This study was conducted to investigate the sources of meaningful events across the lifespan. Both a quantitative approach and a qualitative approach were used to examine whether or not different measures reflected different domains of meaning and purpose. Subjects were 215 men and women, were classified in five developmental groupings: young…

Two studies compared motor skills of women in terms of the influence of age and activity level. In the first study, simple and choice reaction time, balance, flexibility, and grip strength of older active women were compared with that of older inactive women, and active and inactive younger women. Except for grip strength, scores of older active…

Distinguishing two forms of inference (additive and general vicariance), this paper describes a procedure for assessing class vicariance that attempts to control potentially confounding effects of verbal comprehension. The term "class vicariance" refers to the inference that a class remains invariant under arbitrary dichotomous…

The literature on self-predictions and self-efficacy suggests that, with age, accuracy is stressed at the expense of speed in performing a psychomotor task. To investigate the relationship between self-rated performance, actual performance, and task preferences as a function of age, 175 females, ranging in age from 17 to 72 years, were placed into…

This study was undertaken to determine whether neo-Piagetian theory might provide a functional interpretation of children's motor development, particularly linear positioning. In addition, intra-age and inter-age comparisons for both high- and low-mental-processing children were made. Pascual-Leone's Figural Intersection Test was used to select 15…

This paper describes a delayed response experiment which tested children's memory for the location of a hidden object. Eight boys and eight girls at each of two age levels (25 and 37 months) were assigned to each of four experimental conditions and given eight trials in a 9-choice task. On each trial the child saw the object hidden in one of nine…

The study investigated motivation factors in 368 students in grades 4 through 9, including 180 students identified as academically gifted. Ss were administered the Junior Index of Motivation (JIM Scale) which measures six motivational factors: positive-negative school attitude, belongingness-alienation, idealism-pragmatism, personal…

Musical improvisation behavior of 4-, 6-, and 8-year-old children who played Orff xylophones during ten 15-minute sessions is described in this paper. Each session involved three improvisatory phases. Phase I consisted of free exploration; Phase II consisted of short verbally stimulated musical tasks (two imitation and six improvisational tasks);…

Studies of children's verbal reasoning that are focused on the valid principles of conditional reasoning indicate that young children (1) draw inferences from logically unconnected semantically related statements; (2) arrive at conclusions on the basis of no presented evidence; (3) do not differentiate between definite and indefinite propositions;…

The motivation of 61 gifted and 60 nongifted students (grades 4 through 9) was compared. Scores on the Junior Index of Motivation were analyzed using a weighted scale, with Ss' responses sorted by elementary or secondary grade clusters. Results revealed differing motivational factors between gifted and nongifted as well as between elementary and…

This study assessed the accuracy of judgments of 100 school-age children (5-11 years of age) as to the presence of real fruit content in three sets of cereals and beverages advertised on TV: real fruit, nonfruit, and artificially flavored products. In the baseline session accuracy increased with age, but children at each age misjudged the real…

Six- to nine-year-old children's (N=14) initial perceptions of the elderly were reexamined following an intervention consisting of an increase in the frequency of beneficial contact that the children had with old people. Beneficial contact was provided when elderly persons (N=23) served for two months as tutors in a reading program for normal…

This study investigates age differences in children's semantic expectations regarding causal relations in stories about three realistic goal situations (being friendly, getting a dog, and doing chores). Twenty children at each of three age levels (ages 6, 9, and 12) were asked to produce stories and answer probe questions about wanting and not…

Four experiments were conducted to investigate the extent to which infants of different ages respond to facelike drawings on the basis of stimulus complexity and/or resemblance to the human face. Infants' responses to stimulus patterns were assessed using the corneal reflection technique developed by Robert Trantz. In the first two experiments,…

The relationship between visual stimulus intensity and directional finger movements was examined in infants of two age groups (16 infants, 10 to 15 weeks old, and 8 infants, 20 to 25 weeks old). Two hypotheses derived from Schneirla's Approach-Withdrawal Theory were examined: (1) that responses of the younger, but not of the older infants, would…