Developmental Psychology

Golombok, Susan; Tasker, Fiona

doi: 10.1037/0012-1649.32.1.3pmid: N/A

Findings are presented of a longitudinal study of the sexual orientation of adults who had been raised as children in lesbian families. Twenty-five children of lesbian mothers and a control group of 21 children of heterosexual single mothers were first seen at age 9.5 years on average, and again at age 23.5 years on average. Standardized interviews were used to obtain data on sexual orientation from the young adults in the follow-up study, and on family characteristics and children's gender role behavior from the mothers and their children in the initial study. Although those from lesbian families were more likely to explore same-sex relationships, particularly if their childhood family environment was characterized by an openness and acceptance of lesbian and gay relationships, the large majority of children who grew up in lesbian families identified as heterosexual.

Seifer, Ronald; Schiller, Masha; Sameroff, Arnold J.; Resnick, Staci; Riordan, Kate

doi: 10.1037/0012-1649.32.1.12pmid: N/A

Families were examined at 6, 9, and 12 months in an intensive longitudinal study that included Home Behavior Attachment Q-sorts, laboratory Strange Situation assessment, home observations of infant temperament behavior on 24 occasions, observations of maternal parenting sensitivity on 12 occasions, and maternal reports of infant temperament. Maternal sensitivity was modestly related to Q-sort security and unrelated to Strange Situation classification. In contrast, observed infant temperament was more strongly related to both maternal sensitivity and Q-sort security. The relation between home and laboratory assessment of attachment security, which was at the level found in prior work (e.g., B. E. Vaughn & E. Waters, 1990),remained after the effects of observed and mother-reported infant temperament were partialed. Our data highlight the need to consider other factors besides maternal sensitivity in the explanation of variability in the attachment status of 1-year-olds.

Luster, Tom; McAdoo, Harriette

doi: 10.1037/0012-1649.32.1.26pmid: N/A

The central question addressed in this study was, What factors contribute to individual differences in the educational attainment of African American young adults from families of low socioeconomic status? A secondary analysis of the Perry Preschool data set was conducted. Unlike earlier studies that focused on the effects of preschool on the Perry participants, this study focused on the influence of family and child characteristics on educational attainment. Results showed that characteristics of the participants at the time of school entry were predictive of the participants' achievement and, ultimately, their educational attainment. Family processes were also related to the participants' achievement, attainment, and study habits. Educational attainment was related to income, occupational prestige, and employment history at age 27.

Ruffman, Ted; Keenan, Thomas R.

doi: 10.1037/0012-1649.32.1.40pmid: N/A

Three experiments were carried out to determine whether there is a lag in predicting surprise relative to false belief. All 3 experiments used “backwards reasoning” tasks. The findings were that (a) there is a lag in predicting surprise relative to false belief, (b) by 5 or 6 years of age children claim that one will be surprised when they gain knowledge of that which they were previously ignorant or when they discover that they had previously held a false belief, (c) by 7 to 9 years of age they understand that surprise will more likely result from false beliefs rather than mere ignorance, and (d) children's difficulty understanding surprise as specifically belief-based does not likely stem from information-processing limitations. It is argued that the lag likely results because children must build a new concept of surprise (e.g., from desire- to belief-based).

Cottrell, Jane E.; Winer, Gerald A.; Smith, Mary C.

doi: 10.1037/0012-1649.32.1.50pmid: N/A

Three studies investigated participants' beliefs about feeling the stares of an unseen other, which was apparently first examined by E. B. Titchener (1898).Results showed that most adults believed they could feel the unseen stares of another. Young children frequently responded similarly, although across age there were some increases in beliefs about feeling unseen stares. Several aspects of participants' theories about feeling stares from an unseen other were also studied. Findings suggested participants believed that in order to feel stares, some cognitive maturity was required, it was important to have seen the starer, and thinking on the part of the starer was not important. Participants also believed that stares of animals could be felt. The age trends present a challenge to traditional developmental theories of cognition, which generally assume more rational behavior with advances in age, and they suggest broadening the bases for conceptualizing theories of mind.

