Parents' responses to the emotional distress of their children: Relations with children's competence.

Although investigators have proposed in various theories that the socialization of emotions has important implications for children's general competence, very little empirical data exist. In the present study, parents' responses to the emotional distress of their preschool children were examined in the context of more general dimensions of parenting (warmth and control), and the relation of these responses to children's competence was assessed. Data on parent–child interactions were collected for 30 families, using home observations, parent self-reports, observer ratings, and child interviews. Children's competence in preschool was assessed by teacher ratings. Effective, situationally appropriate action was the most frequently observed parental response to children's upset, and children's attributions to parents of such pragmatic responses was positively related to their competence in preschool. Parental encouragement of emotional expressiveness was also positively associated with child competence. Variables assessing positive responses to upset, although related to warmth (as expected), also contributed independently to children's competence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relations between children's overestimation of their physical abilities and accident proneness.

Two experiments examined developmental changes in the accuracy of children's judgments about their physical abilities. Experiment 1 showed that 6- and 8-year-olds overestimated their ability to perform tasks just beyond and well beyond their ability. Adults only had difficulty making judgments about tasks just beyond their ability. Experiment 2 investigated how experience with performing activities influences judgments about physical abilities. Six-year-olds again overestimated their ability to perform tasks just beyond and well beyond their ability. Eight-year-olds were more accurate about tasks well beyond than just beyond their ability. In both experiments, overestimation of ability was associated with accidental injuries for 6- but not for 8-year-olds. The discussion focuses on children's overestimation of physical abilities and the relation between overestimation and accident proneness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Teacher perceptions and student reading motivation.

Teacher perceptions of students' intrinsic motivation for reading were examined from the perspective of self-determination development and reading achievement. A sample of 68 teachers from randomly selected elementary schools that were representative of county characteristics rated 374 students on 6 aspects of motivation for reading, including individual, topical, activity-based, autonomy-supported, socially supported, and writing-related aspects. Quantitative and qualitative results showed that teachers perceived higher achievers to be relatively higher in intrinsic reading motivation (individual and topical) than in extrinsic reading motivation (activity-based and autonomy-supported). In contrast, teachers perceived lower achievers to be relatively more motivated by extrinsic contextual factors than by intrinsic factors. Teachers appear to possess implicit theories that are in accord with the self-determination perspective on the development of motivation and reading achievement. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Praise for intelligence can undermine children's motivation and performance.

Praise for ability is commonly considered to have beneficial effects on motivation. Contrary to this popular belief, six studies demonstrated that praise for intelligence had more negative consequences for students' achievement motivation than praise for effort. Fifth graders praised for intelligence were found to care more about performance goals relative to learning goals than children praised for effort. After failure, they also displayed less task persistence, less task enjoyment, more low-ability attributions, and worse task performance than children praised for effort. Finally, children praised for intelligence described it as a fixed trait more than children praised for hard work, who believed it to be subject to improvement. These findings have important implications for how achievement is best encouraged, as well as for more theoretical issues, such as the potential cost of performance goals and the socialization of contingent self-worth. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Empathy and responsibility in the motivation of children's helping.

To investigate affective and dispositional factors in the motivation of children's helping, 60 children ranging from preschool to sixth grade were observed in laboratory distress incidents involving, as potential recipients of aid, a kitten, an adult experimenter, and a mother with an infant. Positive, negative, and neutral affect expressions were observed in two of the three distress incidents, and prosocial dispositions were assessed through children's attributions regarding the motives and feelings of characters in eight stories involving persons in distress. Results indicated that helping tended to be positively correlated with positive affect and negatively correlated with negative and neutral affect. Further evidence suggested that these correlations were primarily attributable to positive affects associated with helping itself rather than to affects experienced in witnessing the other's distress. Among story attributions, attributions of guilt were strongly and consistently related to helping and affect expression in the total sample and across grade groupings. Attributions of empathy and altruism were also related to helping, but only in the total sample. These results are interpreted as suggesting that it may not be empathic arousal alone that is most important for the motivation of helping, but the subjective meaning of that arousal in terms of an accompanying sense of responsibility for the other person's plight. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reinforcement potency of children's reading materials.

