This research explored the contribution of social goal orientation, specifically, development (improving social skills and relationships), demonstration-approach (gaining positive judgments), and demonstration-avoidance (minimizing negative judgments). Children (N = 373; M age = 7.97, SD = 0.34) were followed from 2nd to 3rd grades. Validity of…

A total of 82 fourth and fifth graders participated in a 15-week intervention program during which they confronted problems requiring formal operational thought. Subjects showed advancement toward formal operations on the pendulum and chemicals problems (Inhelder and Piaget) and on a third problem on immediate and 4-month posttests. (Author/JH)

A study of the development of elementary school children's appreciation of riddles was conducted within the framework of the incongruity and resolution theory of humor. (ST)

To examine the relationship between response accuracy and tempo, as measured by the Matching Familiar Figures Test (MFF) and criterion measures, 233 7-, 9-, and 11-year-olds were given the MFF, two problem-solving tasks, and a test of academic achievement. (Author/JH)

Children 6 and 11 years of age were given a recall task in which the perceptual salience of the information and the type of conceptual evaluation required for solution (analysis or synthesis) were varied. (Author/JMB)

This study examined the hypothesis that differences in performance of impulsive and reflective children on the "20 questions" test are due to individual differences in preferred perceptual processing strategy rather than in cognitive maturity of problem-solving strategy. (Author/JMB)

Examines the relation between children's (1) probability learning performance and a measure of their memory for items presented in a sequence and (2) probability learning and performance on a test of abstractive integration. Participating were 80 six- and seven-year-old boys and girls from both low and middle socioeconomic classes. (Author/RH)

Responses to eight seriation tasks presented to 88 male kindergarten children and first-, second-, and third-grade students produced significant mean differences in explanations and strategies but no mean differences in judgment. A new experimental procedure, which allows explanations and strategies to be assessed, is advocated. (RH)

Study 1 asked second through sixth graders, who could answer inclusion questions, to answer such questions without empirical information about relative quantity and to predict whether subordinate classes could be made larger than their superordinate classes. In study 2, children's performance in two part-whole domains, classes and collections, was…

Finds that, after being exposed to many isolation-of-variables assessment problems, most college subjects made immediate and substantial gains in formal reasoning, while preadolescents made gradual, modest gains. (RH)

A sequence of interpersonal problems was administered to fourth and fifth graders who initially performed below age norms on perspective taking. The effect of this semistructured training, which actively engaged the children in developing solutions, was compared to that of a "no treatment" and to that of an activity group. (JMB)

Cognitive organization in problem solving was investigated using a transfer paradigm. (SB)

Explores the role of premature cognitive closure in the development of inferential reasoning among 62 children aged 7, 9, and 12 years through two studies. Results indicate that despite a strong tendency to close on single alternatives, most children correctly assigned nonzero probabilities to each of the possible alternatives. (RJC)

Choice and use of problem-solving strategies were monitored during a picture comparison task for 90 kindergarten, second and fourth grade boys and girls. (SB)