Working mother-infant interactions across the second year of life

Play interactions between 36 college-educated, middle-income, working mothers and their infants, who had attended nursery school since 1 month of age, were videotaped when the infants were 12, 18, and 24 months of age. The videotapes were coded for mother and infant looking at each other, vocalizing, affectionate play, and constructive play. Changes noted in the infants' play behaviors across this period included an increase in infant vocalizations and constructive play and a decrease in affectionate play. These results, together with corresponding decreases in the mothers' constructive and affectionate play behavior, suggest growing autonomy of the infants' play and encouragement of autonomy by the mothers. Stability of behaviors across this period and stability of relations between infant and mother behaviors were only moderate. Comparison of these data with data from a study by Clarke-Stewart and Hevey (1981) suggested greater frequency of interactive behavior among working mothers and their infants than among nonworking mothers and their infants.     

Going along versus going alone: when fundamental motives facilitate strategic (non)conformity

Three experiments examined how 2 fundamental social motives--self-protection and mate attraction--influenced conformity. A self-protective goal increased conformity for both men and women. In contrast, the effects of a romantic goal depended on sex, causing women to conform more to others' preferences while engendering nonconformity in men. Men motivated to attract a mate were particularly likely to nonconform when (a) nonconformity made them unique (but not merely a member of a small minority) and when (b) the topic was subjective versus objective, meaning that nonconformists could not be revealed to be incorrect. These findings fit with a functional evolutionary model of motivation and behavior, and they indicate that fundamental motives such as self-protection and mate attraction can stimulate specific forms of conformity or nonconformity for strategic self-presentation.     

Children's time of day preference: age, gender and ethnic differences

Comprehensive data for children's time of day preference were collected with school children from 8 through 16 years of age (n = 989) using the Children's Morningness-Eveningness Preferences (CMEP) scale. Strong evidence was found that children's optimal time of day preference shifts toward evening at about 13 years of age. Additionally, gender and ethnic differences in time of day preference were also examined. There was no gender difference, but there was a tendency for ethnic differences among older children. An implication of these findings is that a mismatch between older children's time of day preferences and school start time may have a negative effect on their school performance and this effect could be greater for some ethnic groups than for others.     

More accurate size contrast judgments in the Ebbinghaus Illusion by a remote culture

The Ebbinghaus (Titchener) illusion was examined in a remote culture (Himba) with no words for geometric shapes. The illusion was experienced less strongly by Himba compared with English participants, leading to more accurate size contrast judgments in the Himba. The study included two conditions of inducing stimuli. The illusion was weaker when the inducing stimuli were dissimilar (diamonds) to the target (circle) compared with when they were similar (circles). However, the illusion was weakened to the same extent in both cultures. It is argued that the more accurate size judgments of the Himba derive from their tendency to prioritize the analysis of local details in visual processing of multiple objects, and not from their impoverished naming.     

Asymmetric discounting in intertemporal choice: a query-theory account

People are impatient and discount future rewards more when they are asked to delay consumption than when they are offered the chance to accelerate consumption. The three experiments reported here provide a process-level account for this asymmetry, with implications for designing decision environments that promote less impulsivity. In Experiment 1, a thought-listing procedure showed that people decompose discount valuation into two queries. Whether one considers delayed or accelerated receipt of a gift certificate influences the order in which memory is queried to support immediate versus delayed consumption, and the order of queries affects the relative number of patient versus impatient thoughts. Relative frequency and clustering of impatient thoughts predicts discounting and mediates the discounting asymmetry. Experiment 2 implicated query order causally: When participants listed reasons for immediate versus delayed consumption in the order used spontaneously in acceleration and delay decisions, the discounting asymmetry was replicated; reversing the order in which reasons were listed eliminated the asymmetry. The results of Experiment 3, which used an implicit-memory task, support a memory-interference account of the effect of query order.     

What is in a word? No versus Yes differentially engage the lateral orbitofrontal cortex

The words "No" and "Yes" are involved in conditioning to prohibit or encourage behavior, respectively. The authors, therefore, hypothesized that these words would be attributed to endogenous valence, activating neuronal circuits involved with valence and emotional control. Functional MRI (fMRI) at 4 Tesla was used to record regional brain activity while participants were exposed to emphatic vocalizations of the words. Results showed that No and Yes were associated with opposite brain-behavior responses; while No was negatively valenced, produced slower response times, and evoked a negative signal in the right lateral orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), Yes was positively valenced, produced faster response times, and evoked a positive signal in a contiguous region of the OFC. Attribution of negative valence to No and trait anger control were associated with increased responsivity of the OFC to No. Inasmuch as sensitivity to the prohibitive command No develops during childhood through interaction with primary caregivers as the first social objects, our findings may implicate the lateral OFC in the neurobiology of emotion regulation and subsequent social development.     

The spyglass self: a model of vicarious self-perception

Self-perception theory posits that people sometimes infer their own attributes by observing their freely chosen actions. The authors hypothesized that in addition, people sometimes infer their own attributes by observing the freely chosen actions of others with whom they feel a sense of merged identity--almost as if they had observed themselves performing the acts. Before observing an actor's behavior, participants were led to feel a sense of merged identity with the actor through perspective-taking instructions (Study 1) or through feedback indicating that their brainwave patterns overlapped substantially with those of the actor (Studies 2-4). As predicted, participants incorporated attributes relevant to an actor's behavior into their own self-concepts, but only when they were led to feel a sense of merged identity with the actor and only when the actor's behavior seemed freely chosen. These changes in relevant self-perceptions led participants to change their own behaviors accordingly. Implications of these vicarious self-perception processes for conformity, perspective-taking, and the long-term development of the self-concept are discussed.     

Time of day, Intellectual Performance, and Behavioral Problems in Morning Versus Evening type Adolescents: Is there a Synchrony Effect?

We administered measures of fluid and crystallized intelligence to Morning- and Evening-type adolescents who were tested either during a morning session or an afternoon session, at times chosen to reflect the limits of the average school day schedule. For the fluid intelligence measures, there was a synchrony effect, with better performance at times that matched individuals' preferences. A composite measure of the subtests used (block design, digit span, and vocabulary) computed to a 6 point difference in IQ estimates. We also assessed the behavioral adjustment of these participants and found heightened levels of maladaptive behavior for Evening-type adolescents. Adolescents tested at their nonoptimal times of day and adolescents who are Evening-types appear to be at risk for poor academic performance and Evening-types appear to be at risk for behavioral adjustment problems.