Counterfactual emotions such as regret may aid future decision-making by encouraging people to focus on controllable features of personal past events. However, it remains unclear when children begin to preferentially focus on controllable features of such events. Across two studies, Australian 4-9-year-olds (N = 336, 168 females; data collected…

We investigate how the ability to respond appropriately to reasons provided in discourse develops in young children. In Study 1 (N = 58, Germany, 26 girls), 4- and 5-, but not 3-year-old children, differentiated good from bad reasons. In Study 2 (N = 131, Germany, 64 girls), 4- and 5-year-old children considered both the strength of evidence for…

A problematic way to think about social categories is to essentialize them--to treat particular differences between people as marking fundamentally distinct social kinds. From where do these beliefs arise? Language that expresses generic claims about categories elicits some aspects of essentialism, but the scope of these effects remains unclear.…

The COVID-19 context has created the most severe disruption to education systems in recent history. Its impact on child development was estimated comparing two cohorts of 4- to 6-year-old Uruguayan children: control (n = 34,355, 48.87% girls) and COVID cohort (n = 30,158, 48.95% girls) assessed between 2018 and 2020 in three waves, by a routinely…

Existing evidence suggests that children, when they first pass standard theory-of-mind tasks, still fail to understand the essential aspectuality of beliefs and other propositional attitudes: such attitudes refer to objects only under specific aspects. Oedipus, for example, believes Yocaste (his mother) is beautiful, but this does not imply that…

This study examined British young people's understanding of the rights of asylum-seeking young people. Two hundred sixty participants (11-24 years) were read vignettes involving asylum-seeking young people's religious and nonreligious self-determination and nurturance rights. Religious rights were more likely to be endorsed than nonreligious…

Examines themes evident in children's and mother's definitions of illness to determine how views of illness develop. Subjects were 264 children (ages 6 to 12-11) and their mothers. Two issues were considered: (a) patterned similarity in illness definitions, and (b) developmental changes in illness concepts. (ED)

Two experiments compared 10-year-olds' and adults' ability to choose positive and negative diagnostic tests over positive and negative nondiagnostic tests. Findings indicated that both age groups were more likely to prefer positive diagnostic tests over positive nondiagnostic tests, although only adults showed a significant preference for negative…

Used stories involving self-deception, lying, and misleading appearances to examine 4- to 9-year olds' understanding of the relations between false belief, evidence, and epistemic responsibility. Found that younger children who understood false belief understood simpler types of deception but that understanding self-deceivers' epistemic…

Examined young children's understanding of seed origins and growth preconditions and the stages of plant growth. Found that, by 4.5 years, children realized that natural causal mechanisms underlie plant growth and appreciated the relationship of seeds to plants. Results suggest that preschoolers hold theory-like understandings of plants similar to…

Three experiments examined assumption that children attribute human properties to nonhuman agents. Two- to 8-year-olds participated in false-belief tests concerning human and various nonhuman agents, including animals and God, and in a modified perspective-taking task including nonhuman agents. Results suggested that children do not consistently…

Learning of class inclusion by 5-year-olds in response to empirical and logical explanations of an adult's answers was examined. Contrary to the view that young children possess an empirical bias, 5-year-olds learned more, and continued learning for longer, when given logical explanations of correct answers than when given empirical explanations.…

Low-birth-weight infants, who received extra stimulation showed improved development through six months of age. (ST)

Three studies examined young children's understanding that, if one "remembers" or "forgets," one must have known something previously. The majority of four-year olds, but not three-year olds, understood that, when two characters currently knew something, the one with prior knowledge remembered and that, when neither character…

Three experiments tested four- to seven-year olds' ability to understand and reconcile message-desire discrepant stories. The findings suggest that young children can refrain from a performative response and, as a consequence, attend to literal meaning under some conditions when evaluating utterances. (MDM)