Post-formal operational thought is characterized by both relativism and dialecticism. To examine age differences across adulthood in relativistic and dialectical thought, and to determine whether formal operations are necessary but not sufficient for these forms of thought, 20 young (mean age, 19.6), 20 middle aged (mean age, 46.2), and 20 older…

Examines a general developmental hypothesis concerned with children's understanding of perceptual experience, memory, intentions, and emotions. It is hypothesized that young children view the mind as passive in relation to the external world and regard external events as determining subjective experience, whereas older children know many ways that…

Applies the analytic technique of maximum likelihood factor analysis to the intercorrelations of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised's subtests as a means for assessing more or less differentiation and integration. (HOD)

Attribution theory and gerontology would be enriched by the application of a life-span approach to attribution, involving increased attention to the age of the stimulus person and developmental factors associated with self-attribution. In studies on achievement attributions about older people, chronological age appears to be a more salient cue for…

Two experiments look at factors influencing the ways children construct an abstract representation of story structure that contains the characteristics described by story grammars. (RWB)

Examines research which suggests that children's developing knowledge about traditional gender roles has a substantial influence on how children process information pertaining to gender. Evidence also shows that as children attain gender constancy, their behaviors become especially responsive to gender-related information. (Author/RWB)

A dominant theme in cognitive psychology is that prior knowledge in long-term memory has a strong influence on an individual's cognitive processing. Citing numerous memory studies with children, knowledge base effects are presented as part of a broader picture of memory development. Using the sort/recall procedure (asking subjects to group sets of…

The estimation processes used by fifth through eighth grade students as they responded to computational estimation test items were examined. Interview-based process descriptions were cross-validated using large group test data from an open-ended test and a multiple choice test. Five question formats were used to test different estimation…