Recent research has revealed that some adults tend to anthropomorphize more than others and that such people reason differently about nonhuman entities. Specifically, individuals who tend to anthropomorphize show greater concern for nonhuman entities and are more likely to be concerned for the environment. The proposed study extended this line of work to children, examining developmental patterns in anthropomorphism and behavior toward nonhuman entities. In one task children were asked whether or not different kinds of nonhuman entities (dogs, trees, robots, dolls) were capable of a range of psychological states (e.g., thinking, feeling). In a separate task with vignettes children were asked to judge the morality of actions that led to a negative consequence for a nonhuman target. The main prediction was that children who attributed more psychological properties to nonhuman entities would be more likely to exhibit concern for nonhuman targets in the moral stories. Overall, the results failed to capture a general relation between psychological attributions and moral judgments, perhaps owing to methodological shortcomings but perhaps also because children in our sample did not appear to exhibit general tendencies to anthropomorphize as adults have in previous research. / text

While much research has explored the role of imitation in children’s learning of instrumental skills (Call et al., 2005; Carpenter et al., 2002; Gleissner et al., 2000; Lyons et al., 2007; Whiten et al., 2009), very little is known about the link between imitation and the acquisition of cultural conventional behavior. New research suggests that children rely on a variety of social and contextual cues when determining when to imitate with high or low fidelity and that these cues may reflect children’s interpretation of a task as either instrumental or conventional (Herrmann et al., 2013). Previous work examining children’s imitation has primarily used either unfamiliar, causally opaque object manipulation tasks (Herrmann et al., 2013) or complex instrumental tasks that make use of materials used in novel ways (Lyons et al., 2007; Williamson & Meltzoff, 2011), but research has yet to explore children’s imitation when presented with a causally accessible and familiar instrumental task. Drawing from an oft-observed classroom craft, the present study examined children’s reasoning about a necklace-making task when they were presented with either a conventional or an instrumental framing for the task and the cognitive consequences of this reasoning. / text

Sport fans develop strong loyalties to their favorite teams, but there has been little research conducted on when this loyalty is formed. Previous research suggests that loyalty can form at very young ages, but it is difficult to classify young children based on age due to their rapid development over short periods of time. This is why it is necessary to use cognitive development stages to classify groups of young subjects in order to accurately group their predictive actions and abilities. Very little research has been done on sport loyalty development, especially using cognitive development as a categorizing tool. It is this report’s suggestion that more research must be done on this subject to truly understand the implications of this measurement tool and its effects on the development of loyalty. / text

A significant social and personal area of the first-year of college is the freedom to engage in casual sex relationships. There is an indication that negative emotions and regret effect women longer than men (Esbaugh & Gute, 2008; Lambert, Kahn, & Apple, 2003; Littleton, Tabernik, Canales, Backstrom, 2009; Morgan & Zurbriggen, 2009; Nack, 2008). The purpose of the study is to investigate how first-year college women understand their sexual experiences. By gathering narratives directly from first-year college women regarding their sex education background and experiences, this dissertation will obtain information needed to offer the types of successful strategies and information secondary and postsecondary education can provide women to strengthen their cognitions and to enlighten their college experiences. This qualitative study investigates how women understand their sexual experiences through women's cognitive development. I conducted twelve 90-minute interviews with a diverse set of first-year college female participants using a structured interviewing technique with open-ended questions. This structure provided an opportunity for exploration of student's sexual decision-making and understanding of the experiences. My interviewing techniques mimic the strategies of grounded theory and I interpreted my data through a three phase thematic coding process guided by the theoretical framework of Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, & Tarule (1986) Women's Ways of Knowing. The findings suggest that women understand their sexual experiences through informal sex education background, public sexual identity, and private sexual identity. These identities are understood through silence and received knowledge in the women's lived experiences and ownership of knowledge. The findings also suggest a model for college women's sexual identity development and how higher education can develop successful strategies to empower women and enlighten their educational experiences to assist in their academic persistence.

Based on past research that suggests an association between perspective-taking and theory of mind, the present study investigates the relationship between these two constructs by administering three perspective-taking and three theory of mind tasks, along with one measure of inhibition and one measure of expressive language, to eighty-four 3- and 4-year olds. The goals of this study were to (1) evaluate the relative difficulties of the six perspective-taking and theory of mind tasks, (2) assess whether the theory of mind and perspective-taking tasks scale onto the same dimension, (3) examine the distinctions proposed within the construct of perspective-taking, (4) investigate the relationship between inhibition and verbal ability with theory of mind and perspective-taking, and (5) examine the relationship between perspective-taking and theory of mind. The results show that the six theory of mind and perspective-taking tasks develop along a single continuum and produce a scale of the understanding of subjectivity for preschoolers. Results also demonstrate that the ability to take someone else’s perspective without directly confronting it with one’s own perspective is the least challenging, and understanding that others’ beliefs can be false is the most challenging task. Finally, results indicate that inhibition and verbal ability account for the relationship between almost all of the perspective-taking and theory of mind tasks. / Graduate

A total of 136 children from 5 to 8 years of age were presented with standard conservation of length and liquid tasks as well as story versions of those tasks. Half of the children were read stories in which the views of two non-conservers came into conflict, and the other half were read "conflict free" stories. Although the length conflict story was found to be significantly easier than the lenght task, the nonconflict story was not. In addition, the length conflict story was significantly easier than the length nonconflict story for the younger children (5-6 year-olds). However no significant differences were found among the liquid conditions. The results suggest that, for length, children's conservation performance was benefitted by cognitive conflict rather than merely the narrative format of the story problem and that children's reasoning can be affected by mere exposure to "socio-cognitive conflict". These results lend support to the controversial claim that symmetrical incorrect conflict is sufficient for stimulating cognitive development. / Arts, Faculty of / Psychology, Department of / Graduate

