bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Effects of numerical representation within cooperative settings: Examining the role of salience in in‐group favouritism
Authors: Bettencourt B. Ann , Miller Norman , Hume Deborah L.
Published: February 2003

These studies investigate whether group salience contributes to the greater in‐group favouritism expressed by numerical minorities after intergroup cooperation, as compared with majorities. In Study 1, using real social categories, situationally heightened salience exacerbated bias only among numerical minorities. Using real social categories, Study 2 confirmed the predicted effect of numerical representation on a measure of group salience as well as measures of anxiety and cohesion. Study 3 created artificial groups of equal and unequal size. In this study, compared to majority status, numerical minority status induced stronger perceptions of in‐group salience and cohesion as well as greater in‐group bias. Moreover, a regression analysis supported the prediction that salience mediates greater in‐group positivity among numerical minorities.
Community care and mental disorder: An analysis of discursive resources
Authors: Tuffin Keith , Danks Jo
Published: February 2003

The number of people with mental disorders living in the community has recently increased with further increases likely. This study provides a post‐attitudinal examination of the discursive resources on which ordinary New Zealanders draw when talking about ‘community care’. Four common resources were identified: dual community, rights, disorder and patronization. Each of these resources is examined by using a range of analytic concepts which illustrate the rhetorical achievements and social practices found in the data. We argue that the dual community resource works to position the disordered as being outside the community which is contrary to the broad aim of community care. The analysis of talk of rights was cast as an ideological dilemma for participants who endorsed both universality and conditionality of rights for the disordered. The disorder resource was notable for its flexible rhetorical deployment, while patronization contributed to the positioning of the disordered as subordinate. The implications of these resources are discussed in terms of existing notions of stigma and possibilities for change centred around affiliative resources.
Change in adult self‐esteem: A longitudinal assessment
Authors: Schafer Robert B. , Keith Pat M.
Published: February 2003

This is a longitudinal investigation of self‐esteem change in an adult population. The analysis addresses two limitations in earlier studies: the use of convenience samples of children and adolescents, and cross‐sectional or short‐duration longitudinal studies of self‐esteem change. Participants are 97 randomly selected married couples interviewed at two points in time separated by 13 years. Two components of the self were measured: self‐esteem and reflected appraisals (perception of others evaluation). Contrary to previous research on self‐esteem change, a significant decline was found in all components of the self for both husbands and wives. The decline in self‐esteem was not a function of age, education or income. The decline was more likely to occur for high, rather than low, self‐esteem participants. This finding is attributed to the demands on higher self‐esteem participants to maintain or enhance self‐esteem and the caution of low self‐esteem participants to engage in behaviours that would threaten the self.
Born to abuse? Negotiating identity within an interpretative repertoire of impairment
Authors: Croghan Rosaleen , Miell Dorothy
Published: February 2003

The focus here is on the constraints and possibilities afforded by the mediation of experience though semi‐deterministic notions of the intergenerational transmission of abuse (the ‘cycle of abuse’ theory). A discourse analytic approach is adopted to accounts in which mothers identify themselves as having been abused in childhood. This identification is seen as inviting negative assumptions and inferences, among them the assumption that childhood abuse is associated with later abusive behaviour. The identity work occasioned by this, and the interpretative repertoires which ground participants constructions of the general mechanisms through which abuse may be transmitted, are examined. The analysis explores some of the consequences of adopting particular explanatory frameworks for the credentialling of a fully autonomous adult identity. It is suggested that paying attention to this kind of identity work can increase our understanding of the constitutive power of discursive frameworks and the limits of individual resistance within them.
Interaction between impaired and unimpaired speakers: Inter‐subjectivity and the interplay of culturally shared and situation specific knowledge
Authors: Collins Sarah , Markova Ivana
Published: February 2003

The part played by culturally shared knowledge in interaction is generally recognised. However, the details of how it may be manifested in interaction are largely undocumented. This study explores this issue in the context of interactions between impaired and unimpaired speakers, using a conversation analytic approach in combination with a communication task commonly employed in experimental social psychology. Three exemplary cases are analysed. Results show that when the task interaction is co‐constructed, the interaction is collaboratively enacted, participants actions are in alignment, and the task outcome is relatively accurate. When the unimpaired speaker proceeds on the basis of culturally shared knowledge, and thereby ‘unilaterally’ manages the interaction, two courses of action are available to the impaired speaker. The impaired speaker may make attempts to provide situation specific details. In this case, because each participant is drawing on different resources to construct the interaction, their actions are out of alignment, and the task outcome is less accurate. Alternatively, the impaired speaker may concur with the culturally shared knowledge drawn on by the unimpaired speaker, in which case the participants actions are in alignment, but the task outcome is highly inaccurate. The authors conclude that by combining a conversation analytic approach with a communication task which reflects participants everyday experiences, orientations to different interaction resources can be drawn out. This can have relevance for, and help to elicit, practices in everyday interaction.
Success under tokenism: Co‐option of the newcomer and the prevention of collective protest
Authors: Wright Stephen C. , Taylor Donald M.
Published: February 2003

