Social-cognitive development: Domain distinctions and coordinations

Recent research on social-cognitive development has identified three conceptual domains which form the basis of the child's structuring of the social world: the moral, societal, and psychological domains. Research on distinct conceptual domains has thus far focused on events and actions that are clear examples of content for the domains. The issue of domain coordinations has not been addressed. This paper examines coordinations between conceptual domains in children's social judgments through a discussion of the experiential origins of the domains and judgments about mixed, second-order, and ambiguously multifaceted events. The utility of the conceptual domain model for understanding social judgments and social development is discussed.     

The development of Addiction-Prone Personality traits in biological and adoptive families

This project investigated the predictors of Addiction-Prone Personality (APP) scores in youth and young adults from biological (N = 328, 53% female) and adoptive (N = 77, 53% female) families. The development of offspring’s APP traits was examined from three different angles: (1) patterns in biological and adoptive families, (2) offspring’s vs. parent’s perceptions of familial environment, and (3) different points in the life span. The offspring’s APP scores were found to be significantly predicted by parents’ APP scores in both biological and adoptive families. Parents’ APP scores and offspring’s gender consistently showed significant direct influences on offspring’s APP scores in biological families. The familial care factor (maternal and paternal care, family cohesion, and family adaptability) was found to be the consistent significant predictor of offspring’s APP scores in adoptive families even when offspring became older. These results are consistent in showing that the social environment plays an important role in the development of Addiction-Prone Personality traits.     

Confinement during Covid-19 outbreak modifies athletes’ self-based goals

Because achievement goals are context-specific, the study first investigated the evolution of two achievement goals of 697 regular athletes, namely self-approach goals (improving oneself) and self-avoidance goals (avoiding regression), before and during the confinement situation and the physical exercise restrictions due to the Covid-19 outbreak. Secondly, we sought to examine the potential predicting role of self-approach and self-avoidance goals on athletes’ intention to exercise during confinement, while self-avoidance goals were usually not related to this outcome in a more traditional context. Using a retrospective correlational design, the results of repeated measures ANOVA highlighted that self-approach goals scores decreased while self-avoidance goals scores increased and became the athletes’ goals with the highest score during confinement. The results of hierarchical regression analyses showed that self-approach and self-avoidance goals were both found as positive predictors of intention to exercise during confinement. This study reinforces the assumptions that (a) a specific achievement setting encourages the adoption of different achievement goals (which was identified here with regular athletes in an unusual context of confinement), (b) self-avoidance goals are not always maladaptive, and (c) shifting among multiple goals according to the requirements of the situation may be beneficial.     

Choosing an optimal motor-task difficulty is not trivial: The influence of age and expertise

An accurate estimate of one’s performance is an important prerequisite for success, and prevents people from taking excessive risks. Based on the selection-margins paradigm (Riediger et al., 2006), the current paper assessed maximum speed rope-skipping (study 1), soccer dribbling (study 2), and the fine motor task of tracing (study 3) in 5- to 37-year-olds. Participants predicted their performances for the upcoming trial. The better the predicted performance, the more points were gained in case of success. To discourage overestimations, participants received no points for unsuccessful trials. In rope skipping, older and more experienced athletes outperformed the beginners, and had fewer trials with 0 points. In soccer dribbling and tracing, older individuals again showed less overestimation, as reflected by a smaller deviation of predicted and actual performance (selection margins) and fewer 0 point trials. Athletes and coaches should be aware that younger and less-experienced athletes tend to overestimate their motor performances.     

Beyond androgyny: The emergence of sex-role transcendence as a theoretical construct

Recent trends in sex-role research are reviewed with the purpose of showing a paradigm shift in the kinds of issues and questions thought to be important for an understanding of sex-role development. Two recent advances, conceptualizations of androgyny and sex-role transcendence are described with particular emphasis on the emergence of sex-role transcendence as a new theoretical construct. It is argued that while personality, social-learning, and structural-developmental theories account for sex-role identity and androgyny, only structural-developmental theory provides an adequate conceptual framework for the construct of sex-role transcendence. Questions are raised concerning the empirical demonstration of the concept.     

The role of television in language acquisition

The conventional view among developmental psychologists is that television viewing does not contribute to a young viewer's language acquisition. That assumption is challenged. Evidence is presented that suggests that children can learn about language as they view television: (1) From age 2, children attend to television and view in an active, purposeful manner. (2) Some programs present dialogue in an attention-getting, content-redundant context. (3) Children can learn word meanings when viewing. (4) Children draw upon television as a source of verbal routines for their own play interactions.     

Why is personality tied to sleep quality? A biometric analysis of twins

Despite consistent links between personality traits and poor sleep, little is known about genetic and environmental influences that may produce them. This study examined how much genetic background and environmental experiences contributed to phenotypic linkages between personality and subjective sleep quality. Seven hundred and thirty-four twin pairs from the Minnesota Study of Twin Aging and Development rated their sleep quality and provided personality reports. Bi-variate analyses revealed that genetic factors accounted for the majority of observed associations between subjective sleep quality and traits, but also that non-shared environmental experience played a role that varied across traits. The findings strongly implicate genotype in tying subjective sleep quality to personality variation, alongside non-shared environmental influences, and suggest indicate influences unique to individual traits.