Children (N = 278, 34-71 months, 54% girls) were told which of two figurines turned on a music box and also observed empirical evidence either confirming or conflicting with that testimony. Children were then asked to sort novel figurines according to whether they could make the music box work or not. To see whether children would explore which…

Verbal testimony about reality status is critical but often contradictory. These studies address whom children consider reliable sources of information about reality and how they evaluate conflicting testimony. In Study 1, seventy 4- to 8-year-olds heard an adult or child provide testimony about how to cook food and use toys, and about the reality…

Object play yields enormous benefits for infant development. However, little is known about natural play at home where most object interactions occur. We conducted frame-by-frame video analyses of spontaneous activity in two 2-h home visits with 13-month-old crawling infants and 13-, 18-, and 23-month-old walking infants (N = 40; 21 boys; 75%…

Emotional expressions are abundant in children's lives. What role do they play in children's causal inference and exploration? This study investigates whether preschool-aged children use others' emotional expressions to infer the presence of unknown causal functions and guide their exploration accordingly. Children (age: 3.0-4.9; N = 112, the…

To study effects of the gender-packaging of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) toys, mother-child dyads (31 daughters; 30 sons; M = 5.2 years) were randomly assigned to play with a mechanical toy packaged for girls ("GoldieBlox") or boys ("BobbyBlox"). When familiarizing themselves with the toy to prepare…

This study examined parent-child math talk within three contexts (formal learning; guided play; unguided play) in order to identify characteristics of activities supporting high-quality math engagement. Seventy-two dyads of parents and 4- and 5-year-olds were observed using a set of toy foods; instructions and materials varied across conditions.…

Not all samples of evidence are equally conclusive: Diverse evidence is more representative than narrow evidence. Prior research showed that children did not use sample diversity in evidence selection tasks, indiscriminately choosing diverse or narrow sets (tiger-mouse; tiger-lion) to learn about animals. This failure is not due to a general…

This study examined level of engagement with Disney Princess media/products as it relates to gender-stereotypical behavior, body esteem (i.e. body image), and prosocial behavior during early childhood. Participants consisted of 198 children (M[subscript age] = 58 months), who were tested at two time points (approximately 1 year apart). Data…

This article advances a self-socialization perspective demonstrating that children's understanding of "both" gender categories represents an intergroup cognition that is foundational to the development of gender-stereotyped play. Children's (N = 212) gender category knowledge was assessed at 24 months and play was observed at…

For adults, ownership is nonobvious: (a) determining ownership depends more on an object's history than on perceptual cues, and (b) ownership confers special value on an object ("endowment effect"). This study examined these concepts in preschoolers (2.0-4.4) and adults (n = 112). Participants saw toy sets in which 1 toy was designated as the…

Children rely on both evidence and prior knowledge to make physical causal inferences; this study explores whether they make attributions about others' behavior in the same manner. A total of one hundred and fifty-nine 4- and 6-year-olds saw 2 dolls interacting with 2 activities, and explained the dolls' actions. In the person condition, each doll…

Quartets of Chinese (n = 125) and Canadian (n = 133) 7-year-old children were observed as they played with a single attractive toy. Chinese children exhibited more assertive and general rule bids, engaged in more spontaneous giving, and reacted more positively to assertions of others whereas Canadian children more frequently referred to norms of…

A key prediction of cognitive theories of gender development concerns developmental trajectories in the relative strength or rigidity of gender typing. To examine these trajectories in early childhood, 229 children (African American, Mexican American, and Dominican American) were followed annually from age 3 to 5 years, and gender-stereotypical…

Longitudinal data were obtained from 157 children aged 3 years 3 months to 5 years 6 months at Time 1. At Time 2 these children had aged an average of 12 months. Theory of mind (ToM) and executive functioning (EF) were measured at both time points. Results suggest that Time 1 ToM scores predict Time 2 EF scores. Detailed examination of sibling…

The study builds on ethnographic research noting an emphasis in many Indigenous communities of the Americas on learning through keen observation of and participation in ongoing community activities. Forty-four U.S. Mexican-heritage 5- to 11-year-old children whose families likely have experience with Indigenous ways more frequently attended to and…