A laboratory analogue of North American intergroup context was used to investigate the responses of individuals who succeed in individual upward social mobility under conditions of highly restricted boundary permeability (i.e. tokenism). These successful tokens were compared with participants who either (a) succeeded in an open/meritocratic intergroup context, or (b) were forced to remain in the disadvantaged group because of the tokenism restriction. Although successful tokens recognized the collective injustice of tokenism, their behaviour did not differ from participants who succeeded in the open/meritocratic condition. Those forced to remain in their disadvantaged position preferred non‐normative action (relatively drastic actions known to be inconsistent with the rules of the broader social system), while successful tokens supported only disadvantaged group members who accepted their disadvantaged position or took individual normative action. Experiment 2 suggests that successful tokens lack of support for collective or non‐normative actions does not result from (a) a failure to identify with the disadvantaged in‐group; (b) compliance with perceived advantaged group norms; or (c) individualistic concerns for personal benefits. The present results provide some evidence that tokens shift their identification from the disadvantaged to the advantaged group. Thus, the consistent lack of support for socially disruptive action by members of the disadvantaged group may represent an attempt to support their new in‐group ‐ the high‐status advantaged group.
Value priorities, social value orientations and cooperation in social dilemmas
Authors: Gärling Tommy
Published: February 2003

Investigating whether benevolent or universalism value types are more closely related to social value orientations, a survey of 190 undergraduates elicited value priorities, social value orientations and preferences for cooperation in a social dilemma. In analyses of the value priorities a benevolence, a universalism and several individualistic value types were revealed. It was found that the priority ascribed to universalism but not to benevolence values successfully discriminated between participants whose social value orientations were classified as prosocial or proself. Almost as accurately as social value orientations, value priorities predicted preferences for cooperation in the social dilemma.
Towards a relational self: Social engagement during pregnancy and psychological preparation for motherhood
Authors: Smith Jonathan A.
Published: February 2003

This study works towards a theoretical model of the relational self derived from the intensive examination of a small number of case studies of women going through their first pregnancy. The study is idiographic, grounded in the women's own accounts of the experience, and it is primarily qualitative. It employs interviews, diaries, repertory grids and interpretative phenomenological analysis. The theory argues that pregnancy can accentuate the symbiotic relation of one's perception of self and others, and that this aids psychological preparation for mothering. Increasing contact with key others can be psychologically informative: the woman may perceive herself as becoming more like key other(s); close involvement with existing family can facilitate the woman's preparation for taking on the new role of mother. The model is explicated with illustrations from the women's accounts. It is then discussed in relation to the existing literature.
Attitudes and attraction: A test of two hypotheses for the similarity‐dissimilarity asymmetry
Authors: Singh Ramadhar , Teoh Jennifer Boon Pei
Published: February 2003

Recent studies reported a greater effect of attitudinal dissimilarity than similarity on interpersonal attraction. Hypotheses of (1) person positivity bias and (2) a greater weighting of attitudinal dissimilarity than similarity for such an asymmetry were tested. Extravert (N = 90) and introvert (N = 90) college students in Singapore indicated their social and intellectual attraction towards a dissimilar or similar stranger. Attraction responses were also obtained in a control condition of no‐attitude information. As predicted, extraverts showed a higher person positivity bias in the control condition and hence a greater rejection of the dissimilar stranger than did introverts. Dissimilarity also resulted in a more negative social than intellectual attraction. Taken together, these results put the similarity‐dissimilarity asymmetry on a firm ground. More important, they show (a) that extraversion affects the asymmetry via the person positivity bias, and (b) that weight of dissimilar attitudes depends upon the kind of attraction responses solicited. Reasons for the similarity‐dissimilarity symmetry, instead of the asymmetry, in past attitudes‐and‐attraction research are discussed.
Building your own lifeboat: Working‐class male offenders talk about economic crime
Authors: Willott Sara , Griffin Chris
Published: February 2003

