A new statistical test for age-of-onset anticipation: application to bipolar disorder

Sixty 2nd, 5th, and 8th graders were interviewed on their moral and ecological reasoning about the 1990 Exxon Valdez oil spill that occurred in Prince William Sound, Alaska. Results showed that children understood that the oil spill negatively affected the local Alaskan shoreline, marine life, fishermen, recreationists, and the oil company. Children cared that harm occurred to the shoreline and marine life and conceived of both types of harm as violating a moral obligation. Fifth and 8th graders, compared with 2nd graders, used a greater proportion of anthropocentric reasoning (e.g., that nature ought to be protected to protect human welfare) and biocentric reasoning (e.g., that nature has intrinsic value, rights, or a teleology). Discussion focuses on how studying children's reasoning about nature not only extends the bounds of what counts as moral--to include a relationship with the natural world--but also provides a unique means by which to conduct basic research on children's moral development.     

Developmental change in judging important and critical elements of stories.

Conducted 2 experiments with 54 2nd, 4th, and 6th graders and 15 undergraduates (Exp I) and 45 2nd and 4th graders (Exp II) to examine children's understanding (metacognitive awareness) that in a simple story the following parts are most important or essential for comprehending it: what precipitates the character's action (initiating event), what the character did (action), and what follows the character's action (consequence). Ss' judgments of simple stories showed that 2nd graders seldom selected this sequence, but 4th, 5th, and 6th graders and adults did so under a variety of conditions. In addition there was a modest relation between recall of the stories and older children's (5th graders) judgments of them. (9 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's Moral Judgments as a Function of Intention, Damage, and an Actor's Physical Harm.

A study was conducted to examine the moral judgments of kindergartners, third graders, and fifth graders with respect to physical harm to the actor. The subjects were exposed to stories varying in terms of intention, damage, and harm to the actor. Younger children rated the hurt actors more negatively than unhurt actors; however, this distinction disappeared by fifth grade. It is suggested that young children's belief in the notion of immanent justice accounted for the obtained results. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reasoning about certainty and uncertainty in concrete, causal, and propositional contexts.

Examined children's comprehension of certainty and uncertainty within the context of concrete and propositional reasoning tasks. 69 1st, 3rd, and 5th graders were given G. Pieraut-LeBonniec's (1980) box task and a multisufficient causality task to assess reasoning about certainty and uncertainty in concrete contexts. Ss were also given conditional syllogisms to assess this ability in a propositional context. Half of the Ss at each grade were given contramanded syllogism task statements intended to block erroneous conversational inferences made about these conditional statements. Results indicate that there were no developmental differences in reasoning about concrete certainty, but significant improvement occurred with age in reasoning about concrete uncertainty. On syllogisms, only the 5th graders benefited from contramanding and thus demonstrated an understanding of propositional uncertainty. Correlational and error analyses showed that the discrimination between certainty and uncertainty was mastered in concrete contexts prior to the time when this discrimination occurred in propositional contexts. It is concluded that reasoning about concrete certainty and uncertainty requires a different competence than that required for reasoning about propositional certainty and uncertainty. (17 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Developmental analysis of the role of social comparison in self-evaluation.

The use of social comparison information for self-evaluation may be viewed as a major developmental step in children's growing understanding of their competencies and limitations. The 2 studies presented here suggested that children's achievement-related self-evaluations are little affected by relative comparisons until surprisingly late—that is, not earlier than 7–8 yrs of age. In Study 1, 104 1st and 2nd graders performed a task with 3 coacting peers; only the 2nd graders made any use at all of the social comparison information in their evaluative judgments. In Study 2 an attempt was made to maximize the potential for using comparative information by providing a strong incentive to engage in social comparsion of abilities in a situation in which objective information about a success/failure outcome was unavailable. The 90 kindergarten, 2nd, and 4th graders played a game with peers and made competence-related self-evaluations and decisions about future performance. Only the judgments of the 4th graders were consistently affected by the social comparison information. Previous research on the development of social comparison and possible explanations for the developmental trends observed are discussed. (19 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The hierarchical nature of stages of moral development.

