Pub Date : 2025-10-24DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106400
Lingyu Yi , Peiqi Chen , Meijie Wang , Xiaoqin Mai
Understanding developmental trajectories in fairness decision-making provides critical insights into the foundational role of fairness norms in human societies. This study investigates how different choice contexts shape children’s preferred approach and the costs incurred on fairness decisions. We examined third-party punishment (TPP) and third-party compensation (TPC) behaviors among children aged 10–12 years across two choice contexts: the single-choice context requiring the selection of either punishment or compensation (N = 243) and the dual-choice context allowing the use of both (N = 236). Participants responded to three types of offers: high inequality, moderate inequality, and equality. Key findings revealed that (1) Children predominantly chose “compensate only” in the single-choice context but preferred “punish and compensate” in the dual-choice context, and (2) Children incurred more costs to uphold fairness in the dual-choice context, with developmental differences observed across age groups. These results highlight how choice context influences fairness decision-making, deepen our understanding of developmental changes in TPP and TPC, and offer implications for how educators and policymakers can support children in proactively safeguarding fairness as bystanders.
{"title":"Punish, compensate, or both? Children’s fairness decisions in varying choice contexts","authors":"Lingyu Yi , Peiqi Chen , Meijie Wang , Xiaoqin Mai","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106400","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106400","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Understanding developmental trajectories in fairness decision-making provides critical insights into the foundational role of fairness norms in human societies. This study investigates how different choice contexts shape children’s preferred approach and the costs incurred on fairness decisions. We examined third-party punishment (TPP) and third-party compensation (TPC) behaviors among children aged 10–12 years across two choice contexts: the single-choice context requiring the selection of either punishment or compensation (<em>N</em> = 243) and the dual-choice context allowing the use of both (<em>N</em> = 236). Participants responded to three types of offers: high inequality, moderate inequality, and equality. Key findings revealed that (1) Children predominantly chose “compensate only” in the single-choice context but preferred “punish and compensate” in the dual-choice context, and (2) Children incurred more costs to uphold fairness in the dual-choice context, with developmental differences observed across age groups. These results highlight how choice context influences fairness decision-making, deepen our understanding of developmental changes in TPP and TPC, and offer implications for how educators and policymakers can support children in proactively safeguarding fairness as bystanders.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":"262 ","pages":"Article 106400"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145363723","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-10-23DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106388
Melanie Killen , Elise M. Kaufman , Kate V. Luken Raz
Children’s interest and motivation in math and science decline dramatically beginning as early as elementary school (K-5). This is especially true for marginalized students, such as girls and children from underrepresented racial-ethnic minority (URM) backgrounds. Understanding the relation between children’s STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) competence beliefs and STEM occupation expectations provides a basis for timely and targeted intervention. This association is crucial because expectations about who will pursue and engage in STEM occupations reveals potential biases that might translate into exclusion of participation from STEM-related activities in childhood. To examine this topic, a survey was administered to N = 842 children ages 7–12 years from different racial-ethnic backgrounds in the suburbs of a large Mid-Atlantic city. As hypothesized, we found that math and science competence beliefs about girls predicted children’s expectation that a girl, rather than a boy, would grow up to be a scientist and a doctor. Further, math and science competency beliefs about URM peers predicted children’s expectation that a Black or Latine child would grow up to be a doctor, though these beliefs were not related to their expectations that a Black or Latine child would grow up to be a scientist. Additionally, participants were more likely to expect a girl to grow up to be a doctor than to be a scientist. The effects of participant age, gender, and race were also investigated. These findings contribute to understanding how best to broaden participation in math and science fields for all children.
