Effects of self-concept on children's causal attributions and self-reinforcement.

Studied self-concept as a dispositional variable influencing children's cognitive-attributional and affective-self reinforcing reactions to achievement outcomes. 64 6th-graders classified as high or low in self-concept on an abbreviated version of the Piers-Harris Self-Concept Scale were given an achievement task on which they succeeded or failed. A preinstructional set was used to allow Ss to interpret their performance as being determined by skill or luck. More high than low self-concept children attributed their success to the skill cue. High self-concept Ss also engaged in more self-reward for success. Both self-concept groups used lack of skill to account for their failure, but the low group responded with more self-punishment. Results are discussed within an attributional model of achievement behavior. (27 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Influence of socioeconomic status on children's classification and free recall.

29 kindergarten and 29 1st-grade children were divided into 3 SES levels based on their parents' education level (college, high school, or less than high school) and given 2 sort/recall tasks on sets of pictures that could be organized on the basis of familiar taxonomic or complementary relations. On 1 task, Ss sorted pictures into identical groupings on 2 consecutive trials prior to recall; on the other task, Ss sorted the pictures only once. It was found that Ss from college-educated families were more apt to sort items on the basis of taxonomic relations than Ss from high-school-educated and less-than-high-school-educated families. However, there were no significant differences in levels of recall or clustering. Results indicate that young children from low-SES homes will demonstrate high levels of memory performance when tasks are constructed so that they are familiar with the relations among the to-be-remembered items. The appropriateness of distinguishing children's cognition in terms of A. R. Jensen's (see record 1969-09740-001) Level I vs Level II dichotomy is discussed in light of recent research examining the role of knowledge base on children's memory functioning. (45 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Pace and continuity of television programs: Effects on children's attention and comprehension.

16 15-min children's TV programs varying in continuity (high vs low), pace (high vs low), and animation (cartoon vs live production) were made from broadcast material and shown to 80 children from kindergarten and 1st grade and 80 children from 3rd–4th grade. Ss viewed 2 of the programs and were then tested for recall. The recall task required sequential seriation of still photos taken from the program. Older Ss attended longer and reconstructed sequences better than younger Ss. High-continuity (story) programs led to greater attention and better recall than low-continuity (magazine) programs. Low-paced shows were recalled better than high-paced shows. Older Ss recalled best when shown either low pace or story format or both. Young Ss showed additive increments in recall due to low pace and high continuity. Regression analyses indicated higher correlations between attention and recall for animated stories than for other types of programs, an effect attributed to their relatively high stereotypy in the medium. Results are interpreted as indicating evidence for development of active, schematic processing of TV by children and for strategic attending by older children, based on perceived processing demands. (17 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Motivating autistic children.

A major problem encountered in the field of autism is the children's characteristic lack of motivation. This problem is especially apparent when autistic children attempt to complete learning tasks. The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of correct vs incorrect task completion on children's motivation to respond to such tasks. Ss were 3 autistic children aged 6 yrs 1 mo, 11 yrs 11 mo, and 12 yrs 3 mo. Results demonstrate that when Ss worked on tasks at which they were typically incorrect, their motivation for those tasks decreased to extremely low levels. However, designing treatment procedures to prompt Ss to keep responding until they completed the tasks correctly served to increase Ss' motivation to respond to those tasks. The implications of these findings are that (a) autistic children's learning handicaps (which typically lead to low levels of correct responding) may result in few or inconsistent rewards for attempting to respond at all, thus decreasing the children's motivation; and (b) treatment procedures designed to keep the children responding until they complete a task correctly may result in coincidental reinforcement for perseverance, increasing the children's motivation to respond to those tasks. Results are discussed in relation to the literature on learned helplessness. (22 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of success and failure on the discrimination learning of normal and retarded children.

30 normal and 30 retarded children learned a 3-choice size discrimination following exposure to experimental tasks under conditions of success, failure, or neutrality. Both normal and retarded children learned more quickly following success and failure than under the neutral condition. In a 2nd study, 32 normal and 32 retarded children learned the same criterion task under success or failure conditions. Here, both success and failure again facilitated the performance of both normal and retarded Ss. Also, social responsivity interacted with intelligence and exeprimental conditions in influencing the children's learning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attributions of learning disabled children.