This study examines the ways in which a group of working‐class men serving custodial sentences and probation orders for money‐related crimes talk about criminal activity and the implications of this talk for their gender identity. Using a critical social‐psychological approach, we carried out nine semi‐structured group discussions in probation centres and one open prison and then analyzed the transcripts using a combination of grounded theory and discourse analytic methods. The men critiqued dominant constructions of crime and argued that their criminal activity was justified in two related ways. First, they drew on a discourse of male breadwinning to argue that they were expected to provide for their families. Second, they argued that those now suffering under the broken promises made by the State should not be expected to conform to its rules. For the majority of men, earning through crime was talked about as a last resort and the parameters of ‘what they did to whom’ were informed by a Robin Hood‐type cultural narrative. Finally, the study contextualizes and critically explores these patterns of discourse and their rhetorical use from a historical and structural perspective.
Garnering the interest of others: Mediating the effects among physical attractiveness, self‐worth and dominance
Authors: Santor Darcy A. , Walker Jennifer
Published: February 2003

Objectives. Evolutionary psychologists emphasize that self‐worth and well‐being are largely determined by the degree to which individuals garner and hold the interest of others. Personal attributes, such as physical attractiveness, are viewed as resources which serve as signals to others to pay attention to us.

Design and method. This study examined (a) the degree to which participant appraisals (N= 75) of self‐worth were related to appraisals of how interested others were in them; and (b) the extent to which interest ratings account for the relation among self‐worth, dominance and attractiveness ratings.

Results. The main findings of the present study showed (a) that the degree to which individuals derive self‐worth from various attributes was strongly related to the degree to which individuals believed others were interested in them; and (b) that the amount of interest one believes others show in them mediated the relation between physical attractiveness and social self‐worth.

Conclusion. Results have a number of implications concerning the nature of self‐worth and the utility of psychological theories that emphasize evolutionary principles.
The metaphorical construction of sexual experience in a speech community of New Zealand university students
Authors: Weatherall Ann , Walton Marsha
Published: February 2003

Influenced by developments in feminist and discourse theory, the study examined a database of metaphors about sex collected by a New Zealand university student speech community. Using a Lakoff‐type analytic approach, the topics and source domains of the metaphors were identified. In addition, the linguistic constructions of the metaphors and their discourse function were also examined. The metaphors tended to capture male experience more convincingly than female experience and reflected male dominance in sexual relations. However, there was no necessary relationship between a metaphorical source domain and its ability to support a discourse of male dominance. The same metaphorical source domain could be used to support or undermine male dominance, depending on its context of use. This research demonstrated that understanding the powerfully generative source domains of metaphors about sex can facilitate an imaginative and strategic use of metaphor that has the potential to undermine dominant meaning systems.
Disruptive behaviour, avoidance of responsibility and theory of mind
Authors: Sutton Jon , Reeves Michelle , Keogh Edmund
Published: February 2003

Powell, Rosen, and Huff (1997) found a strong relationship between avoidance of responsibility and Disruptive Behaviour Disorder (DBD) symptomology in a sample of undergraduate students. Focusing on children with conduct disorder, Happe and Frith (1996) offered an alternative association in terms of a theory of mind impairment. However, no such deficiency was found using first‐order false belief tasks. This study assessed the links between disruptive behaviour, avoidance of responsibility and a more advanced test of theory of mind (Baron‐Cohen, Jolliffe, Mortimore, & Robertson, 1997) in a sample of 81 children aged 11‐13 years. Factor analysis of the Avoidance of Responsibility Scale (Powell et al., 1997) with this younger sample revealed three main factors: victim justification, shifting blame, and denial/lack of remorse. DBD was only associated with the shifting blame factor, indicating that DBD may be predominantly related to an avoidance of responsibility that involves transfer onto another person. Although theory of mind performance was not linked to DBD, it was positively correlated with the denial/lack of remorse factor. Results are discussed in terms of current theories of DBD and further research in the area.
The influence of availability and affect on children's pretence
Authors: Bourchier Alison , Davis Alyson
Published: February 2003

This study reports three experiments investigating children's understanding of the distinction between pretence and reality. Previous research (e.g. Harris, Brown, Marriott, Whittall, & Harmer, 1991; Johnson & Harris, 1994) has suggested marked individual differences in children's susceptibility to pretend‐reality confusions. The present series of experiments explored the effects of cognitive availability and affect on pretence understanding. In Expts 1 and 2, 5‐6‐year‐old children were asked to pretend that liked, disliked and neutral entities were inside either opaque (high availability) or transparent (low availability) boxes. The children's responses when asked to select or reject the boxes was determined by the affect evoked by the entity. In Expt 3, children were asked to explain their behaviour towards the pretended entities. The results indicated individual differences between groups of children. Across all three studies the evidence suggests that some children as old as 6 years of age may experience temporary pretend‐reality confusions which can be explained in terms of the effects of availability.
Children's diachronic thinking in relation to developmental changes in their drawings of the human figure
Authors: Cox Maureen V. , Hodsoll Jenny
Published: February 2003

