Developmental Psychology最新文献

When making decisions, we often must consider multiple alternative outcomes of events that will happen in the future, or of events that have already happened but the outcome is unknown. How do children navigate uncertainty across different points in time? Here, we tested several developmental hypotheses for children's ability to reason about possibilities in the present and in the future. In two experiments (n = 192, U.S. 3- and 4-year-olds), children were asked to prepare for two mutually exclusive possible outcomes of an event that either will occur in the future (Future condition) or had already occurred but the outcome was currently unknown (Present condition). In Experiment 1 (n = 96), children were asked to reason about the possible location of an object in an event. In Experiment 2 (n = 96), children were asked to reason about the possible identity of an object in an event. In both experiments, we replicated previous patterns of success with future possibility reasoning, and found no differences in children's ability to reason about possible outcomes in the present versus the future. Our results suggest that the ability to navigate uncertainty across different time points may emerge together in early development. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Innovation in children is typically studied by examining their capacity to independently create tools to solve problems. However, it has been argued that innovating requires more than creative problem-solving; it is essential that the future utility of a solution is recognized. Here, we examined children's capacity to recognize and construct a tool for future uses. Experiment 1 presented fifty-five 3- to 5-year-olds (28 girls) with a future-directed variation of a task in which children had to make a hook to solve a problem. When given a tool construction opportunity in anticipation of returning to the task, only 5-year-olds chose to make a hook-shaped tool more often than expected by chance. Experiment 2a assessed ninety-two 3- to 7-year-olds' (48 girls) capacity to construct a tool with both present and future utility in mind. Specifically, they needed to make a tool long enough to not only poke a ball from a short tube in the present but also poke a ball from a longer tube in the future. Older children tended to construct longer tools and were more likely to do so in this situation than in a follow-up control study (2b, N = 89, 41 girls) where the future- and present-task tubes were identical. This pattern suggests that older children had the future task in mind when making their tools. Children's propensity to construct longer tools in Experiment 2a was associated with their capacity to prepare for two alternative possibilities on a secondary task, suggesting performance reflects emerging future-oriented cognition. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Despite the recent upsurge of interest in scientific reasoning in early childhood, limited research has addressed early scientific argumentation abilities and their development. The present longitudinal study investigated the development of young children's ability to refute a false claim utilizing unconfounded disconfirming evidence. Children were tested when they were 4.0 (N = 191, 85 girls, 106 boys) and 5.5 years old (N = 179, 82 girls, 97 boys). At both time points, children learned the true cause of a light effect and were presented with a false claim about its cause. We assessed children's verbal counterarguments and the generation of physical disconfirming evidence. At 4 years, approximately half of the children demonstrated the ability to provide valid verbal causal counterarguments, which increased to 70% at 5.5 years. Remarkably, at 4 years, 90% of the children selected causally efficacious unconfounded evidence over an ambiguous alternative. Furthermore, developmental progress was observed from 4 to 5.5 years in flexibly utilizing different types of disconfirming evidence. These findings indicate that as early as 4 years old, children exhibit a genuine understanding of falsification through evidence, distinguishing confounded from unconfounded evidence when confronted with a claim they know to be false. The associations with cognitive abilities suggest that development in argumentation from 4 to 5.5 years primarily revolves around the capacity to utilize diverse evidence, related to children's ability to represent multiple higher order rules and perspectives. The potential educational implications for fostering young children's scientific reasoning and argumentation abilities are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Limited research has examined digital media use (DMU) in dual language learners (DLLs). This study examined the daily usage time, content, and language of DMU in a longitudinal sample of 120 Chinese-English DLLs (Time 1 [T1] age range = 4.33-7.33 years, Time 2 [T2] age range = 6.01-9.44 years, 42% girls) from low-income families. Children's heritage (HL) and English (EL) oral language proficiencies at T1 (collected August 2020-April 2023) were measured by language tests. At T2 (collected June 2022-December 2024), parents reported DLLs' device ownership and daily DMU time by content (entertainment videos, education, social, gaming) and primary DMU language (HL or EL). The primary aim was to examine the concurrent links between socioecological factors and DLLs' DMU. In partial support of our hypothesis, socioeconomic status was negatively associated with gaming time (β = -.35, p < .001), and parents' years in the United States (β = .03, p < .05) were positively associated with gaming time. An exploratory aim was to test the prospective relations between DLLs' HL and EL oral language proficiencies at T1 and their DMU time in HL and EL at T2. Neither DLLs' HL nor EL oral proficiencies predicted their DMU in HL or EL. Results highlighted the heterogeneity in DLLs' DMU time varying by content and language and its differential relations to family socioecological factors. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

The purpose of this study was twofold, first, to examine potential changes in young children's media use starting a year prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and 2 years following onset (between 2½ and 4½ years of child age). Second, to examine links between children's screen time and their emerging regulatory functioning as indexed by respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA). Participants (N = 269, 48% female at Wave 3) were drawn from Waves 3 to 5 of Project Media Effects on Development from Infancy to Adulthood, a longitudinal study on the impact of early media use on children's development. Parents reported children's time using media across different medium (e.g., television, tablets, book reading, smartphones). At Waves 3 and 5, children's baseline RSA was recorded in their homes. Results revealed an increase in nearly all forms of media during the first year of COVID-19 pandemic (W4) and decreases during year 2 (W5) with some but not all forms of media returning to W3 levels. A growth mixture model found two distinct classes of participants primarily across measures of socioeconomic status (SES). Higher levels of screen time pre-COVID-19 pandemic were linked to lower RSA 2 years later, regardless of SES. Protective factors were observed for children from lower SES families, including if they had higher income relative to other class members. Findings are framed in the context of displacement and polyvagal theory, suggesting that higher levels of media consumption early in life may displace opportunities that support children's emerging regulatory systems. