Eighty elementary school children assigned to experimental conditions of modeling, role playing, and modeling combined with role playing, chose significantly more delayed rewards than control children. Findings suggest that modeling is a significant determinant of self-control behaviors. The effectiveness of the role playing procedure was…

Examines the extent to which an infant's social initiative resists or is modified by three variations in the behavior of adult responsiveness: repeated responses, varied responses, and eye aversion. (HOD)

Examines the reactions of children in grades 3-4, 7-8, and 11-12 to boys and girls whose behavior was either masculine-stereotyped or feminine-stereotyped along the dimensions of steadiness/excitability, adventurousness/timidity, and rudeness/politeness. (Author/HOD)

Examines strategies adults use to provide the developing child with increased responsibility for controlling his or her behavior. Teachers at a day care center used informative strategies with three- and five--year-olds, but did not use strategies that inhibit behaviors with five-year-olds. (Author/BB)

Adults from the pre- and posttelevision eras were surveyed to determine whether the superhero that today's preschoolers dramatize in their play is qualitatively different from those of past childhoods. Results revealed significant changes in early childhood in heroes or play themes since the advent of television, but no significant change in…

Toddlers in foster care, exposed prenatally to cocaine, were assessed for development, temperament, play behaviors, and adaptive and maladaptive behaviors. Compared to nonexposed toddlers, these toddlers possessed more risk factors at birth and experienced more illnesses after birth; scored lower on conceptual development and higher on expression…

Analyzes and compares the exploration, play, and problem-solving activities of typically developing (average) and at-risk infants when they manipulate novel objects. (BB)

A two-year study of preschoolers attempted to identify emotions and prosocial behaviors that reliably predict teachers' ratings of young preschoolers' affective and behavioral social-emotional competence. Results showed that observed emotion, especially anger and sadness, often predicted teacher ratings of social-emotional competence in…

Explored interrelationships among day-care experience, temperament, and preschoolers' social behaviors in a peer play laboratory. Found that sex predicted both aggressive and prosocial behaviors, and daycare inhibited socialization for some children. Findings suggest that variables of temperament and day-care experience are important to consider…