Two related experiments investigated the reinforcement potency of children's reading materials. In Exp I, 96 3rd graders demonstrated a listening preference, overall, for heritage, contemporary, and McGuffey materials in that order. In Exp II, listening to tapes of the materials was used as a reward for correct responses on individualized reading exercises. 196 3rd graders were randomly assigned to 5 groups: 3 reinforcement groups, a no-listening control, and a no-intervention control. Listening served as a reinforcer. While individual preferences had an initial effect, the final measure showed the heritage literature to be the most potent, then contemporary, and then McGuffey. The heritage group performed significantly better on a standardized reading achievement test (Science Research Associates Primary II Reading Achievement Test, Forms F and E). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Intrinsic and extrinsic reading motivation as predictors of reading literacy: A longitudinal study.

The purpose in this study was to examine the longitudinal relationships of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation with reading literacy development. In particular, the authors (a) investigated reading amount as mediator between motivation and reading literacy and (b) probed for bidirectional relationships between reading motivation and reading literacy, controlling for previous reading literacy. A total of 740 students participated in a longitudinal assessment starting in Grade 3, with further points of measurement in Grades 4 and 6. Structural equation models with latent variables showed that the relationship between intrinsic reading motivation and later reading literacy was mediated by reading amount but not when previous reading literacy was included in the model. A bidirectional relationship was found between extrinsic reading motivation and reading literacy: Grade 3 reading literacy negatively predicted extrinsic reading motivation in Grade 4, which in turn negatively predicted reading literacy in Grade 6. Implications for research and practice are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Home grown for reading: Parental contributions to young children's emergent literacy and word recognition.

This article provides an integrative review of key aspects of emergent literacy and specific home activities that empirical research has shown to support their development. Given the importance of word recognition in reading development, home contributions to word recognition as well as to four areas of emergent literacy that contribute to word recognition are highlighted. These include phonological awareness, letter knowledge, print concepts, and vocabulary. Particular attention is devoted to the activity of shared book reading to outline its different facets, changing nature, and potential impact on emergent literacy and word recognition skill. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stages in Chinese children's reading of English words.

Developmental stages in reading English words were examined among 118 Chinese children in Grades 2, 4, and 6 from a working-class elementary school in Tianjin, China. Proficiency in Chinese and English, ability to make orthographic analogies in both languages, and strategies in reading English words were assessed. Results suggest that Chinese children follow stages in alphabetic reading development similar to those of native English-speaking children: the prealphabetic stage, the partial alphabetic stage, and the full alphabetic stage. The use of orthographic analogy does not form a separate stage independent of the alphabetic decoding stages; rather, it is a concurrent option available to Chinese children from an early age. Children more readily made onset-vowel analogies than vowel-coda analogies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Developmental and instructional analyses of children's metacognition and reading comprehension.

Children's understanding of their own cognitive skills, or metacognition, has been hypothesized to play a major role in learning and development. In this study, we examine the developing relation between children's metacognition and reading comprehension. Children in third- and fifth-grade classes were given an experimental curriculum, Informed Strategies for Learning (ISL), designed to increase their awareness and use of effective reading strategies. In both grades, children in experimental classes made significant gains in metacognition and the use of reading strategies compared with children in control classes. The multivariate profiles of reading skills derived from the developmental analyses helped to identify subgroups of children who responded differently to the metacognitive instruction. Although there were specific aptitude-by-treatment interactions, there was a general trend for metacognition and strategic reading to become more congruent from 8 to 10 years of age. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mothers' supervision of their children's peer play: Relations with beliefs, perceptions, and knowledge.

