This study examined children's self-assessment of their prosociality, relative to average peers, in situations where the recipient is described as "needy" versus "not needy" (at a school of average socioeconomic level in south Israel; N = 158; aged 6-12 years; 51% males, December-May 2021). The results show that older children…

American and Israeli toddler-caregiver dyads (mean age of toddler = 26 months) were presented with naturalistic tasks in which they must watch a short video (N = 97) or concoct a visual story together (N = 66). English-speaking American caregivers were more likely to use left to right spatial structuring than right to left, especially for…

The present study compared 5-and 10-year-old North American and Israeli children's beliefs about the objectivity of different categories (n = 109). Children saw picture triads composed of two exemplars of the same category (e.g., two women) and an exemplar of a contrasting category (e.g., a man). Children were asked whether it would be acceptable…

Living in complex social worlds, individuals encounter discordant values across life contexts, potentially resulting in different importance of values across contexts. Value differentiation is defined here as the degree to which values receive different importance depending on the context in which they are considered. Early and mid-adolescents (N…

Effects of country of origin and social class on sex differences in body articulation were also analyzed. (Authors)

Given that girls show more interpersonal concern than boys, it was predicted that more mother-daughter than mother-son dyads would develop a relationship of mutual concerned responsiveness (CR). Two hundred and twenty-six Israeli children (7-8 years old) and 91 mother-child pairs provided narratives of mother-child interactions. At high levels of…

Interviewed 150 Palestinian mothers and their children living amidst the Intifada uprising in what was then the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Found that the number of risks present in a child's life was significantly correlated with the number of behavioral problems the child exhibited. Under conditions of high accumulated risk, boys evidenced more…

Investigated relationships between mothers' perception of infants temperament at 6 months and their behavior toward their infants at 6 and 12 months of age among 40 firstborn Israeli infants. Temperamental intensity ratings were related to auditory stimulation and contingent positive vocalization for girls and to increased physical contact for…

Examined how children of different cultural backgrounds weigh competing considerations when presented with conflicts between two concerns: Justice-Authority; Justice-Interpersonal; Personal-Interpersonal; Personal-Authority. For each concern, subjects selected the course of action to be followed and weighed alternatives. Found differences between…

Tests the hypothesis that semantic memory changes with age such that concepts become more strongly associated with their superordinate classes than with their exemplars. The Stroop color-naming technique was employed with 48 children 8 through 12 years of age to measure the degree of semantic activation between concepts in memory. (Author)

Assessed the causes ascribed by 60 Israeli 4th- and 9th-graders for the Arab-Israeli conflict and the relationship of these attributions to their expectations and emotions. Found that adolescents tended to view causes as more constant or less fluctuating over time than did younger children. Results support an attributional model for understanding…

It is suggested that altruism is a multidimensional concept and that in the young child its expression may in part reflect differing levels of cognitive development. (Authors)

Effects of father absence on boys and girls who live in families headed by mothers were studied. Subjects were 40 Israeli children (ages 2.6 to 2.10 years of age) whose fathers had died before their birth. Strong differential effects were found in the responses of girls as compared with those of boys. (Author/MP)

Examined effects of negative group stereotypes on reasoning about peer retribution (child hits another child in response to name calling) among 2,604 Arab and Jewish adolescents in Israel. Found evidence that Arab and Jewish students hold stereotypes about one another and that in-group bias affected approval and reasoning about peer retribution…

Using an open-ended questionnaire, 236 fifth- and sixth-grade pupils attributed their success or failure on a test given in their classroom to eight different causes. Results indicated that the pupils tended to attribute success mainly to external causes and failure mainly to internal causes. (JMB)