Mother–child participation in conversation about the past: Relationships to preschoolers' theory of mind.

Forty 3.5- to 4.5-year-olds discussed 3 past events with their mothers and completed a set of theory of mind tasks indexing their ability to reason about conflicting mental representations and their understanding of knowledge. Semipartial correlations and analyses of covariance showed that children's theory of mind scores were related to their participation in memory conversations, independent of age and linguistic skill. The frequency with which mothers provided new information was related to children's theory of mind scores, although mothers' direct replies to children were generally unrelated to children's understanding of mind. This research takes an important step toward examining the relevance of theory of mind skills to real-world, social interaction. The results have implications for explaining the emergence of autobiographical memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Understanding mind and emotion: Longitudinal associations with mental-state talk between young friends.

Developmental changes in children's understanding of mind and emotion and their mental-state talk in conversations with friends were examined in a longitudinal study of 50 children (M age at each time point = 3 years 11 months, 4 years 6 months, 5 years 0 months). Significant and related improvements over time were found for both theory-of-mind task performance and affective perspective taking. Associated with these cognitive developments were quantitative and qualitative changes in children's references to mental states in their conversations with friends. Individual differences in theory of mind, emotion understanding, and mental-state talk were strikingly stable over the 13 month period. Although there were no gender differences in children's task performances, girls showed more frequent and more developed mental-state talk than boys. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Intimate partner violence and preschoolers' explicit memory functioning.

This research examines whether parents' intimate partner physical violence (IPV) relates to their preschoolers' explicit memory functioning, whether children's symptoms of hyperarousal mediate this relation, and whether mothers' positive parenting moderates this relation. Participants were 69 mothers and their 4- or 5-year-old child (34 girls). Mothers completed measures of IPV, children's hyperarousal symptoms, parent-child aggression, and positive parenting. Measures of explicit memory functioning were administered to preschoolers. As expected, IPV correlated negatively with preschoolers' performance on explicit memory tasks, even after controlling for parent-child aggression and demographic variables related to preschoolers' memory functioning. Preschoolers' hyperarousal symptoms did not mediate the relation between IPV and explicit memory functioning, but mothers' positive parenting moderated this relation. Specifically, the negative relation between IPV and preschoolers' performance on 2 of the 3 explicit memory tasks was weaker when mothers engaged in higher levels of positive parenting. These findings extend research on IPV and children's adjustment difficulties to explicit memory functioning in preschoolers and suggest that mothers can ameliorate the influence of IPV on preschoolers' memory functioning via their parenting. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The relation between individual differences in fantasy and theory of mind

The relation between early fantasy/pretense and children's knowledge about mental life was examined in a study of 152 3- and 4-year-old boys and girls. Children were interviewed about their fantasy lives (e.g., imaginary companions, impersonation of imagined characters) and were given tasks assessing their level of pretend play and verbal intelligence. In a second session 1 week later, children were given a series of theory of mind tasks, including measures of appearance-reality, false belief, representational change, and perspective taking. The theory of mind tasks were significantly intercorrelated with the effects of verbal intelligence and age statistically controlled. Individual differences in fantasy/pretense were assessed by (1) identifying children who created imaginary characters, and (2) extracting factor scores from a combination of interview and behavioral measures. Each of these fantasy assessments was significantly related to the theory of mind performance of the 4-year-old children, independent of verbal intelligence.     

Lying in the elementary school years: Verbal deception and its relation to second-order belief understanding.

The development of lying to conceal one's own transgression was examined in school-age children. Children (N = 172) between 6 and 11 years of age were asked not to peek at the answer to a trivia question while left alone in a room. Half of the children could not resist temptation and peeked at the answer. When the experimenter asked them whether they had peeked, the majority of children lied. However, children's subsequent verbal statements, made in response to follow-up questioning, were not always consistent with their initial denial and, hence, leaked critical information to reveal their deceit. Children's ability to maintain consistency between their initial lie and subsequent verbal statements increased with age. This ability is also positively correlated with children's 2nd-order belief scores, suggesting that theory of mind understanding plays an important role in children's ability to lie consistently. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The development of children's moral sensibility: Individual differences and emotion understanding.

Developmental changes and individual differences in children's conceptions of transgressions were studied in 46 children in their kindergarten and 1st-grade years; the children had previously been studied with their mothers and siblings as 2- and 3-year-olds. Differences in responses to moral transgressions in kindergarten were related to mothers' control management and to siblings' friendly behavior in the preschool period, early understanding of emotions, and verbal ability. Family variables and emotion understanding were also correlated with responses to moral transgressions in 1st grade. The incidence of children's attribution of happiness or mixed feelings to victimizers did not change between 6 and 7 years. The findings suggest experiences with both mothers and siblings, and differences in how children assess the feelings of others show consistent and comparatively long-term associations with children's responses to moral issues. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relations between maternal employment and development of nursery school children.

