Hong Kong Chinese and American adolescents were given three Piagetian tasks of formal operations in order to assess cultural, age, and sex differences. Significant effects were demonstrated with Americans, older subjects, and males performing at more advanced levels. (Author/JMB)

Assesses the social image of cigarette smoking held by early- and middle-adolescent smokers and examines whether that social image serves to motivate smoking initiation. Results indicate that the social image of both male and female smokers is an ambivalent one. (Author/MP)

Looking times of 96 preschoolers were recorded as they were habituated on slides of sex-typed toys. After habituation, subjects were shown a test series of 24 slides. (Author/SS)

Evaluates fourth-to seventh-grade children on two aspects of social cognition: interpersonal understanding and means-ends problem-solving ability. Relates the two variables to sex, age, IQ, social class, and multiple dimensions of competence. Both variables significantly correlated with I.Q. while interpersonal understanding also correlated with…

Investigated predominant kinds of parent-infant play and individual differences in play style. Participants were 24 families of healthy, full-term, firstborn infants, four boys and four girls at each of three ages: 7, 10, and 13 months. (RH)

Sex differences in risk-taking were examined by observing 480 three- to 11-year-old children at four different risk-taking locations at the San Antonio zoo. While girls were just as likely as boys to enter the zoo, at all four of the risk-taking situations, significantly more boys than girls engaged in risk-taking behavior. (Author/RH)

Examined the relations of emotionality and regulation to preschoolers' naturally occurring anger reactions through observations of behavior. Children's use of verbal objections to anger situations were positively related to constructive coping and attentional control, particularly for boys, and negatively related to girls' anger intensity,…

Examined early development of guilt in 106 children observed in laboratory paradigms in which they were led to believe they had damaged valuable objects during 2 sessions at 22, 33, and 45 months. Found support for a mediational model in which fearful temperament contributed to guilt proneness, which served to inhibit children's tendency to…

The development of speaker and listener skills in a referential-communication task was examined among 144 5-, 6-8 and 7-year-old children. Of special interest were the listener's ability to provide feedback and the speaker's ability to improve his messages in response to feedback. (Author/JMB)

A total of 114 infants at three age levels (11, 18, and 28 weeks) were rated by their mothers on a termperament questionnaire and subjected to a habituation procedure. Results suggest that subject loss in habituation studies may be the result of nonrandom individual difference factors and not just the result of temporary fluctuations in state.…

Examined factors that influence children's competence in mathematics when they begin first grade. Results indicated that parent education, family economic resources, and parent expectations influenced children's competence. Race and family structure, when considered apart from other variables, were not significant influences. (PCB)

Examined development of child and adolescent self-concept in two overlapping age cohorts as a function of the self-concept domain, social/developmental/educational transitions, and gender. Structural equation modeling addressed questions about stability of individual differences over time. Multilevel modeling addressed questions about mean-level…

Eight operationally defined "feminine" gestures were recorded for 48 elementary school aged boys and girls while they individually performed a standardized play task. Results showed a significant overall difference between the sexes with three specific gestures discriminating significantly between the sexes. (Author/JMB)

The data from this study shows that fathers spend little time vocalizing to their infants and that the number of interactions varies by time of day, age and sex of infant and the kind of activity occurring during the interaction. (Author/WY)