Studies show that children who use relational aggression process social information in unique ways; however, findings have been inconsistent and limited by methodological weaknesses. This short-term longitudinal study examined developmental changes in 245 (49% female; ages 8-13) 3rd through 8th graders' normative beliefs about relational…

Processing the self-relevance of information facilitates recall. Similarly, processing close-other-related information facilitates recall to a lesser degree than processing self-relevant information. This memory advantage may be viewed as an index of the degree to which the representation of self is differentiated from representations of close…

Kohlberg's (1966) hypothesis that the attainment of gender constancy motivates children to attend to gender norms was reevaluated by examining these links in relation to age. Ninety-four 3- to 7-year-old children were interviewed to assess whether and how constancy mediates age-related changes in gender-related beliefs. As expected, results…

A data analysis procedure for testing the hypothesis that one task is a developmental prerequisite for another task is illustrated. The procedure was applied to new data on the acquisition of conservation concepts to test the hypothesis that synthesis, visual-scanning skills, and memory capacity are prerequisites of conservation mastery. (JMB)

Examines hypotheses and strategies used by children at the kindergarten, second-, fourth- and sixth-grade levels in making proportional judgements. The task involved 36 trials in which the child had to choose between two groups to obtain a target-color "chip." Results generally conformed to the developmental sequence proposed by Piaget…