Children's verbal rehearsal in a free-recall task.

Predicted that, while the use of categories in rehearsal would increase with age, organized rehearsal would be related to recall accuracy and recall organization for all ages tested. Data from 20 3rd and 20 6th graders confirm the predictions but are inconclusive for 20 kindergartners. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Adjustment of adult–child instruction according to child's age and task.

32 mothers taught their 6- or 8-yr-old children 1 of 2 laboratory classification tasks resembling a home or school activity. It was expected that dyads would compensate for the perceived difficulty of the school task for the younger children by providing greater assistance to this group than to the other 3 groups. The instructional interaction was coded in terms of amount of directives, open-ended questions, and nonverbal instruction provided by the mother; involvement of the child; and reviewing for the learning test. Following the instruction, children were tested on learning of the organization of items. MANOVA showed that the younger children in the school task did receive more instruction than those in the 3 other groups. This modification of instruction was accompanied by slightly better performance on the learning task by the younger children in the school task than by children in the other 3 groups. Results illustrate the interactional nature of instruction and learning, by which assistance with cognitive tasks is tailored to the perceived needs of the children in the particular problem context. (17 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's causal attributions to self and other as a function of outcome and task.

In this study, we tested three hypotheses. First, children do not attribute their positive outcomes more to internal causes and their negative outcomes more to external causes. Second, children attribute the outcomes of others more to internal causes on an academic task than they do on a leisure task. Third, children attribute their own outcomes to external causes and another's outcomes to internal causes. To test these hypotheses, we had children attribute their own or another's positive or negative outcomes on academic, social, and leisure tasks to ability, effort, task difficulty, and luck. The results indicated that children attributed their positive outcomes more to ability, effort, and luck than they did their negative outcomes. This effect did not depend on the person to whom they made attributions. Thus, the results for type of outcome and self or other were not as hypothesized. The results for type of task were as hypothesized. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's participation in treatment planning: Psychological and legal issues.

Suggests that current constitutional controversies as well as ambiguities in the relevant statutes have left in question the extent of "mature minors" right to access to treatment without parental consent. Research is needed to examine in more detail developmental factors in "real-life" treatment decisions. Available research suggests that involvement of children in treatment planning increases the efficacy of treatment and that the presumption of incompetence to consent to treatment may be invalid for many adolescents. (22 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's reactions to apologies.

In 2 experiments, 221 kindergartners and 1st, 4th, and 7th graders judged actors who committed a transgression under conditions of low or high responsibility and low or high consequences. The actor's motives were good or bad and the act was intended or accidental. The actor then either did nothing or employed 1 of 3 increasingly elaborate apologies. As hypothesized, the actor's predicament was most severe, producing the harshest judgments when (a) the actor had high responsibility for committing an inadvertent act that produced high consequences, and (b) the act was the result of a bad rather than good motive or was intended rather than accidental. More elaborate apologies produced less blame and punishment and more forgiveness, liking, positive evaluations, and attributions of greater remorse. The judgments of the 7th graders were more affected by the actor's apology than those of the younger Ss. These age differences reflect the younger Ss' poorer ability to integrate social information and appreciate the implications of social conventions. However, the younger Ss' judgments were similar to those of older Ss. (23 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Differential effects of the albino gene on behavior according to task, level of inbreeding, and genetic background.

Different generations from a Mendelian crossing schedule and 2 inbred recombinant albino strains of mice (BALB/cjOrl and C57BL/6jOrl) were compared in a water-escape and a locomotor task under dim red-orange light. Results reveal deleterious effects of the albino gene; it did not affect locomotor tasks but seriously altered cognitive capacities. The degree of expression of these effects was greater in the inbred albino Ss than in the albinos from heterozygous generations. Differences in the genetic background may also effect the degree of expression of the albino gene effects in various albino strains. The visual system is unlikely to mediate these pleiotropic effects of the albino gene. (31 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The relationship of task success to task liking and satisfaction.

4 laboratory experiments are reported which examine the relationship between degree of task success and degree of liking for and satisfaction with the task. A number of different tasks, measures, and situations were used. In all cases there was clear evidence for a significant (positive) linear relationship between success and measures of liking and satisfaction. The major reasons given for liking a task involved attributes of the individual's performance (e.g., improvement); reasons given for not liking a task most often involved attributes other than individual performance (e.g., the monotony of the task). (18 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's ascriptions of knowledge to others.

