Cognitive abilities in Inuit and White children from similar environments.

Previous studies have emphasized the differential abilities of Inuit and White children, concluding that the Inuit have well developed spatial abilities and less well developed verbal-educational and inductive reasoning abilities when compared with White Ss. However, in many studies White and Inuit Ss have not been matched for either socioeconomic status or grade placement. The present study examined Inuit and White Ss from subsistence level fishing communities. Ss were 22 Inuit 1st graders with a mean age of 84.2 mo and White 1st graders as follows: 14 with a mean age of 89.4 mo, 16 with a mean of 83.1, and 22 with a mean of 86 mo. Vocabulary and arithmetic tests adapted from the Wechsler Pre-School and Primary Scale of Intelligence were utilized. There were no significant differences between Inuit and White Ss in spatial, verbal-educational, or inductive reasoning abilities. (French summary) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Race differences on nonverbal analogy test performance as a function of verbal strategy training.

Hypothesized that the relatively poor performance of Black students on nominally nonverbal reasoning tests (A. R. Jensen's Level II) (see record 1974-24027-001) may be due to their failure to use verbal problem-solving strategies efficiently and spontaneously. 200 4th and 5th graders, both Black and White, showed no race differences on Level I ability (digit-span memory). Half of the Ss of each race were then trained to use a verbal strategy on nonverbal analogies. For Ss who received no special training there were significant race differences on the analogies test (p     

A developmental investigation of sex differences in spatial (visual-analytic) and mathematical skills in three ethnic groups.

Investigated sex differences in mathematical and spatial (visual-analytic) skills in 3 ethnic groups (Black, Hispanic, and White) prior to and during adolescence. Ss were 240 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 9th graders, and instruments included the Children's Embedded Figures Test and the Modern Mathematics Supplement to the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills. Significant interaction effects were demonstrated between ethnic group membership and sex for both mathematical and spatial skills. In Hispanic adolescent groups, significant sex differences were found in scores on both skills in favor of the female. A similar but not significant trend was seen in the scores of Black adolescent groups. In contrast, White adolescent males scored higher than White adolescent females, but not significantly so. No prior study has reported the observed pattern of sex differences in Hispanic Ss, one that differs from that usually found in White Ss. (10 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Metric distance models of creativity and children's appreciation of figurative language.

36 kindergartners, 3rd, and 6th graders indicated their semantic preferences among 9 figures of speech. Ss were administered the Lorge-Thorndike Intelligence Test and Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking. Results indicate that at the kindergarten level, Ss' appreciation of figurative language may be based on nonverbal creativity. But at Grades 3 and 6, presumably with the onset of operational reasoning, Ss' figurative language behavior is increasingly tied to verbal IQ and verbal creativity. Results are consistent with the notion that figurative language behavior is essentially an exercise in creativity. Developmental differences in the relationship between creativity and figurative language are discussed in terms of changes in cognitive development. A least-squares metric distance solution is established for scaling Ss' preference judgments. (16 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Racial identity and preference in Native and White Canadian children.

56 White and 44 Native (Indian) kindergartners and 1st graders were asked by a White or Indian experimenter to answer questions about their racial identity and preferences. Consistent with predictions from accessibility theory, Ss of both races made more accurate self-identifications when tested by an Indian experimenter, this effect being greater for Native Ss. Racial preferences showed a strong White bias, results consistent with both the escape and the light color bias hypotheses. Results are discussed in term of R. B. Zajone's (see record 1980-09733-001) distinction between cognitive and affective processes. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's judgments and attributions in response to the "mentally retarded" label: A developmental approach.

140 3rd graders, 188 6th graders, and 97 9th graders viewed a videotape in which a child failed a puzzle task. All of the Ss had identical information about the child's achievement scores and puzzle ability, but half were told that the child was mentally retarded. Consistent with key person perception and social cognition findings, the traitlike retarded label had little impact on younger Ss but strong effects on older Ss. Like adults in earlier research, 6th and 9th graders saw low effort as a less important cause of failure for the retarded than for the unlabeled child, and they saw less need to urge the retarded child to persist. Correlations showed no evidence of logical linkages among attributions, expectancies, and persistence-urging among 3rd graders, but strong linkages among 6th and 9th graders. Findings suggest that label effects are mediated by cognitive processes dependent on developmental level. (35 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Expectations and achievement among third-, sixth-, and ninth-grade Black and White males and females.

Hypothesized that (a) boys in 3rd, 6th, and 9th grade would have higher expectations than girls, but only 9th-grade boys would have higher achievement; (b) achievement would increase with grade; (c) Whites would have higher expectations and achievement than Blacks; and (d) realism would increase with grade level. 112 Black and White 3rd, 6th, and 9th graders recorded their expectations and then attempted to perform tasks of math, mazes, or geometric drawings. Contrary to predictions and most previous studies, no significant sex differences were found. Whites achieved higher scores on mazes and drawings than did Blacks. The expectations of Blacks rose with grade level, regardless of concomitant achievements; but expectations of Whites did not. (26 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Development of racial identity in minority and majority children: An affect discrepancy model.

