Perspective role-taking in young children

Children between the ages of 4 and 7 years were asked to select a photograph depicting the visual perspective of a puppet which was placed at various locations around a dollhouse in a modified version of Piaget and Inhelder's three-mountain task. A shielded condition was used for half of the children. Three types of errors were examined in relation to the shield condition, age, and type of vantage point (views from the corners and from the sides). Shielding of the stimulus array reduced egocentric errors among 4-year-olds, producing a pattern of responses more typical of that observed among older children. Increasing specificity in perspective role-taking with age was indicated by changes in error patterns. Finally, the task was more difficult on trials with corner views, particularly when the child's own view included some of the cues present in the puppet's perspective.     

Adaptation to work: An analysis of employee health, withdrawal, and change

J. Rosse and H. Miller (1984, in P. Goodman, R. Atkin et al., Absenteeism: New Approaches to understanding, measuring, and managing employee absence. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass) have proposed a model of employee adaptation that hypothesizes multiple withdrawal behaviors and attempts to change working conditions as alternative forms of adaptation to a dissatisfying work environment. Negative health outcomes are also hypothesized consequences of dissatisfaction with work. In this longitudinal study of 42 new hospital employees, intention to quit, turnover, absence, attempts to change the job, and heatlh disorders were negatively correlated with job satisfaction; lateness and self-report avoidance scale were not. Use of adaptive behaviors was also found to have remedial effects for employee health. Implications for a general model of adaptation are discussed.     

Ambiguous-cue learning in preschool children: A test of the dimensional characteristics of task stimuli

Sixteen preschool children were administered a two-choice discrimination problem consisting of three stimulus compounds: the consistently rewarded stimulus, the consistently nonrewarded stimulus, and the ambiguous stimulus which was nonrewarded when paired with the positive, but rewarded when paired with the negative. When both pair of stimuli, positive-ambiguous and negative-ambiguous, were presented together the subject was required either to choose or to avoid the ambiguous stimulus depending upon the stimulus with which it was paired. In Experiment 1, when each of three stimuli (positive, negative, ambiguous) varied along one nonspatial cue dimension (color), performance was better on negative-ambiguous trials than positive-ambiguous trials. In Experiment 2, when the positive and negative stimuli varied along three nonspatial cue dimensions (colors and form) and the ambiguous stimulus varied along one of these dimensions (color), superior positive-ambiguous over negative-ambiguous performance was obtained. These findings complement those reported for other subjects and confirm Berch's (D. B. Berch, Learning and Motivation, 1974, 5, 135–148) predictions regarding use of differential numbers of cue dimensions.     

A reexamination of body build stereotypes

Using semantic differential and discriminant analysis techniques, the study sought to determine (a) the existence of body build stereotypes, (b) the extent of identification with these stereotypes, and (c) the effect of identification upon the child's self-evaluation. The subjects were 406 children in Grades four to eight from a midwestern community. All subjects were white and had predominantly middle-class backgrounds. Subjects completed the Piers-Harris Children's Self Concept Scale, semantic differential ratings of the Global self-concept, and the body build concepts of “SKINNY GIRL,” “FAT GIRL,” “SKINNY BOY,” and “FAT BOY,” and the situationally specific self-concepts of “MYSELF IN THE CLASSROOM,” “MYSELF AT LUNCH/RECESS,” and “MYSELF WHEN LOOKING IN A MIRROR,” Measures of weight and height were obtained using a standard weighing scale and wall chart. Fat child and skinny child stereotypes were found to be invariant across age and sex groups and did not appear to be gender specific. Actual fatness was found to be generally related to identification with the body build stereotypes, but not strongly so. Low self-esteem was a concomitant of identification with the fat child stereotype. The majority of children identified with the average child in all settings.     

Bobo clown aggression in childhood: Environment,not genes

We videotaped 216 twin children (average age: 7.6 years) hitting a 5-ft “Bobo clown”. Three behaviors in the Bobo clown situation showed adequate response characteristics, rater reliability, and test-retest reliability: number of hits, intensity of hits, and number of quadrants (into which the Bobo clown was hit). In terms of two “anchor” variables, height and weight, the twin correlations were representative of other studies in suggesting substantial hereditary influence. However, twin analyses of the three behavioral ratings during the Bobo clown session yielded no evidence of hereditary influence. Moreover, the results provided evidence of substantial environmental influence of the “between-family” variety. In other words, the family environment is the major source of individual differences for these measures.     

Predictions of X-linked inheritance for human characteristics

The conclusion reached by H. Thomas and W. Jamison (Developmental Review, 1981, 1, 274–283) that an observed sex-related difference in water-level task performance is due to an X-linked major gene raises the question of whether available data would be consistent with X-linkage predictions other than the one tested. Several predictions of X-linked inheritance for human characteristics are presented and discussed. It was concluded that although water-level task performance may involve a heritable component, the available data from seven independent studies reviewed by Thomas and Jamison are insufficient for determining the specific mode of genetic transmission.     

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.     

Spatial perspective taking in young children.

Four- and five-year-old children were tested in a spatial perspective task employing a production format. They were shown a photograph of an aspect of a doll house and asked to generate the view on the photograph for a puppet that served as the observer. The house was mounted on a lazy Susan and could be rotated freely by the children. Puppet line of regard (to a corner, side, or rear of the house) and photograph type (fron, corner, side, or rear) constituted within-subject factors. Puppet position, photograph type, and age affected patterns of errors and proportion of correct responses. It was concluded that perspective taking is highly task dependent as well as dependent upon developmental status.     

The time course of learned helplessness, inactivity, and nociceptive deficits in rats

Four experiments are reported which explore the nature of the effects of inescapable shock on subsequent shuttlebox escape learning. The first experiment demonstrated that shuttle escape deficits dissipate within 48 hr after treatment with inescapable shock. Experiment 2 showed that exposure to inescapable shock suppressed unlearned activity in the shuttlebox and that this activity deficit recovered within 48 hr. Experiment 2A demonstrated that this shuttlebox crossing decrement was at least partly attributable to the inescapability of the shocks. These results suggested that activity factors might partly mediate the shuttle escape learning deficit reported in Experiment 1. Experiment 3 explored the possibility that activity and shuttle escape learning deficits are subserved by the effects of inescapable shock on pain sensitivity. The results supported this notion. It was found that rats were less sensitive to painful stimulation 24 hr after inescapable shock and that this analgesic tendency also dissipated within 48 hr after pretreatment. The implications of these results were discussed.