Piaget believed that young children were egocentric and would ascribe their own knowledge to another. In contrast, Wimmer, Hogrefe, and Perner (1988) found that children did not perform egocentrically when assessing another's knowledge. The present study was carried out to determine which claim was right. A familiar object was secretly placed in a box, and a child and others either looked in the box or did not look. Two of the main findings were that (a) 6-year-olds were significantly better than 3- to 4-year-olds at assessing the other's knowledge, even though both assessed the other's perception correctly (p?p?     

Behavior therapy according to Lazarus.

Replies to A. A. Lazarus's (see record 1984-10188-001) responses to the author's (1982) critique of Lazarus's (1971) review of 100 cases that yielded a 36% relapse rate after behavior therapy (BT). It is argued that Lazarus should have clarified that he confined himself to BT in light of indications (i.e., Lazarus's assertions of the limited role he has given to BT and his penchant for self-disclosure) that this was not the case. The author's contention that Lazarus actually utilized multimodal therapy is reasserted, and it is suggested that the key to Lazarus's high relapse rate lies in his viewing BT as a useful psychotherapeutic adjunct instead of as a controlling discipline. (8 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Strategy planning in cats (Felis catus) in a progressive elimination task.

Domestic cats (Felis catus) were administered a progressive elimination task in which they had to visit and deplete 3 baited sites. Cats were brought back to the starting point after each visit to any site whether the visit represented a correct or an incorrect choice. The results revealed that cats organized search as a function of the least distance principle whether they had to assess starting point to target distances (Experiment 1, n=12) or adjacent bowl distances (Experiment 2, n=12). The results also revealed that the starting point to target distance factor was the most influential in determining the initial choice (Experiment 3, n=6) and in producing errors. Errors were also linked to the antero-posterior bodily axis of the cat. Results are discussed in terms of the predatory behavior of the cat. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's reactions to second-hand tobacco smoke.

Interviews with 2,365 7-15 yr. olds reveal that the majority (a) disliked being exposed to tobacco smoke; (b) experienced 1 or more symptoms upon exposure, e.g., eye irritation; (c) disapproved of parental smoking; and (d) indicated that parental smoking reduced the love and respect accorded the parent by the child. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Student ratings and instructor-defined extenuating circumstances.

Examined the relationships between student ratings of instructor performance and 7 instructor-defined extenuating circumstances. Data were collected in 195 courses from a total of 3,625 students taught by 138 faculty members. For each extenuating circumstance, mean ratings of the group of faculty who said it applied to their course were compared with mean ratings of the group who said that it did not apply. The only extenuating circumstance that produced a statistically significant difference was "Class is too large to adequately present the material." Findings suggest that this set of instructors' rationalizations for not receiving better evaluations does not really explain them, even though there was a tendency for class ratings to be lower for the groups responding "Yes, the extenuating circumstances did apply to this course." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Task enjoyment and task perseverance in relation to task success and self-esteem.

Attempted to use self-esteem as a moderator for the relationship between success-failure and task enjoyment in a study using 68 male and 80 female undergraduates. It was hypothesized that success-failure would be related to enjoyment for a high but not for a low self-esteem group. This was not the case. Success and failure were related to task enjoyment regardless of the self-esteem of s as determined by typical measures of this variable. It was further found that a possible behavioral measure of task enjoyment (perseverance on a task) was not highly related to a rating of task enjoyment. Results raise questions concerning the meaning of ratings of enjoyment. (16 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's early ability to solve perspective-taking problems.

Piaget and B. Inhelder (1967 [1948]) claimed that, until 9 or 10 yrs of age, children had great difficulty with perspective taking. J. Huttenlocher and C. C. Presson (1979) showed, however, that these problems were linked to conflict between actual and imagined frames of reference; asking what object occupied a specified location with respect to a hypothetical observer (item questions) led to much better performance. The present experiments extend these findings to younger children: 5-yr-olds (Exp 1); 4-yr-olds, for near and far locations but not left and right (Exp 2); 4-yr-olds for left–right questions (Exp 3); and 3-yr-olds (Exp 4). In addition, Exp 4 showed that memory was not the basis for answering. These data show clearly that preschool children can indicate locations relative to another position. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's reluctance to seek help with schoolwork.