Proposes an affect discrepancy to explain the processes by which children come to know and identify with a minority or majority group. To test this model, 203 White and 91 Indian children in kindergarten and Grades 1 and 2 answered racial identity, preference, social distance and recognition questions by pointing to pictures of Whites, Indians, and Blacks. Several weeks later Ss completed measures of concrete operational thought and self-esteem. Indian children made more cross-racial choices than did Whites, even though Indians were more accurate than Whites in recognizing the pictures. Structural equation models indicated that for both groups, cognitive development was positively associated with own-group choices. Self-esteem was positively related to own-group choices for Whites but inversely related for Indians. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's attributions for failure and success in different aspects of reading.

Investigated the attributions of 82 3rd graders and 82 6th graders for their success and failure in different reading situations with an extended set of causes (as a function of age and achievement differences). Ss were split into good and poor readers on the basis of a median split on the Reading Comprehension subtest of the California Test of Basic Skills. Ss reading achievement was then assessed in 2 reading situations (evaluation of reading performance and reading for meaning). Ss were asked to rate the degree to which each of 6 causes (ability, paying attention, studying, luck, task difficulty, and assistance from others) was responsible for their success or failure. Findings show that 6th graders' locus of control scores varied across situations, while 3rd graders' scores did not. Studying and paying attention were salient to Ss as causes. Age and achievement interacted, with low-achieving 3rd graders giving higher ratings to causes more clearly beyond their control than high-achieving 3rd graders, whereas low- and high-achieving 6th graders did not differ. (24 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Informed Strategies for Learning: A program to improve children's reading awareness and comprehension.

Examined the role of awareness about their own cognitive skills on the learning and development of 87 3rd graders and 83 5th graders. Half of the Ss were given an experimental curriculum—informed strategies for learning (ISL)—designed to increase Ss' awareness and use of effective reading strategies. The remainder of the Ss were used as controls. Results show that Ss who participated in ISL made larger gains than did controls on cloze and error detection tasks. No differences between groups were found on 2 standardized tests of reading comprehension. Findings demonstrate that metacognition can be promoted through direct instruction in classrooms and that increased awareness can lead to better use of reading strategies. (47 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

School self-acceptance among Canadian Indian, White, and Metis children.

Compared 334 Indian, 197 non-Indian, and 92 Metis students (aged 10–19 yrs) on an aspect of self-concept, school self-acceptance. A follow-up study was conducted several months later with 40 Ss. Attempts were made to overcome weaknesses in prior research by gathering validity data on the self-concept measure and controlling for extraneous factors such as social assets that could account for Indian/non-Indian differences. Support was found for the prediction that Indian Ss would have lower school self-acceptance scores than White Ss. Metis Ss resembled Indians in their school self-acceptance scores, acculturation level, and social assets, but scored closer to Whites in their childrearing scale scores. Multiple regression analyses revealed that the social assets variable was the most important predictor of school self-acceptance, although the ethnicity factor remained a significant predictor. (French abstract) (26 ref) (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)     

Teacher accuracy in decoding nonverbal indicants of comprehension and noncomprehension in Anglo- and Mexican-American children.

Examined the degree to which Anglo- and Mexican-American 1st-grade teachers can accurately decode nonverbal indicants of comprehension and noncomprehension in young children. 16 teachers from each group viewed silent videotapes (visual cues only) of 3 groups of 1st graders—Anglo-American, proficient bilingual, and limited English-speaking Mexican-American—while the children listened to an easy or difficult lesson on animal habitats. There were 24 boys and 24 girls, and 16 Ss in each linguistic grouping. The Ss estimated the students' level of understanding on the basis of their nonverbal responses. Degree of accuracy was assessed by comparing Ss' ratings of comprehension with the children's actual posttest comprehension scores. No differences in decoding accuracy between S groups were found. Ss perceived boys as understanding more than girls, particularly in the Anglo-American and limited English-speaking groups. Training raters improved overall decoding accuracy. Slight cultural differences were found in children's nonverbal behavior, but it did not appear that the behavior was misinterpreted by either group of Ss. (45 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A developmental study of balance theory in four cultural groups.

Canadian White and native Indian Ss and New Zealand White and Maori Ss from 5 age groups ranging from 5 to 14 yrs, provided missing sentiment relations for 8 hypothetical interpersonal triads. Ss' explanations for their responses were also systematically obtained. The 2 White groups and Maori Ss showed a steady increase in balanced responses and in balance-type explanations with increasing age, reaching high levels in the older groups. Balanced responses were less frequent among Indian Ss, and there was no clear developmental trend in tendency towards balance. These latter findings may be partly attributable to small Indian samples and a truncated age range. With the exception of the Indians, differences among cultural groups were small. Coherent principles of social reasoning other than balance were rare and did not differentiate among cultural groups. (French summary) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effect of perceptual salience on reflective-impulse performance differences.

