externalizing problems in children at three behavior problem levels. Found no group differences in concern at 4-5 years. Concern in children with clinical behavior problems decreased by 6-7 years. Greater concern at 4-5 or at 6-7 years predicted decreased stability and severity of externalizing problems by 6-7…

Investigated 3-year-olds' understanding of the appearance-reality distinction using verbal response and nonverbal response paradigms in 4 experiments. Found that about 30 percent of children were correct in verbal paradigm; over 90 percent of same children were correct in nonverbal paradigm. Participating in the verbal paradigm impeded children's…

Used quantitative genetic design to examine between- and within-family variations and gene-environment processes in parent-child mutuality among 3-year-old identical and same-sex fraternal twins. Found that greater mutuality was associated with higher socioeconomic status. Moderate sibling similarity in parent-child mutuality was accounted for by…

Examined the role of the psychological process of comparison in young children's ability to extend a novel adjective to other objects sharing a salient property whether objects are of the same or different basic-level categories. Found that comparison operates in conjunction with naming to support extension of novel adjectives to properties of…

Three experiments investigated use of vitalistic explanations for biological phenomena by 5- and 10-year-olds and by adults. Results replicated the original Japanese finding of vitalistic thinking among English-speaking 5-year-olds, identified the more active component of vitalism as a belief in the transfer of energy during biological processes,…

Examined the joint and unique predictive significance of emergent literacy skills for later emergent literacy skills and reading in two samples of preschoolers. Structural equation modeling revealed significant developmental continuity of these skills, particularly for letter knowledge and phonological sensitivity from late preschool to early…

Examined validity of attachment-based measures of parent-child relationships designed for 9- to 12-year-olds. Measures included self-reports of perceptions of security and avoidant and preoccupied coping, a projective interview assessing attachment state of mind, parents' reports of willingness to serve as an attachment figure, and ratings of…

Examined whether 6-month-olds expect people to behave differently toward persons and inanimate objects. Found that infants habituated to an actor talking to something hidden behind an occluder looked longer at an object, whereas infants habituated to an actor reaching and swiping looked longer at a person. No difference in looking at stimuli was…

Describes connectionist model showing exclusivity asymmetries when categorizing visual stimuli, similar to pattern shown by infants. Examines asymmetries in terms of an associative learning mechanism, distributed internal representations, and statistics of feature distributions in the stimuli. Details test of model with infants, finding that…

Two studies examined the moderating role of dyadic friendship in the developmental pathway to peer victimization. Both studies found that early harsh, punitive, and hostile family environments predicted later victimization by peers for children who had a low number of friendships. Predictive associations did not hold for children with numerous…

Four studies with kindergarten through fifth graders and adults examined the development of reasoning about the origins of psychological traits. Results suggested an age-related increase in the tendency to distinguish among different psychological traits, and that over time, individuals come to believe that psychological traits are determined…

Two experiments assessed recognition of emotion among physically abused and neglected preschoolers. Results showed that neglected children had more difficulty discriminating emotional expressions that control or abused children. Abused children displayed response bias for angry facial expressions. Control children viewed discrete emotions as…

Increasing numbers of children experience parental separation and formation of stepfamilies. Research into the impact of these family transitions on children's adjustment by family sociologists and psychologists has greatly increased; changes in research perspectives over the last two decades are discussed, including a focus on individual…

The academic year 2004-2005 marks the 50th anniversary of the "Merrill-Palmer Quarterly: A Journal of Developmental Psychology." This occasion provides an opportunity to celebrate the journal's heritage, its long history of scholarly contributions to the human developmental sciences, and its current and future mission as a purveyor of scientific…

We evaluated the extent to which aggressive victims show unique developmental pathways that are different from those of passive victims, bullies, and uninvolved children. A total of 1,722 children were followed from 4th grade to 6th grade, and the prevalence and stability of each group were assessed. Aggressive victims became less prevalent and…