{"title":"Children’s math and science beliefs about underrepresented peers are related to STEM occupation expectations","authors":"Melanie Killen , Elise M. Kaufman , Kate V. Luken Raz","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106388","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106388","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Children’s interest and motivation in math and science decline dramatically beginning as early as elementary school (K-5). This is especially true for marginalized students, such as girls and children from underrepresented racial-ethnic minority (URM) backgrounds. Understanding the relation between children’s STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) competence beliefs and STEM occupation expectations provides a basis for timely and targeted intervention. This association is crucial because expectations about who will pursue and engage in STEM occupations reveals potential biases that might translate into exclusion of participation from STEM-related activities in childhood. To examine this topic, a survey was administered to <em>N</em> = 842 children ages 7–12 years from different racial-ethnic backgrounds in the suburbs of a large Mid-Atlantic city. As hypothesized, we found that math and science competence beliefs about girls predicted children’s expectation that a girl, rather than a boy, would grow up to be a scientist and a doctor. Further, math and science competency beliefs about URM peers predicted children’s expectation that a Black or Latine child would grow up to be a doctor, though these beliefs were not related to their expectations that a Black or Latine child would grow up to be a scientist. Additionally, participants were more likely to expect a girl to grow up to be a doctor than to be a scientist. The effects of participant age, gender, and race were also investigated. These findings contribute to understanding how best to broaden participation in math and science fields for all children.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":"262 ","pages":"Article 106388"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145363721","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-10-21DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106396
Wouter Wolf , Vivian Iva , Isabella Larsen , Michael Tomasello
Three-year-old children normatively protest the transgression of adult rules in a variety of contexts. Five-year-olds also normatively protest the transgression of rules they have themselves created collaboratively with peers. But do children of these ages protest rules that they have created for themselves as individuals? We prompted five-year-olds (Study 1: 128 participants, 69 females) and three-year-olds (Study 2: 64 participants, 32 females) to devise a way to play with a toy in the presence of some puppet peers, after which a new puppet engaged with the toy the ‘wrong’ way. Results showed that five-year-olds protested at similar rates regardless of whether they came up with a way to play collaboratively with others and then played together (collaborative condition), came up with a way to play individually but then played together (two trendsetter conditions), or came up with a way to play and played totally individually (solo condition). In Study 2, three-year-olds protested self-created rules as well, albeit at lower rates than five-year-olds. Finally, neither age group’s protest seemed to be influenced by instructions containing explicit cues of normativity or conventionality (e.g., creating a game with rules vs coming up with a way to play). As such, when children create norms themselves, their willingness to protest novice transgressors seems not to be impacted by the degree to which these norms were created through collaboration. Moreover, our results show that promiscuous normativity of self-created norms emerges earlier than previously thought, around the same time children become promiscuous normativists towards adult-created norms.
{"title":"Young children enforce self-created norms promiscuously","authors":"Wouter Wolf , Vivian Iva , Isabella Larsen , Michael Tomasello","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106396","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106396","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Three-year-old children normatively protest the transgression of adult rules in a variety of contexts. Five-year-olds also normatively protest the transgression of rules they have themselves created collaboratively with peers. But do children of these ages protest rules that they have created for themselves as individuals? We prompted five-year-olds (Study 1: 128 participants, 69 females) and three-year-olds (Study 2: 64 participants, 32 females) to devise a way to play with a toy in the presence of some puppet peers, after which a new puppet engaged with the toy the ‘wrong’ way. Results showed that five-year-olds protested at similar rates regardless of whether they came up with a way to play collaboratively with others and then played together (collaborative condition), came up with a way to play individually but then played together (two trendsetter conditions), or came up with a way to play and played totally individually (solo condition). In Study 2, three-year-olds protested self-created rules as well, albeit at lower rates than five-year-olds. Finally, neither age group’s protest seemed to be influenced by instructions containing explicit cues of normativity or conventionality (e.g., creating a game with rules vs coming up with a way to play). As such, when children create norms themselves, their willingness to protest novice transgressors seems not to be impacted by the degree to which these norms were created through collaboration. Moreover, our results show that promiscuous normativity of self-created norms emerges earlier than previously thought, around the same time children become promiscuous normativists towards adult-created norms.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":"262 ","pages":"Article 106396"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145349355","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-10-21DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106397
Michael Huemer , Lara M. Schröder , Sarah J. Leikard , Josef Perner
The present study systematically investigated how 83 (42 female, Austrian, 41 to 79 months) children reasoned on Call and Tomasello’s (1999) nonverbal false belief task. Experiment 1 replicated the central finding that children realized that a mistaken communicator tended to mark the wrong, unbaited box. However, we found that less than half of the children gave consistently correct responses while others responded in a way indistinguishable from random guessing. Some children noted that markings were consistently wrong, suggesting a simple response strategy of choosing the unmarked box without reasoning about the communicator’s false belief. Experiment 2 undermined this potential strategy by adding correctly marked trials. Performance dropped so that it could not be distinguished anymore from random responding. These results call into question whether Call and Tomasello’s task detects reasoning about false beliefs.
