Developmental Review最新文献

The aim of the current systematic review is (1) to examine theoretical frameworks and mechanisms explaining the association between parental and teacher behaviors and child executive function (EF) development, and (2) to compare and combine empirical findings for the relationship between parental and teacher behaviors and child EF development in early and middle childhood. Results revealed that theoretical frameworks have been established more strongly in the parent literature and parental behaviors have been more extensively studied with more diverse terms compared to studies in teacher literature. Overall, patterns of findings suggest that positive (e.g., emotional support) and cognitive parental/teacher behaviors (e.g., cognitive stimulation) were positively linked to child EF performance while negative behaviors (e.g., intrusiveness) were adversely related. Considering the similar roles of parents and teachers in child EF development, insights from parent literature could enable a better understanding of the impact of teacher behaviors on child EF (and vice versa), and opens new venues for future teacher research. Moreover, these findings suggest that, in addition to genetic transmission, social factors such as parent/teacher-child interactions play a significant role in EF development. Future research should investigate the joint influence of parent and teacher behaviors on child EF.

Predominant psychological theories of number acquisition posit that children acquire natural number concepts as they acquire the successor principle, or the knowledge that every natural number is succeeded by another natural number that is exactly-one more than it. However, exactly how children acquire the successor principle remains largely unexplained. Recently developed ideas within this family of theories posit that an abstract recursive successor function is acquired from the recursive structure of number words; however, the types of recursion underlying the successor function and number words are distinctively different (one is a self-referential function and the other is a self-embedded structure), making it difficult to theorize how one type triggers the acquisition of another. Moreover, our analysis of the literature questions if the knowledge about the successor principle is even empirically measurable. Here, we argue that number acquisition is a process of understanding a generative rule that governs the system of natural numbers and point out that the successor principle is not the only generative rule that governs the natural number system. We propose an alternative hypothesis that generative number concepts emerge from children's realization about how the combinatorial rules of numerals allow arithmetic (specifically additive and multiplicative) representations of quantity. Importantly, under addition and multiplication—which are historically rooted in concatenation and grouping of physical objects—natural numbers are mathematically closed. As a corollary, the system of infinitely generative natural numbers is conceptualized. This new theoretical framework allows the construction of novel empirical questions and testable hypotheses based on the formalized rules of numerical syntax and numeration systems, and therefore opens a new avenue for studying later stages of children's acquisition of number concepts.

Around the world, children play. Does play support development? If so, how? One popular idea is that play fosters the development of higher-order cognitive abilities, such as executive functions. A contrasting view is that play fosters the development of cultural knowledge and skills rather than general capacities. We describe a third proposal: that play helps children acquire culture-specific executive function skills. We articulate three ideas of how this might work, synthesizing diverse literatures. We also discuss other activities children voluntarily engage in that overlap with play and may similarly help them acquire culture-specific executive function skills. We end by considering implications of these ideas and questions for future research. We suggest that play and related activities are most likely to support the development of culture-specific executive function skills if they are informed by cultural knowledge, values and practices.

Children, much like adults, rely heavily on information from other people in the domains of word learning, science and religion (Harris, Koenig, Corriveau & Jaswal, 2018). However, we know much less about how testimony affects children’s moral thinking. In fact, many psychologists argue that morality is relatively impervious to direct testimonial influence, and emphasize children’s early emerging moral abilities and intuitions (Haidt, 2001; Hamlin, 2013; Smetana, 1981). These accounts are consistent with recent philosophical work holding that while testimony is an acceptable source for non-moral beliefs, it is problematic to acquire moral understanding via testimony (the asymmetry thesis, Hopkins, 2007). Is testimony really insufficient to transmit moral understanding?

In order to address this question, we first draw attention to recent philosophical work on skepticism towards moral testimony. We then review the literature on children’s moral development and testimonial learning and make the argument that testimony plays an indispensable role in children’s acquisition of moral understanding. Lastly, we discuss how the study of moral testimony could be supported by appreciating a set of important distinctions (e.g., different levels of dependence, different types of testimony, different costs and benefits) to aid our theorizing and empirical work on testimonial learning in the moral domain.

