Three experiments explored the significance of deontic properties (involving rights and obligations) in representations of social categories. Preschool-aged children (M = 4.8), young school-aged children (M = 8.2), and adults judged the centrality of behavioral, psychological, and deontic properties for both familiar (Experiments 1 and 2, Ns = 50…

The way in which children evaluate people's claims about their own psychological characteristics was examined. Among children ages 6-11 from the United States and China (total N = 243), there was an age-related increase in skepticism about self-report concerning the highly value-laden characteristics "honest", "smart", and…

Essentialism is the belief that certain characteristics (of individuals or categories) may be relatively stable, unchanging, likely to be present at birth, and biologically based. The current studies examined how different essentialist beliefs interrelate. For example, does thinking that a property is innate imply that the property cannot be…

Research on multiracial individuals is often cross-sectional, obscuring the fluid nature of multiracial self-categorization across time. Pathways of racial self-identification are developed from a nationally representative sample of adolescents aged 14-18, measured again 5 years later. A significant proportion of multiracial adolescents change…

In the two studies reported, three year olds tended to choose mentalistic descriptions more often than behavioral ones to describe people. (PCB)

Examined (1) the possibility that children organize general statements into meaningful and consistent psychological concepts of themselves; (2) individual differences revealed in these concepts; (3) the possibility that these differences show stability over a one-month period. (PCB)

Findings of this observational study of 74 families tentatively support the conclusion that the psychological characteristics of emotional distress, authoritarian child-rearing values, and negative perceptions of children partially mediate the influence of some demographic/stressful life conditions on the positive and negative behaviors of…

If human cognitive development advances through a series of broad and general stages, then the child's mind at any developmental point should seem consistent and similar across situations in its maturity level and general style. However, there appear to be factors and conditions that promote homogeneity and heterogeneity in the child's cognitive…

Two studies examined models that preschoolers, fifth-graders, and adults use to guide predictions of self-beneficial, goal-directed action. Found that preschoolers' predictions were consistent with an animal-based model, fifth-graders' with biology-based and complexity-based models, and adults' predictions with a biology-based model. All age…

Reports three studies which assess bias on the part of aggressive boys to overattribute hostile intentions to peers. After determining the condition under which aggressive attributions are made, the role of selective attention to and recall of hostile cues in biased attribution was investigated. Additionally, peer-directed aggressive behaviors…

Examined whether children differentiate or confuse the domains of folk biology and folk psychology. Children and adult subjects were asked whether the animals depicted in pictures possessed certain biological and psychological properties. Results indicated that by kindergarten, notions of folk psychology and folk biology are sufficiently…

Describes the development of a parent-report to assess infant temperament and presents longitudinal findings. Scales were developed to measure activity level, soothability, fear, distress to limitations, smiling/laughter, and duration of orienting. Longitudinal analyses showed that stability in some scales was age-related. (Author/DB)

Reviews research on the effects of nature, nurture, and developmental processes on psychological functioning. Considers real advances in knowledge, outlines some of the misleading claims, and notes the potential for research and science-led improvements in policies and practice, emphasizing the need for a better interpretation of genetic,…

Among 278 inner-city men studied for four decades and over three generations, eight variables captured 28 percent of the explained variance in upward social mobility: IQ, mother's education, mother's occupation, boyhood ego strength, and four ego defense mechanisms--intellectualization, dissociation, sublimation, and anticipation.…