This study explored the hypothesis that preschoolers' deductive reasoning would be improved by encouraging use of divergent thinking (DT). Children of 4-5 years of age (n = 120) were randomly given DT or neutral control exercises before deductive reasoning problems. To allow a stronger test of the hypothesis, half of the children receiving the DT…

Although some evidence indicates that even very young children engage in rudimentary forms of strategic behavior, the underlying mechanisms remain largely unknown. This study tested the hypothesis that uncertainty monitoring underlies such behaviors. Three-, four-, and five-year-old children ("N" = 88) completed a perceptual…

Results of 5 experiments supported the hypothesis that many nonlearners in a multipair visual discrimination learning task were following position rather than object strategies and that it was possible to predict individual subjects' strategies from previous performances. (Authors)

When high anxious mothers administered tasks to their children, they facilitated the task performance of their daughters but were strongly detrimental to that of their sons. Low anxious mothers chose more difficult tasks for sons than for daughters, and they facilitated the task performance of sons more than that of daughters. (Authors/RY)