{"title":"Children’s reasoning strategies on call and Tomasello’s nonverbal false belief test: no sign of false-belief reasoning","authors":"Michael Huemer , Lara M. Schröder , Sarah J. Leikard , Josef Perner","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106397","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106397","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The present study systematically investigated how 83 (42 female, Austrian, 41 to 79 months) children reasoned on <span><span>Call and Tomasello’s (1999)</span></span> nonverbal false belief task. Experiment 1 replicated the central finding that children realized that a mistaken communicator tended to mark the wrong, unbaited box. However, we found that less than half of the children gave consistently correct responses while others responded in a way indistinguishable from random guessing. Some children noted that markings were consistently wrong, suggesting a simple response strategy of choosing the unmarked box without reasoning about the communicator’s false belief. Experiment 2 undermined this potential strategy by adding correctly marked trials. Performance dropped so that it could not be distinguished anymore from random responding. These results call into question whether Call and Tomasello’s task detects reasoning about false beliefs.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":"262 ","pages":"Article 106397"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145349383","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-10-18DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106398
Elana S. Israel, Brandon E. Gibb
There is preliminary evidence that children of parents with depression exhibit alterations in reward processing that may increase children’s risk for developing psychopathology. However, depression is a heterogeneous disorder, and it is unclear whether specific symptoms of parental depression may be particularly associated with increased risk in children. The current study examined links between parents’ anhedonic versus non-anhedonic symptoms of depression and neural indices of reward outcome processing in children. Participants in this study were a community sample of 217 parent–child dyads (children ages 7–11; 53.00% male, 65.90% non-Hispanic White). Children’s reward outcome processing was assessed during a simple guessing task with the reward positivity (RewP) event-related potential (ERP), which indexes initial neural responsiveness to positive and negative outcome feedback (e.g., winning or losing money). Higher levels of parental anhedonic, but not non-anhedonic, depressive symptoms were associated with more blunted reactivity to both positive and negative outcome feedback in children. The finding was maintained when statistically controlling for children’s own levels of depression and positive affect. These results suggest that parental anhedonia may be a core feature of depression uniquely related to alterations in children’s reward processing, which may have important implications for interventions designed to reduce risk in youth.
{"title":"Parental anhedonic versus non-anhedonic depressive symptoms and children’s reward processing","authors":"Elana S. Israel, Brandon E. Gibb","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106398","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106398","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>There is preliminary evidence that children of parents with depression exhibit alterations in reward processing that may increase children’s risk for developing psychopathology. However, depression is a heterogeneous disorder, and it is unclear whether specific symptoms of parental depression may be particularly associated with increased risk in children. The current study examined links between parents’ anhedonic versus non-anhedonic symptoms of depression and neural indices of reward outcome processing in children. Participants in this study were a community sample of 217 parent–child dyads (children ages 7–11; 53.00% male, 65.90% non-Hispanic White). Children’s reward outcome processing was assessed during a simple guessing task with the reward positivity (RewP) event-related potential (ERP), which indexes initial neural responsiveness to positive and negative outcome feedback (e.g., winning or losing money). Higher levels of parental anhedonic, but not non-anhedonic, depressive symptoms were associated with more blunted reactivity to both positive and negative outcome feedback in children. The finding was maintained when statistically controlling for children’s own levels of depression and positive affect. These results suggest that parental anhedonia may be a core feature of depression uniquely related to alterations in children’s reward processing, which may have important implications for interventions designed to reduce risk in youth.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":"262 ","pages":"Article 106398"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145321695","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-10-18DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106399
Natalie Christner , Regina M. Sticker , Antonia Misch , Tobias Krettenauer , Markus Paulus
States with a focus on oneself, such as observing oneself (private self-focus) and being observed by others (public self-focus), are proposed to increase the saliency of own motives and evaluations by others and thereby to influence behavior. These processes become particularly relevant toward the end of early childhood, around the same age when children’s moral self-concept (their view of themselves as prosocial agents) consolidates. This study advances the understanding of the role of self-focus on children’s prosocial behavior by considering their moral self-concept. We investigated how private self-focus and two facets of public self-focus affect sharing behavior, the moral self-concept, and their interrelation. In a preregistered study, we assessed 5- to 8-year-olds’ (N = 161, 84 female) sharing behavior and moral self-concept across four conditions. Children shared while observing themselves (private self-focus), while being observed by another child (reputation), while being observed by another child who could reciprocate later (reciprocity), or while not being observed (control). Generally, children shared more when observed by another person compared to when they were not in the focus of anybody, whereas observing themselves did not increase sharing. Children’s moral self-concept was positively correlated with sharing, particularly when being in public self-focus, while mean values did not differ between conditions. The study provides novel evidence for the specific role of the awareness of others’ evaluation in children’s prosocial behavior. It suggests a social grounding of the moral self-concept by revealing its particular role for sharing behavior when being in the focus of social attention.
