British Journal of Developmental Psychology最新文献

Children learn about much of the world through testimony and may hear explicit belief statements (e.g., “I believe in God” or “climate change is real”) about entities whose existence is controversial. Prior research has shown that these statements, when spoken by a parent, influence children's beliefs about the reality status of the entity and their beliefs about societal consensus surrounding that reality status, in contrast to statements that only imply belief (e.g., “God lives in heaven”; Dore et al., 2019, Journal of Cognition and Development, 20, 35), suggesting that children are attuned to the nature of parental statements about reality. In the current study, we tested whether explicit versus implicit belief statements from strangers differentially affect children's beliefs. We followed procedures by Dore et al. (2019, Journal of Cognition and Development, 20, 35) but used strangers to provide testimony rather than parents. Results showed that explicit belief statements from strangers did not influence children's beliefs. This lack of an effect of explicit belief statements relative to implicit ones suggests that, despite being attuned to these statements when spoken by parents, children may not be attuned to explicit statements about reality that they hear from strangers. Although even very young children often learn words and other facts from unfamiliar speakers, these findings suggest that nuances perceived in parent speech about reality may not be picked up in the speech of strangers.

Children often prefer objects and food packaging bearing images of popular media characters. However, it is unclear what factors may influence this. This study investigated whether depictions of popular media characters on high-quality (brand new) and low-quality (dirty, broken) objects influenced 3- to 4-year-old children's (N = 84) object preferences, as well as which objects children selected to help them complete a functional task (e.g., using a bucket to transport several small items). We also investigated whether children's preferences were related to inhibitory control. We found children's preferences were influenced by images of popular characters, but not their choice of objects for functional use. Instead, children relied on object quality when selecting an object to complete a task. Inhibitory control was not related to children's object choices. These results suggest children may weigh object features differently when making decisions for different purposes.

The present study examined the differential contributions of adolescent-reported maternal and paternal attachment anxiety and avoidance on friendship security and intimacy. Participants were 776 Canadian adolescents between the ages of 13 and 19 years (M = 15.18, SD = 1.58) who provided ratings of their perceived attachment avoidance and anxiety towards their mothers and fathers and responded to measures of friendship security and intimacy. Findings showed that maternal and paternal attachment avoidance and not anxiety negatively predicted friendship security. Moreover, maternal attachment avoidance was negatively associated with friendship intimacy. Multigroup analyses showed that security was negatively predicted by maternal anxious attachment for junior high school boys and girls. Additionally, paternal avoidant attachment was negatively associated with friendship intimacy for junior high school boys and girls. These findings highlight the unique effects associated with maternal and paternal attachment on specific friendship features and underscore the importance of the role of fathers in adolescence.

Separate studies with clinical and community-based samples have identified an association between symptoms of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and inhibitory control deficits and ADHD and weak effortful control. We tested whether differences in effortful control explained the associations between ADHD symptoms and inhibitory control deficits, controlling for conduct problems. In a community sample, parents rated ADHD symptoms, conduct problems, effortful control, surgency and negative affect in 77 4-7-year-olds (47 girls), who performed an inhibitory control task. ADHD symptoms, deficient inhibitory control and low effortful control were correlated. Controlling for conduct problems, path analysis showed the ADHD symptoms – inhibitory control link was mediated statistically by effortful control. This focuses attention on cognitive-energetic factors associated with ADHD-related executive deficits.

Children encounter new words across variable and noisy contexts. This variability may affect word learning, but the literature includes discrepant findings. The current experiment investigated one source of these discrepant findings: whether contexts with familiar, nameable objects are associated with less robust label learning. Two year olds were exposed to word-object pairings on variable contexts that either included nameable objects or did not. Target selection was more robust when exposure occurred without other nameable objects. The difference was present immediately, but not after a delay. This study provides the evidence that context effects are context-bound.

Adults and adolescents form negative first impressions of ASD adults and children. We examined the first impression ratings of primary school children (6–9 years) of their ASD peers. 146 school children rated either silent videos, speech or transcribe speech from 14 actors (7 ASD, 7 TD). The ASD actors were rated more negatively than the typically developing actors on all three stimulus types. Children with ASD are likely to be judged more negatively than their peers at the very start of their formal education. Contrary to previous research, for primary school children, the content of the speech was judged as negatively as the delivery of the speech.

This study aimed to analyse the contribution of mothers' home literacy beliefs and practices and the quantity and quality of screen media exposure on Argentinean toddler's language. In addition, we considered parent–child joint engagement, as well as adult scaffolding behaviours during the use of electronic devices. A total of 465 mothers of 18–36 months old children completed an online survey including: the MacArthur Bates CDI, home literacy, screen exposure, joint engagement and scaffolding questionnaires. We observed positive effects of literacy beliefs, PC times and verbal scaffolding on language outcomes. TV exposure contributed negatively to vocabulary and, along with educational content, to sentence use. Shared reading and screen media experiences can be an opportunity for language stimulation, provided there is dialogue and joint engagement. Passive screen exposure and inadequate content may be detrimental for toddlers' language outcomes, probably by displacement of socially significant interactions.

Children's early life experiences of language and parenting are thought to have pervasive, long-term influence on their cognitive and behavioural development. However, studies are scarce that collected naturalistic observations to broadly assess children's early life experiences and test their associations with developmental outcomes in middle childhood. Here, we used digital audio-recorders to collect three full days of naturalistic observations from 107 British families with children (46 boys) aged 2–4 years, of whom 89 participated in a follow-up assessment four years later when the children were 5–8 years old. We found that children's early life experiences of language and parenting were not significantly associated with their later language ability, academic performance and behavioural outcomes. We explore differences in methodology, sample characteristics and the role of developmental periods as possible explanations for the discrepancy in findings between the current and previous studies.

The assessment of psychomotor development in young children from low- and middle-income countries is impeded due to the lack of tools specifically designed for these resource-constrained contexts. This cross-sectional study aimed at analysing the measurement properties of the Kilifi Developmental Inventory (KDI) in two-year-old children. We administered the KDI to 289 children from Côte d'Ivoire and 230 children from Ghana. The postulated internal structure with two first-order latent variables (locomotor performance and eye-hand coordination) that loaded on a second-order latent variable (psychomotor functioning) was supported. The reliability of most factors and scales was sufficient. Interrater reliability of most items was acceptable. Correlations were weak between the scale scores and age and gender, respectively. The findings are limited by the restricted age range of the sample. Overall, the KDI showed promising measurement properties for the assessment of psychomotor performance in children from sub-Saharan countries.

Promoting prosocial behaviour towards those who are dissimilar from oneself is an urgent contemporary issue. Because children spend much time in same-gender relationships, promoting other-gender prosociality could help them develop more inclusive relationships. Our goals were to better understand the development of school-age children's intergroup prosocial behavior and the extent to which elementary school-age children consider their own and the recipient's gender in prosocial behaviour. Participants included 515 3rd, 4th and 5th graders (263, 51.1% boys, M_ageinyears = 9.08, SD = 1.00) surveyed in the fall (T1) and spring (T2). We assessed children's prosociality using peer nominations. Children became more prosocial toward same-gender peers over time but prosocial behavior toward other-gender peers remained stable. We found that gender mattered: Children showed an ingroup bias in prosociality favouring members of their own-gender group. Having other-gender friendships positively predicted children's prosocial behaviour towards other-gender peers over time. Children's felt similarity to other-gender peers was not directly, but indirectly, related to more prosocial behaviour toward other-gender peers. Findings shed light on potential pathways to fostering school-age children's intergroup prosocial behaviors.