Developmental Psychology

Campbell, Byron A.; Jaynes, Julian.

doi: 10.1037/h0026978pmid: N/A

160 weaning rats were trained on a light-dark discrimination and then given 1 reinstatement per wk. for 10 wk. They were then tested for retention of the original discrimination. 5 different durations of reinstatement were used: 0, 7.5, 15, 30, and 60 min. The longer the weekly reinstatement, the better the retention of the discrimination when tested either by relearning or resistance to extinction.

Lewis, Michael

doi: 10.1037/h0026995pmid: N/A

Presented 4 photographic facial stimuli varying in realism to approximately 120 infants within the 1st yr. of life in order to observe any developmental changes in attention to facial patterns as a function of schema development. Fixation time, smiling, vocalization, and fret/cry behaviors were observed to determine the differential effectiveness of these stimuli in elicting these responses. The fixation data varied over the 1st yr. with realistic patterns eliciting more attention in the 1st 1/2 yr. Differences in smiling and vocalization to these patterns remained invariant over age and indicated that realistic faces elicited more smiling and vocalization than distorted faces. Finally, large sex differences were apparent. The difference between these response measures suggest that classes of responses elicited by the same stimuli may be under the service of more than 1 motive. It was suggested that attention was affected by schema development while smiling and vocalizing were affected by such processes as innate releasing mechanisms or social learning. (28 ref.)

Biller, Henry B.

doi: 10.1037/h0026999pmid: N/A

Explored the relationship among 186 kindergarten boys' perceptions of their fathers' dominance, their fathers' dominance in father-mother interaction, and different aspects of the boys' sex-role development. 3 aspects of sex role were considered: orientation (self-perception of maleness and/or femaleness), preference (the individual's preferential set toward socially defined representations of sex role), and adoption (the individual's masculinity and/or femininity as viewed by members of his society). The results suggested that father dominance influences different aspects of sex role to varying degrees (orientation the most, adoption the least) and that the boy's perception of his father's relative dominance is more related to the boy's masculine development than the degree of his father's dominance in father-mother interaction. (22 ref.)

Hersher, Leonard.

doi: 10.1037/h0026979pmid: N/A

Severe social sensory isolation of many different species of animals during the early periods of growth and development results in profound and lasting effects on behavior. What are the effects of maternal deprivation alone, controling for other social and sensory deprivation? 5 goat kids, separated from their mothers at 3 days of age, were reared together but apart from all other animals until 6 mo. of age. They were bottle fed on cow's milk until weaning. Compared with normally reared animals the mother-deprived group were more emotional, more readily conditioned to classical aversive stimuli, less dominant, and had higher heart and respiration rates. At 18 mo. of age, after the females had kids of their own, no differences were found in maternal behavior. (16 ref.)

Feshbach, Norma D.; Feshbach, Seymour

doi: 10.1037/h0027016pmid: N/A

Tested the prediction that empathy should function as an inhibitor of overt aggressive behavior by obtaining experimental measures of empathy and teachers' ratings of aggressive behavior on 40 6- and 7-yr-olds and 48 4- and 5-yr-olds. In the older age group high empathy boys were significantly less aggressive than low empathy boys while the converse held for the younger boys. There were no significant differences between high and low empathy girls at either age level. The disparate findings for boys and girls are consistent with other data reflecting differential correlates of aggression in the 2 sexes. The contrasting relationship between empathy and aggression for boys at the 2 age levels appears to be a function of developmental changes in the role of aggression in social behavior. (15 ref.)

Liebert, Robert M.; Odom, Richard D.; Hill, Jae H.; Huff, Ray L.

doi: 10.1037/h0027014pmid: N/A

Investigated the effects of age and familiarity on children's adoption of a modeled language rule. A 3 * 2 factorial design was employed, with 3 age levels of 14 Ss each, and a familiar or unfamiliar rule. The oldest groups performed best on measures of both repetition of modeled constructions and production of novel sentences which precisely fitted the relevant rule. Neither rule familiarity nor the Age * Rule interaction had significant effects. Results are discussed in relationship to the hypothesis that language learning is an active problem-solving process which is facilitated by well-developed cognitive skills.

London, Perry; Cooper, Leslie M.

doi: 10.1037/h0027002pmid: N/A

240 children, including 10 boys and girls at each yr. level from 5-16 were selected as a standardization sample for the Children's Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale from 303 children selected from the public school population of a small city. Distributions of susceptibility scores by 3 different scoring methods were almost identical for both the 240 children and the remaining 63. Reliabilities were satisfactorily high, as indicated by retesting 201 children after 1 wk. There were no sex differences whatsoever. Age bears a complex curvilinear relationship to susceptibility, with children under 7 getting the lowest mean scores. Comparison of comparable items with the standardization sample of the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scales shows that children are generally more susceptibile to hypnosis than adults. (22 ref.)

Silverstein, A. B.

doi: 10.1037/h0027079pmid: N/A

Used both the traditional cross-sectional approach and D. Zeaman and B. House's (see 37:3) semilongitudinal approach to chart the course of changes in the IQ of institutionalized retardates as a function of hospital age. Systematic sampling provided 204 Ss. The results of the 2 methods agreed in demonstrating a decline in IQ, but they differed with respect to the extent of this decline. The relationship between IQ and probability of release from the hospital was suggested as a possible explanation for the greater decrement shown by the cross-sectional approach.

Siegel, Linda S.; Goldstein, Alvin G.

doi: 10.1037/h0027015pmid: N/A

Tested the understanding of relational terminology and conservation of number in 66 2.7-6.1 yr. old Ss. Until 4.7 yr. of age, most children do not respond correctly to quantitative relational terms such as "more," "less," and "same." Most Ss younger than 5.7 yr. do not have conservation of number. Instead of choosing the correct relational alternatives or showing conservation of number, young Ss systematically exhibited recency response strategies by choosing the last of 2 alternatives offered them.

Strain, G. S.; Unikel, Irving P.; Adams, Henry E.

doi: 10.1037/h0027004pmid: N/A

The alternation behavior of 24 5- and 6-yr-old male and female children reared in low socioeconomic status environments was compared with that of 24 similar middle status Ss. Results indicated that middle status Ss alternated significantly more frequently than lower status Ss and that female Ss alternated significantly more frequently than male Ss. However, analysis of the significant interaction between sex and socioeconomic status indicated that significant effects resulted primarily from the far fewer alternations made by lower status males.