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Specific language impairment (SLI) is a developmental language disorder that can persist into adolescence and adulthood. Research over the last decade has shown that children with SLI experience a range of socioemotional difficulties in addition to their language problems. However, there is a lack of similar research involving adolescents with SLI. This thesis provides three studies that examine aspects of socioemotional functioning in adolescents with SLI. Self-report measures were used to assess a range of socioemotional constructs at one point in development. Adolescents with SLI were compared to typically developing adolescents of the same age. It is shown that young people with SLI are at risk ofexperiencing difficulties in some areas of their socioemotional functioning. Adolescents with SLI have a tendency to feel stress in social situations, and are inhibited in, and even avoid, such interactions. There is also some evidence that adolescents with SLI have lower self-esteem compared to peers, and may be less emotionally engaged in their close relationships. Nonetheless, young people with SLI also have social successes and strengths. They are motivated to interact socially with others, and a number ofthem appear to have the skills necessary for these social interactions. Furthermore, most adolescents with SLI have the benefit of a close or best friend. The findings from the three studies have both theoretical and practical implications. This profile of socioemotional strengths and difficulties associated with SLI in adolescence begins to address the dearth of research in this area. It is concluded that language impairment is a risk for socioemotional problems, however not all young people with SLI will have difficulties and not all aspects of socioemotional functioning are affected.

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Terror management research has shown that mortality salience leads to especially positive reactions towards similar others and to especially negative reactions towards different others. The present research consists of six studies that investigate the influence of salient group norms, salient identities and in-group identification on the effects of mortality salience. In-group norms of collectivism and individualism were manipulated in Study I, whereas in-group norms of fairness and discrimination were manipulated in Study 2. Study 3 manipulated out-group norms of fairness and discrimination. The results of these studies provided evidence thai the content of salient in-group and out-group norms moderates the effects of mortality salience on bias. A mortality salience induction led to greater inter-group bias when salient norms prescribed collectivism and discrimination, as opposed to individualism and fairness respectively. Support to the view that death reminders can increase adherence to group norms was also provided. Studies 4- 6 focused on the role of salient identities and group identification on the effects of mortality salience. Study 4 primed English and student identities in a cross-categorization setting, whereas Study 5 primed English and European identities in a re-categorization in setting. In Study 6, in-group identification was measured. It was demonstrated that salient social identities moderate the effects of mortality salience on bias, whereas in-group identification does not. In Study 4, English students for whom mortality was salient displayed more bias toward Scottish students when the active identity was English as opposed to students. Study 5 showed that English that were reminded of their mortality displayed more bias toward French people when the salient identity was English than when it was Europeans. In Study 6, mortality salience led to increased inter-group bias irrespectively of participants' level of in-group identification. Discussion focuses on potential explanations, implications and future directions.

Reasoning and judgment under uncertainty are often based on a limited number of simplifying heuristics rather than formal logic or rule-based argumentation. Heuristics are low-effort mental shortcuts, which save time and effort, and usually result in accurate judgment, but they can also lead to systematic errors and biases when applied inappropriately. In the past 40 years hundreds of papers have been published on the topic of heuristics and biases in judgment and decision making. However, we still know surprisingly little about the development and the cognitive underpinnings of heuristics and biases. The main aim of my thesis is to examine these questions. Another aim is to evaluate the applicability of dual-process theories of reasoning to the development of reasoning. Dual-process theories claim that there are two types of process underlying higher order reasoning: fast, automatic, and effortless (Type 1) processes (which are usually associated with the use of reasoning heuristics), and slow, conscious and effortful (Type 2) processes (which are usually associated with rule-based reasoning). This thesis presents eight experiments which investigated the development of reasoning heuristics in three different populations: typically developing children and adolescents between the age of 5 and 16, adolescents with autism, and university students. Although heuristic reasoning is supposed to be basic, simple, and effortless, we have found evidence that responses that are usually attributed to heuristic processes are positively correlated with cognitive capacity in the case of young children (even after controlling for the effects of age). Moreover, we have found that adolescents with autism are less susceptible to a number of reasoning heuristics than typically developing children. Finally, our experiments with university students provided evidence that education in statistics increases the likelihood of the inappropriate use of a certain heuristic (the equiprobability bias). These results offer a novel insight into the development of reasoning heuristics. Additionally, they have interesting implications for dual-process theories of reasoning, and they can also inform the debates about the rationality of reasoning heuristics and biases.

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