Development and validation of the Material Values Scale for children (MVS-c)

The aim of this study was to develop a scale to measure materialism among children while relying on insights from research conducted among adults. Although research among adults suggests that materialism is a second-order construct with three underlying factors (i.e., material centrality, material happiness, and material success), existing materialism scales for children include only one or two of these factors. Hence, we adapted the items of the well-established Material Values Scale (MVS) of Richins and Dawson (1992) to make them appropriate for use among children. We then administered the Material Values Scale for children (MVS-c) to 1001 8- to 11-year-olds. Structural equation modeling confirmed the presumed second-order structure of the MVS-c. Based on these findings, we created 6- and 3-item versions in addition to the full-length, 18-item MVS-c. All three versions performed well in terms of test–retest reliability and construct validity.     

Memory for verbal and nonverbal stimuli in learning disability subgroups: analysis by selective reminding

Memory for verbal and nonverbal stimuli was evaluated using selective reminding procedures in normal achieving children and four groups of disabled learners: (1) reading-spelling disabled (R-S); (2) reading-spelling-arithmetic disabled (R-S-A); (3) spelling-arithmetic disabled (S-A); and (4) arithmetic disabled (A). Each child received two analogous free-list memory tasks, one for verbal material (animal names) and the other for nonverbal material (random dot patterns). These tasks were administered using selective reminding procedures that permit separation of storage and retrieval aspects of memory by reminding children only of those words not recalled on previous trials. Results revealed that relative to controls, the A and S-A children had significantly lower storage and retrieval scores on the nonverbal task, but did not differ on the verbal task; the R-S children differed only on retrieval scores from the verbal task; and the R-S-A children on retrieval scores on the verbal task and storage and retrieval scores on the nonverbal task. Thus, results indicate that the memory performance of disabled learners varies according to (1) the type of learning problem (arithmetic vs reading), (2) the nature of the stimuli (verbal vs nonverbal), and (3) the aspect of memory being assessed (storage vs retrieval). This study provides external validation for the classification of disabled learners according to patterns of academic achievement, demonstrating a useful procedure for dealing with the intrasubject variability characteristic of disabled learners.     

Popular and rejected children's social reasoning: linking social status and social knowledge.

The relationship between children's social status/sex and their moral judgements was examined. Sixty-four second- and third-grade children (33 boys, 31 girls) who were identified as popular or rejected by peer sociometric measures were shown pictures of children engaged in moral and second-order transgressions. The children were asked to rate each event on (a) the degree of seriousness for other and self, (b) the amount of punishment for other and self, and (c) rule alterability. The children were also asked for justification of the transgressions (why they thought the transgressions were wrong). The popular and rejected children differentiated between moral and second-order transgressions based upon criterion ratings and justifications. Differences emerged between the popular and the rejected children's ratings and justifications for moral transgressions, suggesting that children's moral judgements are related to social experiences associated with peer acceptance and rejection.     

Truthful yet misleading: Elementary second-order deception in school-age children and its sociocognitive correlates

In highly competitive contexts, deceptive intentions might be transparent, so conveying only false information to the opponent can become a predictable strategy. In such situations, alternating between truths and lies (second-order lying behavior) represents a less foreseeable option. The current study investigated the development of 8- to 10-year-old children’s elementary second-order deception in relation to their attribution of ignorance (first- and second-order ignorance) and executive functions (inhibitory control, shifting ability, and verbal working memory). An adapted version of the hide-and-seek paradigm was used to assess children’s second-order lie-telling, in which children were asked to hide a coin in either of their hands. Unlike the standard paradigm, the opponent did not consistently look for the coin in the location indicated by the children, so children needed to switch between telling simple lies and truths (elementary second-order lies about the coin location) to successfully deceive the recipient. The results showed that older children were less likely to tell elementary second-order lies. However, across the sample, when children decided to lie, this ability was positively related to their second-order ignorance attribution and their verbal working memory. Moreover, we obtained preliminary evidence for the presence of a habituation effect in second-order lying, with children being more accurate and having less variability in their truthful-to-deceive responses (this being the more frequently elicited response) than when telling lies to deceive. Our findings could have implications for understanding the mechanisms underlying children’s ability to alternate between truths and lies to deceive.     

Popular and Rejected Children's Social Reasoning: Linking Social Status and Social Knowledge

The relationship between children's social status/sex and their moral judgments was examined. Sixty-four second- and third-grade children (33 boys, 31 girls) who were identified as popular or rejected by peer sociometric measures were shown pictures of children engaged in moral and second-order transgressions. The children were asked to rate each event on (a) the degree of seriousness for other and self, (b) the amount of punishment for other and self, and (c) rule alterability. The children were also asked for justification of the transgressions (why they thought the transgressions were wrong). The popular and rejected children differentiated between moral and second-order transgressions based upon criterion ratings and justifications. Differences emerged between the popular and the rejected children's ratings and justifications for moral transgressions, suggesting that children's moral judgments are related to social experiences associated with peer acceptance and rejection.     