Theory of mind (ToM) is a developmental and multidimensional ability to impute mental states to oneself and others. This systematic review aimed to identify and appraise the current ToM measures for children in terms of their constructs, modes of presentation and response, the test theories adopted to develop them, and psychometric properties. Among the 588 articles retrieved, 127 ToM measures were identified. Twelve measures covered the full spectrum of ToM development in childhood. Only four measures had items in all construct dimensions (i.e., cognitive–interpersonal, cognitive–intrapersonal, affective–interpersonal, and affective–intrapersonal ToM), but they were not designed with specific items on developmental components in every dimension. As regards modes of presentation and response, twenty-one measures designed with visual aids are recommended for children with poor verbal comprehension and expression abilities. Only six measures were constructed or examined with Rasch modeling to better quantify ToM ability. To sum up, currently, no single ToM measure constructed with Rasch modeling and featuring visual aids can assess children’s ToM ability simultaneously and specifically with the multidimensional construct. A thorough ToM measurement for children with the above-mentioned characteristics is warranted for clinicians and researchers to better understand children’s ToM ability and examine the mechanisms governing the developmental and multidimensional constructs.

Delinquency shows an increase in adolescence and is hence often cited as a behaviour explainable in terms of adolescent risk-taking models. In this review we summarise contemporary developmental models of adolescent risk-taking as they apply to delinquency and evaluate the extent to which they are supported by empirical evidence. Dual Systems theory, Fuzzy Trace Theory, the Lifespan Wisdom Model (LWM), and the Developmental Neuro-Ecological Risk-taking Model (DNERM) are all discussed. We highlight that there have been very few direct empirical evaluations of developmental risk-taking models as applied to delinquency; however, indirect evidence supports the core Dual Systems theory claim that a developmental imbalance between sensation-seeking and self-regulation contributes to an adolescent peak in offending. However, this appears to apply particularly to a sub-group of vulnerable youth, as implied by the LWM. Further, risk-taking propensity likely interacts with age-related changes in exposure to risk-conducive situations, as implied by DNERM. There is little evidence to suggest that Fuzzy Trace Theory alone explains developmental changes in risk-taking, though it may help explain how young people learn about risk, as outlined in LWM, Better integration of risk-taking models with criminological perspectives as well as further longitudinal research using appropriate operationalisations of developmental imbalance, modelling individual differences in trajectories, and incorporating measures of exposure to risk-conducive situations will be essential for advancing knowledge of the drivers of engagement in delinquency in adolescence.

Comprehensive meta-analyses of risky decision making in children, adolescents, and adults have revealed that age trends in disambiguated laboratory tasks confirmed fuzzy-trace theory’s prediction that preference for risk decreases monotonically from childhood to adulthood. These findings are contrary to predictions of dual systems or neurobiological imbalance models. Assumptions about increasing developmental reliance on mental representations of the gist of risky options are essential to account for this developmental trend. However, dual systems theory appropriately emphasizes how cultural context changes behavioral manifestation of risk preferences across age and neurobiological imbalance models appropriately emphasize developmental changes in reward sensitivity. All of the major theories include the assumption of increasing behavioral inhibition. Here, we integrate these theoretical constructs—representation, cultural context, reward sensitivity, and behavioral inhibition—to provide a novel framework for understanding and improving risky decision making in youth. We also discuss the roles of critical tests, scientific falsification, disambiguating assessments of psychological and neurological processes, and the misuse of such concepts as ecological validity and reverse inference. We illustrate these concepts by extending fuzzy-trace theory to explain why youth are a major conduit of viral infections, including the virus that causes COVID-19. We conclude by encouraging behavioral scientists to embrace new ways of thinking about risky decision making that go beyond traditional stereotypes about adolescents and that go beyond conceptualizing ideal decision making as trading off degrees of risk and reward.