This paper attempts to show that Florida's high percentages of elderly and minority citizens, two groups that show considerably lower than average higher educational attainment, cause simplistic statistical analyses to rank Florida lower in educational attainment than she deserves. Controlling for these demographic factors shows that Florida is…

Boundary crises for girls moving into adolescence were studied by analyzing "Seventeen" magazine to contribute to the discourse around redefining childhood. The border between childhood and adolescence appears to be moving downward, and as the boundary goes down, the moral panic in society often goes up. To analyze "Seventeen,"…

Developmental changes in the expression of superordinates in children's word definitions were studied with 96 elementary school students. Superordination increased significantly and changed qualitatively with age, although across grades children produced more superordinates for nouns than for adjectives or verbs. (SLD)

To identify the role of the child's own action in the development of the ability to coordinate perspectives, a spatial localization task was presented to 2 groups of children: 16 children between 18 and 24 months old, and 16 children between 42 and 48 months old. A reward was hidden randomly in one of two identical left-right locations on a…

Factors such as an expected reward have been shown to severely undermine individuals' intrinsic interest in a given task. This "overjustification effect," or "discounting principle," has been demonstrated across the life span, except in the case of young children, who have been shown to be incapable of engaging in this…

To assess young children's understanding of false belief, investigators often show them a familiar container, then demonstrate that it holds an object different from the one the children expected. The children are then asked what they originally thought the container held, and what another container will hold. Three-year-old children typically…

Two experiments tested Hasher and Zacks' (1984) age-invariance hypothesis of frequency memory, which proposed that frequency memory is fully developed when a minimal level of physiological maturation is reached (by two or three years of age). Participating in the first experiment were 24 subjects at each of three ages: 8 years, 11 years, and young…

Research on brain hemisphere functions appears to indicate that (1) lateralization occurs from about age five to puberty; (2) both hemispheres are involved in language learning in ways not yet fully understood; (3) after age fifteen, pronunciation learning becomes difficult; (4) older language learners learn more quickly, but younger learners…

The primary goal of this discussion is to summarize research on the role of expertise in accounting for individual differences in analogical problem solving among college students. The discussion also relates expertise differences to current theorizing in the developmental literature that concerns analogical reasoning in children. Contents focus…

Although the theory and research of Lawrence Kohlberg have been the dominant approach in the study of moral reasoning and moral development, his procedures have been criticized in three areas: (1) reliability and validity; (2) applicability to daily experience; and (3) inadequate sampling. To examine the characteristics of moral problems…

Attempts to modify or ameliorate the effects of declining cognitive abilities of the elderly have met with limited success. To focus on the effects of age in cognitive processing capacity (CPC), Furukawa's (1977) CPC test was administered individually to 3 age groups (16-30, 31-45, and 45-60) of 15 subjects each. Speed of processing old and new…

A study was conducted whose primary objective was to examine the relationship between mothers' responses to children's intentions and children's development of moral reasoning. It was hypothesized that children of mothers who responded positively to their child's positive intent and negatively to their child's negative intent would use intent…

The hue and cry of the business world is for an educational system that emphasizes the development of analytical abilities and problem solving skills. Society is looking for more competent females in the work force. This study examined the significance of gender, methodology, academic preparation, and age as related to development of judgmental…

A series of studies focused on (1) the evolution of the notion of identity of objects among infants up to 15 months of age and (2) the changing rules by which this development may be understood. Six identity tasks were presented to 60 infants divided into five age groups: 5, 7, 9, 12, and 15 months. Two objects were used in all tasks. In the first…

Incorporating Elkind's (1979) construct of the personal fable, this investigation focused on the relationship between self-concept and projected attachments to a distant object (i.e., a favorite celebrity). In a repeated measures design, 79 male and female 5th, 8th, and 11th graders and college sophomores completed a set of personality scales,…