儿童二级错误信念认知与二级情绪理解的发展

以来自两所幼儿园的133名儿童为被试,探讨了3~6岁儿童二级错误信念认知和二级情绪理解的发展分化与联系。结果发现,6岁左右是儿童的二级错误信念认知和二级情绪理解发展的关键期;4岁左右的儿童能够掌握二级未知知识,获得情绪解码能力;儿童的二级未知与二级错误信念认知之间,儿童的情绪解码与二级情绪理解之间,在发展上存在1~2年的差距;二级推理能力是儿童进行二级心理状态认知的关键。     

Structure mapping in spatial reasoning

Four experiments examined whether spatial reasoning about non-spatial concepts is based on mapping concepts to space according to similarities in relational structure. Six- and 7-year-old children without any prior graphing experience were asked to reason with graph-like diagrams. In Experiments 1 and 2, children were taught to map time and quantity to vertical and horizontal lines, and then were asked to judge the relative value of a second-order variable (rate) or a first-order variable (quantity) represented in a function line. Children’s judgments indicated that they mapped concepts to space by aligning similar relational structures: quantity judgments corresponded to line height, and rate judgments corresponded to line slope. These correspondences entail a mapping of first-order concepts to first-order spatial dimensions and second-order concepts to second-order spatial dimensions. Experiments 3 and 4 investigated the role of context in establishing relational structure. Children were taught to map age and rate (Experiment 3) or age and size (Experiment 4) to vertical and horizontal lines, and were then asked to judge the rate or the size represented by a function line. In this context, both rate and size were first-order variables, and children’s judgments corresponded to line height, also a first-order variable. The results indicate that spatial reasoning involves a structure-sensitive mapping between concepts and space.     

3~6岁儿童二级错误信念认知的发展

采用“新故事”对来自两所幼儿园的133名3~6岁儿童的二级错误信念进行了测查,探查了这一阶段儿童二级错误信念认知的发展。研究主要得出以下结论：4岁左右的儿童能够掌握二级未知知识,但是儿童对于二级错误信念的理解要晚1~2年,6岁左右是儿童二级错误信念发展的关键期。儿童对于信念问题的错误回答主要是基于一级推理,相当一部分的6岁儿童能够基于二级推理对信念问题做出合理解释。儿童对于二级错误信念认知的发展不是一个全或无的过程,而是一个逐步发展的过程。     

Learn locally, think globally. Exemplar variability supports higher-order generalization and word learning

Research suggests that variability of exemplars supports successful object categorization; however, the scope of variability's support at the level of higher-order generalization remains unexplored. Using a longitudinal study, we examined the role of exemplar variability in first- and second-order generalization in the context of nominal-category learning at an early age. Sixteen 18-month-old children were taught 12 categories. Half of the children were taught with sets of highly similar exemplars; the other half were taught with sets of dissimilar, variable exemplars. Participants' learning and generalization of trained labels and their development of more general word-learning biases were tested. All children were found to have learned labels for trained exemplars, but children trained with variable exemplars generalized to novel exemplars of these categories, developed a discriminating word-learning bias generalizing labels of novel solid objects by shape and labels of nonsolid objects by material, and accelerated in vocabulary acquisition. These findings demonstrate that object variability leads to better abstraction of individual and global category organization, which increases learning outside the laboratory.     

Relationship between Chinese children's imaginary companions and their understanding of second-order false beliefs and emotions

We investigated relationship between Chinese children's imaginary companions (ICs) and their understanding of second-order false beliefs and emotions in 180 children, aged 5–6 years old. We examined the potential differences in second-order false belief understanding and emotion understanding between children with and without ICs, children with egalitarian IC relationships and hierarchical IC relationships, as well as children with invisible friends and personified objects. The results revealed that children with ICs had better second-order false belief understanding and emotion understanding than children without ICs. Compared with children with hierarchical relationships, children with egalitarian relationships had better second-order false belief understanding. However, children with invisible friends and personified objects did not differ on their understanding of second-order false beliefs and emotions. The results suggest that compared with IC types, IC status and child-IC relationship qualities may be more relevant to children's theory of mind. It will be interesting for the future researchers to investigate the underlying mechanism of the differences between children with egalitarian IC relationships and hierarchical IC relationships.     

