Satisfaction and frustration of the basic psychological need for relatedness have been postulated to play a vital role for affective well-being. Yet, this prediction has not been thoroughly tested in schoolchildren's everyday lives. In this work, we examined the association between relatedness satisfaction and frustration at school on daily and…

When threatened with ostracism, children attempt to strengthen social relationships by engaging in affiliative behaviors such as imitation. We investigated whether an experience of ostracism influenced the extent to which children imitated a partner's language use. In two experiments, 7- to 12-year-old children either experienced ostracism or did…

Children with externalizing symptoms typically show dysregulated arousal when facing emotional challenges and are at risk for antisocial outcomes later in life. The model of emotion socialization (Eisenberg, Cumberland, & Spinrad, 1998) points to supportive emotion-related parenting as central to promoting children's regulatory capability and…

Tenets of the Boivin et al. (1995) social process model were reexamined with two longitudinal samples using both the original and contemporary analytic strategies. Study goals included reconstructing (e.g., quasireplicating) Boivin et al.'s (1995) original findings and evaluating hypothesized relations across both comparable and longer…

In the present research, we provide empirical evidence for the process of symbolic integration of number associations, focusing on the development of simple addition (e.g., 5 + 3 = 8), subtraction (e.g., 5 - 3 = 2), and multiplication (e.g., 5 × 3 = 15). Canadian children were assessed twice, in Grade 2 and Grade 3 (N = 244; 55% girls). All…

Emerging evidence suggests interventions can improve childhood self-regulation. One intervention approach that has shown promise is Taekwondo martial arts instruction, though little is known about its acceptability among stakeholders or its mechanisms of effect. We extend evidence on Taekwondo interventions in three ways: (1) testing the efficacy…

Children's work habits at school include being a hard worker, turning in work on time, following classroom rules, and putting forward one's best effort. Models on youth character, noncognitive skills, and social-emotional learning suggest that self-management skills like work habits are critical for individuals' subsequent academic success. Using…

Children tell prosocial lies from the age of three years onward, but little is known about for whom they are inclined to lie. This preregistered study examined children's (N = 138, 9-12 years) prosocial lying behavior toward minimal in-group and out-group peers. Additionally, children evaluated vignettes in which an in-group peer told a prosocial…

Empathy plays a key role in maintaining close relationships and promoting prosocial conflict resolution. However, research has not addressed the potential emotional cost of adolescents' high empathy, particularly when relationships are characterized by more frequent conflict. The present 6-year longitudinal study (N = 467) investigated whether…

Reading acquisition is based on a set of preliteracy skills that lay the foundation for future reading abilities. Phonological awareness--the ability to identify and manipulate the sound units of oral language--has been reported to play a central role in reading acquisition. However, current evidence is mixed with respect to its universal…

Recent research has demonstrated that, when instructed to prioritize a serial position in visual working memory (WM), adults are able to boost performance for this selected item, at a cost to nonprioritized items (e.g., Hu, Hitch, Baddeley, Zhang, & Allen, 2014). While executive control appears to play an important role in this ability, the…

The present study explored the age-related changes of eye movement control in reading--that is, where to send the eyes and when to move them. Different orthographies present readers with somewhat different problems to solve, and this might, in turn, be reflected in different patterns of development of reading skill. Participants of different…

Children with higher levels of executive function (EF) skills consistently demonstrate higher levels of academic achievement. Despite the consistency of these associations, fundamental questions remain about whether efforts to improve an individual child's EF skills result in corresponding improvements in his or her academic performance. In the…

Language and accent strongly influence the formation of social groups. By five years of age, children already show strong social preferences for peers who speak their native language with a familiar accent (Kinzler, Shutts, DeJesus, & Spelke, 2009). However, little is known about the factors that modulate the strength and direction of…

Economically disadvantaged children often lack the resources to purchase popular goods and participate in their preferred social groups' activities, making it difficult to fit in. Meanwhile, children from middle socioeconomic status (SES) families may have additional influence over whether low SES children are included in such groups. We examined…