{"title":"If she watches, I will share: The impact of private and public self-focus on children’s sharing behavior and the moral self-concept","authors":"Natalie Christner , Regina M. Sticker , Antonia Misch , Tobias Krettenauer , Markus Paulus","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106399","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106399","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>States with a focus on oneself, such as observing oneself (private self-focus) and being observed by others (public self-focus), are proposed to increase the saliency of own motives and evaluations by others and thereby to influence behavior. These processes become particularly relevant toward the end of early childhood, around the same age when children’s moral self-concept (their view of themselves as prosocial agents) consolidates. This study advances the understanding of the role of self-focus on children’s prosocial behavior by considering their moral self-concept. We investigated how private self-focus and two facets of public self-focus affect sharing behavior, the moral self-concept, and their interrelation. In a preregistered study, we assessed 5- to 8-year-olds’ (<em>N</em> = 161, 84 female) sharing behavior and moral self-concept across four conditions. Children shared while observing themselves (private self-focus), while being observed by another child (reputation), while being observed by another child who could reciprocate later (reciprocity), or while not being observed (control). Generally, children shared more when observed by another person compared to when they were not in the focus of anybody, whereas observing themselves did not increase sharing. Children’s moral self-concept was positively correlated with sharing, particularly when being in public self-focus, while mean values did not differ between conditions. The study provides novel evidence for the specific role of the awareness of others’ evaluation in children’s prosocial behavior. It suggests a social grounding of the moral self-concept by revealing its particular role for sharing behavior when being in the focus of social attention.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":"262 ","pages":"Article 106399"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145321701","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-10-17DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106389
Jule Bach, Sabina Pauen
Preschoolers often imitate actions that are causally irrelevant, a phenomenon called “overimitation (OI)”. The present study examines how task context and language framing influence OI. A total of 160 four- to five-year-old German children from predominantly middle- to high-socioeconomic backgrounds participated in the study. All children performed the same OI task under four different conditions. They observed an adult model who demonstrated functional and non-functional actions before they themselves were allowed to retrieve a cookie from a transparent jar which could easily be opened by unscrewing the lid. This task was conducted either in a laboratory setting with an unfamiliar experimenter as model or at each child’s home with their caregiver as model. In both contexts, either a normative or a non-normative verbal instruction was used, resulting in a 2 × 2 between-subjects design. OI scores were not significantly affected by framing or context alone. However, a significant interaction was found between the two factors: a normative language led to more OI in the lab-context, but did not affect OI-scores in the home context. Implications of these findings for children’s sensitivity to context conditions and language framing in observational learning are discussed.