Two studies compared learning disabled (LD) and normally achieving (NA) children's attribution patterns of success and failure in achievement and in social situations. In Study 1, 37 LD and 67 NA 7th and 8th graders were interviewed about attributions for hypothetical success–failure situations. 75 LD and 30 NA Ss (aged 9–17 yrs) from private schools were interviewed about attributions for real-life ratings of success in Study 2. NA Ss in both studies followed the expected pattern of attributing success more internally and failure (or less success) more externally. LD Ss attributed success to internal factors as well, but in both studies they also externalized success more than did the NA Ss. In their attributions for failure (or less success), the LD Ss in both studies did not follow the expected pattern. It is concluded that attributional differences between the LD Ss may reflect differences in self-esteem, expectations, and uncertainty. Careful reconsideration of the potentially negative consequences of attributional retraining of children with learning problems is recommended. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The interaction of test anxiety and success-failure experiences in determining children's arithmetic performance.

Studied the effects of the motives to approach success and to avoid failure in 60 5th and 6th grade boys and girls of low, middle, and high levels of test anxiety (Test Anxiety Scale for Children and Lie Scale for Children). Ss performed addition problems under 1 of 2 conditions: a mixed condition involving two-thirds success and one-third failure under time pressure and a success only condition in which all problems attempted were completed. As predicted, high anxious Ss, when compared to less anxious Ss on response rate, errors, and cheating, showed markedly inferior performance in the mixed condition, but comparable and improved performance in the success only condition. Findings indicate that anxious children perform poorly due to motivational difficulties rather than to learning deficiencies, and that their abilities are systematically underestimated by many achievement and educational testing procedures. (23 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's loneliness: A comparison of rejected and neglected peer status.

Administered sociometric and loneliness questionnaires to 200 3rd-6th grade children to assess feelings of loneliness in 2 subgroups of unpopular Ss—those who were sociometrically rejected vs those who were sociometrically neglected. Data on popular, average, and controversial Ss were also collected. One-fifth of the the Ss were from low SES families, one-third were from middle SES families, and the rest were from upper middle or upper SES families. Results indicate that rejected Ss were the most lonely group and that this group differed significantly from other status groups. Neglected Ss did not differ from their higher-status peers. Overall, findings provide evidence of the utility of the distinction between neglected vs rejected status and provide support for earlier conclusions that rejected children are more at risk than are other status groups. (17 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of model persistence and success on children's problem solving.

Studied the effects of a social model's performance on children's persistence in problem solving using a wire-puzzle task. 80 1st and 2nd graders were assigned to 1 of 4 live modeling groups or to a no-model control group. Two durations of model effort (high or low persistence) relative to the control group performance were factorially compared with model success or no success in reaching a solution. Both duration of effort and success of the model significantly affected persistence. Together these variables significantly improved or depressed the Ss' persistence compared with that of the control group. Social comparisons by the Ss of the length of their performances and those of the models appeared to covary with imitative behavioral outcomes. Results are discussed in terms of A. Bandura's social learning theory. (22 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of experimentally imposed noise on task performance of Black children attending day care centers near elevated subway trains.

Investigated whether an experimentally imposed 80 db (A) noise differentially affected the psychomotor, serial memory words and pictures, incidental memory, visual recall, paired associates, perceptual learning, and coding performance of 109 predominantly Black, low socioeconomic status (SES) 5-yr-old children attending daycare centers near and far from elevated subways. Ss were administered psychomotor tasks at the beginning and end of a noisy or quiet play condition and cognitive and perceptual tasks during a noisy or quiet test condition. Factorial analyses revealed that only psychomotor performance was significantly impaired by the 80 db (A) noise. A significant interaction between daycare center environmental noise level and test was found on the coding task, with Ss from relatively noisy daycare centers performing best under noisy test conditions and their counterparts under quiet conditions. Findings suggest that noise does not have a universal effect on children's performance, but the effects vary as a function of the nature of the task and previous exposure to noise. (39 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Expectancy of success and the probability learning of retarded children.