The current human figure drawings of 40 5‐year‐olds and 40 7‐year‐olds were compared with their figures drawn as if they were 3 and 9 years old. The figures were examined for changes in height, detail and schema complexity. When projecting backwards in time, 5‐year‐olds made quantitative and some made qualitative changes. When projecting forwards in time, however, they made only quantitative changes and it is only at age 7 that children begin to make qualitative changes. In a second task, the children were asked to allocate drawings of varying complexity to artists of different ages. Whereas most 5‐year‐olds allocated a ready‐drawn tadpole figure to an appropriately aged drawer, they were not able to allocate more complex figures appropriately. In contrast, 7‐year‐olds were quite adept at this task.
How the eyes, head and hand serve definite reference
Authors: Butterworth George , Itakura Shoji
Published: February 2003

Babies followed manual pointing by an adult to locate the more peripheral of a pair of identical targets, whereas a change of head and gaze direction allowed accurate target identification only for the first target to enter the infant's field of view. Babies accurately followed manual pointing into the periphery of their right visual field some 3 months before they did so to their left. To investigate whether following pointing involves precise linear vector extrapolation, different combinations of head, eye and pointing cues were studied with 4.5‐year‐old children and adults. Neither head movements, nor head and eye movements, nor eye movements alone were accurate cues for children, whereas pointing allowed accurate spatial localization to peripheral positions. Adults accurately followed pointing to the outer periphery, but not to inner positions. These studies suggest that comprehension of pointing is unlikely to depend on extrapolating precise linear vectors along the pointing arm because a precise vector system should yield accurate localization irrespective of the position of the referent. Instead, eyes, head, nose and manual pointing cues may differentially refer to broad zones of visual space. They serve as differential cues because each varies in the extent of lateral movement. Thus, babies and children may follow pointing more accurately than head and eye movements simply because this is the most effective cue for redirecting attention to the outer periphery of each visual hemifield.
Shame and guilt in children: Differential situational antecedents and experiential correlates
Authors: Olthof Tjeert , Schouten Anneke , Kuiper Hilde , Stegge Hedy , Jennekens‐Schinkel Aagje
Published: February 2003

Situational antecedents and experiential correlates of shame and guilt in children were examined by having 6‐11‐year‐olds give ratings of the extent to which two types of situations would elicit a protagonist's feelings of shame and guilt. It was predicted that one type of situation should elicit both shame and guilt, because the protagonist caused harm to another person by behaving incoherently or incompetently. The other type of situation was predicted to elicit more shame than guilt, because the protagonist behaved incoherently or incompetently without causing harm to anyone. Two types of questions were used to elicit children's ratings: in term‐based questions the emotion terms ‘guilt’ and ‘shame’ were used, while in correlate‐based questions guilt and shame were alluded to by citing experiential correlates of these emotions. Children aged 9 and upward differentiated between both types of situations and between judgments of shame vs. guilt, both when giving term‐based and when giving correlate‐based ratings. There were no systematic differences in children's performance depending on whether they gave correlate‐based or term‐based judgments.
Social group membership and self‐perceptions in Northern Irish children: A longitudinal study
Authors: Muldoon Orla T.
Published: February 2003

Little is known about the changes in self‐perceptions over the course of middle childhood, despite this being a crucial period for the development of the self. This study examined stability and change in children's self‐competence and self‐esteem in a two‐wave longitudinal study of primary school children. The influence of psycho‐social factors, gender, religion/ethnicity and socio‐economic status (SES), on the development of self‐perceptions was also examined. A sample of 110 children completed the Harter Self Perception Profile for Children at age 8 and age 11. Analysis of these data indicated considerable stability in children's perceptions of themselves. At age 11, a greater variety of domain‐specific self‐perceptions was predictive of global self‐esteem, suggesting a more complex view of the self. Additionally, between‐group differences suggested that girls’ global and athletic competence, as well as their confidence in their physical appearance, decreased over time. Further, children from lower socio‐economic backgrounds and those from the minority community in Northern Ireland (Roman Catholics) displayed less positive self‐perceptions in a number of life domains at both age 11 and age 8. Discussion of these results highlights the influence of societal factors on children's social development and the need to consider the combined effects of psychosocial identities and socio‐economic background on the development of the self.
Conceptual change in the classroom: Teaching young children to understand biological inheritance
Authors: Solomon Gregg E. A. , Johnson Susan C.
Published: February 2003

