Role-taking, a prototypical social-cognitive skill, is the ability to view the world (including the self) from another's perspective. (Author/MB)

Suggests future directions for study of sensitivity and its impact on early psychosocial development: (1) renewed attention to growth of attachment in context of other developing features of the parent-child relationship; (2) factors that moderate impact of sensitivity on developing security; (3) origins of individual differences in sensitivity;…

Two experiments examined 12- and 17-year-olds' active selection of quality of feedback they wished from peers. Findings indicated that participants with positive self-perceptions sought feedback that was more positive than participants with negative self-perceptions and sought more positive feedback than expected by chance. Participants with…

Aggressive and nonaggressive third- through fifth-grade African-American boys were assigned to a behavior intervention program designed to reduce aggressive males' tendency to attribute hostile intentions to peers, an attention training program, or a nonintervention control group. The benefits and limitations of the intervention program are…

Argues that extant research assessing relations between contextual factors and psychological disturbance has confused two different roles of context. Suggests that environmental factors are nonspecific stressors and elicit psychopathology, with specificity of expressed psychopathology governed by individual differences, and that context is…

Tests the hypothesis that high-SES children process information more efficiently using mechanisms associated with the left hemisphere and that low-SES children process more efficiently using the right. A laterality task was administered tachistoscopically to 120 children, divided evenly by SES (high and low), sex, and grade (fifth and seventh).…

Investigates the effect of being labeled "patient" among kindergarten, first- and second-grade girls in a self-imposed delay of gratification task making rewards contingent upon stopping further accumulation. Results are interpreted in terms of modifications in the child's self perceptions as a consequence of being labeled by an adult. (RH)

Tested the individual characteristics and deviant peer association theoretical models of friends' influence on the development of delinquency in disruptive boys. Found that moderately disruptive boys with aggressive-disturbing friends were more delinquent at age 13 than other subgroups of moderately disruptive boys. Highly disruptive and…

Hypothesized that individual differences in 81 sixth-grade boys' self-restraint would serve as a mediator between family factors in preadolescence and sons' delinquent behavior 4 years later. General family functioning at preadolescence, independent of other scores, predicted boys' level of self-restraint four years later. (MDM)

Three experiments explored the developmental relationship between counting and number conservation in children from three to six years old. Results indicated that there was a close relationship between the two; that only the oldest children gave evidence of conserving; and that, in general, there is evidence of protracted development in young…

Reviews research on infants classified by Ainsworth's "Strange Situation" assessment as insecure/ambivalent, and examines studies exploring attachment theory beyond infancy. Presents a theoretical discussion of the ways in which patterns of mother and child behaviors associated with the insecure/ambivalent pattern may work together to…

Notes that commentators unanimously support Rothbaum et al.'s general orientation to culture and development and their developmental pathways. Views commentators' suggestions as relating to trade-offs: between theories that highlight generalization or exceptions; between methods that rely on one-, two-, or multiculture studies; and between values…

Discusses responsibility of developmental scientists to convey the complexity of development lest oversimplified popular accounts gain credibility. Presents a model of development elaborating on the role of experience in relation to constitutional, cultural, economic, and social factors contributing to children's development. Discusses importance…

Identifies the forces that influence how developmental research is prioritized and evaluated and how these influences are changing at entry into the new millennium. Considers the developmental researcher in context, suggesting that there will be increasing pressure to use new criteria when assessing the significance of twenty-first-century…

Presents evidence from studies on adults' language processing and children's language acquisition that the lexicon is at the core of grammatical generalizations at several levels of representation. Proposes that phonological acquisition might provide the bootstrapping into grammatical generalization in general. Concludes that age-appropriate…