The notion that stages of moral reasoning develop in an invariant hierarchical sequence has been supported by data indicating that Ss prefer, but fail to understand, higher stage reasoning. However, as J. J. Moran and A. J. Joniak (see record 1979-28407-001) have suggested, this pattern may be artifactually based on nonstage features of moral reasoning, such as vocabulary and syntactic complexity. In the present study, 64 students (8th and 11th graders, undergraduates, and graduates) responded to a series of moral dilemmas and assessed evaluation and understanding of moral-stage-prototypic statements that were equated for level of language. Results support L. Kohlberg's (1981) hierarchical nature of moral stages, despite the equating of language level. Understanding was limited to no more than 1 stage higher than the S's own, and Ss preferred higher over lower stage statements if they were capable of appreciating the difference. (17 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's self-image disparity: Effects of age, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, and gender.

Assessed developmental and experiential determinants of self-image disparity in 80 2nd and 5th graders. There were 8 groups formed on the basis of socioeconomic status (SES), ethnicity, and gender within each grade. Consistent with predictions generated by developmental theory, self-image disparity was found to be positively related to CA. Although the results were not uniform across the 3 self-image instruments employed, the larger disparity in older Ss appeared to be a function of both decreased self-evaluations and increased ideal self-images. Gender, SES, and ethnic group membership—characteristics thought to subsume pervasive experiential differences—were also found to affect self-image. Males had larger self-image disparities than females, Whites had larger disparities and higher ideal self images than Blacks, and SES affected self-image differentially for the 2nd and 5th graders. Findings indicate that an understanding of children's self-images requires a consideration of both developmental and experiential factors. (36 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Moral reasoning, classroom behavior, and sociometric status among elementary school children.

Relations among moral reasoning, classroom behavior, and sociometric status were investigated in a sample of 133 2nd and 3rd graders. It was hypothesized that hedonistic and needs-oriented moral reasoning, 2 forms of L. Kohlberg's (1984) Stage 2 moral reasoning, would be differentially related to teachers' ratings of classroom behavior and to sociometric status. Among boys, hedonistic moral reasoning was associated with the lack of social competencies, acting-out behavior, and low social preference. In addition to influencing sociometric status indirectly through social behavior, moral reasoning was found to explain variance in sociometric status not accounted for by either acting out or social competencies. Results support N. Eisenberg's (1986) claim that hedonistic and needs-oriented reasoning are qualitatively distinct. Although both forms of reasoning characterize Kohlberg's Stage 2, it is hedonistic reasoning, not needs-oriented reasoning, that appears to be associated with poor social behavior and, in turn, low sociometric status. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Identification of informal reasoning fallacies as a function of epistemological level, grade level, and cognitive ability.

Informal reasoning fallacies are violations of critical discussion norms. As epistemological understanding of knowledge justification appears to underlie the informal reasoning skills of argument construction and evaluation, it was hypothesized that adolescents with greater epistemological sophistication would be more able to identify informal reasoning fallacies. It was hypothesized that 11th graders would be more epistemologically sophisticated than 7th or 9th graders and, thus, would more likely identify fallacies. Students responded to questions regarding argument scenarios that did or did not contain fallacies. More 11th graders identified fallacies. Epistemological level predicted only identification of one type of fallacy that might be described as epistemological in nature. Cognitive ability also seemed to contribute to the increased ability with grade to identify fallacies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The relation of political attitude to constraint-oriented and prosocial moral reasoning.

Investigated the relationship between prosocial and constraint-oriented moral reasoning and liberal and humanistic political attitudes. 76 White middle-class 7th-12th graders from a Presbyterian church and a Jewish camp completed a 41-item political questionnaire and a written objective test of moral reasoning based on L. Kohlberg's (1969) conceptualizations. Chi-square analyses revealed that older Ss were significantly more liberal and humanitarian than younger Ss, and older Ss exhibited a significantly higher level of moral reasoning. Correlations between political attitude scores and moral indices partially supported the hypothesis that higher levels of moral reasoning are associated with more liberal and humanistic attitudes: Liberalism scores were significantly related to the prosocial, constraint, and combined moral indices; humanitarian scores were significantly related to the prosocial and combined indices, but not the constraint index. Further research is needed to determine whether findings generalize to other social strata. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Prosocial development: A longitudinal study.