Examined the relationship between perceptual salience and cognitive style in 31 1st graders, 37 3rd graders, and 37 5th graders who had been classified as impulsive or reflective based on scores on the Matching Familiar Figures Test. After determining salience hierarchy scores, Ss were given a modified matching test. This test consisted of 3 trial types on which the S's most salient, least salient, or both most and least salient dimensions were necessary for making a correct match. Impulsives made more errors than reflectives only on trials requiring the use of the least salient dimension. These performance differences decreased with age. Cognitive style did not affect latencies on the modified matching task. It is concluded that (a) perceptual features of the stimulus situation can markedly influence impulsives' performance, (b) cognitive style effects were not attributable to differences in the salience hierarchies of reflective-impulsive Ss, (c) cognitive style differences can occur in the absence of latency differences, and (d) sensitization to perceptual features may be an effective means of improving impulsives' performance. (16 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Some cognitive abilities of Eskimo, White, and Indian-Metis pupils aged 9 to 12 years.

Factor analysis of ability tests for Eskimo, White, and Indian-Metis 9-12 yr. old pupils indicated for each sample 2 highly correlated oblique factors labelled v:ed and reasoning from nonverbal stimuli. When native Ss were scored on white T-score norms, least ethnic differences and least decline with age relative to white Ss occurred in the latter abilities. Written memory was an outstanding exception. There were almost no sex differences for any of the samples. (French summary) (18 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Nonverbal communication of affect in interracial dyads.

Two experiments investigated the relationship between nonverbal behavior and the racial composition of a teacher–student dyad. The Multifactor Racial Attitude Inventory was used to measure prejudice. In Exp I, 36 high- and low-prejudiced White female undergraduates, acting as teachers, were led to praise successful White and Black students (confederates). Analysis of samples of nonverbal behavior showed that high-prejudiced teachers nonverbally discriminated between White and Black students (favoring Whites) significantly more than low-prejudiced teachers. In Exp II, 40 White and Black teachers (female undergraduates) taught successful White and Black students (confederates). Results show that both Whites and Blacks behaved nonverbally more positively to a student of their own race than to a student of the other race, although only same-race judges (12 White female undergraduates) could distinguish the differences in affect displayed by the Ss. (17 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive function in asymptomatic HIV-1 infection: The effects of age, education, ethnicity, and depression.

Examined whether individuals with asymptomatic HIV-1 infection exhibit subtle cognitive deficits relative to healthy seronegative control Ss. 122 symptomatic seropositive homosexual and bisexual White men were compared with 59 seronegative homosexual or bisexual men (all Ss aged 20–71 yrs) on a battery of neuropsychological tests. Age, education, ethnicity, and depression were controlled as potential confounding variables. Seropositive Ss performed below seronegative controls on measures of verbal fluency, recall of logical discourse material (younger seropositive Ss only), and arithmetic. No group differences were found on visuospatial measures, abstract reasoning, attention, or set shifting. Ethnicity (Hispanic vs non-Hispanic) and education effects were observed only on select language measures. Depression did not adversely affect performance scores. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Anticipated model consequences, model affect, and imitation.

60 3rd and 4th graders individually observed a videotaped adult who either encouraged or prohibited a model's play with toys while he was gone; after the adult's departure, the model performed 6 distinctive play behaviors and exhibited a grin, frown, or blank stare following each play response. Analysis of variance revealed that anticipated-reward Ss surpassed anticipated-punishment Ss on 4 measures: number of imitative responses, number of different imitative responses, duration of imitative play, and number of nonimitative responses with toys not used by the model. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Patterns of drug abuse: Relationships with ethnicity, sensation seeking, and anxiety.

Administered the Sensation-Seeking Scale (SSS) and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) to 30 White, 30 Black, and 30 Hispanic male narcotic drug abusers in residential treatment. Individual drug abuse histories were assessed in semistructured interviews. Results are as follows: (a) White Ss scored significantly higher on the 5 SSS subtests than did either Black or Hispanic Ss. No significant differences were obtained between ethnic groups on the STAI. (b) Even though the prevalence of the use of alcohol, cannabis, street methadone, and cocaine was similar in the 3 ethnic groups, significantly more White Ss had used amphetamines, barbiturates, tranquilizers, methaqualone, inhalants, and psychedelics. (c) SSS scores and anxiety correlated significantly with the number of different drugs used by Whites, although the measures were virtually unrelated to drug use among non-Whites. The frequency of use of stimulant, depressant, or hallucinogenic drugs was unrelated to the user's level of sensation seeking or anxiety. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)