This is a study of the feasibility of teaching a causal theoretical understanding of biological inheritance to young children. The phenomenon of biological inheritance is a promising one in which to study children's learning of a system of knowledge, for it engages concerns over how understanding individual facts is related to having more broadly coherent frameworks of understanding. For those preschoolers who do not already understand biological inheritance, the construction of such an understanding could well entail a reorganization of which facts are at the causal core of their explanations of how and why offspring tend to resemble their parents. The present study was of a pre‐test‐intervention‐post‐test design involving tasks based on Johnson and Solomon (1997) and on Springer and Keil (1989) and building on Springer (1995). The intervention focused on three factors: first, children were motivated to seek change in their understanding (i.e. they were made aware that they lacked an explanation of why offspring resemble their parents); secondly, they were supplied with relevant facts (e.g. that babies come from their mothers’ bellies); and thirdly, they were presented with a conceptual peg (i.e. a rudimentary notion of genes) about which they could organize and better recruit those facts. Children who had taken part in the training were subsequently more likely to make adult‐like judgments than those who had not.
Children's gender categorization: An investigation of automatic processing
Authors: Bennett Mark , Sani Fabio , Hopkins Nick , Agostini Luisa , Malucchi Lucilla
Published: February 2003

It is suggested that previous research examining children's social categorization has relied on techniques which call upon controlled cognitive processes, that is, processes under voluntary control. As such, this research may say little about children's spontaneous categorization of social information. The present study introduces an unobtrusive measure of categorization which enables examination of automatic processing with respect to gender categorization ‐ the ‘who said what?’ technique (Taylor, Fiske, Etcoff, & Ruderman, 1978). A sample of 84 children aged between 7 and 12 years were presented with four photographs, two of boys and two of girls, together with 16 statements attributed to each of the children (i.e. four statements to each child). Subsequently, 16 statement cards each had to be assigned to a particular photograph to indicate ‘who said what?’ Children made significantly more within‐gender errors than between‐gender errors, indicating that they had spontaneously assimilated social information to gender‐based categories.
Young children's concepts of danger
Authors: Hill Ros , Lewis Vicky , Dunbar George
Published: February 2003

Two studies are reported here investigating the development of children's concepts of danger, both in terms of their understanding and the salience of danger in unprompted situations. In Expt 1, 120 children, aged between 5 and 10 years, and 30 adults were asked to describe and sort materials representing situations of varying degrees of hazard. Salience was assessed from uncued descriptions and categorizations of the materials and understanding of danger was assessed through cued categorization. In Expt 2, 120 children aged from 4 to 8 years were asked to identify a dangerous situation from a set of four similar pictures. The results of both experiments demonstrated that even the youngest children demonstrated a rudimentary concept of danger and this understanding developed with age. Although the salience of danger also increased with age, it was still low in the 9‐10‐year‐olds when compared with adults. Prior experience of danger, parental educational level and nature of presentation were also found to have an influence. The findings are discussed in terms of safety education and possible overestimation of children's ability to recognize danger from their cued knowledge.
Relationships among metamemory, motivation and memory performance in young school‐age children
Authors: Pierce Sarah H. , Lange Garrett
Published: February 2003

This study examines relationships among young children's metamemory, effort attributions and memory‐task performance. Eighty‐one second and third graders participated in the study. The children were administered two study‐recall memory tasks using potentially clusterable items, and questionnaires to assess memoryknowledge and effort attributions. Four path models predicting item recall, specifying strategy use at study and at recall as endogenous variables and memory knowledge and effort attributions as exogenous variables, were compared. The best‐fit model specified both (1) a direct effect of metamemory on item recall, and (2) a direct effect of metamemory and effort attributions on the use of a clustering strategy during the study period, and thus an indirect effect on item recall. Additionally, the findings add support to the argument that the effects of memory influences may be culturally linked.
Moral sensibility, understanding others, and children's friendship interactions in the preschool period
Authors: Dunn Judy , Cutting Alexandra L. , Demetriou Helen
Published: February 2003

The relations between children's views on the permissibility of transgressions involving friends, and their justifications concerning such views, and individual differences in their socio‐cognitive and temperamental characteristics and family background were studied in 128 4‐year‐old children (64 pairs of friends) from a wide range of social backgrounds. Children were interviewed about the permissibility of a series of transgressions between friends, tested on a battery of theory of mind, emotion understanding and language assessments, and filmed as they played with a close friend. Views on permissibility and moral justifications were not closely linked. Justification that took account of interpersonal issues was correlated with understanding of mental states and emotions, with behavioural and temperamental characteristics, and with the quality of interaction between the friends. Views on permissibility were related to understanding of inner states, but also independently to parental education and occupation, with those from more highly educated and professional families more likely to judge transgressions as not permissible. Girls were more likely than boys to justify their views in terms of interpersonal issues, differences not explained by verbal ability differences. Regression analyses highlighted the association between girls’ justifications and their understanding of emotions in close relationships, while those of boys were correlated with their understanding of mental states. The significance of understanding inner states for children's moral sensibility, and the possible social processes implicated, are discussed.
The cradling bias in relation to pitch of maternal child‐directed language
Authors: Reissland Nadja
Published: February 2003

