The regulation of affective arousal is a critical aspect of children's social and cognitive development. However, few studies have examined the brain mechanisms involved in the development of this aspect of "hot" executive functioning. This process has been conceptualized as involving prefrontal control of the amygdala. Here, using functional…

Various aspects of moral functioning, aggression, and positive peer regard were assessed in 153 preschool children. Our hypotheses were inspired by an evolutionary approach to morality that construes moral norms as tools of the social elite. Accordingly, children were also rated for social dominance and strategies for its attainment. We predicted…

Using 20 levels of intensity, we measured children's thresholds to discriminate the six basic emotional expressions from neutral and their misidentification rates. Combined with the results of a previous study using the same method ("Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 102" (2009) 503-521), the results indicate that by 5 years of age,…

Human infants develop a variety of attentional mechanisms that allow them to extract relevant information from a cluttered multimodal world. We know that both social and nonsocial cues shift infants' attention, but not how these cues differentially affect learning of multimodal events. Experiment 1 used social cues to direct 8- and 4-month-olds'…

Examined age and gender differences regarding the nature, meaning, and function of cherished possessions. Among the significant differences found were that younger children were egocentric in meanings assigned to cherished possessions, whereas older children held social relationships meaningful; females favored items to be contemplated, while…

Gives an overview of the 10 research articles in this issue. Notes that all studies in this issue examine child behavior from a perspective that views behavior as mediated by social context, challenging the logical positivism of conventional experimentation. (MM)

Examined relations between children's temperament, ability overestimation, and accidental injuries. Found that watching peer failure on physical tasks was related to conservative ability judgments for same task. Surgency/Undercontrol was related to 6-year-olds' judgment accuracy and to 8-year-olds' decision times. Ability overestimation was…

Three-month-old infants received two consecutive 5-minute periods of adult social stimulation. Study results showed that social reinforcement changes the pattern and not the rate of infant vocal responding. (MS)

To assess the effects of toy guns and toy airplanes on children's antisocial behavior, 4- and 5-year-olds (ten in Study I and 13 in Study II) were observed during 15-16 free play sessions. During experimental sessions children played either with (novel, aggressive) toy guns or with (novel, nonaggressive) toy airplanes in addition to their usual…

Thirty-five 6- to 10-year-old children with initial low rates of donating to help a peer either received a fine for each failure to donate or also were informed of the contingency between the fine and failure to donate. (JH)

Examined how an unstable rather than stable view of dispositions--that is, personality traits and abilities--affected the motivational consequences of 7- and 8-year-old children's success and failure experiences, and their self-confidence and impressions of other persons. (SKC)

The effects on instrumental behavior of differences in type of task, type of reward and three organismic variables (history of social reinforcement from peers, extraversion, and intelligence) were investigated in preschool children. (ST)

Observations were made of the social participation, constructiveness of play, and communicative interactions of developmentally delayed and non-delayed preschool children as they interacted in heterogeneous groups. The only significant effect of heterogeneous group composition on the children was reduced inappropriate play by severely delayed…

Examined in three studies EuroCanadian and Native Canadian children's memory for stereotypic behaviors attributed to ingroup and outgroup members. Found that outgroup favoritism, typically found among low-status group members, was reversed among Native Canadian children attending a heritage school. Age and cognitive development level predicted…