A picture inventory symbolically portraying two alternative value systems in a preschool setting was administered to 172 mothers and 66 female teachers of preschool children. Differences were found between the behavioral expectations of teachers and mothers who were either non-Anglo, working class, or both, but not between teachers and Anglo…

The autonomous and social comparison achievement motivation of 197 black and white children was assessed at the end of first or fourth grades and again at the end of second and fifth grades. Level of aspiration and projective story telling measures of motivation were used. (Author/JMB)

Hebrew-English bilingual children, monolingual English children, and Hebrew monolingual children ranging in age from 5 to 8 years were tested for flexibility in syntactic rule usage, symbol substitution, semantic knowledge, and nonverbal system understanding. (JMB)

Examines the relation between maternal social networks and mother-infant interactions in 34 mother-preterm and 20 mother-full term dyads with infants aged six months. Results demonstrate that, although full-term infant birth is typically positive, it is less clear that preterm birth is positive, with the result that network members are unsure of…

Two experiments examined hyperactive children's tendency to underfocus their attention during learning. Taken together, the results of both experiments demonstrated the validity of the attentional diffusion hypothesis and indicate the need to assess the central processing demands associated with central and incidental learning in order to evaluate…

When differences in level of motivation were controlled, all of the previously found differences between firstborn and later born disappeared. (Authors)

A total of 52 pairs of mothers and premature infants and 53 pairs of mothers and full-term infants participated in structured home interviews at one month and observations of behavioral interactions at four months. Although no group differences were found, both stress and support significantly predicted maternal attitudes at one month and…

Questionnaires were used to measure mothers' social networks, coping abilities, and life stress. A mother/child interaction situation was used to measure maternal control, maternal maturity demands, maternal nurturance, mother/child communication, and child compliance. Results indicated significant differences in the lives of single and married…

Mothers' ability to decode their children's nonverbal expressions of four affects (happiness, sadness, fear, and anger) was contrasted with the decoding ability of a matched group of nonmothers. Results indicate that mothers were accurately able to decode expressions of happiness but had relative difficulty with decoding expressions of sadness,…

Analyzes cognitive developmental changes in the use of a convention for measurement among New Guinea's Oksapmin people. A total of 103 individuals (including unschooled children, unschooled adults, second-grade children, and sixth-grade adolescents) were administered three types of tasks assessing ability to compare lengths. (Author/RH)

The effects of father absence on educational achievement and intellectual development of 6- to 11-year-old children were investigated by employing a nationally representative sample of 5,493 father-present and 616 father-absent children from the Health Examination Survey of the National Center for Health Statistics. (Author/RH)

A sample of 838 children ages 5 through 15 years in Australia, England, North America, and Sweden were interviewed about physical and sexual development. The study covers essentially the same area as Bernstein and Cowan (1975) but extends the sample on the dimensions of age, number, randomness, and comparisons made. (Author/RH)

The dyadic interaction of popular and unpopular children was compared. Analysis revealed that unpopular children were more disagreeable and less likely to provide a general reason or rule for their disagreement or to suggest a constructive alternative when criticizing a peer. (Author/MP)

Interaction during feeding sessions between preterm infants (N=21) and their mothers and interaction between full-term infants (N=22) and their mothers were compared. Mothers and babies were from a low-income, inner-city population. (Author/MP)