In research on cradling, the leftward cradling bias has been observed in the context of holding infants ranging in age from birth to 18 months. Mothers’ expression of emotion and their control of infant emotion may influence cradling preference (e.g. Weiland & Sperber, 1970). Research on the pitch of child‐directed speech has found that mothers express their emotions to pre‐verbal infants by using different pitch (F0). Specifically, they use different pitch depending on whether they are conveying to their pre‐verbal infants messages encouraging attention or soothing the infant. Following these findings the present study tested the hypothesis that mothers cradling on the right in comparison with mothers cradling on the left will speak with a higher mean pitch to attract their infants’ attention. It was found that mothers (N = 13) cradling right (mean pitch = 221.11 Hz; mean amplitude = 55.78 dB) compared with mothers (N = 18) cradling left (mean pitch = 171.33 Hz; mean amplitude = 49.20 dB) spoke with a higher pitch and amplitude. Furthermore, a comparison of mean pitch and amplitude of those mothers (N = 14) who cradled both right and left showed that the same mothers spoke with a higher pitch and amplitude when cradling right (mean pitch = 234.62 Hz; mean amplitude = 53.20 dB) in comparison with cradling left (mean pitch = 179.86 Hz; mean amplitude = 48.87 dB).
Young children's communication with mothers and fathers: Functions and contents
Authors: Kornhaber Mila , Marcos Haydee
Published: February 2003

The objective of this research is to test whether the contents and functions of young children's communication with fathers and mothers differ. Categories based on Speech Act Theory were used for the analysis of functions. As regards contents, messages were classified into three categories: (1) messages which refer to objects, actions or evaluations linked to task performance; (2) messages linked to characteristics of referents which are not linked to task performance; and (3) expressions of internal emotional states. The functions and contents of messages were analysed in two populations: American and French. Children were aged 20 to 26 months and were observed playing with a standard set of toys with each parent separately. The results show that fathers produce more messages linked to task performance and tend to produce more action directives than mothers and that, similarly, children produce more messages linked to task performance and more action directives with fathers than with mothers. Therefore, it seems that as young as 2 years of age, children adjust their communicative behaviours to fit characteristics of the interlocutor. Differences between the populations as well as the more precise nature of mother‐child communication are also discussed.
Do children try to answer nonsensical questions?
Authors: Waterman Amanda H. , Blades Mark , Spencer Christopher
Published: February 2003

Previous researchers found that young children will try to answer nonsensical questions. In Expt 1, 5‐ to 8‐year‐olds were asked sensible and nonsensical questions. Half of each type were ‘closed’ questions (which required a yes/no response), and half were ‘open’ questions (which could be answered in several ways). Three weeks later the same children were asked to judge if the questions were sensible or silly. Children answered all the sensible questions appropriately, and only attempted to answer a small proportion of the nonsensical open questions. However, they did try to answer three‐quarters of the nonsensical closed questions. Nonetheless, children were nearly always correct in judging which questions were sensible and which were nonsensical. In Expt 1 all the closed nonsensical questions were also ones that required a comparison between two items. In Expt 2 we compared children's responses to nonsensical open and closed questions when half of each type were comparative and half were non‐comparative. Children attempted to answer nonsensical closed questions irrespective of whether or not they included a comparison. However, few children attempted to answer nonsensical open questions. We discuss the implications of these results for questioning children and in the context of children's eyewitness testimony.
Hedonism or empathy?: Hard‐to‐manage children's moral awareness and links with cognitive and maternal characteristics
Authors: Hughes Claire , Dunn Judy
Published: February 2003

