Two studies investigated behavioral problems in childhood. Study 1 longitudinally investigated similarities and differences in enuresis and nailbiting among Japanese and American children. Incidences of enuresis decreased as subjects' age increased. Socio-cultural and family tolerance were related to incidences of nailbiting. In Study 2, changes…

Two experiments investigated the role of children's assessments of their performance on their decisions to seek help and their preferences for different types of assistance. Blocked into low and high verbal skill groups, participants in study 1 were 84 middle-class third- and fifth-grade elementary school students. Subjects performed a multi-trial…

Many studies have examined factors influencing the career aspirations of high school students, but little has been done to explore this issue with primary school students. This study investigated factors that might influence the career aspirations of children across a broad age spectrum. Students (N=150) from grades 2, 5, 8, and 12 completed…

Two studies of concept development and categorization among 1-, 2-, and 3-year-old children suggest that concept formation is a socially guided process involving convergence on an adult model. Convergence in labeling is an early strategy for shaping children's category boundaries, while later, more elaborate linguistic means are used to…

An observational study was conducted to investigate the computer activity of children in a preschool classroom. Thirty-nine 3- to 5-year-old children were observed using a computer over nine weeks during a daily one-hour free play period. Different types of computer programs were available. During one half of the sessions, an adult knowledgeable…

Improved health care and family planning services, reduction in sociogeographic isolation, and increased economic development were found to be responsible for declining fertility rates in a rural Eastern Kentucky county during 1960-1980. Contemporary fertility patterns in an area historically exhibiting one of Appalachia's highest fertility rates…

Approximately 900 employees in the day care centers in one Swedish commune answered a questionnaire measuring child rearing attitudes and personnel's engagement and feelings concerning their work with the children. The child rearing attitudes were described as either "present-focused" or "future-focused." Of particular interest…

Research conducted in the United States has found that people exert more effort when they perform a task individually than when they do so in a group. This phenomenon has been labeled social loafing. To examine the transcultural generality of social loafing, 20 male and 20 female Chinese school children in Taiwan were selected from grades 2, 3, 6,…

A study examined the ability of subjects of varying ages to write summaries of very familiar material. In particular, it explored the subjects' planning activities both prior to and during the summarization task. The subjects, 15 fifth, 16 seventh, and 15 eleventh grade students and 11 college students, were given two stories to study for a week.…

The purpose of this study was to investigate, in a broad sense, children's understanding of various types of people in two social domains: television and real life. Specifically, the study was designed to solicit information about (1) the physical and psychological abilities and vulnerabilities children would attribute to television characters and…

The few studies concentrating on adult age changes in discrimination shift behavior have reported that the performance of elderly adults on such tasks is inferior to that of younger adults and, in fact, similar to that of children. To determine whether verbal labeling, which has facilitated the performance of young children, would also reduce age…

The most common approach to self-management research has been to apply it to a specific target behavior, without attending to the generalizability of changes to other facets of one's life. A procedure for measuring self-management effectiveness under real world conditions was developed which emphasized the successful application of self-change…

Use of a semantic differential attitude scale, such as the one developed by Rosencranz and McNevin with the three common factors of autonomy, instrumentality, and acceptability, as well as a fourth dimension interpreted by Holtzman, representing good versus poor affective integration, could potentially reveal similarities as well as differences…

The importance of family life on the development of the child has been well documented. In Africa, however, little research has been undertaken to assess the influence that family life and marital status of parents have on child development. It was hypothesized that African adolescents from broken homes would experience: (1) less involvement in…

Reported in this document are the results of three experiments investigating the potential influence of peers in gender-role socialization. Children were exposed to a series of vignettes providing information about target children who varied in their degree of masculinity and femininity. Drawn from third through sixth grades, participants included…