Proportion compatible manipulations are often used to index strategic processes in selective attention tasks. Here, a subtle confound in proportion compatible manipulations is considered. Specifically, as the proportion of compatible trials increases, the ratio of complete repetitions and complete alternations to partial repetitions increases on…

Conditioned defeat is a model wherein hamsters that have previously experienced a single social defeat subsequently exhibit heightened levels of avoidance and submission in response to a smaller, non-aggressive intruder. While we have previously demonstrated the critical involvement of the basolateral and central nuclei of the amygdala in the…

The present experiment investigated whether the gambling of American Indian (AI) and non-AI participants would be sensitive to the actions and/or ethnicity of another gambler (i.e., a confederate) when playing a slot-machine simulation. Eight male AIs and eight male non-AIs participated in five gambling sessions. In one, the participant gambled…

Using a longitudinal, prospective adoption design, the authors of this study examined the effects of the environment (adoptive parents' depressive symptoms and responsiveness) and genetic liability of maternal depression (inferred by birth mothers' major depressive disorder [MDD]) on the development of fussiness in adopted children between 9 and…

Three- and 4-year-old children were asked to judge which of a set of 3 lines was the longest, both independently and in the face of an inaccurate consensus among adult informants. Children were invariably accurate when making independent judgments but sometimes deferred to the inaccurate consensus. Nevertheless, the deference displayed by both age…

According to early childhood education scholar and leading expert on this topic, Lilian G. Katz, dispositions are a "pattern of behavior exhibited frequently... in the absence of coercion... constituting a habit of mind under some conscious and voluntary control... intentional and oriented to broad goals" that can be taught and caught through…

The authors' professional standards used to be pretty straightforward and specific. Not exactly works of literary creativity, but they served the purpose of giving them structure and direction, and let their principals know what they actually did all day. Then came along a new buzzword called "dispositions." They heard it for the first time when…

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…

Although concerns about peer contagion are often cited in critiques of group treatments for troubled youths, few studies have examined the effects of exposure to deviant peers in residential group care settings. This study used administrative data of youth served at Boys Town, a nationally-known group care provider. Using latent class growth…

Eye gaze plays a pivotal role during communication. When interacting deceptively, it is commonly believed that the deceiver will break eye contact and look downward. We examined whether children's gaze behavior when lying is consistent with this belief. In our study, 7- to 15-year-olds and adults answered questions truthfully ("Truth" questions)…

This paper discusses a systematic four-step program for eliminating ineffective communication habits and replacing them with more effective new communication behaviors. This program has been used successfully to teach a variety of different communication skills including public speaking skills, small group interaction skills, and interpersonal…

The present study investigated differences in the behavioral and psychophysiological responses to provocation and in the level of callous-unemotional traits in boys exhibiting different patterns of aggression. Eighty-five boys (ages 13-18) in a juvenile detention center played a competitive computer task against a hypothetical peer who provided…

Pavlovian stimuli previously paired with food can markedly elevate the rate of food-reinforced instrumental responding. This effect, termed Pavlovian-instrumental transfer (PIT), depends both on general activating and specific cueing properties of Pavlovian stimuli. Recent evidence suggests that the general activating properties of Pavlovian…

Two experiments investigated 18-month-olds' understanding of the link between visual perception and emotion. Infants watched an adult perform actions on objects. An emoter then expressed neutral affect or anger toward the adult in response to the adult's actions. Subsequently, infants were given 20 s to interact with each object. In Experiment 1,…

The change in internalizing symptoms from late childhood or age of 10 into mid-adolescence or age of 15 was studied taking into consideration the role of a child's sex, maternal depressive symptoms in late childhood and their interactions. Results indicate that internalizing symptoms in girls increased from childhood to adolescence whereas those…