British Journal of Developmental Psychology最新文献

Previous research with adults and adolescents has established that mind wandering—characterized by a shift in attention from external tasks to internal thoughts—is associated with negative affect and reduced psychological well-being, particularly when focused on past events. This study explored the relations between low mood, worry, and the frequency and temporal orientation of mind wandering in children aged 8–12 years (N = 77). In a testing session conducted via videoconferencing software, we assessed mind wandering using intermittent thought probes during a listening activity and collected mood and worry data through self-report questionnaires and carer reports. Our findings indicate that children's minds wandered approximately 23% of the time, aligning with existing literature. We found a significant association between lower mood and increased mind wandering. Specifically, children with lower mood showed a higher propensity for mind wandering. Moreover, low mood was a significant predictor of past-oriented mind wandering, and a significant relation was observed between worry and future-oriented thought. These results highlight the need for future research using experimental designs to clarify the causal relationships between children's mood, worry, and mind wandering. A deeper understanding of these dynamics is essential for developing targeted interventions that aim to enhance emotional well-being in children.

Development of epistemic vigilance towards online information is crucial for adolescents in the context of widespread online ‘information pollution’. Children have demonstrated selective mistrust of webpages with typographical but not semantic errors. We used a selective trust task to investigate whether this pattern changes through adolescence. Participants read two pairs of sources about scientific topics, each pair containing a webpage with either semantic or typographical errors. When asked novel factual questions, which source participants drew answers from indicates the degree of selective trust in the source. As anticipated, age group significantly predicted selective trust scores, with older adolescents (N = 222, 16–20 years, M = 18 years) receiving higher scores than younger adolescents (N = 153, 11–16 years, M = 13.7 years.). While this age effect was present in both typographical and semantic conditions, it was particularly pronounced for semantic errors. Additionally, pre-exposure to an accuracy prompt was not a significant factor in selective trust scores, demonstrating some limitations in the utility of this prime for more complex selective trust decisions. We theorize that semantic errors may have more salience than typographical errors for older adolescents' selective trust decisions, whereas younger adolescents place more emphasis on a visual understanding of source credibility.

Children with high fantasy orientation (HFO) can quickly switch between reality and fantasy, facilitating their processing of fantastical information. This study examined the effects of viewing a high fantastical video (HFV) and a low fantastical video (LFV) on the executive function (EF) of 102 Chinese kindergarteners at the ages of 5 and 6 by their fantasy orientation level (HFO vs. LFO). Each child's viewing was recorded by an eye tracker. Results showed that after viewing the HFV, HFO group demonstrated a significantly shorter inhibitory control reaction time than LFO group, whereas, after watching the LFV programme, HFO group's inhibitory control was significantly less accurate than the LFO group. The average pupil size of the HFO group was significantly larger than that of the LFO group, regardless of the fantastical video type. This study is the first to assess the effects of viewing two types of fantastical videos on Chinese children's EF by their FO level. It provides direct behavioural and physiological evidence associated with the post-viewing EF changes.

This study examined whether the experience of stressors since infancy is related to executive function and social communication in late childhood via inflammation, using data from 4457 participants of the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC). It explored whether the effect of stressful life events (from 6 months to 8.5 years) on working memory, response inhibition, selective attention, attentional control, communication problems and social cognition (at ages 10–11 years) was mediated by inflammation (interleukin 6 and C-reactive protein) at age 9 years. While the study did not find evidence for mediation, it showed that, in the general child population, inflammation was related to executive function impairments, and stressful life events were related to social communication difficulties. These associations were small but robust to confounder adjustment. If causal, they suggest that reducing inflammation could improve executive functioning, the prerequisite to any purposeful and goal-directed action.

The present study examined 6 to 11-year-old British children's ability to identify and reason about the causes of a teacher's and mother's differential treatment based on a story character's class background. Children rated the fairness of such treatment and reasons about why a teacher or a mother selected a child for a coveted role. Children also completed measures of implicit class bias. Children rated differential treatment as more unfair when a working-class rather than an upper-class child received a negative decision in both vignettes. Older children rated decisions as unfair more than younger children did when a teacher was the perpetrator. Parents' educational level and implicit bias did not predict their ratings of unfairness. Older children attributed discrimination as the most likely cause of differential treatment in the teacher vignette. In contrast, younger children were as likely to attribute the cause of discrimination to being better or putting in more effort. For the teacher vignette, children were more likely to invoke discrimination than other reasons when a working-class child was not selected. The findings are discussed in relation to practical and theoretical implications.

