Creative potential and conceptual tempo in preschool children

The individual stylistic variations of creative potential and conceptual tempo were investigated in preschool children (n = 61; mean age = 56.9 months). The measure used for the conceptual tempo was the Kansas Reflection Impulsivity Scale for Preschoolers (KRISP), and the Multidimensional Stimulus Fluency Measure (MSFM) was used to assess ideational fluency and creative potential Contrary to expectations, no differences between reflective and impulsive preschoolers were found on the ideational fluency measure. However, analysis of all four quadrants of the conceptual tempo dimensions derived from median splits revealed an interaction of KRISP latency and error scores, F(157) = 12.78, p < .001, with greater originality scores evidenced by the fast/accurate and slow/inaccurate groups than the slow/ accurates and fast/inaccurates. Implications of this unusual finding were discussed in terms of the manner in which children may approach convergent and divergent tasks.     

Relationships between perceptual and conceptual mediational systems in young children

Children aged 48–77 months were afforded experience in either color oddity or nominal class sorting prior to a transfer task testing the ability to apply the oddity rule (“which one doesn't belong”) to three picture arrays where solution was based on nominal class membership. The youngest children in the sample did not benefit from either perceptual rule experience or nominal sorting experience. Subsequent age groups benefited first from the nominal sorting treatment, then from both perceptual rule and nominal sorting activities, and finally the older children did not require priming in either the perceptual or nominal domain for success on the transfer task.     

多巴胺相关基因甲基化、家庭环境与创造力的关系

“遗传与环境”的争论一直是创造力研究的核心问题, 但目前对于环境以及遗传与环境交互作用对创造力影响的分子生物机制还未有研究涉及。近年来, 随着表观遗传学的兴起, 揭示影响心理行为的表观遗传机制现已成为心理学研究的热点。作为环境与基因组之间的纽带, 表观遗传学研究为揭示环境以及遗传与环境交互作用对创造力影响的分子生物机制提供了机遇。本研究以多巴胺相关基因、家庭环境以及两者对于创造力的交互作用为切入点, 对影响创造力的表观遗传机制进行考察, 并在此基础之上, 对环境以及遗传与环境交互作用对创造力影响的分子生物机制进行探索。具体研究内容包括：(1)通过对多巴胺相关基因甲基化模式与创造力关系的系统考察, 筛选出甲基化模式与创造力有关的基因; (2)对筛选出的基因, 进一步考察其甲基化模式在家庭环境及其遗传多态性与家庭环境交互作用对创造力影响中的中介作用。本研究有助于揭示创造力的表观遗传机制, 深化关于遗传与环境对创造力影响的作用机制的理解。     

Parental manipulation of child behavior in home observations

The object of this study was to investigate the extent to which parents can manipulate their children's behavior in home observations. Twelve families with four- to six-year old children were recruited for the research. The parents were instructed to make their child look "bad" or "deviant" on three days of a six-day observation and to look "good" or "nondeviant" on alternate days. Results indicated that, as predicted, the rate of child deviant behavior, parental negative responding, and parental commands were all significantly higher on bad than good days. Parental responses to questionnaires provided more detailed information on how parents felt that they influenced their children in the desired directions. These results were discussed in terms of their implications for child psychopathology and the methodology of data collection in the natural environment.     

Tap,swipe, and build: Parental spatial input during iPad® and toy play

Despite the increase in the use of interactive technological devices, little is known about the impact that play context has on the production of spatial language by parents. To investigate whether there is differential parental spatial input afforded by play contexts with their preschoolers, 34 children (20 girls, 14 boys) and their primary caregivers engaged in 30‐min 3‐dimensional (3D) spatial play using blocks and puzzles and virtual 2‐dimensional (2D) spatial play using an iPad^® in 2 separate home visits. There were no significant differences in the average amount of spatial talk and the number of spatial categories used by parents in both 3D and 2D play contexts. However, the amount of parental spatial talk decreased significantly with older preschoolers using the iPad^®. In the 3D play contexts, parents produced more words related to spatial dimensions, location and directions, and continuous amount than in the 2D play contexts. However, in the 2D play contexts, they produced more words associated with orientations and transformations as well as deictics than in the 3D play contexts. Our findings suggest that technology can be effectively introduced into play contexts to elicit enriched parental spatial input by supporting parents and caregivers with best practices.

Highlights

• The present study examines the differences in parental spatial talk when using traditional versus technology‐based learning tools with their preschoolers.
• Two 30‐min home observations of parent–child dyads playing blocks and puzzles versus spatial apps on an iPad^®. No significant differences in the amount of parental spatial talk and the number of spatial categories in both play contexts were found.
• Our findings suggest that technology can be effectively introduced into play contexts to elicit enriched parental spatial input.

