The Baby and Toddler Behavior Questionnaires: Empirical studies and conceptual considerations

The article discusses the conceptual basis of two parental questionnaires, each measuring six dimensions of infant behavior differences and developed on large representative samples of Swedish infants, aged 3 to 10 months ( N=791 ) and 11 to 15 months ( N =357). Empirical validation data are presented and discussed as well as evidence for a constitutional basis for some dimensions. A second order variable identified in the older age group is suggested to be related to the construct of difficult temperatment. Finally, suggestions for use of the two questionnaires are put forward.     

A Puzzle about Properties

The paper argues that the assumption that there are property designators, together with two theoretically innocent claims, leads to a puzzle, whose solution requires us to reject the position that all (canonical) property designators are rigid. But if we deny that all (canonical) property designators are rigid, then the natural next step is to reject an abundant conception of properties and with it the suggestion that properties are the semantic values of predicates.     

Socio‐emotional development: From infancy to young adulthood

Results from the Uppsala Longitudinal Study (ULS), which started in 1985, are reported in two sections. The first section gives a summary of longitudinal data from infancy to middle childhood (age 9 years; n = 96) concerning predictions of social functioning aspects from the theoretical perspectives of temperament, attachment, and health psychology (social factors). The second section presents the first results emanating from a follow‐up when participants were 21 years old (n = 85). The developmental roots of social anxiety symptoms were studied from the same perspectives as above, although with a special focus on the predictive power of the temperament trait of shyness/inhibition. Results for middle childhood outcomes showed that temperament characteristics were relevant for most outcomes, whereas the contribution of attachment was most convincingly shown in relation to social competence and personality. Social factors were found to have moderating functions, but direct effects were also shown, the most interesting perhaps being positive effects of non‐parental day care. Results from the 21‐year data confirmed the expected predictive relation from shyness/inhibition to symptoms of social anxiety and further showed this relation to be specific; the relation to symptoms of depression did not survive control for social anxiety, although the opposite was true. The broad analysis of predictor associations with social anxiety, showing the relevance of other temperament factors as well as interactive effects, again attested to the need for multi‐faceted models to analyze developmental trajectories.     

What Mary Did Yesterday: Reflections on Knowledge-wh

Reductionists about knowledge- wh hold that " s knows- wh " (e.g. "John knows who stole his car") is reducible to "there is a proposition p such that s knows that p , and p answers the indirect question of the wh -clause." Anti-reductionists hold that " s knows- wh " is reducible to " s knows that p , as the true answer to the indirect question of the wh -clause." I argue that both of these positions are defective. I then offer a new analysis of knowledge- wh as a special kind of de re knowledge.     

Prevalence of problematic behaviors in four-year-olds

Prevalence rates for specific behaviors in the Problem Behavior Questionnaire (PBQ; Behar & Stringfield, 1974) and for four psychosomatically related behaviors (soiling, day and night wetting, and complaints about bodily aches) were estimated in a sample of 377 Swedish 4-year-olds described by their parents (mainly mothers). The results showed that several of the behaviors classified as outgoing conduct problems were common in this age group; boys showed more problematic behaviors than girls, as did children with older siblings. Firstborn children with younger siblings were more fearful and worried. No systematic differences between children in different types of day care were found. Maternal education had no relationship to reported child behaviors. The findings were discussed in terms of the four-year-age period as a period of transition and with regard to different family situations.