Disruptive children have long been thought to show hedonistic rather than empathic attitudes to moral dilemmas, but accounts of what underlies this stance vary in different theoretical perspectives. Candidate factors include: general problems in verbal reasoning, specific delays in social understanding, reduced affective responsiveness and control, and negative parental influences. The present study is novel in examining each of these factors in a preschool‐aged sample of disruptive children. In addition, interview assessments of moral awareness were compared with real‐life observations of peer interactions to examine the ecological validity of such tasks. The study is also unusual in adopting a longitudinal design: the stability of group differences in moral awareness and its correlates was examined across a 2‐year period spanning the transition to school. At age 4, 40 hard‐to‐manage children and their typically developing peers received a moral judgments and justifications interview and were filmed playing with a friend (Slomkowski & Killen, 1992). At age 6, the two groups completed a moral‐stories task (Arsenio & Fleiss, 1996). Significant group differences were found at both time points; these differences showed stable relations with each of the correlates above, although the relation between interview measures of moral awareness and real‐life behaviour was rather more complex. Overall, the findings of this study suggest that disruptive children show early and multi‐faceted problems in socio‐moral reasoning, that are associated with difficulties in their family and peer relationships.
Event knowledge and children's recall of television based narratives
Authors: Low Jason , Durkin Kevin
Published: February 2003

Recent research has established that young children can rapidly develop scripts for familiar events, and use such scripts to comprehend and recall information. Most of the available research has concerned everyday experiences, but relatively little attention has been paid to children's use of event knowledge in processing media content. A total of 96 children aged, 5, 7, 9 and 11 years participated in a study to investigate developmental reliance upon event knowledge in recalling television based narratives. Children viewed an event based television story presented in a canonical or jumbled version. Their responses to immediate and delayed recall tests were analysed for completeness and sequencing accuracy. In general, children who viewed the canonical version recalled more story units and organized their recall more accurately than children who viewed the jumbled version. Young children tended also to reorder the story units in the jumbled version to preserve canonicity. From 9 years of age onwards, children's recall of the jumbled version was as coherent as that of their same age counterparts who watched the canonical version. These results suggest that young children tend to depend on their event knowledge primarily in its canonical form, and with age children become more flexible in using their event knowledge in recalling routine television narratives.
South African children's understanding of money and banking
Authors: Bonn Marta , Webley Paul
Published: February 2003

The understanding of banking and money in South African Black children aged 7, 9, 11 and 14 years, drawn from a rural, an urban and a semi‐urban setting, was investigated. The participants were 225 children (80 rural, 60 urban and 85 semiurban) who were interviewed individually in Setswana, their mother tongue. There was approximately an equal number of boys and girls in the three samples and in each age group. The urban children lived in a township in Pretoria, the semi‐urban and the rural in the North West Province. The results show that South African Black children's views about banking and money exhibit some similarities to those held by children in other countries. However, their perceptions have a distinct flavour which reflect their social milieu. Within‐society differences also emerged with rural children (the poorest sample) showing the weakest understanding.
Siblings in the development of executive control and a theory of mind
Authors: Cole Kristina , Mitchell Peter
Published: February 2003

The purpose of the study was to determine whether the relationship between siblings and theory of mind might be mediated by executive abilities. The participants were 119 children from a lower income community, between the ages of 3 and 5, who completed an executive function battery and tests of an understanding of mind. The correlation data suggested a link between siblings and executive control and between theory of mind and executive control but, surprisingly, not between siblings and theory of mind. A further experiment with 71 children indirectly highlighted the potential contaminating influence of socio‐economic status (SES) on the sibling advantage in theory of mind. Multiple regression analyses, controlling for age and verbal IQ, discriminated between the types of executive processes most likely to predict performance in mental understanding. The implications of this result are discussed in terms of a ‘primary’ and 'secondary’ executive deficit account.
Children's everyday deception and performance on false‐belief tasks
Authors: Newton Paul , Reddy Vasudevi , Bull Ray
Published: February 2003

Current theory and experimental research suggests that children's discovery of false beliefs at around 4 years of age allows the development of intentional deception. Anecdotal evidence of earlier lies has been dismissed with the argument that they may be ‘blind’ learned strategies rather than genuine deception. This paper presents two studies of everyday deception in comparison with false‐belief task performance in young children. Study 1, a longitudinal study of 24 children, shows that the variety and incidence of everyday deceptions reported by mothers did not relate to success or failure on a battery of false‐belief tasks, either between different children or over time in the same children. In Study 2 the deceptions of a 21/2‐year‐old child over a 6‐month period were shown to be varied, flexible, context appropriate and too complex to be ‘blind’ learned strategies. It is argued that children's deceptive skills develop from pragmatic need and situational exigencies rather than from conceptual developments; they may learn to lie in the same way as they learn to speak.
Testing face processing skills in children
Authors: Bruce Vicki , Campbell Robin N. , Doherty‐Sneddon Gwyneth , Langton Steve , McAuley Sandra , Wright Richard
Published: February 2003

