Child Development Perspectives最新文献

In this article, we provide definitional clarity for the construct of social withdrawal as it was originally construed, and review the original theoretical and conceptual bases that led to the first research program dedicated to the developmental study of social withdrawal (the Waterloo Longitudinal Project). We also describe correlates (e.g., social and social-cognitive incompetence), precursors (e.g., dispositional characteristics, parenting, insecure attachment), and consequences (e.g., peer rejection and victimization, negative self-regard, anxiety) of social withdrawal, and discuss how the study of this type of withdrawal led to a novel intervention that targets risk factors that predict social withdrawal and its negative consequences.

Interoception—the ability to perceive and respond to internal bodily sensations—is fundamental for the continuous regulation of physiological processes. Recently, it has been suggested that because infants depend completely on their caregivers for survival, the development of interoceptive processing emerges as a result of early dyadic interactions, and relies on caregivers’ ability to respond to and meet infants’ physiological needs. In this article, I examine how both caregivers’ and infants’ own characteristics contribute to the emergence and development of infants’ interoceptive processing. In particular, by focusing on feeding interactions, I suggest that infants build expectations about the cause of their internal sensations via a dynamic process of interoceptive distinction between self and other. This developmental account provides a framework that considers the complexity of early dyadic exchanges, and offers novel hypotheses for research investigating the mechanisms involved in the ontogeny of interoceptive processing and eating behaviors.

The possibility and nature of bilingual advantage for theory of mind (ToM), that is, young bilingual children outperforming their monolingual peers, have been discussed increasingly since the first research on the topic was published in 2003. Because accumulating evidence demonstrates a ToM advantage for bilingual individuals, in this article, we focus on how this advantage arises. We consider how current theoretical positions, including executive function, metalinguistic awareness, and sociolinguistic awareness accounts, explain such an advantage in young bilingual children. These theoretical accounts receive some, but only partial, support, so further research and theory are needed to understand comprehensively the relationship between bilingualism and ToM.

Children’s memberships in social groups have profound effects on their motivation. Stereotypes about social groups shape children’s beliefs about what is expected for their group members. These beliefs can influence children’s developing beliefs about themselves (self-perceptions). In this article, I review research on how gender stereotypes influence children’s motivation in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), including ability beliefs and sense of belonging. When children belong to a gender group that is negatively stereotyped in a STEM field, they may doubt their own capabilities and whether they belong in that field, making it harder for them to develop interest over time. Developmentally, the influence of gender stereotypes on motivation begins during preschool and strengthens during late childhood. I also address the consequences of different kinds of stereotypes and why some children are more influenced by stereotypes than others. Understanding this process in childhood will help researchers design effective interventions to remedy educational inequities in STEM.

Educated adults and children engage a network of frontal and parietal brain regions for numerical thinking. Recent studies document some prominent changes as this network emerges over development, including a unilateral right to bilateral shift in number-selective parietal brain activity, a strengthening of intra- and interhemispheric parietal connections, reduced engagement of prefrontal regions, and decoupling between prefrontal and parietal regions. Based on these findings, it appears that right parietal regions form an innate or early-emerging basis for representing numerical magnitudes, whereas left parietal regions support the representation of culturally acquired symbolic numbers that begin to emerge over childhood. Functional connections between parietal hemispheres and the parietal and prefrontal cortex likely support associations between magnitudes and symbols, as they are associated with numerical proficiency. Prefrontal regions appear to provide general cognitive resources to support these associations, engaging and correlating positively during the learning process and disengaging and correlating negatively after mastery.

A common belief is that talking about problems makes us feel better. In fact, seeking social support is related to well-being. However, if taken to a perseverative extreme, talking about problems can become problematic. The construct of co-rumination was developed to address this idea. Co-rumination refers to talking excessively about problems and is characterized by rehashing problems, speculating about problems, and dwelling on negative feelings. Co-rumination is typically studied in children’s and adolescents’ friendships and has adjustment trade-offs. Like rumination, co-rumination is associated with internalizing symptoms. However, co-rumination also is associated with having high-quality relationships, presumably due to social sharing. In this article, I review what it means to co-ruminate; how co-rumination is assessed; the roles of age, gender, and relationship context; associations with adjustment; and the role of interpersonal stress and problems. I close by considering directions for research and applied implications.

Children develop rich concepts of social categories throughout early and middle childhood. Whereas we know much about the development and consequences of many social categories individually, we know less about the development of representations at the intersection of multiple categories—for instance, how children think about race and gender together. This is a critical issue because every person a child meets holds membership in multiple social categories. Thus, overlooking how children integrate information about multiple categories causes a major gap in our understanding of the development of social cognition. An intersectional framework, which considers both how group-based bias is expressed toward people with one versus multiple minoritized identities and how power structures shape these processes, can help address this issue. In this article, we review research on children's use of race and gender, and describe how an intersectional framework can address gaps in knowledge and advance both equity and theory.

The development of autobiographical memory is a culturally constructive process in which children learn to remember and share their personal experiences in culture-specific ways. In this article, I present a theoretical model that situates children’s independent recall and joint reminiscing with parents in the cultural context. Built on cross-cultural research, the model specifies various pathways—self-goals, language, emotion knowledge, and perceptual styles—through which culture shapes autobiographical memory development. The model also demonstrates the role of culture in moderating the psychosocial outcomes of remembering, so the content, form, and stance of memory serve functions specific to the cultural ecology. I conclude that the development of autobiographical memory occurs in response to children’s diverse cultural experiences, and outline directions for research.