Stability and change in children's skill

Summary This paper explores age-related performance variability, both within trials and between sessions, in repetitive hopping. The mean, the standard deviation (SD), and the coefficient of variation (CV) of several timing and ground-reaction-force variables of hopping were analysed by repeated-measures ANOVA for age-related effects across test sessions and foot used. Forty-five subjects in five age groups (3–4 years, 4–5 years, 6–7 years, 8–9 years, or Adult) performed self-paced, one-footed hopping on three occasions within one week. As was expected, the results showed main effects for Age in all force and time variables, with the exception of CV of medio-lateral force. No significant main effects for Feet were revealed. However, significant Feet x Session interactions were found in flight-time measures, with higher flight-time SD and lower CV for the non-preferred foot in Session 1, a reversal in Session 2, and a negligible difference in Session 3. Across sessions, decreased SD and CV for both vertical and medio-lateral force and shorter flight time indicated more efficient hopping. Overall, it was concluded that SD and CV measures were more sensitive measures of children's performance across repeated sessions than were mean scores and that the order of testing the limbs is an important consideration in experimental protocols when lateralized tasks are measured.     

Stability and change in children's division strategies

Age-related changes in children's performance on simple division problems (e.g., 6/2, 72/9) were investigated by asking children in Grades 4 through 7 to solve 32 simple division problems. Differences in performance were found across grade, with younger children performing more slowly and less accurately than older children. Problem size effects were also found in that children were faster and more accurate on small problems than on large problems. Two strategies changed across age, with children in Grade 4 relying heavily on the strategy of "addition" (adding the divisor until the dividend was reached) to solve the problems and children in Grades 5 through 7 relying primarily on the strategy of "multiplication" (recasting the division problem as a multiplication problem) to solve the problems. Surprisingly, the frequency of direct retrieval (retrieving the answer directly from memory) did not increase across grade and never became the dominant strategy of choice. Reasons for why retrieval use remains infrequent and age invariant are discussed. Overall, the results suggest that division is a unique operation and that the continued study of division may have implications for further understanding of how procedural and conceptual knowledge of arithmetic develops.     

Stability and change in temperament during adolescence

This study assessed genetic and environmental contributions to temperament during adolescence within the Nonshared Environment and Adolescent Development project (NEAD; D. Reiss, J. M. Neiderhiser, E. M. Hetherington, & R. Plomin, 2000). NEAD is a national study that includes twins and other sibling types who vary in regard to genetic relatedness. Seven hundred twenty sibling pairs (aged 12.1-13.5 years) participated at Time 1, and 395 sibling pairs (aged 14.7-16.2 years) participated again at Time 2. At both Times, mothers and fathers rated their children's temperament (emotionality, activity, sociability, and shyness). At Times 1 and 2, genetic and nonshared environmental factors accounted for variance in temperament, whereas shared environmental contributions were negligible. However, at Time 1, genetic contributions were inflated, and shared environmental contributions were masked if sibling contrast effects were not taken into account. At Time 2, sibling interaction effects had little impact on estimates of genetic and environmental contributions to temperament. Last, temperament stability was primarily explained by genetic factors, whereas both genetic and nonshared environmental factors accounted for change.     

Stability and change self-integration for negative events: the role of listener responsiveness and elaboration

Self-integration, critical to identity, is the process of connecting experiences to the self and often occurs as individuals narrate events. Elaboration (Fivush & Nelson, 2006; King & Raspin, 2004; Smyth & Pennebaker, 2008) and listener responsiveness (Pasupathi & Rich, 2005) correlate with better self-integration, but these variables are seldom disentangled. In this set of studies, we examine how individuals construct connections between the self and experience for negative events. In Study 1, 90 friendship pairs discussed a negative event. Stability self-integration, change self-integration, elaboration, and listener responsiveness were assessed independently of the narrative. Elaboration and listener responsiveness contributed independently and positively to change self-integration but were unrelated to stability self-integration. Study 2 manipulated listener responsiveness and added preconversation measures of self-integration. Study 1 results were replicated, except that elaboration failed to achieve significance, and a significant interaction between initial change self-integration and listener responsiveness was found. Implications are discussed.     

Goals and plans for Big Five personality trait change in young adults

Four studies were conducted on young adults’ goals and plans to change personality traits. In Study 1, a new trait change goal assessment tool, the BF-TGI, found Neuroticism to be the most frequently cited trait for a change goal. In Study 2, data was gathered from the UK, Iran and China. Iran showed a higher prevalence of normative change goals than the UK and China. Study 3 investigated plans to change traits. Extraversion and Conscientiousness plans were more specific than for the other traits. Study 4 investigated whether goals and plans to change predict change over 12 months, and found that goals and plans to change Conscientiousness and Neuroticism predicted change in the opposite direction to the goal.     

Promoting innovation: A change study

This paper considers how employee innovation develops during the course of introducing team‐working for production‐related staff. Longitudinal analysis revealed that different predictors were active at different phases. At first, changes in idea implementation were related to changes in management support. Subsequently, changes in suggestion making were associated with changes in job control and changes in idea implementation were linked to changes in team support for innovation. Results are consistent with the developmental notion that, whilst external support is an important predictor of innovation initially, structural job changes and local regulation are more important later.     

