This paper explores the issue of sex bias in a contemporary major theory of moral development, cognitive moral theory. It explains critical reactions by Carol Gilligan and others questioning whether cognitive moral theory adequately accounts for female moral reasoning and behavior in its theory and research procedures. Several general…

Examined the reactions of 201 elementary school children to direct and indirect help and the moderating effects of grade, understanding of personality, and sex on children's reaction to aid. Results indicated that children high in the understanding of consistency of personality were more autonomous in the indirect than the direct help condition.…

Female traits of caretaking, nurturance, sociability, and empathy are not simply internalizations of societal norms and values. Rather, they result from early forms of thought that shape sex-role concepts in predictable ways. Their development can be traced to the young child's belief that "anatomy is destiny." (Author/KH)

In a study of 151 college freshmen of both sexes, cognitive complexity and learning orientation revealed gender-related qualitative differences within parallel cognitive structures. Different cognitive structures were accompanied by different learning orientations. (Author/TE)

Literature suggests that females have lower initial expectancies for success than males. The antecedents of this difference are considered: (a) by examining when expectancy differences develop, and, (b) by examining cognitive factors which may underlie these differential expectancies. (Author/AM)

Results argue against the too frequent use of human figure drawings as a single, stable, and accurate measure of intellectual ability. (Authors/CB)

Examined contribution of temperamental inhibitory control to conscience development. Found longitudinal stability in inhibitory control from toddlerhood to early school age, with inhibitory control increasing with age, and girls outperforming boys. Reaffirmed links between inhibitory control and multiple, diverse measures of children's conscience…

This study was undertaken to determine the relative contribution of age, sex, and three stimulus features (board shape, block arrangement, and block shape) to perceptual accuracy on 39 board/block adaptations of Piaget's three-mountain task. (Author/SB)

A longitudinal study of the ego and cognitive development of boys and girls revealed that sex-different socialization practices cause the two sexes to create different premises about the world, develop different competencies, and use different cognitive structures to deal with new experience. (Author/WD)

Mathematically gifted boys (N=77) and girls (N=62) completed a mathematics reasoning test, a verbal reasoning test, a measure of spatial ability, and a personality test. Findings indicated that boys not only have higher mathematical reasoning ability than girls, but also that this ability is the single best predictor of their mathematical…

Specifies some problems in the Piagetian characterizations of assimilation and accommodation and offers an alternative formulation intended to resolve some conceptual anomalies. On the basis of the revision, the orthogenetic law of developmental progression is explicitly derived. Further, Piaget's notion of "equilibrium" is extended into…

Summarizes the theory of psychological differentiation and reviews recent cross-cultural research on the roles of child rearing, culture, and ecology in the development of individual, group, and sex differences in the field dependence-field independence cognitive style component of psychological differentiation. (SS)

This issue, part of an annual series prepared for Maryland educators, presents the problem solving aspect of learning behavior by reviewing some of the variables which affect how individuals confront intellectual problems. Selected studies and a bibliography which are helpful in developing instructional methods which take into account individual…