Six- and Ten-Year-Olds' Attribution of Punitiveness and Nurturance to Parents and other Adults

The effects of modeling and corrective feedback on conceptual rule acquisition and retention was studied with three- and four-year-old children. Brief observation of a model was effective in creating significant acquisition and retention of conceptual rule judgments and explanations. Corrective feedback improved the child's ability to explain the conceptual rule but did not assist nonverbal performance. The facilitative influence of corrective feedback was largely confined to the four-year-old age group. In general, four-year-old children were more successful than three-year-olds in learning to provide viable reasons for conceptual judgments. The pedagogical significance of these findings are discussed.