Children's intergroup attitudes arguably reflect different construals of in- and out-groups, whereby the former are viewed as composed of unique individuals and the latter of homogeneous members. In three studies, we investigated the scope of information (individual vs. category) Jewish-Israeli 5- and 8-year-olds prefer to receive about…

Evaluative conditioning (EC) refers to a change in liking of a conditioned stimulus (CS) consecutive to its repeated pairing with a valent unconditioned stimulus (US). We relied on a multinomial processing tree model to compare the processes underlying EC in middle-aged children (n = 57, M[subscript age] = 8.65, range = 6.94-11.03; 31 females) and…

Young children have informal knowledge of fractions before learning about fraction symbols in school. In the current study, we followed 103 children in the Mid-Atlantic United States from the fall to the spring of first grade to characterize the development of individual differences in early informal fraction knowledge, as well as its relation to…

High achievers vary in terms of the constraints and difficulties they encounter on the road to success. The present study investigates whether and how children consider the constraints one overcomes in their beliefs and reasoning about academic achievement. Four- to nine-year-olds (N = 98, 57 girls, 41 boys) and their parents (N = 92, 80 females,…

The present study used a novel, well-controlled paradigm to investigate the development of cool, hot-positive, and hot-negative inhibitory control in a sample of children (6- to 11-year-old; N = 38, 21 females), adolescents (12- to 18-year-old; N = 38, 24 females), and adults (19- to 38-year-old; N = 38, 28 females; sample location: United…

Elementary school students often lack a conceptual understanding of linear measurement, which is revealed by their poor performance when the object to be measured is not aligned with the start of the ruler. Instead of correctly counting the units that correspond to the object (e.g., inches or centimeters), children often use 1 of 2 incorrect…

False memories are well established episodic memory phenomena. Recent research in young adults has shown that semantically related associates can be falsely remembered as studied items in working memory (WM) tasks for lists of only a few items when a short 4-second interval was given between study and test. The present study reported two…

The primary purpose of the present study was to examine the contributions of social, academic, and psychological characteristics of peer groups to individual development in the same and different domains in Chinese children. Participants included 1,864 elementary school students (945 boys, M[subscript age] = 11 years) in China. One-year…

Increasing evidence suggests that success in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields is not only dependent upon one's actual STEM-relevant abilities but also upon one's STEM-relevant attitudes--in particular, math and spatial attitudes. Here, we examine whether simply mentioning the math or spatial relevance of a task affects…

Previous research has demonstrated a link between spatial and math skills. However, little research has examined this relation longitudinally. The present study examines the development of and reciprocal relations between spatial and math skills in elementary school students. We administered two spatial tasks and a math task to 312 first- through…

Frequent exposure to victimization by peers is related to greater psychological problems. It is often assumed that peer victimization is associated with fewer psychological problems in classrooms where defending victims of bullying is common (i.e., a norm). The few studies testing this claim have been cross-sectional and have produced mixed…

The Dominican Republic is a uniquely valuable context in which to study children's racial stereotyping and prejudice, in part because multiracial individuals comprise the majority of the population and race is viewed largely as a continuous rather than dichotomous construct. In two studies, we use developmental and social theories to ground an…

This study investigated the developing ability of children to identify emotional facial expressions in terms of the contexts in which they generally occur. We presented Dutch 6- to 9-year-old primary school children (N = 164, 98 girls) prototypical contexts for different emotion categories and asked them whether different kinds of facial…

Pre-kindergarten (Pre-K) programs typically improve early academic skills, but those gains too often disappear after children transition to elementary school. At least three hypotheses explain this "fade-out" of Pre-K effects: Pre-K does not focus on the "trifecta skills" that uniquely support subsequent learning and…

Research on the associations among adversity, executive function (EF), and academic outcomes in low- and middle-income countries, where developmental risk factors are more prevalent and impoverished environments are more widespread than in high income countries, is sparse. This study examines the relations among cumulative risk, EF, and learning…