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Children's high and increasing levels of screen time are of growing concern to parents, health professionals, and researchers. With the growing availability and use of devices such as smartphones and tablets, it is important to understand the impact of children's screen use on development. Prospective longitudinal data from 6,281 children (48.3% female) in the Growing Up in New Zealand study were used to examine relations between the extent of screen exposure in early childhood (2-4.5 years) and later language development, early educational skills, and peer social functioning at ages 4.5 and 8 years. Higher levels of screen exposure were associated with lower levels of vocabulary, communication, writing, numeracy, and letter fluency and higher levels of peer problems. These associations were reduced after controlling for confounding family social background factors but remained significant. Results indicate that more than 1.5 hr of daily direct screen time at age 2 was associated with below average language and educational ability and above average levels of peer relationship problems at age 4.5. Exposure to more than 2.5 hr of daily direct screen time was associated with higher than average peer relationship problems at age 8. Findings indicate that high levels of screen exposure during early childhood are negatively associated with children's later language, educational, and social development. Such information is critical to help inform policy guidelines, health care, and parenting practices regarding the availability and children's use of screens in early childhood. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Most previous research on social learning has focused on informants' epistemic states (e.g., knowledge, expertise), but less is known about informants' motivations for sharing information. For instance, an informant can be knowledgeable but might yield personal benefits from sharing this information. Gossip is a special kind of testimony in which the relationship between the gossiper and the target of gossip is critical when determining the trustworthiness of testimony. We investigated whether 7- and 9-year-old children from the United States (N = 96) assessed the reliability of gossipers' claims by considering conflicting intent that arose based on the gossipers' group membership and the valence of gossip. Nine-year-olds, but not 7-year-olds, were less likely to endorse negative gossip ("I heard she often lies") than positive gossip ("I heard she tells the truth") by outgroup members. Overall, these findings indicate a developmental shift in children's recognition of potential conflicting intent in testimony and their trust in testimony. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Students whose parents have less than a 4-year college degree remain underrepresented in math-intensive majors compared to students with college-educated parents. However, support from parents and teachers may help close these gaps in high school. To explore this, we examined changes in the patterns of high school students' math motivational beliefs in a nationally representative U.S. sample of 7,600 adolescents whose parents had less than a 4-year college degree (51% girls, 46% White, 28% Latine, 14% Black). Six profiles emerged at each grade level. In the ninth grade, two profiles showed average to high levels across their motivational beliefs (overall high, above average but less for me), whereas four profiles showed low endorsement of at least one motivational belief (not me, maybe not me, important but not for me, and good but lower value). Adolescents' math motivational profiles were somewhat stable, with about half of students remaining in their same profile from ninth to 11th grade. Perceived parent and teacher supports were positively related to changing into stronger motivational belief profiles, and adolescents in stronger motivational belief profiles had stronger science, technology, engineering, and math outcomes than adolescents in lower motivational belief profiles. Our findings indicate that although adolescents' math motivational beliefs were somewhat stable, many high school students' math motivational beliefs changed across high school and that perceived parent and teacher support was positively associated with the adolescents' math motivational belief profiles. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Although prior research has identified population-level trends in facial emotion recognition (FER) in middle childhood, it is unclear whether all children follow a similar developmental trajectory. To address this gap, we used a person-oriented approach to identify qualitatively distinct FER profiles based on accuracy and bias. The sample (N = 3,717, 51% girls, baseline Mage = 8.20, SD = 0.86) came from a Finnish social-emotional learning intervention study, with data collected across three waves (2013-2015). We applied latent profile analysis and random-intercept latent transition analysis to examine FER profiles and their stability across early school years. Moreover, we assessed whether parenting and children's social-emotional adjustment were associated with FER profile membership and transitions. We found five FER profiles: balanced accuracy (14%-26%), sadness bias (34%-38%), positively biased (34%-38%), anger bias (3%-4%), and low accuracy (2%-7%). While the three largest profiles showed moderate stability, children in the anger bias and low accuracy profiles were more likely to transition to other profiles. Compared with the positively biased profile, children in the anger bias profile experienced lower parental warmth and fewer peer problems and showed less prosocial behavior. These findings suggest substantial heterogeneity in children's FER development and link emotion-specific patterns to children's social functioning. Understanding that children may follow distinct developmental trajectories could help design targeted interventions to support children's social skills. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Encouraging bystanders to act as defenders is a key element of many antibullying programs. However, it is unclear how defending affects social status (popularity) in the peer group. In addition, the relational nature of popularity and defending has not been considered. This study addresses this gap with a longitudinal multiplex social network approach to examine how defending relationships and popularity nominations coevolve in a sample of 81 elementary school classes in the Netherlands (2,027 participants; Grades 2-5; M_age = 9.71; 50% girls; 82% Dutch). This method made it possible to investigate whether the effect of defending on popularity over time depends on specific characteristics of the defender-victim relationship. Receiving more popularity nominations led to an increase in defending behaviors. Moreover, defending predicted an increase in popularity over time, and this effect was independent of the baseline popularity of both the defender and the victim. Results did not differ by grade level. The findings provide a positive message for bullying prevention: Among elementary school students, defenders do not risk losing popularity but are rewarded with popularity. Bullying prevention efforts could redirect popularity-seeking motives from bullying and to defending and specifically target popular students in social network interventions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).