Described is the development of a method for identifying and classifying differing attachment organizations at six years of age. The system is based on an analysis of children's responses to reunion with parents following a one-hour separation. Sixth year attachment classifications to mother were found to be highly predictable from infancy…

The social development of 59 kibbutz-reared five-year-olds, whose attachments to mothers, fathers, and metaplott were assessed when they were 11 to 14 months old, was investigated. Findings raise questions regarding the developmental significance of attachment relationships with various significant adults. (RH)

Using data from Israeli first-time fathers and mothers collected during pregnancy and while the infants were nine months old, regression analyses showed that personal and contextual sources were almost equally influential in determining the various aspects of fathering. Suggests that personal variables influence transfer of quality from the…

Assessed the extent to which the presence of a young developmentally disabled or nondisabled male child affected adaptation and family roles for mothers and fathers, using a multimethod approach. Proposes the concept of harmonic responsiveness to explain how proffered support must be tuned to the perceived needs and expectations of spouse. (RH)

To investigate sensory dominance in early development, a series of studies examined six-month-old infants' processing of multisensory stimulus compounds. Findings indicated that infants discriminated changes in the temporal characteristics of the auditory component but not in the visual component. This and other findings suggested that auditory…

Involving 10-month-old infants, a series of studies examined responses to temporally modulated compound auditory-visual stimuli. Findings indicated that, although the auditory modality can dominate the visual modality at 10 months of age, the visual modality can process temporal information when the temporal relationship of the information in the…

Involving children three and four years of age, studies examined the basis for the difficulty of discriminating between left-right orientations of a shape in standard two-choice task. It was concluded that difficulty of left-right judgments lies in the cognitive demands of the task and is to be understood in the same terms as other problems in…

The influence of three variables on response to undecidability was studied: (1) dual- versus single-solution rules; (2) nature of the choice contrast, and (3) presence or absence of additional information to resolve the undecidability. Participants were college students and third, fourth, and fifth grade elementary school students. (RH)

Three studies demonstrated that adults and children provide nonconservation-of-weight responses to misdirecting questions. Findings underscore the importance of linguistic pragmatics, conflict with recent claims that adults believe in the necessity of certain types of Piagetian logic, and support earlier findings suggesting that contextual cues…

Eighty-seven children relinquished at birth and adopted before the age of three years into different social classes were assessed in late adolescence. Findings indicated that the school failure of adoptees varies as a function of the social class of the adopive parents: the higher the social class, the lower the number of repeated grades. (RH)

Comparing 969 economically disadvantaged children attending Head Start, other preschools, or no preschool, this study assessed the Project's effectiveness. Findings indicated that Head Start provided an especially enriching preschool experience, and was an impressive instrument of short-term change in children. Gains in behaviors other than…

Infants expressed more joy and looked longer at their mothers during a joy condition, and they showed more sadness, anger, and gaze aversion during a sadness condition. They engaged in more play behavior in the joy condition than in the sadness condition. Several significant relations between infants' gaze behavior, emotion expressions, and play…

Examined were electroencephalogram (EEG) asymmetries during the presence of discrete facial signs of emotion among 10-month-old infants who were tested in a standard stranger- and mother-approach paradigm that included a brief separation from mother. Data underscore the usefulness of EEG measures of hemispheric activation in differentiating among…

Involving 82 preschool children and grade 2 students, a study was conducted to (1) determine whether heart rate, facial, and self-report indices could be used to differentiate between different vicariously induced negative emotional states; (2) examine developmental differences in the degree of differentiation; and (3) assess the pattern of…

Children six, nine, and 12 years of age were asked to recall stressful episodes to describe how they responded in each instance. Responses were coded as primary coping, secondary coping, or relinquished control. Findings indicated that children report that they cope with everyday stress and that their coping approaches are influenced by…