Mothers (N?=?76) of 3- to 5-year-old children completed questionnaires assessing beliefs in the importance and modifiability (vs. innateness) of children's peer relationship skills, perceptions of their children's social competence with peers, and strategies they would use in response to children's peer interaction problems. A subsample of mothers (n?=?34) was observed supervising the play of their own children and a peer. Maternal perceptions of children's competence were negatively associated with the extent of mothers' involvement in children's play, whereas the quality of supervision was predicted by knowledge of socialization strategies and the interaction of beliefs and knowledge. Beliefs appeared to moderate the effects of maternal knowledge on mothers' behavior in that knowledge was associated with the quality of supervision only when mothers believed social skills were important and modifiable. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Overjustification and children's intrinsic motivation: Comparative effects of four rewards.

Studied the relative overjustifying effects of various types of rewards on 30 boys' and 30 girls' (mean ages 72.6 and 72.4 mo, respectively) intrinsic motivation. Four reward procedures were examined—tangible, verbal, symbolic, and self-administered symbolic (self) rewards. Ss attempted to solve mazes under 1 of 5 training conditions and were then given a free-play period in which to engage in further maze play or try other materials. Ss receiving tangible rewards and those who self-administered symbolic rewards (self-reward) showed less subsequent intrinsic motivation than Ss in the control, verbal reward, and symbolic reward conditions. Moreover, internal locus-of-control expectancies (Stanford Preschool Internal–External Scale) were inversely related to intrinsic motivation for Ss in the self-reward condition. Results are discussed from 2 perspectives—the intrinsic–extrinsic reward continuum and E. L. Deci's (1975) distinction between the controlling (detrimental) and informational (competence- and motivation-enhancing) aspects of rewards. (21 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Roles of approval motivation and social reinforcement in children's discrimination learning.

144 3rd- and 4th-grade children were given a 2-choice discrimination learning task. The 2 major factors were (a) the 3 levels of social desirability (high, moderate, and low) on the Children's Social Desirability scale; and (b) the 2 types of treatment conditions (monetary-social reinforcement and monetary-no social reinforcement). In opposition to D. P. Crowne and D. Marlowe's (1961) model of the approval-motivated individual, the high-social-desirability group made significantly fewer errors than both the moderate and low groups. It is suggested that for young children, social desirability scores may require a different interpretation than scores for older children and adults. (17 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of integrated instruction on motivation and strategy use in reading.

Effects of instructional context on intrinsic and extrinsic motivation have been examined with a variety of studies. This quasi experiment compared students receiving an instructional intervention designed to increase intrinsic motivation with students receiving traditional instruction. Concept-oriented reading instruction (CORI) integrated reading and language arts with science inquiry. It emphasized learning goals, real-world interaction (hands-on science activities), competence support (strategy instruction), autonomy support (self-directed learning), and collaboration. Traditional classrooms had the same content objectives and comparable teachers but different pedagogy. Children in CORI classrooms scored higher on motivation than did children in traditional classrooms, with effect sizes of 1.94 for curiosity and 1.71 for strategy use. Grade-level differences were found for recognition and competition. The results show that classroom contexts can be constructed to influence motivational outcomes positively. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

From objects to quantities: Developments in preschool children's judgments about aggregate amount.

The impact of object boundaries on children's developing quantitative reasoning was examined in a study of children's judgments about aggregate amount. Children at ages 3, 4. and 5 years were asked to help a Cookie Monster get as much to eat as possible by choosing between alternative collections that differed in the number and size of the cookies they contained and also in aggregate amount. Results indicated that children were heavily influenced by the size of individual cookies at 3 years of age but were generally unsuccessful in aggregating size information across multiple cookies until 5 years. The contrast between children's sensitivity to object sizes from an early age and the relatively late achievement of accurate judgments of aggregate amount underscores the significance for quantitative development of the distinction between discrete objects and mathematical quantities. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Quality of adult book reading affects children's emergent literacy.

