Studies of children's knowledge of the Earth have led to very different conclusions: some appear to show that children construct their own, non-scientific "theories" (mental models) of the flat, hollow or dual Earth. Others indicate that many young children have some understanding of the spherical (scientific) Earth, and that their…

High levels of teacher-child conflict have repeatedly been found to amplify children's aggressive behaviour. Up to now, however, research on possible mechanisms explaining this link is largely lacking. The current study aimed to test whether children's self-esteem is an intervening mechanism. Participants were 139 children (70 boys, M age = 6.18…

The present study examined children's and adults' categorization and moral judgment of truthful and untruthful statements. 7-, 9- and 11-year-old Chinese children and college students read stories in which story characters made truthful or untruthful statements and were asked to classify and evaluate the statements. The statements varied in terms…

Previous studies of childhood fear, worry, and ritualistic behaviour have been limited by restricted age ranges, narrow ranges of anxiety phenomena, non-comparable methodologies, and assessment of typical behaviour within a pathological context. Content and intensity of fear, worry, and ritualistic behaviour, and associations among these…

The goal of this study was to examine the moderating role of pragmatic language in the relations between shyness and indices of socio-emotional adjustment in an unselected sample of early elementary school children. In particular, we sought to explore whether pragmatic language played a protective role for shy children. Participants were n = 167…

The present study compared indigenous South African versus African-American schoolchildren's beliefs about aggression. Eighty 7-9 year olds (40 from each country) participated in interviews in which they were asked to make inferences about the stability, malleability, and causal origins of aggressive behaviour. Although a minority of participants…

Conflicting results on children's understanding of advertising may stem from differences in research methods. Most studies are conducted using interviewing techniques, employing only verbal questioning. In the present study, 136 children of two age groups (7 and 10 years) were first asked what advertising was for and, after responding, shown…

Associations between reciprocal and complementary sibling interactions, sibling relationship quality, and children's socio-emotional problem solving were examined in 40 grade 5-6 children (M age = 11.5 years) from middle class, Caucasian, Canadian families using a multi-method approach (i.e. interviews, self-report questionnaires, daily diary…