Stability and change in religiousness during emerging adulthood

Understanding the development of religiousness is an important endeavor because religiousness has been shown to be related to positive outcomes. The current study examined mean-level, rank-order, and individual-level change in females' religiousness during emerging adulthood. Genetic and environmental influences on religiousness and its change and stability were also investigated. Analyses were completed with an epidemiological study of 2 cohorts of twins: 1 assessed at ages 14 and 18 and a 2nd at 20 and 25. Mean levels of religiousness decreased significantly with age, while rank-order stability was high. Individual-level change was also evident. Analyses also supported the hypotheses that more change would occur in the younger cohort compared with the older cohort and that more change would occur in religious service attendance than the general index of religiousness. Twin analyses suggested that the heritability of religiousness increased with age, while the shared environmental influences decreased. For the younger cohort, change was genetic in origin, while stability was environmental. In the older cohort, change was influenced by nonshared environment and stability by both genes and family environment.     

Stability and change in a perspective reversal illusion

A phenomenologieal explanation is presented for the stability and instability of the appearance of the form of objects as a consequence of changes in (1) the spatial position of the observer with respect to the object, and (2) the amount of time the object is observed from a specific spatial position. In support of the explanation, an object was constructed so that it would have multiple appearances when observed continuously from the same viewpoint. The initial appearance of this object when observed from different spatial positions and the constancy over time of these appearances were demonstrated to be in agreement with the theoretical expectations.     

Stability and specificity of meaning in life and life satisfaction over one year

Meaning in life and life satisfaction are both important variables in well-being research. Whereas an appreciable body of work suggests that life satisfaction is fairly stable over long periods of time, little research has investigated the stability of meaning in life ratings. In addition, it is unknown whether these highly correlated variables change independent of each other over time. Eighty-two participants (mean age = 19.3 years, SD 1.4; 76% female; 84% European-American) completed measures of the presence of meaning in life, the search for meaning in life, and life satisfaction an average of 13 months apart (SD = 2.3 months). Moderate stability was found for presence of meaning in life, search for meaning in life, and life satisfaction. Multiple regressions demonstrated specificity in predicting change among these measures. Support for validity and reliability of these variables is discussed.     

Stability and change in longitudinal water-level task performance.

Three longitudinal samples of children (N = 481), 8 to 16 years old, were assessed 3 times at yearly intervals on 8 water-level items. The within-child change in task performance over age is viewed as a stochastic process of the child changing or remaining in 1 of 3 latent (strategy) states: (a) bottom-parallel responders, (b) random responders, or (c) accurate responders. A random-effects binomial mixture distribution is used to model performance at each age. Change over age is gauged by a stochastic transition model. Although there was improvement in task performance over age, the more general finding is that strategy stability, not change, is most typical.     

Leadership and change commitment in the life insurance service context in Taiwan: the mediating-moderating role of job satisfaction

The effects of transformational leadership and satisfaction were studied along with their interconnected effects (mediation and moderation) on commitment to change in the life insurance industry in two samples, sales managers and salespersons. A multiple mediated-moderated regression approach showed mediation and moderation to have statistically significant main effects on change commitment. Transformational leadership and satisfaction made a more important contribution to change commitment while job satisfaction had a mediating and moderating role that could enhance the relationships between leadership and change commitment. This information is of importance in building successful change commitment associations with customers.     

A developmental cross-sectioning of women's careers and marriage attitudes and life plans

A new cultural imperative, “marriage and a career,” is probably emerging. This conclusion is based on study of a random sample of 180 women (60 each) in junior high, high school, and college. Amazing consistency appeared in this cross-sectioning of women's attitudes toward Education, Occupation, Marriage, and life Plans. The cultural imperative “to marry” was present at age 12, but by adulthood, the biological surge for early marriage had been passed and/or fulfilled, and career emerged as part of a life pattern. As young women develop they become more liberal in their attitudes and desires about work, which can now be fulfilled because of the relaxing cultural interdiction against married women working.     

Stability and change of personality across the life course: the impact of age and major life events on mean-level and rank-order stability of the Big Five

Does personality change across the entire life course, and are those changes due to intrinsic maturation or major life experiences? This longitudinal study investigated changes in the mean levels and rank order of the Big Five personality traits in a heterogeneous sample of 14,718 Germans across all of adulthood. Latent change and latent moderated regression models provided 4 main findings: First, age had a complex curvilinear influence on mean levels of personality. Second, the rank-order stability of Emotional Stability, Extraversion, Openness, and Agreeableness all followed an inverted U-shaped function, reaching a peak between the ages of 40 and 60 and decreasing afterward, whereas Conscientiousness showed a continuously increasing rank-order stability across adulthood. Third, personality predicted the occurrence of several objective major life events (selection effects) and changed in reaction to experiencing these events (socialization effects), suggesting that personality can change due to factors other than intrinsic maturation. Fourth, when events were clustered according to their valence, as is commonly done, effects of the environment on changes in personality were either overlooked or overgeneralized. In sum, our analyses show that personality changes throughout the life span, but with more pronounced changes in young and old ages, and that this change is partly attributable to social demands and experiences.