Elementary-school children were asked why they do, or do not, ask for help from parents, teachers, and classmates when they have problems in math and reading. Responses were correlated with achievement scores. Findings indicate: (a) Classmates are seen as less helpful than adults in answering questions, (b) there is more concern about possible negative reactions (i.e., perceptions of being "dumb") from classmates than from adults, (c) children perceive a greater need for help in math than in reading, (d) girls are more concerned than boys about negative reactions to help-seeking in math, (e) the more children believe that asking questions is likely to help in learning, the more they like to ask questions, and (f) the lower the child's achievement, the greater their reluctance to ask questions. Discussion focuses on ways in which children's attitudes differ according to academic subject and identity of the helper. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's use of dispositions to predict classmates' behavior.

Kindergartners, 3rd, and 6th graders chose classmates whom they would and would not like to have on their team for an academic contest and as playmates. Ss also rated their classmates on likableness and academic ability. At all ages, children's choices for the academic competition and the play situation were significantly associated with their ratings of their classmates' academic and social competence, respectively. Ss typically referred to academic abilities to explain their teammate choices for the academic contest and to social competence or friendship to explain playmate choices. Questions about the stability of classmates' academic and social competencies revealed that not until 6th grade did Ss indicate that there are limits in the degree to which academic and social competencies could improve with effort. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's attributions of intentions to an invisible agent.

Children ages 3-9 years were informed that an invisible agent (Princess Alice) would help them play a forced-choice game by "telling them, somehow, when they chose the wrong box," whereas a matched control group of children were not given this supernatural prime. On 2 unexpected event trials, an experimenter triggered a simulated unexpected event (i.e., a light turning on/off; a picture falling), and children's behavioral response to these events (i.e., moving their hand to the opposite box) was coded. Results showed a significant Age Group × Experimental Condition interaction; the only children to reliably alter their behavior in response to the unexpected events were the oldest children (M = 7 years 4 months), who were primed with the invisible agent concept. For children's posttest verbal explanations, also, only these children saw the unexpected events as being referential and declarative (e.g., "Princess Alice did it because I chose the wrong box"). Together, these data suggest that children may not regularly begin to see communicative signs as embedded in unexpected events until they are around 7 years of age. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's Learning.

A new field of children's learning is emerging. This new field differs from the old in recognizing that children's learning includes active as well as passive mechanisms and qualitative as well as quantitative changes. Children's learning involves substantial variability of representations and strategies within individual children as well as across different children. The path of learning involves the introduction of new approaches as well as changes in the frequency of prior ones. The rate and the breadth of learning tend to occur at a human scale, intermediate between the extremes depicted by symbolic and connectionist models. Learning has many sources; one that is particularly promising for educational purposes is self-explanations. Overall, contemporary analyses show that learning and development have a great deal in common. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Exploring the "planning fallacy": Why people underestimate their task completion times.

Tested 3 hypotheses concerning people's predictions of task completion times: (1) people underestimate their own but not others' completion times, (2) people focus on plan-based scenarios rather than on relevant past experiences while generating their predictions, and (3) people's attributions diminish the relevance of past experiences. Five studies were conducted with a total of 465 undergraduates. Results support each hypothesis. Ss' predictions of their completion times were too optimistic for a variety of academic and nonacademic tasks. Think-aloud procedures revealed that Ss focused primarily on future scenarios when predicting their completion times. The optimistic bias was eliminated for Ss instructed to connect relevant past experiences with their predictions. Ss attributed their past prediction failures to external, transient, and specific factors. Observer Ss overestimated others' completion times and made greater use of relevant past experiences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Impact of group goals, task component complexity, effort, and planning on group performance.

Tested a model asserting that goal difficulty and task component complexity influence group performance by affecting the effort exerted by group members, the amount and quality of their planning, and the timing of their planning (preplanning vs in-process planning). Hypotheses derived from this model were tested in a 2?×?2 experimental design. 56 groups of 4 students each worked for 15 min building Tinkertoy structures. Results show that group-goal difficulty influenced group performance through effort; task component complexity influenced performance through the amount of planning performed by group members and the level of effort invested in their work; and the quality of the group's planning process also influenced group performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)