Some philosophers argue that reflection is key to rational thinking. By tying reflective thinking to language, they struggle to account for minimally verbal infants and exclude nonhuman animals. This study assessed processing of undermining defeaters--a basic form of reflective thinking--in 36 two-year-old British children (13 female; M[subscript…

The reported research tested the hypothesis that young children detect logical inconsistency in communicative contexts that support the evaluation of speakers' epistemic reliability. In two experiments (N = 194), 3- to 5-year-olds were presented with two speakers who expressed logically consistent or inconsistent claims. Three-year-olds failed to…

The epistemic trust literature emphasizes that children's evaluations of informants' trustworthiness affects learning, but there is no evidence that epistemic trust affects learning in academic domains. The current study investigated how reliability affects decimal learning. Fourth and fifth graders (N = 122; M[subscript age] = 10.1 years)…

How do children evaluate complex causal events? This study investigates preschoolers' representation of "force dynamics" in causal scenes, asking whether (a) children understand how single and dual forces impact an object's movement and (b) this understanding varies across cause types (Cause, Enable, Prevent). Three-and-a half- to…

The development of scientific thinking was assessed in 1,581 second, third, and fourth graders (8-, 9-, 10-year-olds) based on a conceptual model that posits developmental progression from naïve to more advanced conceptions. Using a 66-item scale, five components of scientific thinking were addressed, including experimental design, data…

This study investigates the diversity of early prosocial behavior by examining the ability of ninety-five 2- to 4-year-olds to provide aid to an adult experimenter displaying instrumental need, emotional distress, and material desire. Children provided appropriate aid in response to each of these cues with high consistency over multiple trials. In…

Two studies investigated 3- to 5-year-olds' trust in a reliable informant when judging novel labels and novel plural and past tense forms. In Study 1, children (N = 24) endorsed the names of new objects given by an informant who had earlier labeled familiar objects correctly over the names given by an informant who had labeled the same objects…

Tested the assumption that familial self-reports are biased by social desirability and other factors, through the use of a latent variables modeling approach that evaluated rater reliability and bias in mother, father, and child ratings of parent-child negativity. Results based on 78 families demonstrated that family member ratings contained a…

Many social science theories that examine the connection between beliefs and behaviors assume that belief constructs will predict behaviors similarly across development. Converging research implies that this assumption may not be tenable across all ages or all belief constructs. Thus, to test this implication, the relation between behavior and…

Examines the tendency of observers to make less reliable recordings of behavorial events when a calibrating observer is absent. Using four different multicategory systems, 26 experienced observers coded 200 hours of videotaped family interactions. Concludes that observers lapse into a less attentive "set" prior to coding without a…

This study was designed to: (1) assess the influence of an instructional set given to an observer regarding the presence or absence of a predictable pattern in the observed interaction, (2) extend and replicate findings of a previous study of observer accuracy, and (3) identify some of the specific types of errors made by observers in coding…

Observer reliability and number of behaviors rated were compared following two types of observer training: (1) training of observers by one individual, and (2) self-training, or each pair of observers training itself. Results suggest that more adequate standards for the training of observers and the reporting of observer reliability be adopted by…

Investigated whether facial expressions are reliable in producing the same emotional responses from infants (N=27) across situations designed to elicit the same emotion and whether they provide sufficient information to mediate consistent emotion judgments by raters. (JMB)

States of 40 newborn infants were observed during 2, 35- to 70-minute periods that were separated by 6-48 hours. Analyses identified 3 state profiles that differentiated infants on a behavioral assessment measure at 2 weeks of age. Scores showed significant agreement on individual differences in neurologically based measures. (RH)

Describes the biomotometer and reports a reliability and a validity study of the instrument. (SB)