We conducted 3 studies to explore cultural differences in global versus local processing and their developmental trajectories. In Study 1 ("N" = 363), we found that Japanese college students were less globally oriented in their processing than American or Argentine participants. We replicated this effect in Study 2 ("N" =…

We conducted two studies to examine how interviewers' nonverbal behaviors affect children's perceptions and suggestibility. In the first study, 42 8- to 10-year-olds watched video clips showing an interviewer displaying combinations of supportive and nonsupportive nonverbal behaviors and were asked to rate the interviewer on six attributes (e.g.,…

Much prior groundbreaking research has been done in recent years highlighting the qualities, quantities and means children have to enter transpersonal states of awareness. As important as this precedent research has been, in many ways it has yet to fully appreciate the gravity of childhood transpersonal experiences in terms of the impact on…

This study of mothers of 60 children (ages 2-18) with autism found that mothers who perceived social support as more available experienced fewer stress-related somatic problems and depressive symptoms than did those with less perceived support. Analysis also indicated that hardiness was a predictor of both depressive symptoms and somatic…

A questionnaire asking respondents to list adjectives describing four hypothetical stutterers (a female child, male child, female adult, and male adult) was completed by 42 school administrators in Alabama, Louisiana, Texas, and West Virginia. The majority of reported adjectives were negative stereotypical personality traits. (Author/JDD)

Uses factor analysis to determine structure of problem behavior as perceived by mothers and teachers, and to determine similarity among problem behaviors of disabled children, children in regular classes and distrubed or delinquent children. (Author)

Some 96 fourth-grade boys participated in a study investigating the influence of personality and stimulus characteristics on perceptions of the meanings of verbal evaluations, and the functioning of differentially perceived evaluations as reinforcers in a learning task. Personality variables measured were anxiety, locus of control, need for…

Tested the idea that exposure to television people could affect children's judgments of a real person introduced after watching television. Found that television can prime traits and provide a frame of reference for use in encoding new information about people. (PD)

Different genetic disorders predispose individuals to display specific, etiology-related profiles, personalities, and maladaptive behaviors. Using groups with genetic etiologies as stand-ins or proxies for a specific behavior or set of behaviors, one can then examine how others in the child's environment react and whether such reactions are…

A questionnaire asking respondents to list adjectives describing 4 hypothetical stutterers (2 8 year olds and 2 adults) was completed by 103 elementary and secondary teachers. The majority of reported adjectives were negative stereotypical personality traits, indicating perceptions of stutterers similar to other groups including speech-language…

The use of ratings of children by judges is pervasive in the area of father absence research. The interpretation of such ratings, though, is not always straightforward. The possibility that teacher ratings of children may indicate a stereotype on the part of teachers was investigated by showing 30 teachers a videotape that focused on the social…

Studies tested the hypothesis that patterns in parents' perceptions of their children's behavior toward them will correlate significantly with patterns in parents' reports of their children's personality attributes and psychopathology. A low-income (LI) sample was drawn from participants in a longitudinal study of mother-child interaction and…

Examined whether children who vary in their behavioral responses to ambiguous provocation but have similar attributional processes differ in their social goals and self- efficacy perceptions. Subjects were 781 4th and 5th graders. Found that aggressive, withdrawn, and problem-solving responders differed in the social goals and self-efficacy…

Proposed a sequence of four developmental levels for the individuation process, from a social-cognitive perspective, from late childhood to late adolescence, defining individuation as separation of self from family. Confirmed these age increases in individuation, using an individuation interview, Selman's self-awareness measure, and the Lunzer…