The prediction of adjustment at age 7 from activity level at age 5

One-hundred and ninety-two children (equally split between boys and girls) were studied when they were 5 years old in two settings, school and home. The children were observed in playgroups and at home, and were rated on activity level by their parents on the Rothbart Child Behavior Questionnaire. At age 7, the children were tested in our laboratory on the Harter Test of Perceived Competence and on an achievement task, and parents filled out the Child Behavior Checklist, the Child Behavior Questionnaire, and the Conners Parent Rating Scale. Home observations of activity level were significantly related to parent ratings of activity level, but not to school observations. Activity level at age 5 was related to parents' ratings of aggression and hyperactivity and to girls' learning problems at age 7. Activity level was not related to the children's self-perceived competence, but mothers' rating of high activity level at age 5 was related to low reading comprehension at age 7.Preparation of this paper was supported in part by the Center for Research for Mothers and Children, NICHD, U.S. PHS grant HD 19739 to Beverly I. Fagot.     

Correction processes in early reaching: Reaches by infants to prismatically displaced targets

Summary A comparison was made between trajectories of reaches to visual targets by 6-months-old infants, with and without lateral prismatic displacement. In the No Prism condition, the major element of the movement veered towards the target, confirming the results of Mathew and Cook (1990). In the Prism condition, the prism did not affect hand position or movement direction at the beginning of the major element, but a lateral displacement was evident by the end of the element. This is taken as evidence that shifts in trajectory during the element were not due to visual guidance. It is suggested instead that these shifts may reflect correction based upon somatic feedback about position in relation to the visually specified goal of the movement. Evidence that the hand approached the virtual target supports the suggestion that any visual guidance was confined to the approach phase of the reach. Nevertheless, it appears that visual guidance was operating at this stage, since movement direction was displaced away from the virtual target and towards the real target.     

Grading the ‘cultural literacy’ project

The essay examines the argument advanced by E.D. Hirsch, Jr., for instituting ‘cultural literacy’ as a fundamental priority of schools. A number of confusions and equivocations in Hirsch's reasoning are identified, and the propensity of his project to indoctrinate is exposed. Among the features of Hirsch's argument shown to be troubling are his shifting construal of ‘language’, his inconsistency about the requirements of cultural literacy, and his uncritical relation to traditional images of the American past and present. The upshot is to raise the question why Hirsch's project has elicited wide support and praise.     

Adult Attachment Styles, the Desire to Have Children, and Working Models of Parenthood

ABSTRACT College students who had yet to marry and begin a family were asked about their desire to have children and their beliefs and expectations about themselves as parents (Study 1) and the characteristics of their prospective children (Study 2). Persons with more avoidant and anxious-ambivalent models of close adult relationships harbored more negative models of parent-hood and parent-child relationships. These findings indicate that working models of parenting and parent-child relationships form well before marriage and the birth of children and that these models are systematically associated with attachment styles in adult relationships. The findings also suggest ways in which insecure attachments between child and parent may be influenced by the caregiver's models of parenting and parent-child relationships.     

Referenzsemantik in der Partnermodellierung

How can we explain that an assertion on something perceived can be understood in the same manner by somebody who cannot perceive that scene? This problem bases the interest in computational linguistics in how listener modeling could possibly be harmonized with reference semantics. Mental images substituting real perception appear as a way out. The architecture of the listener model has to be adapted to the creation and use of such pictorial data structures. Furthermore, the relation between the latter and a verbal (i. e., propositional) representation must be understood. The resulting architecture of a listener model with reference semantics can be employed to solve communicational problems from three general classes in a better way, as is demonstrated by an example implementation.     

The thinking heart: Developmental dynamics in Etty Hillesum'sdiaries

This essay has three purposes. First, it proposes a method for reading texts developmentally, noting the appropriate type of text for this enterprise, the process for estimating the subject's developmental perspective, and necessary cautions when undertaking a developmental interpretation. Second, it highlights developmental dynamics which can be approximated in other contexts. Finally, it lifts up the writings of an extraordinary young Dutch woman, a victim of Auschwitz, offering her life as a model of virtues which our society would do well to imitate more than fifty years after the Holocaust.Where she also directs the Program in Christian Spirituality.     

Deceived versus nondeceived participants' perceptions of scientific and applied psychology

Research examining the possible effects of deceptive research participation on participants' perceptions of psychology has yielded equivocal results. The present study's goal was to clarify the possible effects of participation in mildly deceptive research on participants' impressions of scientific and applied psychology. Participants (N = 112) were randomly assigned to one of six experimental conditions: active groups receiving negative, positive, or no feedback, or passive groups receiving negative, positive, or no feedback. Following participation, participants completed measures of impressions of psychotherapy and psychotherapists, researchers, and instructors. The manipulation did not affect attitudes toward psychology on any of the dependent measures, although gender effects resulted on one measure. Participants in general reported very positive attitudes toward the science and practice of psychology. Recommendations are offered for future research on the effects of more extensive deceptions.     

Parents, infants, and day-care teachers: Interrelations and implications for better child care

Many young children are reared today in both family and child-care settings. The relation that exists between these two settings has important implications for child care. Bronfenbrenner's (1979) ecological model is used as a way to view the interrelations among children, families, and child-care programs. Data from a study of infants in day care provide information on the time infants spend in family and day-care contexts, how parents and caregivers view children's behavior in these two settings, and rates of otitis media (ear infections) and other illnesses for these children. Results show that infants spend about twice as many hours per day awake with parents as in day care. Regarding child behaviors, parents and caregivers seem to have similar behaviors they like and dislike, but they each see particular children quite differently with respect to these behaviors. Finally, infants in this sample were diagnosed with illnesses 60% to 70% of the time. Findings are discussed in terms of the ecological model with particular attention given to relations between parents and caregivers.     

Robust conditioned flavor preferences with a sensory preconditioning procedure

During sensory preconditioning, rats were given two distinct flavors (saccharin and coffee) in sequence with 0, 9, or 27 sec between the two flavors. A control group received the flavors unpaired. In subsequent training, the second flavor preceded sucrose by 5 min. Later, the subjects that had had 0- or 9-sec delays between the two flavors showed a significant preference for the flavor not directly reinforced, whereas those that had had a 27-sec delay showed only a marginally significant preference. Although taste aversions have been produced using these methods, this is the first demonstration of conditioned preferences for flavors not directly associated with the reinforcers. These results offer an alternative way to study flavor-flavor learning.