     

Parental involvement in home visiting: Interpersonal predictors and correlates

Parents' commitment to and usage of early intervention are key variables in understanding discrepancies in families' susceptibility to these services. Although the important role of fathers in infant development is widely recognized, early interpersonal predictors of paternal involvement in home‐visiting programs have been understudied. This article aims to fill this gap by regressing parents' postnatal involvement on prenatal partnership satisfaction and quality of the helping relationship in a sample of 124 socially and financially disadvantaged families. Paternal program engagement was predicted by partnership satisfaction whereas the perceived quality of the helping relationship best predicted maternal program engagement, with demographical characteristics controlled. Maternal program engagement also mediated the relationship between partnership satisfaction and paternal program engagement. The results are discussed against the theoretical background.     

Parental,child-centered attributions and outcome: A meta-analytic review with conceptual and methodological implications

Eight empirical studies which bear on the relation between parents' child-centered attributions for children's problems and parental satisfaction or child adjustment were meta-analyzed. The parental attributional dimensions of stability and globality garnered the most support as correlates of parental satisfaction and/or children's adjustment; the dimensions of intent, selfish motivation, and blame received initial support and warrant further study. Important methodological and conceptual issues were identified and improvements are suggested. The need for prospective designs aimed at determining the causal relation, if any, between parental attributions and outcome, thorough assessment of attributions and the events which impinge upon them, detailed measurement of symptom and satisfaction variables, a wider array of child diagnoses, and establishment of parental diagnoses, are emphasized.     

Parental depression,parenting behaviours,and behaviour problems in young children

In the past, research has demonstrated that parental depression and parenting practices are related. More recently, there has been an increase in research examining child outcomes as they are related to maternal and paternal psychopathology. To continue with this line of research, this study examined the relationships among mothers' and fathers' symptoms of depression, characteristics of their parenting practices, and their ratings of their young children's internalizing and externalizing behaviour problems. The results of this study demonstrated that these variables are related significantly. Further, the results of this study suggested that mothers' parenting, particularly their limit setting with their young children, is an important predictor of their ratings of their young children's externalizing behaviour problems in the context of their own symptoms of depression. A different pattern of relationships may be present for fathers, as both their symptoms of depression and their parenting characteristics predicted their ratings of their young children's externalizing behaviour problems. Such findings were not supported for young children's internalizing behaviour problems. These findings suggested that interventions should have different targets for mothers and fathers. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On the development of creativity in children

There seems to be a quantitative increase in creativity scores through the years of childhood and adolescence, with some strong declines at certain developmental stations. However, earlier studies give no information about qualitative changes in creativity development. Traditional divergent thinking tests, for example, give more or less pure quantitative information about cognitive skills. The present investigation examined age trends using the recently developed Test zum schöpferischen Denken—Zeichnerisch, or in English, Test for Creative Thinking‐Drawing Production (TCT‐DP). The TCT‐DP recognizes qualitative response categories. In the present investigation, the TCT‐DP was administered to children between four and eight years of age (N = 272) from kindergarten and the first two school grades. In addition to a quantitative analysis, a special qualitative analysis of the drawings shows how and in which way different subcomponents of creativity develop. Six developmental stages of creativity, closely related to general cognitive development, were identified.     

Linguistic and nonlinguistic creativity of deaf children

Literature concerning the development of deaf children contains frequent suggestions that they have less linguistic creativity than hearing peers but are comparable to, and may even exceed, hearing peers on tests of nonverbal creativity. The studies that serve as the bases for these claims contain many contradictions, however, and many have methodological and statistical shortcomings that could seriously qualify their conclusions. The relevant research, therefore, is critically reviewed here. In general, deaf children appear to be far more creative in their language production skills than typically is assumed, and they demonstrate considerable flexibility in structured comprehension tasks. Evidence concerning nonlinguistic creativity is less clear, with contradictory findings emerging from similar studies involving the same nonverbal tests.     

Parental facilitation of children's preparatory play behavior in a stressful situation

Parental behavior has often been cited as a crucial factor in children's ability to cope with stress. However, there has been little study of ways parents help their children adjust to stressful life events. In the present study, 34 parents and children (ages 4–9) were observed preparing for a stressful life event (elective surgery). Parents were asked to prepare their children for the upcoming stress and were given stress-related hospital equipment to use with their child. Specific hypotheses were selected to study the relationships of five parent helping behaviors to children's active preparatory play with stress-relevant materials. Children's preparatory play alone and with an examiner were also observed to test for effects of children on their parents' helping behavior. As expected, parent helping behaviors were significantly related to children's active preparatory play. With the exception of highly directive behavior, however, the relationship of parent helping behavior to child play was dependent on the child's age. This study suggests the importance of further investigating parental involvement in studying the process of children's coping with stress.