The present study explored whether competence beliefs and intrinsic motivation for different school domains show reciprocal effects over time. A sample of 670 German elementary school pupils (M= 8.8 years, SD= 0.51) was followed over 1 year. At 4 measurement occasions, children completed self-reports on their intrinsic motivation and competence…

Socialization practices in the moshav are compared with those of kibbutz and city, based on the responses of about 1000 preadolescents to the Cornell Socialization Agent Inventory. The moshav differs from the kibbutz mainly in its reliance on the family as the primary agent of socialization. (JMB)

Presented five-month olds in English-speaking families with approval and prohibition vocalizations in infant-directed (ID) and adult-directed (AD) English, and in ID German, Italian, Japanese, and nonsense English. Infants responded differently to ID approval and disapproval in all languages except Japanese. Differential responses to approval and…

Personality and attitudinal correlates of father absence early (before age 5) or late (between 5 and 11) in childhood were studied in a sample of college- aged women. Father absence was due to either death or divorce. Results showed few differences between father-absent subjects and father-present controls. (Author/JMB)

Among a group of 103 children with a mean age of eight years, full-scale IQ correlation was significantly higher for monozygotic than dizygotic pairs. Monozygotic pairs also showed significantly greater concordance for subtest profile than dizygotic pairs. The usefulness of profile analysis is examined, and directions for future research are…

Two independent and geographically disparate samples showed that physically abused three- to six-year-old children have cranial facial proportions that are atypically older than their nonabused agemates. Two independent photographic samples corroborated this finding: one involved photos of two- to seven-year-olds and the other investigated 12- to…

Tested hypothesis that children would compete more playing competitive games in tetrads than in dyads. Found that male target children competed more in tetrads than in dyads; female target children did not show different levels of competition based on group size. Based on a global measure of smiling, the emotional atmosphere was less positive in…

Discusses three perspectives (linguistic, philosophical, and psychological) which emphasize the points of agreement rather than disagreement among different versions of a conceptually based theory of word meaning acquisition. (JMB)

Thirty-two 4-year-olds made same and different judgments about pairs of stimuli requiring detailed comparison. Two treatment conditions were employed: a judgment-only condition and a justification condition in which children explained the reasons for their judgments. (Author/JMB)

The spatial analogical responding of preschool children, first graders, and college students was compared on two tasks in which body parts were mapped onto drawings of trees and mountains. Results showed that young children performed as well as or better than adults. (JMB)

Four groups of 18 adult listeners rated the tape-recorded cries of low- and high-risk infants on four Likert-type scale items. Results indicate that within-group methods of cry presentation accentuate the perceptual distance among cry types and may actually create many reliable differences that would not be found in between-group comparisons.…

One experiment examined two and one-half, three and one-half and four and one-half year olds' ability to conduct nonredundant comprehensive searches of small lidded trash cans. A second experiment examined three , four, and five year olds' ability to find Easter eggs hidden on a large playground. Results were discussed in relation to developmental…

The logs of two ships transporting juvenile convicts from Great Britain to Australia in the early nineteenth century have been transcribed. Data on the backgrounds of the boys and height data are presented and analyzed. Comparisons are made with ninteenth- and twentieth-century data sets. (Author/RH)

Data representing two styples of approach to the logical abilities of young children are analyzed. The result of this analysis is contrary to popular interpretations of Piaget's views concerning the logical abilities of young children. (ST)