While research on adults has highlighted the relationship between violators' leadership hierarchies and third-party judgements/punishment behaviours, the developmental origins of these relationships remain unknown. This study addresses this question by examining how children aged 5–10 years (N = 387, 48.87% females) and adults (N = 120, 50.83% females) as third parties, evaluate and impose punishments on uncooperative individuals with different statuses (i.e. leader or non-leader) within a group collaboration context. The results showed that adults evaluated and punished non-contributing leaders more severely than non-contributing non-leaders. Regardless of age, children evaluated non-contributing leaders and non-contributing non-leaders equally negatively. However, as they age, children punish non-contributing leaders more severely. Around the age of 7.95, children's degree of punishment towards non-contributing leaders surpasses that directed at non-leaders. Additionally, compared with younger children, older children and adults mentioned violators' leadership status and the associated leadership responsibilities more frequently in their justifications for punishment behaviour.

Preterm birth increases the likelihood of early language and cognitive delays, but less is known about later aspects of language development, such as narrative generation. Narrative skills involve dimensions, such as linguistic and narrative complexity, and preterm (PT) and full-term (FT) children's narrative performances may vary across these dimensions. We investigated the role of neonatal status on the total number of words produced, linguistic complexity, and narrative complexity across two presentation modes: narrative generation while seeing pictures and narrative generation after watching an animated video. Seventy-one Turkish-reared preschool-aged children (31 PT [M_age = 48.70, SD = 1.53] and 40 FT [M_age = 48.83, SD = 1.63]) participated in the study. Despite having lower expressive vocabulary skills (assessed by a standardized task) than full-term children, preterm children performed comparably in both picture and animated video-stories, except PT children tended to produce longer narratives in the picture story, possibly due to the different demand characteristics of the tasks. Overall, our findings support the possibility of interacting factors that may help PT children overcome challenges in narrative development.

Previous studies suggest that generous norms influence sharing behaviour from middle childhood onwards. However, no previous study has assessed how these norms could change prior sharing decisions and beliefs about others' sharing behaviour and whether such beliefs may be linked to behavioural change promoted by generous norms. Through a within-subject design, we evaluate 4-to-9-year-old children (N = 111) using two dictator games; one as baseline and the other after being exposed to either a generous or a selfish descriptive norm. Similar to previous studies, the generous norm increased baseline sharing decisions only in children older than 7. In this age group, decisions and beliefs were significantly associated after this norm. Lastly, only the generous norm and not the selfish norm increased expectations about others' sharing behaviour in both age groups. These results suggest that expectations about others' sharing behaviour may support the development of more cooperative sharing behaviour. At least through descriptive norms, it appears more challenging to nudge children to share less and to believe that most children would share selfishly.

Many preteens are using social media, despite most platforms having an age requirement of 13-year-old. Little is known about how these young users and their parents balance out the opportunities and potential risks of their social media use. To address this gap in our understanding we interviewed nine children (aged 9–12) together with one of their parents to address two research questions: (1) ‘What strategies are used to mediate social media use among preteens?’ (2) ‘What are parents and children's reflections of why different strategies are chosen?’ The findings identify a broader range of mediation strategies than previously discussed in the literature, challenge research suggesting that parents have a typical mediation approach and give new insight into children's role in co-constructing how the mediation strategies are used. This has implications for future policies, interventions and research into the effectiveness of different mediation approaches.

Mental health has a profound impact on how we interact with the world. How it shapes prosocial behaviour during middle childhood, a period crucial for establishing healthy relationships, remains poorly understood. Moreover, whilst child mental health and prosocial behaviour are influenced by caregiving experience more broadly, less is known about how they are shaped by parental reflective functioning (PRF), that is parents' capacity to represent their child's underlying mental states. A longitudinal design, with assessments at baseline and 1 year follow-up, was used with 233 children (111 boys; 6–13 years old; 54.9% White, 17.2% Asian, 2.58% Black, 14.2% Multiple ethnic groups, 2.58% Other, 8.58% data unavailable). Using path modelling, we examined interrelations between baseline PRF, baseline child internalizing symptoms, and follow-up child altruistic prosocial behaviour. At baseline, PRF was associated with child internalizing symptoms, whilst PRF and internalizing symptoms positively predicted altruistic behaviour 1 year later. These findings suggest that mental health and caregiving experience are key influences on altruistic behaviour in childhood.