Examined whether prudence and altruism, in situations involving future desires, follow similar developmental courses between ages 3 and 5. Tested children on ability to forego current opportunity in order to gratify their own future desires or those of research assistant. Found that between ages 3 and 4, children develop some common mechanism…

This study examined the development of children's decisionmaking abilities and the effects of age and gender differences on their use of probability, gain, and loss information about risky alternatives. Subjects were 158 children of 7-13 years of age who were observed during a task in which they chose among alternative gambles in a computer game.…

Piaget (1968) and Michotte (1963) studied children's perception of physical causality. While emphasizing perception, they deemphasized thinking. The present study extends research by these authors by identifying types of verbal thinking in preschoolers on the basis of judgment of three fundamental physical laws: the first law of static, the law of…

To investigate the nature of children's reasoning about reality and fantasy in literature, grade-school children were presented with a series of paired printed materials and asked to tell which of the pair was more real and to explain their choices. (HOD)

Seventy-two children were presented with a series of stories involving psychological harm in a game context. Found that older children were more likely than younger ones to base their evaluations on intentions, or both intentions and consequences, and to take into account the recipient's perspective. Game context interacted differentially with…

The primary purpose of this study was to evaluate age-developmental differences in boys' incorporation of information about chronicity of a transgressor's behavior in their judgments of the efficacy of paternal disciplinary behaviors. Additionally, the study was designed to investigate boys' evaluations of fathers' applications of different types…

Uses the transposition paradigm to compare the influence of the adjectives "same" and "different" on the test choice of 5- and 9-year-old children. (Author/SDH)

Two experiments were conducted to assess the nature and extent of children's knowledge about the density of objects. In the first experiment, 18 children 3- to 5-years-old were shown 8 objects which were placed in water 1 at a time. The children were later asked to judge whether the objects would sink or float when placed in water. Findings…

This paper presents a series of studies related to the question of how children learn to evaluate themselves in achievement situations. The approach to the research is based on the Weiner et al attributional model of achievement. The paper describes three studies designed to determine the extent to which first, second and third grade children use…

Examines elementary school children's concept of authority with regard to the age and social position of command-giver and the type of command given. Shows that children's evaluation of adult and peer authority were based on a combination of age and position in the social context. (HOD)

This study tested the predictions of Fischer's skill theory for Kitchener and King's reflective judgment model. A total of 156 14- to 28-year-old students were tested, utilizing the Reflective Judgement Interview (RJI) and Prototypic Reflective Judgement Interview (PRJI). Subjects scored higher on the PRJI than they did on the RJI. There was a…

Many important social judgments involve deciding whether a person is likely to be successful in a particular situation. The literature on stereotypes suggests that there is a differential application of conceptualizations of ability in describing age and sex groups. This study investigated the hypothesis that age and sex stereotypes are associated…

Describes four experiments conducted among adults and 3- to 7-year-olds to validate a task analysis that indicates that the equality, group enhancement, and superiority social decisions require a greater information processing load than the altruism, rivalry, and individualism social decisions. (HOD)

A group of 125 elementary and high-school students were interviewed to assess their levels of moral judgment regarding prosocial behavior and the discriminations they make when thinking about helping various individuals (e.g., family and friends, disliked others, someone from a different country). (Author/MP)

Examined judgments of intolerance given by children, adolescents, and adults toward disagreeing others. The evidence suggested that intolerance may be a lower level of reasoning in a social cognitive developmental progression. (Author/DB)