Cognitive processing has a primary role in decision making. In addition, metacognition, the regulation and knowledge of cognition, affects decision making in a consistent and predictable way. Novices explain situations in a simple way. Novices are more likely to make inappropriate decisions. Research suggests that training the novice on efficient use of metacognitive strategies can improve decision outcomes. The influence of metacognitive strategies on managerial decisions has received little attention. Two questions developed to guide this research. First, how do expert and novice managers differ on metacognitive awareness? And second, how does the level of metacognitive awareness influence successful hiring decisions? Subjects for this study were thirty-one hiring managers employed by a large national corporation. And two hundred eight-five hiring professionals from an association. Data collection involved four sources: (1) A hiring ratio used to report hiring outcomes, (2) Five hiring scenarios provided a measure of managers' ability to select the most appropriate candidate; (3) A 52-item instrument designed to assess metacognitive awareness in both knowledge of cognition and regulation of cognition; and (4) demographic data relating to expertise and experience in hiring. The results identified that metacognition has three underlying structures that influence hiring decision making. Expert and novice managers differ in a consistent way on metacognitive awareness. In exploring and testing the ill-defined mental process model of hiring decision making a methodological tool was established. And the results provided important implications for human resource development professionals with respect to the relevance of metacognitive awareness on managerial development and instructional design. / Ph. D.

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The current research aimed to examine children’s understanding of cardinality by looking at their ability to use several quantitative concepts that underpin this understanding: correspondence, counting and equivalence in the context of sharing. Understanding cardinality requires children to develop knowledge about the relations between these quantitative concepts which is important for the development of mathematical reasoning. The first study aimed to investigate how flexibly children can use correspondence to build equivalent sets in different types of sharing scenarios: equal sharing, reciprocity and equity. In some situations two characters each received one object at a time, and in others one character received double units while the other character received single units. After children shared blocks between the two characters, they were asked to make a number inference about the cardinal of one set after counting a second, equivalent set. Children had more difficulty sharing in the reciprocity and equity conditions than the equal sharing condition. The majority of children were able to make number inferences in the equal sharing and reciprocity conditions where both characters received equivalent shares in the end. A second study with new groups of four and five- year-olds investigated whether children were using visual cues about the relation between double and single blocks to help build equivalent sets and make number inferences. It was predicted that the use of coins would be difficult and would increase the difference between the equal sharing and reciprocity conditions. In half of the trials children shared Canadian $2 and $1 coins and in half they shared blocks. There are no visual cues about the relation between $2 and $1 coins because they are the same size. Children were allowed to use counting or correspondence to build equivalent sets to compare their use of both strategies. Contrary to the first study, the reciprocity and equal sharing conditions were not significantly different. This may be due to the appearance of a new sharing strategy in the reciprocity condition termed “equalizing” where children first counted each set, dealt singles to make the two sets equal and then shared blocks or coins on a one-to-one basis. There was also no significant difference between the trials using coins and trials using blocks. The majority of children were able to answer the number inference questions correctly, however 25% of children made the number inference after sharing all singles but not after sharing doubles and singles, suggesting that using different units did impact their understanding of the equivalence of the two sets. A third study aimed to investigate children’s ability to coordinate cardinal and ordinal information to determine the cardinal of a single set, and their ability to coordinate counting principles with knowledge of equivalence to determine the cardinal of an equivalent set. Children in this study were asked to make a numerical inference about a set of blocks after watching a puppet correctly or incorrectly count an equivalent set of blocks. Many children were able to identify that the puppet did not count correctly, but struggled to correct the mistake. This indicates a gap in their knowledge about ordinality and cardinality in the context of a single set. The miscount also impacted their ability to make a correct number inference. Children performed significantly better on trials where the puppet counted correctly than trials where he made a counting error. This suggests that while children have good knowledge of counting principles in isolation, they are still developing an understanding of how to coordinate these principles with ordinal information and knowledge of equivalence to establish the cardinal of one set and to infer the cardinal of an equivalent set.

This thesis attempted to examine the role of various task factors on children's group and individual learning on the balance beam: task presentation, task difficulty initial knowledge and physical feedback. Initially the literature is reviewed, there then follows a series of four empirical studies. The first empirical study examined if the mixed ability groups produced more learning then similar ability groups on Wilkening and Anderson's (1982) balance beam task. The study did not find the effect but it is suggested that this was due to the unsuitability of the task to the methodology used. The second study attempted to examine the effect on two levels of task difficulty on learning in groups on Sielger's (1976, 198) balance beam. It was found with higher difficulty task items the individual conditions, where children worked on their own, revealed less learning than the group work conditions, an effect that was found with the easier items. Also it was found that the children's pre-test classifications affected whether they advanced or not; the children with higher pre-test classifications showing less advancement. The third study attempted and succeeded in replicating this result. It also examined the verbal interactions between the children within the groupwork conditions. It was found that there was little relation between the dialogue within the interaction and the outcome in the post-test. The fourth study analysed the role of feedback in learning in the Sielger's balance beam, the children either worked on their own or in groups on the balance beam. They were given feedback on either all items or just the items that they performed poorly on the pre-test. It was found that the manipulation had only a slight effect on learning, but it was found that the pattern of learning across the three phases of the experiment was different for the group work conditions and the individual conditions. These findings are discussed in relation in other models and the role of the social situation is suggested.