Examined, using a longitudinal methodology, (1) the development of prosocial moral judgment and (2) the relation between prosocial moral judgment and both prohibition-oriented moral judgment and maternal childrearing practices. Three samples were tested: 33 82–99 mo olds were interviewed 3 times; 16 49–67 mo olds were interviewed twice; and 30 2nd graders were interviewed once. From preschool to elementary school years, needs-oriented (empathic) reasoning increased in frequency of use, whereas hedonistic reasoning decreased. Significant changes continued from the preschool years to 2nd grade, although change could be noted even before entry into school (over a 1-yr period from ages 4–5 to 5–6 yrs). The relation between level of prosocial reasoning and prohibition-oriented reasoning was low to moderate, depending on the measures that were intercorrelated. Level of reasoning was related to nonauthoritarian, nonpunitive maternal practices, but the role of empathic, supportive maternal practices appeared to change with age. (26 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reasoning and secondary reinforcement in 6–7-year-olds and 10–11-year-olds.

Conducted 2 experiments to investigate the 1st author's cognitive theory of secondary reinforcement effects, which predicts that Ss of a preoperational age (i.e., younger than 7 yrs) should not necessarily learn responses followed by a stimulus object previously instrumental in obtaining a reward, while Ss of a postoperational age should do so. Using 24 1st and 24 5th graders in 2 learning tasks, the prediction was confirmed. Furthermore, verbal responses indicated that the logical operations that presumably influenced the behavior of the older children actually did occur. In Exp II, using 28 2nd and 15 6th graders, the training task was simplified in order to try to facilitate logical reasoning, but the behavior of the younger Ss was not affected. It is concluded that secondary reinforcement of a stimulus–response associative type has yet to be demonstrated, and that secondary reinforcement of a cognitive type is heavily dependent on reasoning ability. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A developmental study of the cognitive basis of performance impairment after failure.

Tested the egotism hypothesis against the learned-helplessness hypothesis while considering developmental variation in reasoning about ability, using 30 male and 30 female 2nd graders and 30 male and 30 female 6th graders. The egotism hypothesis states that performance impairment after failure follows from attempts to avoid appearing low in ability. The learned-helplessness hypothesis states that this performance impairment occurs as a result of the perception of noncontingency. Ss were assigned either solvable or unsolvable matching-familiar-figures task items. Performance on a subsequent anagram task constituted the dependent measure. Results show that performance deficits on anagrams following failure on the matching-familiar-figures task appeared for 6th graders only. These deficits occurred when the anagrams were purported to be of moderate normative difficulty but not when they were said to be of high difficulty. Moreover, performance deficits were apparent only in those 6th graders who had a mature conception of ability. Males tended to increase performance when task conditions were unfavorable; females, especially younger ones, faced with this combination of adverse conditions showed substantial declines in performance. (17 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Do children "DRM" like adults? False memory production in children.

The Deese/Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm was used to investigate developmental trends in accurate and false memory production. In Experiment 1, DRM lists adjusted to be more consistent with children's vocabulary were used with 2nd graders, 8th graders, and college students. Accurate and false recall and recognition increased with age, but semantic information appeared to be available to all age groups. Experiment 2 created a set of child-generated lists based on the free associations by a group of 3rd graders to critical items. The child-generated associates were different from those generated by adults; long and short versions of the child-generated lists were therefore presented to 2nd, 5th, and 8th graders and college students in Experiment 3. Second graders exhibited few false memories, whereas 5th graders were similar to adults in low-demand conditions and more similar to younger children in high-demand conditions. Findings are discussed in terms of developmental changes in automatic and effortful processing and the use of semantic networks. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Developmental models of learning to read Chinese words.

