Minimizing Mistreatment by Female Adults: The Influence of Gender-Based Social Categories and Personality Differences on Attitudes about Child Sexual Abuse

We investigated the effects of gender-based social categories (i.e., men, women, boys, and girls) on attitudes about child sexual abuse and individual differences in the use of such categories. In four experiments, we systematically varied perpetrators’ sex and victims’ sex. In three investigations, we assessed personality variables potentially related to participants’ use of these social categories. Across these four experiments, we varied perpetrator-victim relationships (teacher-student, neighbors) and victims’ ages. In experiment one, individuals had the least negative attitude about child sexual abuse involving adult female neighbors and eighth grade male neighbors. In experiment two, we replicated this effect with fifth grade victims and demonstrated that attitudes were moderated by individual differences in intolerance of ambiguity. In experiment three, we again replicated the aforementioned effect while (a) extending this finding to teacher-student relationships with eighth grade adolescent victims and (b) demonstrating the need for cognition was a moderator. In experiment four, we again replicated (a) our perpetrator sex/victim sex interactive effect and (b) need for cognition moderation while also demonstrating that these effects were applicable to fifth grade victims. Methodological limitations as well as clinical and policy implications (e.g., attenuating the underreporting incidents of child sexual abuse) are discussed.     

Positive School Climate as a Moderator of Violence Exposure for Colombian Adolescents

In Colombia, many adolescents have experienced violence related to the decades‐long armed conflict in the country and have witnessed or been directly victimized by violence in their communities, often related to gang activity or drug trafficking. Exposure to violence, both political and community violence, has detrimental implications for adolescent development. This study used data from 1857 Colombian adolescents in an urban setting. We aim to understand the relations between exposure to violence and adolescent outcomes, both externalizing behaviors and developmental competence, and then to understand whether school climate (i.e., safety, connectedness, services) moderates these relations. Results demonstrate that armed conflict, community violence victimization, and witnessing community violence are positively associated with externalizing behaviors, but only armed conflict is negatively associated with developmental competence. School safety, connectedness, and services moderate the relation between community violence witnessing and externalizing behaviors. School services moderates the relation between community violence victimization and developmental competence. As students perceived more positive school climate, the effects of community violence exposure on outcomes were weakened. This study identifies potential levers for intervention regarding how schools can better support violence‐affected youth through enhancements to school safety, connectedness, and services.     

Assessing Preferences Among Behavioral Interventions With Japanese Parents of Children With Developmental Disabilities

As the cultural dynamic continues to become increasingly complex, it is critical to assess cultural factors that influence practice. The present study considers the treatment preferences of Japanese mothers of children with developmental disabilities. After answering demographic questions, each participant was given four scenarios and asked how they would respond by choosing one of four interventions (differential reinforcement, ignoring, reprimanding, and time-out). Overall, we found that parents preferred differential reinforcement strategies the most. Moreover, parents who reported that their children had a history of involvement with applied behavior analysis were especially likely to choose differential reinforcement. Implications for future research and practice are provided.     

Role models in career development: New directions for theory and research

Career theory proposes the importance of role models as helping to guide individual development. Furthermore, the media often depict role models as essential to career success. However, research on role models as a construct distinct from developmental relationships with mentors and behavioral models has waned. This article makes the case for reinvigorating the role model construct. A revised definition is provided, depicting role models as cognitive constructions based on an individual’s needs, wants, and ambitions. Drawing on recent advances in social comparison and self-concept theories, a dimensional approach to role models integrates current theory and research, suggesting that role models should be construed along two cognitive dimensions (positive/negative, global/specific), and two structural dimensions (close/distant, up/across-down). The article concludes by suggesting new research directions prompted by this new view of the role model construct.     

“儿童认知发展水平诊断工具”动态测验的初步编制与应用

本研究旨在将“儿童认知发展水平诊断工具” (Inventory of Piaget’s Developmental Task, IPDT)中的守恒与关系领域分测验改编成动态测验, 并应用于不同程度学业成绩儿童当中以探查其认知发展的潜在水平。在实验研究基础上结合以往动态测验的编制技术, 把动态施测过程分为“前测—干预—迁移—后测”4个阶段, 分别确定各阶段的测题并构建了6等级提示系统。在中等学业成绩儿童(n = 33)和低学业成绩儿童(n = 35)中的应用发现, 动态测验测得的能力获得变量对儿童的学业成绩具有重要的预测作用, 证实了所改编测验的有效性; 动态测验情境下中、低学业成绩儿童的潜在认知水平基本相同, 所改编的动态测验有助于发掘儿童的潜在认知发展水平。     

Bodies and codas or core syllables plus appendices? Evidence for a developmental theory of subsyllabic division preference