We describe a set of face processing tests suitable for use with children aged from 4 to 10 years, which include tests of expression, lipreading and gaze processing as well as identification. The tests can be administered on paper or using a computer, and comparisons between the performance on computer‐ and paper‐based versions suggest that format of administration makes little difference. We present results obtained from small samples of children at four different age groups (Study 1, computer‐based tests), and larger samples at three age groups (Study 2, paper‐based tests) from preschool to 10 years of age. The tests were found to be developmentally sensitive. There were quite strong correlations between performance on different tests of the same face processing ability (e.g. gaze processing), and generally rather weaker correlations between tests of different abilities.
Perceptions of parents and adolescent outcomes in Pakistan
Authors: Stewart Sunita Mahtani , Bond Michael H. , Ho L. M. , Zaman Riffat Moazam , Dar Rabiya , Anwar Muhammad
Published: February 2003

The purpose of this study was to examine associations among perceived parenting variables (warmth, parental knowledge of their child's daily activities, shame induction and autonomy‐granting), and psychosocial outcomes in Pakistan, a culture about which little information is available in the psychological literature. Participants were early and late adolescent Pakistani boys (N = 156) and girls (N = 148). Girls perceived their parents as being warmer, more knowledgeable about their child's activities and whereabouts, and more autonomy‐granting than did boys. Warmth and parental knowledge associated with positive outcomes for girls, but not boys. Autonomy‐granting associated with positive outcomes in bivariate and multivariate correlations for both genders. In causal models, perceptions of parents influenced well‐being partly through the mediators of selfdenigration, positive self‐image and relationship harmony, explaining up to 21% of the variance in outcomes. The results are discussed in the light of Western findings and the social context of middle‐class urban Pakistan. The findings provide some support for self‐determination theory, which states that autonomy‐granting by parents facilitates offspring adjustment through internalization of parental values, even in non‐Western cultures.
Individual and developmental differences in children's understanding of the fantasy‐reality distinction
Authors: Bourchier Alison , Davis Alyson
Published: February 2003

This research investigates children's understanding of the fantasy‐reality distinction. Expt 1 addressed the influence of cognitive availability on children's beliefs about pretend entities by comparing 4‐ to 7‐year‐old children's responses to prompted pretence or non‐pretence tasks with both their unprompted behaviour and their verbal justifications. The results suggest that there are individual and developmental differences in children's susceptibility to fantasy‐reality confusion. Expt 2 was designed to further investigate children's unprompted behaviours by adding a second (pre‐task) period when the children were observed in the experimenter's absence. In this study, the developmental differences and the relationship between children's prompted and unprompted behaviours were no longer obtained, suggesting that children's unprompted behaviours may be differently motivated depending on preceding events. The pattern of results across the two experiments suggests an interaction between individual and developmental differences in the effects of increased cognitive availability on children's beliefs about the fantasy‐reality distinction.
Shared picture‐book reading: A sequential analysis of adult‐child verbal interactions
Authors: Danis Agnès , Bernard Jean‐Marc , Leproux Christine
Published: February 2003

The purpose of this study was to determine whether adults and children influence each other's representations of objects or events during joint picture‐book reading. It was hypothesized that each partner adjusts his or her point of view on objects in order to share knowledge about pictures in the book. Seventeen adult/3‐year‐old child dyads were filmed during a reading session in a day‐care centre. Sequences of child‐adult and adult‐child utterances were considered within exchanges on a common topic and were classified according to the level of abstraction conveyed. A novel Bayesian method for the analysis of directional dependencies revealed that the level of abstraction a partner adopts depends on the level that the other partner has just expressed. A constant reciprocal adaptation is attested by the overrepresentation of sequences of partners’ utterances belonging to the same level. Moreover, adults raise the level of abstraction more often than children, creating a ‘zone of proximal development’. Adults thus appear to stimulate the child's representational abilities since the child is found to follow the adult when the latter changes the level of abstraction.
Coping with clumsiness in the school playground: Social and physical play in children with coordination impairments
Authors: Smyth Mary M. , Anderson Heather I.
Published: February 2003

The playground activity of 110 children aged between 6 and 10 years was observed for 10 five‐minute periods. Fifty‐five children were assigned to a developmental coordination disorder (DCD) group and 55 to a control group, on the basis of their scores on the Movement ABC. Children in the DCD group spent more time alone, were onlookers more often, and played formal games in large groups less often if they were boys and informal games in large groups less often if they were girls. Social fantasy play did not differentiate between the two groups but social physical play did, particularly in the older age groups. Play performance in the DCD group was more variable overall with some boys taking an active part in team games while others never took part in them. This study indicates that as social non‐physical play decreases with age, some children with impaired coordination may not become involved in social physical play. Children with impaired coordination can become isolated and solitary in the school playground. Various routes to social exclusion for these children are proposed and remain to be explored.