What is the nature of learning to read Chinese across grade levels? This study tested 199 kindergartners, 172 second graders, and 165 fifth graders on 12 different tasks purportedly tapping constructs representing phonological awareness, morphological awareness, orthographic processing, and subcharacter processing. Confirmatory factor analyses comparing alternative models of these 4 constituents of Chinese word reading revealed different patterns of metalinguistic underpinnings of children's word recognition across grade levels: The best-fitting model for kindergartners represented a print–nonprint dichotomy of constructs. In contrast, 2nd graders showed a fine-grained sensitivity to all 4 hypothesized constructs. Finally, the best-fitting model for 5th graders consisted of a phonological sensitivity construct and a broad lexical morphological–orthographic processing construct. Findings suggest that Hong Kong Chinese children progress from a basic understanding of print versus nonprint to a diversified sensitivity to varied word-reading skills, to a focus on meaning-based word recognition, to the relative exclusion of phonological sensitivity in more advanced readers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interpreting correlations between children's perceived control and cognitive performance: Control, agency, or means€nds beliefs?

The types of beliefs responsible for correlations between children's perceived control and cognitive performance were investigated in 180 2nd, 4th, and 6th graders. Children were interviewed for control beliefs regarding the attainment of desired goals, for agency beliefs regarding the accessibility of different types of means to the self, and for means–ends beliefs regarding the efficacy of different types of means. Cognitive performance variables included fluid and crystallized intelligence as well as short-term and recognition memory. Of the three types of beliefs, only agency beliefs were strongly and consistently related to cognitive performance. Correlations were greater than zero beginning in 4th grade, increased monotonically from 2nd to 6th grade, and occurred for all cognitive performance measures. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Judging the important issues in moral dilemmas: An objective measure of development.

Using Kohlberg's moral stages, statements were written to exemplify stage characteristics. 73 9th graders, 40 12th graders, 40 undergraduates, and 40 graduate students (seminarians and doctoral students in moral philosophy) were asked to select the statement defining the most important issue in a moral dilemma. The importance attributed to principled (Stages 5 and 6) moral statements (the P score) evidenced developmental trends: The P score differentiated student groups of varied advancement-junior high, senior high, college, and graduate students (F >48.5); P correlated in the .60s with age, comprehension of social-moral concepts, and Kohlberg's scale-and less so but significantly with IQ. The way Ss chose important issues was not only an intellectual skill but also value related: P correlated in the .60s with attitude measures (e.g., a law and order test and a libertarian democracy measure). A 2nd student sample and an adult sample provided replications. Test-retest correlation of the P score was .81. The methodological advantages of an objective moral judgment measure are discussed. (22 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"Hey, would you like a nice cold cup of lemonade on this hot day": Children's understanding of economic causation.

Three experiments were performed to examine development of understanding of functional relations in economics by children between ages 4 and 10 years. Results of Experiment 1 indicated that preschoolers understood the effects of demand, and 2nd graders also understood the effects of supply, but even 4th graders often failed to demonstrate understanding of the effects of motivation and morality. In Experiment 2, 4th but not 2nd graders proved able to explain how motivation and morality might influence sales when told that these variables had an effect. In Experiment 3, 2nd and 4th graders' evaluations of the plausibility of other children's explanations of effects of motivation and morality showed evidence of understanding, though those of kindergartners did not. The data supported the 3 hypotheses that motivated the experiments: (a) direct links between causes and effects are understood before indirect ones, (b) positive correlations between causes and effects are understood before negative ones, and (c) variables that produce effects are understood before ones that do not. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Comparison of oral and written forms of the Sentence Completion Test for Ego Development.

Hypothesized that 3 groups—younger children (i.e., 6th graders vs 10th graders), boys (vs girls), and persons of low intelligence—would benefit by oral testing on the Washington University Sentence Completion Test. 20 males and 20 females participated. Results suggest that although writing ability is essential for taking this personality test, by the 6th grade children have enough writing skills that oral testing is not necessary. (6 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)