Tested 23 male and 22 female institutionalized retarded children who had previously experienced either a success, failure, or control precondition on a probability learning task designed to assess expectancy of success. Ss were matched for CA, MA, IQ, and length of institutionalization. The following measures were also collected as S variables: Locus-of-Control Scale, Cottage Rating Scales, school rating, and Reading and Arithmetic subscales from the Metropolitan Achievement Test. The preconditions were found to have many of the expected effects on the cognitive strategies employed in the learning task. Ss in the failure condition showed the greatest avoidance of failure (maximizing strategy), while Ss in the success condition tended to show more success striving (lose-shift strategy). Males were found to exhibit more failure-avoiding strategies than females. The overall pattern of results is interpreted as providing support for the hypothesis that a low expectancy of success in retarded children can be modified. (19 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Performance on Piagetian tasks of Black children of differing socioeconomic levels.

233 Black children in Grades 1–6 and from 2 socioeconomic (SES) levels, as determined by eligibility for the school lunch program and parents' occupations, were given 5 Piagetian tasks to determine if differences in SES were associated with differences in cognitive development levels. Measures of reasoning, seriation, classification, causation, and conservation were used. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed that in all 5 variables the higher SES Ss performed better than lower SES Ss. The conservation measure showed distinct developmental differences between the high- and low-SES Ss. Examination of the means suggested only a small difference in developmental level between the SES groups on the other tasks. (21 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Socioeconomic differences in reading trajectories: The contribution of family, neighborhood, and school contexts.

In the present study, the authors use the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Cohort of 1998-1999, to examine the extent to which family, school, and neighborhood factors account for the impact of socioeconomic status (SES) on children's early reading. Through the use of hierarchical linear modeling techniques, growth curve models were estimated to depict children's reading trajectories from kindergarten to 3rd grade. Family characteristics made the largest contribution to the prediction of initial kindergarten reading disparities. This included home literacy environment, parental involvement in school, and parental role strain. However, school and neighborhood conditions contributed more than family characteristics to SES differences in learning rates in reading. The association between school characteristics and reading outcomes suggests that makeup of the student population, as indexed by poverty concentration and number of children with reading deficits in the school, is related to reading outcomes. The findings imply that multiple contexts combine and are associated with young children's reading achievement and growth and help account for the robust relation of SES to reading outcomes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mental capacity and cognitive functioning: Developmental and social class differences.

Hypothesized that social class performance differences of same-age children would be negligible on pure mental (M) capacity measures but would be greater on tasks that confound other variables with M capacity. This hypothesis is anchored in a neo-Piagetian theory of cognitive development (J. Pascual-Leone; see record 1971-07908-001), which gives a central role to an attentional mechanism of limited M capacity that grows monotonically with age. 268 Israeli 8-, 10-, and 12-yr-olds of low or high SES completed 10 cognitive developmental tasks that measured pure M capacity, short-term memory, verbal IQ, and spatial-analytic ability. Results show that M capacity developed similarly in same-age Ss, regardless of SES. Significant differences among the investigated populations were found only in performing tasks that confounded factors of learning and style. Results support the notion that a cognitive development process exists that is universal in stage sequences and in the rate and timing of development. (20 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Economically disadvantaged preschoolers: Ready to learn but further to go.

Cognitive competencies and motivation were assessed in 233 preschool and kindergarten children in the fall and again in the spring. Cognitive assessments were given again in the spring of the following year (kindergarten or 1st grade) to a subsample of 88 children. The results revealed much poorer performance among the economically disadvantaged children compared with advantaged children on all 8 of the cognitive tests. For most cognitive measures, gains were roughly equal and the socioeconomic status (SES) differences at the end of 1 or 2 years in school were similar to the differences at the beginning of the year. Only a few SES differences were found on the motivation measures assessing children's self-confidence, attitude toward school, expectations for success, dependency, and preference for challenge; they did not systematically favor either disadvantaged or advantaged children. Classroom observations revealed some differences in disadvantaged and advantaged children's classroom behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's achievement-related expectancies as a function of academic performance histories and sex.