Memory for words and drawings in children with hemiplegic cerebral palsy

A list-learning paradigm was used to study learning and memory of verbal and figurative material in children with right versus left-sided hemiplegic cerebral palsy. Thirty-one children with right (n=18), or left (n=13) congenital hemiplegia were compared with normal controls (n=19). All children had normal intelligence (IQ>80), and were attending standard schools. The inclusion criteria for the two hemiplegic groups were; no epilepsy, no hearing or visual impairments, and a mild to moderate hemiparesis. The aim of this study was to explore material-specific (words and drawings) differences in the acquisition, recall and serial position effects in children with an early unilateral brain lesion. The left-hemisphere impaired (i.e. right hemiplegia) group showed impaired acquisition for drawings, as compared with the normal controls. There was also a material-specific difference in the serial position effect for all three groups. Learning of words followed the primacy principle, whereas the learning of drawings followed the recency principle. There were no group-differences in delayed-recall (i.e. long-term memory) for either words or drawings. The results are discussed in terms of acquisition and retention of verbal and figurative materials in relation to lesion side and size.     

Children's recall strategies in dichotic listening

Normal adults spontaneously adopt different recall strategies in reporting dichotic material presented at different rates. A channel by channel or ear order is used with the faster rate of input and a pair by pair or temporal order is used with the slower rate of input. The purpose of the present report is to study the frequency of the different orders of report in children as a function of the rate of input of dichotic stimulation. Twenty-four normal children, 9–10 years of age, were given the dichotic listening task under three rate conditions. The children used different recall strategies as a function of rate of input in the same manner as that reported for adults. In addition, the order of presentation of the different rates of input was found to influence the relative frequency of the different recall strategies. A significant positive correlation was found between intelligence and the frequency of use of only the temporal recall strategy in its appropriate (slow) rate condition.     

Testing the hierarchical structure of the Children's Depression Inventory: a multigroup analysis

Using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, the aims were (a) to obtain, describe, and compare different solutions of three, five, and six first-order factors raised in the previous literature about the Children's Depression Inventory (CDI); (b) analyze the number and nature of the second-order factors; (c) test which model best reproduces the CDI structure; and (d) test possible developmental differences between child and adolescent samples. The CDI was applied to 4,707 Spanish children and adolescents with an age range between 7 and 16 years. Results show that best models considered five or six factors, including Social Problems (Anhedonia), Negative Affect, Externalizing, School Problems, and Negative Self-Esteem (Self-Deprecation). Also, a factor of Biological Dysregulation obtained some support. Higher-order factors do not reproduce the classical distinction between internalizing and externalizing symptoms. Finally, no large developmental differences in the CDI structure were found between children and adolescents samples.     

幼儿二级错误信念认知、亲社会行为与同伴接纳的关系

探讨了113名3~6岁儿童的二级错误信念认知、亲社会行为与同伴接纳之间的关系,结果表明：在总体上,儿童的亲社会行为是其同伴接纳的最佳预测变量;二级错误信念认知和亲社会行为对儿童同伴接纳的影响存在一定的年龄效应,二级错误信念认知是年幼组儿童同伴接纳的最佳预测变量,而亲社会行为则是年长组儿童同伴接纳的最佳预测变量。     

There are Multiple Contributors to the Verbal Short-Term Memory Deficit in Children with Developmental Reading Disabilities

Prior research has put forth at least four possible contributors to the verbal short-term memory (VSTM) deficit in children with developmental reading disabilities (RD): poor phonological awareness that affects phonological coding into VSTM, a less effective phonological store, slow articulation rate, and fewer/poorer quality long-term memory (LTM) representations. This project is among the first to test the four suppositions in one study. Participants included 18 children with RD and 18 controls. VSTM was assessed using Baddeley's model of the phonological loop. Findings suggest all four suppositions are correct, depending upon the type of material utilized. Children with RD performed comparably to controls in VSTM for common words but worse for less frequent words and nonwords. Furthermore, only articulation rate predicted VSTM for common words, whereas Verbal IQ and articulation rate predicted VSTM for less frequent words, and phonological awareness and articulation rate predicted VSTM for nonwords. Overall, findings suggest that the mechanism(s) used to code and store items by their meaning is intact in RD, and the deficit in VSTM for less frequent words may be a result of fewer/poorer quality LTM representations for these words. In contrast, phonological awareness and the phonological store are impaired, affecting VSTM for items that are coded phonetically. Slow articulation rate likely affects VSTM for most material when present. When assessing reading performance, VSTM predicted decoding skill but not word identification after controlling Verbal IQ and phonological awareness. Thus, VSTM likely contributes to reading ability when words are novel and must be decoded.     

An analysis of second-order autoshaping

Three mechanisms can explain second-order conditioning: (1) The second-order conditioned stimulus (CS2) could activate a representation of the first-order conditioned stimulus (CS1), thereby provoking the conditioned response (CR); The CS2 could enter into an excitatory association with either (2) the representation governing the CR, or (3) with a representation of the reinforcer evoked by the CS1. A series of experiments using second-order autoshaping with birds was performed to examine these possibilities. Following second-order autoshaping, birds’ responding to the CS2 was found to be unaffected by extinction of the CS1, a result interpreted as showing mechanism (1) to be unimportant and implicating either one or both of the other mechanisms. The CS2 was also shown to provide the birds with specific sensory information about the reinforcer, a pattern of results uniquely predicted by mechanism (3). Implications for the understanding of second-order conditioning and for the SOP model (Wagner, 1981) of associative learning are discussed.     

