International Journal of Behavioral Development

In Experiment 1, Japanese children (4-, 5-, 7-, and 10-year-olds (n = 78)) and adults (n = 36), answered questions about the possibility of psychogenic bodily reactions, i.e., bodily outcomes with origins in the mind. The 4- and 5-year-old preschoolers typically denied that bodily conditions could originate in mental states. Developmentally, recognition of psychogenic bodily reactions appeared between ages 8 and 11. Experiment 2 showed that these findings did not depend on whether reactions were positive or negative. The preschoolers had some difficulty in assuming not only negative but also positive psychogenic bodily reactions. In Experiment 3, 5-, 6-, 8-, and 11-year-old children (n = 70) and adults (n = 18) were asked to explain why physical/psychological states would lead to bodily outcomes. Adults relied on mechanical causation for physically induced bodily reactions, while for psychogenic reactions they often referred to vitalistic concepts. In contrast, young children sometimes referred to vitalistic concepts for physically induced reactions, but seldom did so for psychogenic reactions. Vitalistic causality appears to change from causality based on only the body, to a framework that applies not only bodily but also to mental phenomena.

This study examined developmental differences in, and cognitive bases of, coping flexibility in children with and without ADHD. Younger (age 7 to 8) and older (age 10 to 11) children with and without ADHD (N = 80) responded to hypothetical vignettes about problematic interactions with peers that shifted from controllable to uncontrollable over time. We assessed children’s coping strategies, perceptions of controllability, coping repertoire size, and executive function. Coping flexibility was defined as reporting more strategies directed toward adjusting to, rather than changing, situations as they became uncontrollable. Older children without ADHD demonstrated greater coping flexibility than did younger children without ADHD or either age group with ADHD. The age difference in coping flexibility was mediated by older children’s greater accuracy in perceiving decreases in controllability. Children with ADHD (both younger and older) reported more anti social strategies than did children without ADHD, a difference that was accounted for by their smaller repertoire of coping strategies. Programs directed toward enhancing coping flexibility may need to target different cognitive skills for children with and without ADHD.

This study examined the effects of the accumulation of family risk factors on children’s literacy skills, both in preschool and in first grade. Children’s (N = 106) vocabulary, conventions of print, phonological awareness, knowledge of letters, reading decoding, and reading comprehension were assessed. Family risk factors, consisting of household composition, years of maternal education, job situation of the mother, and income level of the family, were combined to create a cumulative risk index. Canonical correlation and multiple regression analyses were performed. Results revealed the negative impact of cumulative risk index on both the preschool and first-grade literacy skills. In addition, the number of risk factors present in the family context negatively predicted the majority of the firstgrade literacy skills, after taking preschool skills into account. The results provide further evidence of the negative impact of the accumulation of family risks on child literacy development and call attention to the importance of early experiences for later academic achievement.

Infants’ responses to typical and scrambled human body shapes were assessed in relation to the realism of the human body stimuli presented. In four separate experiments, infants were familiarized to typical human bodies and then shown a series of scrambled human bodies on the test. Looking behaviour was assessed in response to a range of different human body stimulus types including real people, mannequins, dolls and large human body photographs. Results were compared with previous experiments showing that when presented with small drawings, photographs or dolls, infants demonstrate knowledge about the whole human body shape only after their first birthday (Slaughter & Heron, 2004). In the current study, recognition of the typical human body shape was evident as early as 9 months of age when the stimuli were real humans, and infants’ responses to the various types of representations were linked to the realism of the portrayal. This pattern of findings indicates that even simple visual responses are not independent of the nature of the stimuli used to elicit them.

We examined support and conflict with parents and close friends in a sample of ethnically diverse young adults (European-, Asian-, Cuban-, Latin-, and Mexican Americans). College students (N = 495) completed six subscales from the Network of Relationships Inventory (NRI; Furman & Buhrmester, 1985). Friends were rated higher than parents on global support by Asian- and European Americans, but not by the three Latino groups. Regardless of ethnic group, friends and parents provided different types of support, and conflict with parents was more frequent than conflict with friends. No differences due to age, gender, or generation of immigration emerged for European-, Cuban-, or Asian Americans; differences emerged attributable to gender among Mexican Americans (support and conflict), and generation of immigration among Latin Americans (support). Findings reveal ethnic group similarities in how college students’ social relationships are structured, but also highlight unique within-group experiences.

The emotional responses to achievement contexts of 149 preschool children from three cultural groups were observed. The children were Japanese (N = 32), African American (N = 63) and White American of mixed European ancestry (N = 54). The results showed that Japanese children differed from American children in expressing less shame, pride, and sadness, but more of both exposure and evaluative embarrassment. African American and White American children did not differ from one another. American children however showed more evaluative as opposed to exposure embarrassment. This finding supports the idea that success and failure are interpreted differently by Japanese children during the preschool years. The low amount of sadness and shame expression, and the limited range of number of different expressions observed in the Japanese children agree with the general finding that East Asian infants and young children differ from Western infants and children primarily in the display of negative expressions. These results demonstrate that cultural differences, whether due to temperament or direct socialization of cultural values, influence how children respond to achievement situations.

Our study re-examines the relationship between parenting and school performance among Asian students. We use two sources of data: wave I of the Adolescent Health Longitudinal Survey (Add Health), and waves I and II of the Taiwan Educational Panel Survey (TEPS). Analysis using Add Health reveals that the Asian-American/European-American difference in the parenting—school performance relationship is due largely to differential sample sizes. When we select a random sample of European-American students comparable to the sample size of Asian-American students, authoritarian parenting also shows no effect for European-American students. Furthermore, analysis of TEPS shows that authoritarian parenting is negatively associated with children’s school achievement, while authoritative parenting is positively associated. This result for Taiwanese Chinese students is similar to previous results for European-American students in the US.

Social relations of second grade students (247 boys, 290 girls) were examined in rural elementary classrooms. Cluster analysis of teacher ratings was used to identify interpersonal competence configurations including perceived unpopular-aggressive (i.e., Troubled ) and perceived popular-aggressive (i.e., Tough) subtypes for both boys and girls. Troubled children tended to have rejected status and were more likely to be either socially isolated or members of peer groups that did not contain popular classmates. Tough children were perceived by peers as being socially prominent (i.e., popular, cool, leaders) and they tended to associate with perceived popular peers. Tough boys had elevated levels of rejected or controversial sociometric status while Tough girls were distributed at expected levels across sociometric status classifications. The implications for intervention are discussed.

This study investigated a novel approach to obtaining data on parent and infant emotion during the Face-to-Face/Still-Face paradigm, and examined these data in light of previous findings regarding early autism risk. One-hundred and eighty eight non-expert students rated 38 parents and infant siblings of children who did (20) or did not (18) have autism spectrum disorders. Ratings averaged across 10 non-experts exhibited high concordance with expert facial-action codes for infant emotion, and 20 non-experts were required for reliable parent ratings. Findings replicated the well-established still-face effect and identified subtle risk associations consonant with results from previous investigations. The unique information offered by intuitive non-expert ratings is discussed as an alternative to complex and costly behavioral coding systems.