Examined the relations between maternal employment status and nursery school children's sex role concepts, cognitive development, and adjustment. 110 children formed 4 groups according to their sex and their mothers' employment status. It was predicted that maternal employment would be associated with a broadening of Ss' sex role concepts and differential cognitive development depending on the sex of the S. Results show that Ss' sex role concepts were broader if their mothers were employed. Ss' perceptions of their mothers were not related to their employment status, but fathers were perceived more negatively by their sons if the mother was employed. Sons of employed mothers had lower IQ scores than either daughters of employed mothers or Ss with nonemployed mothers. Ss with employed mothers received better adjustment ratings from their teachers. (French summary) (31 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sanctification of parenting, moral socialization, and young children's conscience development.

Religion is important to most U.S. families, but is often overlooked in research on children's development. This study examined parental religious beliefs about the sanctification of parenting, parental disciplinary strategies, and the development of young children's conscience in a sample of 58 two-parent families with a preschool child. Fathers were more punitive and used less induction when disciplining their children than did mothers. Maternal and paternal reports of the sanctification of parenting were positively related to positive socialization/praise and the use of induction. When mothers and fathers in the family were both using induction, children had higher scores on moral conduct. Parents' use of positive socialization combined with a belief in the sanctification of parenting predicted children's conscience development. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Young children's understanding of conflicting mental representation predicts suggestibility.

This study examined the relation between developmental suggestibility effects and preschoolers' emerging ability to reason about conflicting mental representations (CMRs). Three- to 5-yr-olds listened to a story accompanied by pictures. Following a 4-min delay, children answered straightforward and misleading questions about the story. One wk later, their memory for the story was assessed. Children also completed tasks indexing their ability to reason about CMRs. Stepwise regression analyses revealed that suggestibility was negatively related to performance on CMR tasks. This finding remained significant after controlling for age, children's level of initial encoding of the event, and their ability to retrieve event details when not misled. An integration is proposed between children's theory of mind and source monitoring that may help to explain early developmental changes in suggestibility. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Transforming growth factor-beta1 induces apoptotic cell death in cultured retinal endothelial cells but not pericytes: association with decreased expression of p21waf1/cip1

Building on earlier work by Pascual-Leone (1970) and Case (1985), Olson (1989; 1993) set out a theory showing how a series of incremental changes in capacity for "holding in mind" could account, in part, for children's acquisition of a theory of mind. Following Piaget (1951) infants were said to employ schemata for maintaining relations with objects and events in the presence of those events. At about 18 months children became capable of holding in mind an object so as to free the perceptual system to perceive a second object and form a relation between the two, allowing for what Piaget called the "symbolic function" and what Olson described as predication. At around 4 years, the period examined in the present study, children were said to acquire the ability to represent that predicative relation as a belief or as true or false. That was the stage at which children were said to possess a theory of mind. The present study tested the hypothesized relation between development of a theory of mind and increasing computational resources. Three-, four-, and five-year-old children's performance on a pair of theory of mind tasks was compared with that on a pair of dual processing tasks designed on the basis of Baddeley's (1986) model of working memory. The resulting correlations, as high as r = .64 between the tasks, suggest that changes in capacity to hold in mind allow the expression of, and arguably the formation of, a theory of mind.     

Maternal Structure and Autonomy Support in Conversations About the Past: Contributions to Children's Autobiographical Memory.

The authors examined the contributions of maternal structure and autonomy support to children's collaborative and independent reminiscing. Fifty mother-child dyads discussed past experiences when the children were 40 and 65 months old. Children also discussed past events with an experimenter at each age. Maternal structure and autonomy support appeared as 2 distinct and separable components of mothers' reminiscing style and acted in an additive fashion to predict children's memory. Children whose mothers demonstrated both high structure and high autonomy support provided the greatest memory in these conversations, whereas children whose mothers were low on both dimensions provided minimal memory. The authors discuss the implications of these effects for children's autobiographical memory development. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Arguments and relationships within the family: Differences in young children's disputes with mother and sibling.

Examined whether children's arguments differ in disputes with mother and with sibling as well as how arguments used in family interaction relate to later assessment of social understanding. 50 children (aged 33 mo) were observed interacting with the mother and sibling in 2 visits in the child's home, and family conversation was recorded and subsequently transcribed. Results showed correlations between partners' arguments in conflict within dyads, but children's argument with their mothers was not related to that used when in dispute with their siblings. Children's use of argument with sibling was also predictive of sociocognitive performance assessed 7 mo later. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Measuring children's perceptions of their mother's depression: The Children’s Perceptions of Others’ Depression Scale–Mother Version.