{"title":"“Watch me − This is how it should be done!” The effect of normative language on preschoolers’ overimitation occurs only in the lab but not at home","authors":"Jule Bach, Sabina Pauen","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106389","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106389","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Preschoolers often imitate actions that are causally irrelevant, a phenomenon called “overimitation (OI)”. The present study examines how task context and language framing influence OI. A total of 160 four- to five-year-old German children from predominantly middle- to high-socioeconomic backgrounds participated in the study. All children performed the same OI task under four different conditions. They observed an adult model who demonstrated functional and non-functional actions before they themselves were allowed to retrieve a cookie from a transparent jar which could easily be opened by unscrewing the lid. This task was conducted either in a laboratory setting with an unfamiliar experimenter as model or at each child’s home with their caregiver as model. In both contexts, either a normative or a non-normative verbal instruction was used, resulting in a 2 × 2 between-subjects design. OI scores were not significantly affected by framing or context alone. However, a significant interaction was found between the two factors: a normative language led to more OI in the lab-context, but did not affect OI-scores in the home context. Implications of these findings for children’s sensitivity to context conditions and language framing in observational learning are discussed.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":"262 ","pages":"Article 106389"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145318662","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-10-16DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106395
R.C. Plate , M. Flum , Y. Paz , E.R. Perkins , Y. Rodriguez , J. Herrington , J. Parish-Morris , R. Waller
Beginning in infancy, laughter promotes positive social interactions. However, laughter can also convey derision. Adults distinguish friendly from derisory laughter, appropriately modulating social behavior based on their perceptions of the laugher’s intent. Given the connection between laughter perception and broader social functioning, it is important to understand how this skill develops in young children who are initiating foundational early social bonds. Moreover, children who have difficulties forming and maintaining social bonds—including those with callous-unemotional (CU) traits—may show differences in correctly identifying and responding to laughter. Here, 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old children (N = 150; 50% female) categorized laughter clips that varied in conveying affiliation (i.e., friendly) or dominance (i.e., mean) and reported on whether they wanted to play with the person producing the laughter. Children distinguished between laughter types, were accurate at detecting mean laughter, and showed increasing accuracy across ages 3 to 5 years. Children expressed a preference to play with friendly versus mean laughers, a distinction that sharpened from ages 3 to 5 years. Higher CU traits predicted lower accuracy for identifying mean laughs, with no CU-related difference for friendly laughs, though CU traits were not related to social preference. The findings provide the first evidence of young children’s ability to detect and appropriately adjust their behavioral intentions based on different communicative signals conveyed in laughter. Findings also suggest that these abilities may be relevant to young children who have difficulties with interpersonal interactions and social bonding.
{"title":"Detecting social cues conveyed by laughter and associations with callous-unemotional traits in early childhood","authors":"R.C. Plate , M. Flum , Y. Paz , E.R. Perkins , Y. Rodriguez , J. Herrington , J. Parish-Morris , R. Waller","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106395","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106395","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Beginning in infancy, laughter promotes positive social interactions. However, laughter can also convey derision. Adults distinguish friendly from derisory laughter, appropriately modulating social behavior based on their perceptions of the laugher’s intent. Given the connection between laughter perception and broader social functioning, it is important to understand how this skill develops in young children who are initiating foundational early social bonds. Moreover, children who have difficulties forming and maintaining social bonds—including those with callous-unemotional (CU) traits—may show differences in correctly identifying and responding to laughter. Here, 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old children (<em>N</em> = 150; 50% female) categorized laughter clips that varied in conveying affiliation (i.e., friendly) or dominance (i.e., mean) and reported on whether they wanted to play with the person producing the laughter. Children distinguished between laughter types, were accurate at detecting mean laughter, and showed increasing accuracy across ages 3 to 5 years. Children expressed a preference to play with friendly versus mean laughers, a distinction that sharpened from ages 3 to 5 years. Higher CU traits predicted lower accuracy for identifying mean laughs, with no CU-related difference for friendly laughs, though CU traits were not related to social preference. The findings provide the first evidence of young children’s ability to detect and appropriately adjust their behavioral intentions based on different communicative signals conveyed in laughter. Findings also suggest that these abilities may be relevant to young children who have difficulties with interpersonal interactions and social bonding.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":"262 ","pages":"Article 106395"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145313977","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-10-16DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106392
Ricardo Moura
Ordinal knowledge plays a foundational role in early mathematics, yet little is known about how different forms of ordinal representation support preschoolers’ arithmetic. The present study investigated whether two types of count-list-based ordinal representations—rote counting and number ordering—mediate the relationship between symbolic cardinal knowledge and arithmetic performance in preschool children. Sixty-four preschool children (mean age = 67.3 months) completed a battery of tasks assessing cardinality, rote counting, number ordering, and arithmetic. Mediation analyses revealed that both rote counting and number ordering fully mediated the relationship between symbolic number comparison and arithmetic performance. Importantly, analyses showed that these mediators differentially supported arithmetic depending on problem complexity: rote counting was more strongly associated with simpler addition problems, while flexible number ordering predicted performance on more complex addition problems typically solved with overt counting strategies. These findings highlight the heterogeneous nature of ordinal representations and underscore their role as early supports for arithmetic, even before elementary school. Implications for understanding early ordinal representations and its use on education practices are discussed.
