This study examines the relationship between mother-infant behavior and the infant's performance on perceptual-cognitive tasks as a function of the infant's sex. A total of 189 12-week-old infants and their mothers were observed in their homes during 2 hours of infant awake time. In addition, the Mental Development Index (MDI) of the Bayley Scales…

One hundred twenty-eight parents of first-time freshmen at Grand Valley State Colleges responded to a three-part questionnaire in fall 1973. Responses showed that: 80 percent were satisfied with their child's college choice; 41 percent felt they had some influence on that choice; over half attend church regularly; the three most frequently…

Family socialization patterns were examined from the viewpoint of the child and the parent in terms of parental socialization practices, attitudes, and goals. Questionnaires were developed and used to collect data on the parents of about 1,300 families and the children (7-13 years old) of approximately 400 families in West Germany. Results of…

Videotapes of a deaf child of deaf parents were used to study the developmental stages and underlying processes involved in the child's acquisition of negation from age 28 months to age 41 months. The S was videotaped in spontaneous interaction with her mother or the experimenter for approximately 1 hour each month, and the films were transcribed…

Among 233 boys and 300 girls, all teenagers, it was found that traits related to achievement from the Test of Effective Academic Motivation were related to parent-child relationship factors from the Children's Report of Parental Behavior Inventory. For both sexes, parents who were perceived as being more Acceptant and as using less Hostile…

Internal reinforcement control is defined as one's belief that his rewards or punishments are contingent upon his own behavior. This study tested two main hypotheses: (1) that inconsistency in the home environment interferes with the development of internal reinforcement control, and (2) that internal reinforcement control can be increased by…

This study investigated (1) three kinds of mental operation in children: divergent production, convergent production, and cognitive thinking manifested in 3- to 4-year-olds and compared the results to results of a study of 4- to 5-year-olds, and (2) the relationship between children's abilities and their parents' level of education, children's sex…

Parental heads of households and high school students in 2 rural Illinois counties were studied to determine their respective attitudes toward several minority groups using the Bogardus Social Distance Scale as the primary attitudinal measure. A parental sample of 1096 households and a sample of 738 students were independently drawn. The two…

A project investigated a way in which early intervention into the lives of babies might break the poverty cycle. Major objectives were to find out whether the use of disadvantaged paraprofessional women as Parent Educators of indigent mothers of infants and young children enhanced the development of the children and increased the mother's…

The focus of this study was to compare the relative influence of the two theories commonly utilized to explain the development of a child's self-concept and to examine some contingencies under which one or the other process is more important. The "mirror theory" looks to the reflected appraisals of significant others as the important influence on…

The problem of measuring attitudes in preschool children is discussed. The general rationale employed is closely related to that of the semantic differential (SD). Research employing the SD with older children and adults has demonstrated that the primary dimension of affective meaning is that of evaluation. It has also been shown that evaluation…

QUESTIONNAIRE DATA WERE USED TO DETERMINE THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN ADOLESCENT EDUCATIONAL EXPECTIONS (DEPENDENT VARIABLE) AND PATERNAL EDUCATION, FAMILY SOCIAL STATUS, PARENTAL EDUCATIONAL PRESSURE, AND FAMILY SIZE (INDEPENDENT OF PREDICTOR VARIABLES). THE DATA WERE GATHERED FROM 2,852 MALE SOPHOMORES (HIGH SCHOOL), LIVING IN SIX MIDDLE-SIZE…

Article considers how parents can be involved in the educational process and how their involvement can escalate into influence. (Author/RK)

Reporting on a follow-up study of Baltimore (Maryland) schoolchildren, this article shows that long-term continuity in the level of school performance can be related to the child's early social environment. Focuses on how the nature of the children's early performance relates to their performance four to nine years later. (Author/GEA)

This review of the literature examines the development of humor in infants and young children, and looks at ways in which adults can support children's understanding, appreciation, and creation of humor in play and verbal and social interactions. (BB)