Three experiments focused on the function relating children's response time to adults' response time in corresponding conditions. In all experiments, children's response times increased in a linear manner as a function of adults' response times. (BB)

Examined discussions of 25 groups of peers who were in second, fifth, ninth, and twelfth grades, or were young adults. Trends in topicality arguments paralleled trends for other types of talk. With regard to the function of arguments, person-focused function declined in middle childhood but information-focused function increased. However,…

This study examined the influence of expressive strategies, emotion type, social context, and gender on 144 elementary-school-age children's expectancies regarding interpersonal responses to their emotional expression. Findings indicated that children expected others to respond more positively to verbal and facial strategies than to aggressive…

Studied the extent to which teenagers' expectations about gender role in career and family contexts are altered when traditional parental sex roles were partially reversed. Used follow-up data on the consequences of fathers of intact, white, middle-class families taking responsibility for their preschoolers' care. (BB)

Second and fifth graders from five sociometric status groups were interviewed for their attributional, emotional, and behavioral responses to hypothetical social encounters with same-sex and same-grade peers with the same sociometric status. Results demonstrate that children's manner of processing social information is a complex phenomenon based…

A total of 86 girls of 2 to 6 years completed Level 1 spatial and affective perspective-taking tasks. Results showed increasingly accurate performance with age. Task intercorrelations and factor analyses provided support for the coherence of the Level 1 perspective-taking construct. (Author/BB)

Conducted two experiments on kindergarten to third-grade children in which it was hypothesized that the degree of adult intervention would not make a difference in play treatments and that thematic fantasy play would serve to construct metalinguistic understanding. Hypotheses were confirmed. There was also significant interaction between adult…

In two studies, children's memory of venipuncture or inoculations were compared with memory of less stressful events. In another study, natural variations in children's stress and the effect of short delays were examined. In yet another study, a delay interval of one year was examined. (BB)

Examined how separation of competency and affect components of self-concept domains varied in 7- to 13-year-olds. Found that Self-Description Questionnaire factor loadings were invariant over age comparisons. Correlations among reading, math, and school self-concepts decreased with age. Correlations between competency and affect within domains…

Investigates whether children with poor peer relations display developmental lag in their conceptions of friendship. Compares social-cognitive level of understanding, using the Selman theory of interpersonal understanding, in sample of grade 2 versus grade 7 students identified as socially accepted, rejected, or neglected. The latter did not show…

Studied the extent to which mothers' beliefs about children's social behaviors change during their children's transition from early to middle childhood and the extent to which these beliefs can be predicted from the circumstances of the mothers' lives and the mothers' perceptions about the social support resources available to them. (BB)

Examined preschoolers', first-graders', and third-graders' responses to questions in which one authority (mother or teacher) permitted a moral or conventional act to occur across contexts and the other authority prohibited the act from occurring across contexts. Found that children's evaluations were a function of the authorities' status, the…

Analysis of data on 2,000 children from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth suggests that maternal intelligence is a significant predictor of scores on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised. The HOME Inventory short forms used in the study are appended. (LB)

Examined associations between neighborhood risk factors and low-income children's academic performance from third to fifth grade. Neighborhood risk, based on characteristics such as income, education level, female-headed households, and violent crime, was not associated with children's academic performance in third grade but negatively predicted…