This study provides evidence of sex-typed behavior in the spontaneous play of infants between 9 1/2 and 15 1/2 months. Eight boys and eight girls at 9 1/2, 11 1/2, 13 1/2, and 15 1/2 months were observed during 15 minutes of free play with a variety of realistic toys equally divided into male, female, and neutral categories. Stereotypical,…

Mentally retarded (N=36) and nonretarded (N=37) children matched for MA (48 months) were assessed on gender understanding with the expectation that the two groups would show similar sequencing and attainment. The nonretarded subjects' data mirrored previous cross-sectional findings, but the retarded respondents displayed signficantly better gender…

The relation between past history of outcomes and achievement expectancies was examined for 72 elementary school students. (JMB)

The present findings suggest that never" as a response and very often" as a response are mediated by different underlying processes, at least between the ages of 8 and 17. (Author/WY)

Indicates that two major nonexclusive permutation problem-solving strategies increase with age: (1) mathematical group structure, and (2) holding initial marks constant while permuting the remainder. Significant sex differences are suggested. This report is based on a dissertation submitted to the Graduate School of Purdue University by the first…

Studied 2-year olds' understanding of pretense expressions of independent agency in scenarios in which a doll acted as the agent of a series of pretend events. Found no gender differences in the doll's imaginary intentions, but older toddlers performed reliably better than younger. Episodes requiring enacting conclusions to events that began with…

Since Kohlberg (1958) first extended the cognitive developmental theory of moral judgment to include moral reasoning in adults, it has been found that women tended to score at a lower developmental stage than did men. Gilligan (1982) has conceptualized women's moral reasoning as being different in kind from men's moral reasoning, with women's…

Discusses two experiments in which middle-aged, elderly, professional, and non-professional males and females were given the Conceptual Styles Test. An analysis of variance on the percentage of complementary responses revealed significant effects for age, occupation, and th interaction between age and sex. (ED)

Thirty-five children who had participated in a study of mastery motivation at one year of age were reevaluated at 3.5 years. Findings differed for boys and girls and indicated that a wide range of behaviors in the cognitive-motivational domain must be examined to find developmental continuities. (Author/CB)

Reports that form matching increased with age both in number of subjects with reliable preferences and in strength of preferences, but that at all ages form matches predominated. (Author/DR)

This study examined preschoolers' performance on an observation task and a search task involving the invisible displacement of an object. Findings indicated that in the observation task, there was significantly longer looking to impossible than to possible outcomes among all children. Most 3-year-olds, but significantly fewer 2.5-year-olds,…

Students from the fifth, eighth, and eleventh grades were asked to describe their ideal self-image. Analyzed according to 19 categories (such as occupation, marriage, and physical appearance), the responses revealed differences according to gender, age, cognitive-developmental level, and socialization experience. (DM)

Asked 30 children aged 4 years and 30 children aged 6 years to explain what they found funny in 2 humorous pictures. Results indicated that the older children explained humor differently than the younger children and that boys recognized the humor of the visual images more easily than did girls. (MDM)

Four experiments and an analysis of pooled data from English and Japanese children show a linear increase in understanding false beliefs with number of older siblings; no such effect for children younger than 38 months; no helpful effect of younger siblings at any age; no effect of siblings' gender; and no helpful effect of siblings on a source…