The authors assessed the relative benefits of 3 styles of adult book reading for preschoolers' emergent literacy. A describer style focused on describing pictures during the reading, a comprehender style focused on story meaning, and a performance-oriented style introduced the book and discussed story meaning on completion. Forty-eight 4-year-olds were randomly assigned to receive 1 of the 3 reading styles over a 6-week period. Pretests and posttests measured children's receptive vocabulary, print, and story comprehension skills. A describer style of reading resulted in the greatest overall benefits for children's vocabulary and print skills, but a performance-oriented style was also beneficial when children's initial skill levels were taken into account. Future book-reading interventions should be tailored to children's initial skill levels. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relations of maternal socialization and toddlers' effortful control to children's adjustment and social competence.

The authors examined the relations of maternal supportive parenting to effortful control and internalizing problems (i.e., separation distress, inhibition to novelty), externalizing problems, and social competence when toddlers were 18 months old (n = 256) and a year later (n = 230). Mothers completed the Coping With Toddlers' Negative Emotions Scale, and their sensitivity and warmth were observed. Toddlers' effortful control was measured with a delay task and adults' reports (Early Childhood Behavior Questionnaire). Toddlers' social functioning was assessed with the Infant/Toddler Social and Emotional Assessment. Within each age, children's regulation significantly mediated the relation between supportive parenting and low levels of externalizing problems and separation distress, and high social competence. When using stronger tests of mediation, controlling for stability over time, the authors found only partial evidence for mediation. The findings suggest these relations may be set at an early age. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Correlates of children's long-term adjustment to their parents' divorce.

Assessed the nature and correlates of adjustment to divorce in a sample of 58 White, middle-class, 8–17 yr old children whose parents had been separated about 4 yrs. Ss were administered a battery of tests, including the California Psychological Inventory, the Adjective Check List, the Nowicki-Strickland Locus of Control Scale for Children, and a questionnaire on divorce adjustment. Measures of Ss' understanding of and feelings about the divorce were nonsignificantly related only to Ss' positive feelings about the divorce. Ss' understanding of the divorce did not reveal great difficulty of adjustment; however, feelings about the divorce were largely negative. A 2-yr follow-up of 24 Ss and 14 of their siblings revealed moderate stability in Ss' divorce adjustment with significant increases in their positive feelings regarding the loss of the noncustodial parent and peer relations. Locus of Control and Interpersonal Reasoning were significant predictors of divorce adjustment independent of age. Finally, specific adjustment to divorce was related to Ss' more global personal adjustment. (62 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Role of parental motivational practices in children's academic intrinsic motivation and achievement.

Tested the role of parental motivational practices in children's academic intrinsic motivation and achievement in a longitudinal study of children at ages 9 and 10 yrs. Two types of motivational practices were assessed: mothers' encouragement of children's task endogeny and provision of task-extrinsic consequences. Structural equations path models for general-verbal and math academic areas supported the 2 predictions that children's academic intrinsic motivation is positively related to encouragement of task endogeny and negatively related to provision of task-extrinsic consequences. Academic intrinsic motivation at age 9 yrs predicted motivation and achievement at age 10 yrs. Moreover, through motivation at 9 yrs, the motivational practices indirectly affected motivation at 10 yrs and achievement. Findings provide ecological validity for the role of parental motivational practices in children's academic intrinsic motivation and achievement. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of inference necessity and reading goal on children's inferential generation.

Examined inferential processing during reading. Adults and 3rd, 5th, and 8th graders read stories implying a consequence and answered questions. Some of the inferences were more necessary than others for comprehension according to T. Trabasso and P. Van den Broek's (see record 1987-18271-001) causal criteria, and the readers engaged in either superficial or integrative reading. Results showed that elaborative inferences were not as likely to be generated as those more necessary for comprehension. The necessity manipulation also produced a similar pattern of responding among the 4 groups, suggesting that even the young children were sensitive to the causal criteria. In addition, the integrative reading condition prompted a general slowdown for the 2 younger groups, whereas the 2 older groups were not as affected by reading condition. This pattern was interpreted in terms of differences in attention demands and working memory capacity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)