Yirmiya, Nurit; Solomonica-Levi, Daphna; Shulman, Cory

doi: 10.1037/0012-1649.32.1.62pmid: N/A

This study investigated the ability to deceive in participants with autism, mental retardation (MR), and normal development. The authors used S. Hala, M. Chandler, and A. S. Fritz's (1991)procedures, in which children deceive by creating false trails or by erasing all trails and lying about the true location of a hidden object. Participants with autism and those with MR did not differ in their ability to use a deceptive method to manipulate the behavior of another person. Participants with autism were significantly less able than participants with MR to understand that they manipulated the beliefs of another person by predicting the outcome of their deceptive act. The normal group outperformed the group with autism but not the group with MR on both parts of the task. Different possible interpretations of the results are discussed, including a deficit in theory of mind and a deficit in executive control functions.

Jenkins, Jennifer M.; Astington, Janet Wilde

doi: 10.1037/0012-1649.32.1.70pmid: N/A

Factors associated with individual variation in false belief understanding were examined. Sixty-eight 3- to 5-year-olds were tested on 4 standard false belief tasks. General language ability and verbal memory were found to be significant predictors of false belief understanding after the effects of age were partialled out, but nonverbal memory was not. There was evidence for a threshold effect in that children did not pass false belief tasks before they reached a certain level of linguistic ability. False belief scores were higher in children from larger families, after the effect of age and language had been partialled out. Family size was more strongly associated with false belief understanding in children who were less competent linguistically, suggesting that the presence of siblings can compensate for slower language development in developing false belief understanding.

Stormshak, Elizabeth A.; Bellanti, Christina J.; Bierman, Karen L.; Coie, John D.; Dodge, Kenneth A.; Greenberg, Mark T.; Lochman, John E.; McMahon, Robert J.

doi: 10.1037/0012-1649.32.1.79pmid: N/A

To understand the relations between sibling interactions and the social adjustment of children with behavior problems, 53 aggressive 1st- and 2nd-grade children, their mothers, and their siblings were interviewed about positive and negative aspects of the sibling relationship. When conflict and warmth were considered together, 3 types of sibling dyads emerged: conflictual (high levels of conflict, low levels of warmth), involved (moderate levels of conflict and warmth), and supportive (low levels of conflict, high levels of warmth). On most measures of social adjustment at school, children in involved sibling relationships showed better adjustment than did children in conflictual relationships. Results are discussed in terms of a developmental model for at-risk children in which some sibling relationships may foster the development of social skills in addition to providing emotional support, which may enhance adjustment at school.

Ross, Hildy S.

doi: 10.1037/0012-1649.32.1.90pmid: N/A

Sibling property disputes were observed in 40 families, each with a 2- and a 4-year-old child, to study the application of principles of entitlement. Conflict outcomes, parent support, and justifying arguments were each analyzed in disputes involving ownership, possession, sharing, and property damage. Ownership and possession each influenced the conduct and outcomes of disputes, with ownership taking precedence over possession in children's arguments and in dispute outcomes. Parents did not clearly support either principle on its own and were as likely to argue in terms of possession as ownership rights. Parents supported children's sharing and prohibited property damage, but conflict outcomes upheld these principles only when parents intervened. Analyses revealed the strong influence of young children who argued, with increasing differentiation and sophistication, for principles of entitlement that were not strongly endorsed by their parents.

Schauble, Leona

doi: 10.1037/0012-1649.32.1.102pmid: N/A

In this study of the development of scientific reasoning, 10 5th–6th-grade children (5 boys and 5 girls) and 10 noncollege adults conducted experiments over 6 half-hour sessions to explore the causal structure of 2 physical science domains. Feedback in these systems, though relevant to discriminating among hypotheses, was noisy as a result of varying effect sizes and measurement error. After 2 hr on each task, both age groups demonstrated changes in their understanding of the content and in their strategies for generating and interpreting evidence. In general, the adults outperformed the children. Neither valid strategies nor correct beliefs alone was sufficient to guarantee success, suggesting that regarding experimentation either as domain-general induction or as domain-specific learning may oversimplify its complexity.