Showing papers in "Developmental Psychology in 1985"

Children's perceptions of the personal relationships in their social networks.

Abstract: Relatively few investigators have compared and contrasted the characteristics of different kinds of relationships in children's social networks. In the present study, 199 fifthand sixth-grade children completed Network of Relationships Inventories, which assessed 10 qualities of their relationships with mothers, fathers, siblings, grandparents, friends, and teachers. Consistent with Weiss's (1974) theory, children reported seeking different provisions from different individuals. Mothers and fathers were turned to most often for affection, enhancement of worth, a sense of reliable aid, and instrumental aid. Next to parents, grandparents were turned to most often for affection and enhancement of worth, and teachers were turned to most often for instrumental aid. Friends were the greatest source of companionship, and friends and mothers received the highest ratings of intimacy. Additionally, children reported having more power in their relationships with other children than in those with adults. Conflict was perceived as occurring most often in sibling relationships. Children reported being most satisfied with their relationships with mothers, and they thought that their relationships with mothers and fathers were most important. Discussion centers around the bases for the children's differentiations of their relationships and the implications for understanding social networks.

Maternal emotional signaling: Its effect on the visual cliff behavior of 1-year-olds.

Abstract: Facial expressions of emotion are not merely responses indicative of internal states, they are also stimulus patterns that regulate the behavior of others. A series of four studies indicate that, by 12 months of age, human infants seek out and use such facial expressions to disambiguate situations. The deep side of a visual cliff was adjusted to a height that produced no clear avoidance and much referencing of the mother. If a mother posed joy or interest while her infant referenced, most infants crossed the deep side. If a mother posed fear or anger, very few infants crossed. If a mother posed sadness, an intermediate number crossed. These findings are not interpretable as a discrepancy reaction to an odd pose: in the absence of any depth whatsoever, few infants referenced the mother and those who did while the mother was posing fear hesitated but crossed nonetheless. The latter finding suggests that facial expressions regulate behavior most clearly in contexts of uncertainty.

A revised class play method of peer assessment.

Abstract: Presentation d'une technique sociometrique applicable en milieu scolaire permettant d'evaluer la relation interpair: le Revised Class Play Method

Detection of Intermodal Proprioceptive-Visual Contingency as a , Potential Basis of Self-Perception in Infancy

Abstract: Five-month-old infants can detect the invariant relationship between their own leg motion and a video display of that motion. In three experiments they discriminated between a perfectly contingent live display of their own leg motion and a noncon- tingent display of self or a peer. They showed this discrimination by preferential fixation of the noncontingent display. This effect was evident even when the infant's direct view of his or her own body was occluded, eliminating video image discrim- ination on the basis of an intramodal visual comparison between the sight of self- motion and the video display of that motion. These findings suggest that the con- tingency provided by a live display of one's body motion is perceived by detecting the invariant intermodal relationship between proprioceptive information for motion and the visual display of that motion. The detection of these relations may be fun- damental to the development of self-perception in infancy. In addition, though 3- month-olds did not show significant discrimination of the contingent and noncon- tingent displays, they did show significantly more extreme looking proportions to the two displays than did the 5-month-olds. This may reflect the infant's progression from self to social orientation. Lewis and Brooks-Gunn (1979) found that by the end of the first year of life, infants are able to discriminate a "live" video image of the self from a recorded image of the self or a peer. The authors propose that this self-rec- ognition is primarily based on the detection of contingent visual stimulation from the live video image. That is, movement of the infant's hand, for example, results in comparable movement of the hand in the video image. Furthermore, they propose that the earliest stages of self-perception are probably based on the infant's detection of some form of response

Responses of Abused and Disadvantaged Toddlers to Distress in Agemates: A Study in the Day Care Setting

Abstract: Responses to distress in agemates were examined in observations of 10 abused toddlers and 10 matched controls from families experiencing stress. Both groups of children were from disadvantaged families. The children ranged in age from 1 to 3 years and were observed in day care settings. Nonabused, disadvantaged toddlers responded to the distress of agemates with simple interest or with concern, empathy, or sadness. Their patterns of response were consistent with findings from other studies of middle-class, nonabused children. Not one abused toddler showed concern in response to the distress of an agemate. Instead, the abused toddlers often reacted to an agemate's distress with disturbing behavior patterns not seen in the control toddlers, such as with physical attacks, fear, or anger. Three of the abused toddlers alternately attacked and attempted to comfort peers found in distress. Similar aversive and angry responses to distress in others have been described by investigators working with abusing parents. This study describes reactions to the distress of agemates in 20 disadvantaged toddlers observed in a group setting. Ten had been physically abused by their parents. They were matched for age, sex, and race with 10 toddlers whose families were stressed but not physically abusive. The study is based on direct observations from the floor of day care centers attended by the children. The first question addressed was whether disadvantaged toddlers would show concern for agemates in the group care setting. Infants and toddlers from middle-class, nonabusing homes have been observed to show concern for others in distress in both the home (Dunn & Kendrick, 1979; Zahn-Waxler, Radke-Yar

Acquisition of Emotion-Descriptive Language: Receptive and Productive Vocabulary Norms for Ages 18 Months to 6 Years.

Abstract: Analyse des capacites de comprehension et de l'utilisation d'adjectifs decrivant des emotions chez des enfants âges de 18 a 71 mois, d'apres les evaluations effectuees par leurs parents sur la comprehension et l'usage de 125 adjectifs de ce type

The Child's Conception of Food: The Development of Contamination Sensitivity to "Disgusting" Substances.

Abstract: When a disgusting substance comes in contact with an acceptable food, it renders that food unacceptable to almost all adults (trace contamination). In addition, some adults reject acceptable foods associated with, but not contacted by, a disgust substance (associational contamination; e.g., rejection of a favorite soup stirred with a brand new fly swatter). Previous work with children indicates that trace contamination responses do not appear in most children until the age of 7 or older and that associational contamination is rare before age 12. However, these conclusions were based on responses to stories. In the study presented here, we measured acceptability by the child's behavior toward objects (cookie, comb, and juice) that were actually contaminated with insects or human hair. The results confirm the prior findings as to the age of onset of both types of contamination and extend the range of contaminating substances studied to include human residues (in this case, hair). The onset of contamination responses may be influenced both by the achievement of a requisite level of cognitive development (appreciation of the particulate nature of matter, etc.) and by the prior establishment of a category of "disgust."