60 male and 60 female 1st and 3rd graders, classified by teacher ratings as high, average, and low achievers, were compared on (a) their expectations for success prior to an anagrams task, (b) their subsequent perceptions of the cause of failure on the task, and (c) their expectations for future success. Results indicate that boys with a history of low academic success in school had lower expectations for success on the task and tended to be more likely to attribute failure to lack of ability than boys with a history of average or high academic success. In contrast, high-achieving girls had lower expectations for success than low- and average-achieving girls. Furthermore, Ss who attributed failure to low ability reported relatively low expectations for future success. This finding suggests that children's perceptions of the causes of past performance outcomes mediate their subsequent expectations, as is claimed by attribution theorists. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Why attend school? Chinese immigrant and European American preschoolers' views and outcomes.

The developing views of the purposes of school learning (PSLs) and related achievement among immigrant Chinese preschoolers and their European American (EA) age-mates were examined. Both culture and socioeconomic status (SES) were considered simultaneously, an often neglected research approach to studying Asian children. One hundred and fifty 4-year-olds—50 each of middle-class Chinese (CHM), low-income Chinese (CHL), and EA children—completed 2 story beginnings about school and were also tested for their language and math achievement. Results showed that 4-year-olds held sophisticated PSLs, ranging from intellectual to social and affect benefits. Large cultural and SES differences also emerged. CHM children mentioned more adult expectation and seriousness of learning than EA children who expressed more positive affect for self and compliance with adults. CHL children mentioned fewest PSLs. Achievement scores for oral expression of both immigrant groups were significantly lower than those of EA children despite similar reading and math achievement. Controlling for culture and SES, the authors found that children's articulated intellectual, but not other purposes, uniquely predicted their achievement in all tested domains. Cultural and SES influences on immigrant children are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

More aggressive cartoons are funnier.

Independent rankings of humor and aggressiveness were obtained for sets of cartoons drawn randomly from 2 magazines. The correlation of median humor and median aggressiveness rankings ranged from .49 to .90 in 6 studies involving 6 sets of cartoons and 6 different groups of Ss, including children and adults, high and low SES individuals, and native- and foreign-born Ss. It was found that this correlation was consistent with Freudian, arousal, and superiority theories of humor. Another prediction of Freudian theory, that high-SES Ss should be more appreciative of aggressive humor than low-SES Ss, was not supported. (14 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Socioeconomic status, IQ, and delinquency.

A number of studies have found a negative relationship between IQ and delinquent involvement. Some researchers maintain that IQ is a spurious variable in the relationship between socioeconomic status (SES) and delinquency, whereas others assert that IQ bears a causal relationship to delinquency that is independent of the effects of SES. Results from 2 Danish prospective longitudinal studies are presented that support the latter view. Ss in the 1st study were 129 males born between September, 1959 and December, 1961; all male offspring born between 1944 and 1947 served as Ss in Study 2 (N?=?31,436). In each study, a significant negative correlation between IQ and level of delinquent involvement remained after SES effects were partialled out. It is posited that low IQ children may be likely to engage in delinquent behavior because their poor verbal abilities limit their opportunities to obtain rewards in the school environment. (34 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Forced-choice word associations in schizophrenia.

This study, based on Freudian theory, used a forced-choice word association format to test the hypothesis that regressed schizophrenic Ss would prefer children's to adult's association. 16 schizophrenic, 16 sociopathic, and 16 normal male patients matched for age and education were tested on a 51-item test in which they were forced to choose their associations from among randomly arranged adult preferred, children preferred, and irrelevant alternatives. Using choice of children's responses minus choice of irrelevant response as a measure to control for random error markings, schizophrenic Ss differed significantly from normal Ss as predicted. Normal and sociopathic Ss did not differ. Sociopathic and schizophrenic Ss differed at p