Gratitude has been previously defined as a tendency to appreciate positives in life, thus conflating gratitude and components of well-being. Accordingly, current measures assessing "gratitude" are primarily based on this conflated conceptualization, and do not adequately assess gratitude as a moral virtue. The Gratitude Assessment…

Children's right to be heard is an issue raised in recent years in the Global North, which has also been acknowledged by Chinese researchers currently studying child development and education. However, Chinese researchers still often prefer the perspectives of adults in their research on young children, citing a lack of suitable methodologogy for…

Despite technological advancements in engineering, medicine, agriculture, food, and health; we live in a global community of incidents, challenges, and crises, contrary to the hope of living in a 21st century utopia. Child labour can be seen as a malignant symptom for which policy-makers and senior authorities must take immediate and effective…

One hundred popular children's books for ages 0-6 were selected from a local metropolitan library system with data from 10 library branches. These frequently checked out books were then analyzed for how disabilities were represented in the books. This study found that only a few books checked out of the library represent children with differing…

Young children from a very early age not only prefer those who help others but also those who engage in altruistic helping. This study aims to test how children assess helping when the goal of the helping behavior is immoral. We argue that younger children consider only the helping versus hindering behavior, but older children distinguish their…

Previous work has shown the robust nature of gender bias in both children and adults. However, much less attention has been paid toward understanding what factors shape these biases. The current preregistered study used parent surveys and child interviews to test whether parents' conversations with their children about and modeling of gender…

The present study examined the attitudes and behavioral intentions of 336 children aged 7-11 toward a hypothetical peer with symptoms of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) to determine whether they were influenced by labeling, social devaluation, or familiarity. Children read one of five vignettes describing the behavior of a…

Evidence in the conventional literature points to the prospects of children as active agents in decision-making processes. This has also been emphasised in the participatory neighbourhood and city planning discourse. However, literature connecting a pronounced methodology like the 'mosaic approach' to participatory planning with children in…

An understanding of harm is central to social and cognitive development, but harm largely has been conceptualized as physical damage or injury. Less research focuses on children's judgments of harm to others' internal well-being (emotional harms). We asked 5- to 10-year-old children (N = 456, 50% girls, 50% boys; primarily tested in Central New…

Verbal testimony about reality status is critical but often contradictory. These studies address whom children consider reliable sources of information about reality and how they evaluate conflicting testimony. In Study 1, seventy 4- to 8-year-olds heard an adult or child provide testimony about how to cook food and use toys, and about the reality…

Physically inactive children in rural areas are overlooked in research because of the dominance of urban perspectives focusing on physical activity rather than inactivity. The aim of this article is to examine an emerging collective story of how physically inactive children (aged 9-11 years) in two rural areas experience their relationships with…

Youth should be correctly informed about what is happening in the world, but research on empowering people to identify fake news rarely targets youth. To take the first steps in increasing their fake news literacy, this study (N = 298) qualitatively looks into youth's (10-12 years old) fake news knowledge and quantitatively tests a fake news…

The study examines the interactive functions of gesture repetitions as a specific form of interpersonal synchronization in argumentative decision-making processes of peers (1-6 graders). Based on a collection of 13 instances, gesture repetitions are investigated in the process of collaboratively co-constructing arguments. Drawing on multimodal…

Global progress in child labour reduction has stalled since 2016. In South Asia, the negative consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, recurrent extreme weather events and the cost-of-living crisis further threaten to slow or even reverse the progress made. This synthesis report addresses a timely need for new research to help decision-makers and…

Primary school children frequently use digital devices, which can be infected by computer viruses. In this mixed methods paper with two studies (N = 278 + 114), we examined 8-year-olds' preconceptions about computer viruses and protection against them; how to teach these children about said topics using three different, 30-min-long,…