Second-order motor planning difficulties in children with developmental coordination disorder

The second-order motor planning ability of children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD) has often been studied using tasks that require judgements of end-state comfort (ESC). In these studies, children may have chosen to prioritize other aspects of performance (e.g., a comfortable start-posture) over ESC while still being able to complete the goal of the task. This is a limitation that is inherent to previously used ESC paradigms. To avoid this in the present study, 52 children with and without DCD (aged 5–12 years) completed a task that requires second-order motor planning for its successful completion. In the hexagonal knob task, children were instructed to grasp and rotate a hexagonal knob. The rotation angle varied in size: 60°, 120°, 180°, and 240° rotations. Both the 180° and 240° rotation conditions required an uncomfortable starting posture for successful task completion. Results showed that children with DCD were less likely to adjust their initial grip in anticipation of the required rotation angle, resulting in more task failures compared with typically developing (TD) children. Based on this finding we conclude that children with DCD experience genuine second-order motor planning difficulties. Analysis of temporal outcomes, showed that initial reaction time increased with rotation angle, but this was less pronounced for children with DCD than for TD children. There were no between group differences in timing of subsequent events. These results suggest that the difficulties of children with DCD are related to the initial planning process, that is, before the start of the movement.     

Coordinating mathematical concepts with the demands of authority: children’s reasoning about conventional and second-order logical rules

Arithmetic algorithms include two types of rules: conventional rules that may be changed by authority, and may legitimately vary from one classroom or country to another (e.g. putting the sum below, rather than above, the numbers added) and logical rules that involve the logic of the algorithm. Changes in the logical rules produce incorrect answers. Hence these rules are not legitimately alterable by authority. Second-order logical rules depend on the particular conventions of the symbol system used (e.g. the rule for carrying in place-value addition). Given the symbol system used, these rules are not legitimately alterable by authority. However, as a result of their dependence on the symbol system, children may have difficulty distinguishing second-order logical rules from conventional rules. Ninety-eight children in grades 2 through 5 were interviewed about the correctness of answers obtained using alternatives to standard conventional and second-order logical rules, and about the legitimacy of authorities to change the rules. Half the children across this age range treated second-order logical rules as somewhat like conventions, judging that an answer resulting from an alternative to a second-order logical rule is correct if sanctioned by authority. With increasing age children increasingly limited the jurisdiction of authority over second-order logical rules.     

Developing Moral Emotion Attributions in Happy Victimizer Task: Role of Victim Information

Previous happy victimizer (HV) studies have shown that preschool and early elementary school children attribute happy emotions to the violator of moral rules. This study examines the effects of information pertaining to the victim in HV stories on children's emotion attributions. In Study 1, 55 children (aged 5–6 and 7–8 years) participated. Participants heard three types of stories: (a) victim sadness resulting from a character's wrongdoing (normal HV story); (b) victim happiness resulting from a character's wrongdoing (non‐canonical HV story); and (c) victim sadness resulting from an accident (accident story). The children were required to infer the victimizer's feelings and to justify their attributions. Children demonstrated more positive emotion attributions for non‐canonical HV stories than the normal and accident versions. In Study 2, 57 children (aged 5–6 and 7–8 years) judged two types of HV tasks (a story featuring a younger child as victim and a normal HV story). Both groups demonstrated more negative emotion attributions for the young victim stories than the normal HV stories, indicating that children's judgment varied according to contexts and different information in determining emotion attributions.     

Assessing Attachment to Parents and Peers in Middle Childhood: Psychometric Studies of the Portuguese Version of the People in My Life Questionnaire

The People in My Life questionnaire (PIML) is one of the few available self-report measures for assessing children’s representations of the relationship with attachment figures (parents and peers) in middle childhood. The current study presents validation studies of the PIML in a sample of Portuguese children aged between 8 and 12 years (N?=?314) and adolescents aged between 13 and 18 years (N?=?281). The original factor structure, composed of a second-order factor of attachment and three first-order factors (Trust, Communication, and Alienation), was confirmed for both scales (Parents Attachment and Peers Attachment) in the sample of children and replicated in the sample of adolescents using confirmatory factor analyses. The Portuguese version of the PIML showed adequate internal consistency and correlated as expected with measures of intrapersonal and interpersonal functioning (internalizing and externalizing problems, prosocial behavior, quality of life, self-compassion, and emotion regulation strategies). The PIML proved to be a psychometrically robust measure of children’s representations of their relationships with parents and peers, representing an important advance in the measurement of attachment in middle childhood.