{"title":"Distinct ordinal representations mediate the influence of cardinal knowledge on Preschoolers’ arithmetic performance","authors":"Ricardo Moura","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106392","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106392","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Ordinal knowledge plays a foundational role in early mathematics, yet little is known about how different forms of ordinal representation support preschoolers’ arithmetic. The present study investigated whether two types of count-list-based ordinal representations—rote counting and number ordering—mediate the relationship between symbolic cardinal knowledge and arithmetic performance in preschool children. Sixty-four preschool children (mean age = 67.3 months) completed a battery of tasks assessing cardinality, rote counting, number ordering, and arithmetic. Mediation analyses revealed that both rote counting and number ordering fully mediated the relationship between symbolic number comparison and arithmetic performance. Importantly, analyses showed that these mediators differentially supported arithmetic depending on problem complexity: rote counting was more strongly associated with simpler addition problems, while flexible number ordering predicted performance on more complex addition problems typically solved with overt counting strategies. These findings highlight the heterogeneous nature of ordinal representations and underscore their role as early supports for arithmetic, even before elementary school. Implications for understanding early ordinal representations and its use on education practices are discussed.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":"262 ","pages":"Article 106392"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145313967","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-10-15DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106393
Tânia Ramos, Carrie Georges, Christine Schiltz
Numbers and space are associated in the human brain. One of the most-studied spatial-numerical associations (SNAs) is the SNARC effect (Spatial Numerical Association of Response Codes), for which robust group-level effects are reported across adult studies. Despite well-replicated group-level effects, recent individual-level analysis in adults indicate that only a minority of individuals consistently map numbers onto space (Cipora et al., 2019). To date, SNARC studies in children remain generally scarce with inconclusive results. And none have explored the consistency of individual effects at earlier developmental stages. In the present study, we therefore tested 135 kindergarten children performing magnitude judgments to assess not only group-level SNARC effects but also the prevalence of individual consistency using the same methodology recently applied in adults (Cipora et al., 2019). Our findings reveal a significant magnitude SNARC effect at the group-level. However, similarly to adults, only 37% of the children consistently associated numbers with space in a left-to-right direction when considering CIs around observed effects. While these findings suggest that SNAs on average emerge earlier in life, they also point towards considerable heterogeneity across individuals in that respect. How this can help us understand the conflicting results in the literature regarding significant group-level SNARC effects in children, and guide future research on the potential relation between individual SNARC effects and educational measures in math will be discussed.
在人脑中，数字和空间是联系在一起的。研究最多的空间-数值关联（SNAs）之一是SNARC效应（反应代码的空间数值关联），在成人研究中报道了强大的群体水平效应。尽管群体层面的效应得到了很好的复制，但最近对成年人的个人层面分析表明，只有少数人会持续地将数字映射到空间上（Cipora et al., 2019）。到目前为止，儿童SNARC的研究仍然很少，结果也不确定。也没有人研究过早期发育阶段个体影响的一致性。因此，在本研究中，我们测试了135名幼儿园儿童进行大小判断，不仅评估群体层面的SNARC效应，还使用最近应用于成人的相同方法评估个体一致性的普遍性（Cipora et al., 2019）。我们的研究结果揭示了群体层面上显著的SNARC效应。然而，与成人相似，只有37%的儿童在考虑到观察到的影响时始终将数字与左至右方向的空间联系起来。虽然这些发现表明，sna平均出现在生命早期，但它们也指出，在这方面，个体之间存在相当大的异质性。这将如何帮助我们理解文献中关于儿童显著群体水平SNARC效应的相互矛盾的结果，并指导未来关于个体SNARC效应与数学教育措施之间潜在关系的研究。
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