Two experiments examining the subsyllabic division behaviors of Chinese-speaking children learning English as a foreign language (EFL) are reported. In Experiment 1, target phonemes of monosyllabic English nonwords were varied in phonotactic context (e.g., (C)VC vs. (C)CVC), marginality (e.g., (C)CVC vs. C(C)VC), and/or position (e.g., (C)VC vs. CV(C)) in phoneme deletion and isolation tasks, with confounds such as global similarity, vowel length, and targets’ sonority controlled. The fourth graders found the initial obstruent more difficult to isolate when it constituted the onset itself, i.e., (C)VC, than when it was part of a clustered onset, i.e., (C)CVC; no such difference was observed (non)word-finally, however. The results thus failed to support a subsyllabic preference for either onsets and rimes or bodies and codas. In Experiment 2, 49 second graders were tested on two other sets of phoneme awareness tasks and similar results were obtained. Items of one task were adapted from Hulme et al. (2002), in which the English-speaking first graders found the initial phoneme of a clustered onset, i.e., (C)CVC, more difficult to delete than the cluster as a whole, i.e., (CC)VC. The opposite patterns were observed with the Chinese EFL learners in Experiment 2, who found instead the initial consonant easier to remove. Taken together, the results suggested that Chinese-speaking EFL children process an English syllable as a linear combination of an intact core syllable (i.e., CV) plus its appendices. In both experiments, moreover, only performance in segmenting core syllable, but not that of segmenting appendices from the core syllable, predicted decoding success, a pattern again opposite to that of Hulme et al. (2002). The seemingly conflicting results were nevertheless consistent with a general developmental account of intra-syllabic division preference.     

The accidental transgressor: morally-relevant theory of mind

To test young children’s false belief theory of mind in a morally relevant context, two experiments were conducted. In Experiment 1, children (N = 162) at 3.5, 5.5, and 7.5 years of age were administered three tasks: prototypic moral transgression task, false belief theory of mind task (ToM), and an “accidental transgressor” task, which measured a morally-relevant false belief theory of mind (MoToM). Children who did not pass false belief ToM were more likely to attribute negative intentions to an accidental transgressor than children who passed false belief ToM, and to use moral reasons when blaming the accidental transgressor. In Experiment 2, children (N = 46) who did not pass false belief ToM viewed it as more acceptable to punish the accidental transgressor than did participants who passed false belief ToM. Findings are discussed in light of research on the emergence of moral judgment and theory of mind.     

What is the deficit in phonological processing deficits: auditory sensitivity, masking, or category formation?

Although children with language impairments, including those associated with reading, usually demonstrate deficits in phonological processing, there is minimal agreement as to the source of those deficits. This study examined two problems hypothesized to be possible sources: either poor auditory sensitivity to speech-relevant acoustic properties, mainly formant transitions, or enhanced masking of those properties. Adults and 8-year-olds with and without phonological processing deficits (PPD) participated. Children with PPD demonstrated weaker abilities than children with typical language development (TLD) in reading, sentence recall, and phonological awareness. Dependent measures were word recognition, discrimination of spectral glides, and phonetic judgments based on spectral and temporal cues. All tasks were conducted in quiet and in noise. Children with PPD showed neither poorer auditory sensitivity nor greater masking than adults and children with TLD, but they did demonstrate an unanticipated deficit in category formation for nonspeech sounds. These results suggest that these children may have an underlying deficit in perceptually organizing sensory information to form coherent categories.     

How impulsiveness, trait anger, and extracurricular activities might affect aggression in school children

Individual differences in personality traits such as impulsivity and trait anger as well as environmental variables have an impact on aggressiveness. We tested a model incorporating the related variables of impulsiveness, trait anger, and aggression and incorporated the possible mediating influences of leisure-time activities. Regression analyses of data from 1129 pre-adolescents and 1093 adolescents (55.4% females) from a study evaluating the Spanish version of the Buss and Perry aggression questionnaire (AQ; Santisteban, Alvarado, & Recio, 2007) showed a relation between impulsiveness (Barratt Impulsiveness Scale) and aggression (AQ). Trait anger (Spielberger’s State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory), the time spent watching TV and playing video games, and the time spent doing homework (all related to impulsiveness) also are related to physical, as well as verbal aggression (with low to moderate coefficients). Multiple mediation analyses confirm that media violence exposure and homework, respectively, can have aggravating and attenuating effects on self-reported aggression. These results provide key variables for longitudinal studies which could reveal the causal nature of the results found with our cross-sectional design.     

The Development of Hyperactive–Impulsive Behaviors During the Preschool Years: The Predictive Validity of Parental Assessments

The objectives of this study were to establish the different developmental trajectories of hyperactive-impulsive behaviors on the basis of both mother and father ratings at 19, 32, 50, and 63 months, and to examine the predictive validity of these trajectories with respect to later hyperactive-impulsive behaviors, as rated by teachers in the first 2 years of school. Hyperactive-impulsive behaviors were assessed in a population-based sample of 1,112 twins (565 boys and 547 girls) at 19, 32, 50, and 63 months of age. The results revealed a differentiated and consistent view of developmental trajectories of hyperactive-impulsive behaviors derived from these repeated assessments, with 7.1% of children seen by mothers (7% for fathers) as displaying high and stable hyperactive-impulsive behaviors. According to mother ratings, children on a high-chronic trajectory were more likely than other children to display hyperactive-impulsive behaviors at 72 and 84 months according to their teachers. Repeated measures over time and father-based trajectories significantly added to the prediction teacher later ratings of hyperactive-impulsive behaviors. These results support the predictive validity of parental assessment of hyperactive-impulsive behaviors during the preschool years and their use to identify children at risk for further evaluation and possible intervention.