It has been suggested that due to functional similarity, sortal object individuation might be a primordial form of psychological essentialism. For example, the relative independence of identity judgment from perceived surface features is a characteristic of essentialist reasoning. Also, infants engaging in sortal object individuation pay more…

Although observational instruments are considered to be the gold standard for measuring toddler childcare quality, large-scale studies often have to rely on interviews or questionnaires. However, it remains unclear whether such reports can serve as reliable indicators for childcare quality. The present study used the ITERS and FCCERS to examine…

Findings from previous cross-sectional studies showed that while toddlers around their first birthday imitate selectively, that is, they systematically omit some kinds of target action steps or they copy only the goal, but not the means of the modeled actions, older toddlers imitate more exactly. The aim of the present article is to provide…

Sensitive responding to others' emotional body expressions is an essential social skill in humans. Using event-related brain potentials, it has recently been shown that the ability to discriminate between emotional body expressions develops between 4 and 8 months of age. However, it is not clear whether the perception of emotional body expressions…

We investigated the development of the other-race effect "ORE" in a longitudinal sample of 3-, 6-, and 9-month-old Caucasian infants. Previous research using cross-sectional samples has shown an unstable ORE at 3 months, an increase at 6 months and full development at 9 months. In Experiment 1, we tested whether 9-month-olds showed the…

Movement perception facilitates spatial orienting of attention in infants (Farroni, Johnson, Brockbank, & Simion, 2000). In a series of 4 experiments, we investigated how orienting of attention in infancy is modulated by dynamic stimuli. Experiment 1 (N = 36) demonstrated that 5-month-olds as well as 7-month-olds orient to the direction of a…

Infants intentionally communicate with others from before their 1st birthday. But there is some question about how they understand the communicative process. Do they understand that for their request to work the recipient must both understand the request and be cooperatively disposed to fulfill it? On the basis of the study by Shwe and Markman…

This study analyzed German and Nso mothers' auditory, proximal, and visual contingent responses to their infants' nondistress vocalizations in postnatal Weeks 4, 6, 8, 10, and 12. Visual contingency scores increased whereas proximal contingency scores decreased over time for the independent (German urban middle-class, N = 20) but not the…

In this study, we asked whether 14- and 18-month-old infants use the experiences they have previously shared with others when deciding what to point to for them declaratively. After sharing a particular type of referent with an adult in an excited manner, 18-month-olds subsequently found a picture of that type of referent more worthy of…

Two experiments investigated the proclivity of 14-month-old infants (a) to altruistically help others toward individual goals, and (b) to cooperate toward a shared goal. The infants helped another person by handing over objects the other person was unsuccessfully reaching for, but did not help reliably in situations involving more complex goals.…

Three experiments investigated 14-, 18-, and 24- month-old infants' understanding of visual perception. Infants viewed films in which a protagonist was either able to view the location of a hidden object (Visual Access condition) or was blindfolded when the object location was revealed (No Visual Access condition). When requested to find the…

This study investigates whether attachment quality at ages 1, 6 and 16 is related to autonomy and relatedness behavior in adolescence. In a follow-up of the Regensburg Longitudinal Study, forty-three 16-year-old adolescents and their mothers were assessed in a revealed differences task and a planning a vacation task. Attachment was assessed during…

In the studies presented here, infants' understanding of others' attention was assessed when gaze direction cues were not diagnostic. Fourteen-, 18- and 24-month-olds witnessed an adult look to the side of an object and express excitement. In 1 experimental condition this object was new for the adult because she was not present while the child and…

This report represents the first ever attempt to draw a comparative picture of the physical abuse of children in the 27 richest nations of the world. UNICEF research estimates that almost 3,500 children under the age of 15 die from physical abuse and neglect every year in the industrialized world. The greatest risk is among younger children. A…

When Canadian parents look back on their own lives and the lives of their parents, they see changes across a generation that have profoundly affected their parenting experience, compared to when they themselves were young children. Supports for today's parents must take into consideration these changes that affect the care and nurturing of…