Several theoretical perspectives suggest that knowledge of children's perceptions of and beliefs about their parents' depression may be critical for understanding its impact on children. This paper describes the development and preliminary evidence for the psychometric properties of a new measure, the Children's Perceptions of Others' Depression – Mother Version (CPOD-MV), which assesses theoretically and empirically driven constructs related to children's understanding and beliefs about their mothers' depression. These constructs include children's perceptions of the severity, chronicity, and impairment of their mothers' depression; self-blame for their mother's depression; and beliefs about their abilities to deal with their mother's depression. The CPOD-MV underwent two stages of development: (1) a review of the literature to identify key constructs, focus groups to help generate items, and clinicians' ratings on the relevance and comprehensibility of the drafted items and (2) a study of the measure's psychometric properties. The literature review, focus groups, and item-reduction techniques yielded a 21-item measure. Reliability, factor structure, and discriminant, convergent, and concurrent validity were tested in a sample of 10- to 17-year-old children whose mothers had been treated for depression. The scale had good internal consistency; factor structure suggestive of a single construct; and discriminant, concurrent, convergent, and incremental validity, suggesting the importance of measuring children's perceptions of their mothers' depression beyond knowledge of mothers' depression symptom level when explaining which children have the greatest risk for emotional and behavioral problems among children of depressed mothers. These findings support continued development and beginning clinical applications of the scale. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of mothers' control in children's mastery orientation: A time frame analysis.

Important to understanding the process by which parents' control shapes children's motivation is identifying the time frame in which it does so. To this end, mothers and their 4-year-old children were observed interacting for 15 min while working on a challenging task twice over 6 months. Mothers' control and children's mastery orientation were coded in 1-min intervals at both times. Analyses over the 6 months indicated that mothers' heightened control foreshadowed children's dampened mastery because mothers' control was stable over time. Analyses over the 15-min interactions revealed that the more controlling mothers were one minute, the less mastery oriented children were the next minute, adjusting for their earlier mastery. Moreover, when mothers began these interactions highly controlling, children's mastery was particularly likely to decrease over the 15 min. Taken together, the results suggest the effect of mothers' control on children's mastery is immediate and maintained through mothers' continued controlling practices. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Maternal facial behavior and the recognition and production of emotional expression by maltreated and nonmaltreated children.

20 maltreated and 20 nonmaltreated children (ages?=?3–7 years) and their mothers were observed during a laboratory play session and 7 home observation visits. Ss' facial behavior was video recorded in the lab and coded live by observers in the home. Children also participated in an emotional-expression recognition task. Data analysis showed that both maltreatment status and mothers' facial behavior were predictors of children's recognition scores. Positive relationships were also found between mothers' and children's expressive behavior. Although maltreated and nonmaltreated children differed significantly in their recognition of emotional facial expressions, group differences were not found for either mothers' or children's expressive behavior. Overall, this study's findings indicate that children's recognition and production of facial expressions depends in part on the expressive environment provided by their mothers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Observed maternal strategies and children's health locus of control in low-income Mexican Americans.

This study examined the relationship among mothers' health locus of control (HLOC) beliefs, their socialization strategies, and their children's HLOC beliefs in 80 low-income Mexican American families. Maternal socialization strategies were assessed from videotaped interactions of mothers and children engaged in a structured task. Factor analysis of the coded strategies yielded 4 factors: Tell Answer, Teaching, Clarify, and Reinforce. Findings indicated that maternal-health-internally scores negatively predicted mothers' use of the Tell Answer strategies and positively predicted their use of Teaching strategies. Mothers who believed that Powerful Others (e.g., health professionals) controlled their health were more likely to use the Tell Answer strategy. In contrast, mothers who believed that health was due to chance were less likely to use Teaching. Maternal use of Teaching strategies predicted children's internal HLOC, whereas maternal Tell Answer strategies predicted children's external HLOC. Findings suggest that mothers' HLOC beliefs influence the socialization strategies they use and that these strategies are associated with children's HLOC beliefs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Predicting the developmental course of mother-reported monitoring across childhood and adolescence from early proactive parenting, child temperament, and parents' worries.

Change in mothers' reported monitoring and awareness of their children's activities and companions across Grades 5, 6, 8, and 11 were examined with the use of latent factor growth modeling. Proactive parenting and resistant-to-control (RTC) child temperament assessed prior to kindergarten, as well as parents' worries about their children's behavior in Grades 5 and 8, were tested as factors associated with change in monitoring over time. Higher proactive parenting, lower RTC temperament, and the mounting of a successful campaign to change their children's behavior were associated with higher monitoring scores overall. Monitoring levels decreased across time, but the rate of decline was steeper among mothers with high RTC children and slower among mothers who mounted a campaign and judged it to be effective. These findings shed light on factors contributing to continuity and change across development in a key domain of parenting. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)