Pillow & Flavell (1985) argue that the phrase 'look like' increases the tendency of young children to commit intellectual realism errors. The present study followed their procedures with the Block Arrays (which includes the Hidden Block task) and, in addition, included the identity task from a previous appearance-reality study by Flavell, Flavell & Green (1983). Forty-two three- and four-year-old preschoolers were presented with a variety of block arrays (Block Arrays task) and realistic-looking fake objects (Identity task) to observe. The subjects were tested on all of the stimulus items in one task before being tested on the second one. Half the subjects received the Block Arrays task first, half received the Identity task first. After the presentation of each array or object, the subject was asked a test question about its appearance while looking at it through a viewing tube. In the Look Like Condition, the test question included the words 'look like' and in the See Condition, the verb 'see' was used instead of 'look like'. If the subjects made any errors in the first condition (Look Like), they then received the second condition (See). No difference was found in the childrens' performance in the Hidden Block task but there was a difference in their performance in the Identity task. However, this difference cannot be attributed solely to the two wordings but rather to some interaction of task type and condition. Further analysis of the Look Like Condition revealed an Age-by-Task interaction in which the threes and fours performed differently in each task. A significant main effect for each of Task and Gender was also found in the Look Like Condition. / Education, Faculty of / Educational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education (ECPS), Department of / Graduate

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The purpose of this study was to demonstrate how a child's implicit theory of intelligence and perceived competence in self-concept domains deemed important to the child could predict the locus (intrinsic or extrinsic) of that child's motivation to learn.

The present study focused upon both behavioral and cognitive aspects of sympathetic responses in preschool children. Subjects, 36 boys and girls aged 33-75 months, were seen at their regular day care center. An attempt was made to promote comforting behavior through the use of a peer model both alone and accompanied by an adult's inductive statement regarding the consequences of a sympathetic response; a six year-old girl served as the sympathetic model and as an apparently injured victim in need of comforting. In addition, age- and sex-related relationships for the measures of social cognition, affective perspective-taking and knowledge of strategies for intervening when another person's plight invites sympathetic concern, were examined. The former measure employed a commonly used task presenting children with picture stories in which a target character's facial expression is not congruent with information provided by the story situation. Such stimuli have been thought to assess the ability to assume the emotional point of view of a particular person (empathic judgment), as opposed to the egocentric projection of one's own perspective onto another (projective judgment). Capacities for recognizing and explaining situationally consistent emotions (social comprehension and explanation of affect) and explaining the incongruent facial and situational cues (awareness of discrepancy) were also evaluated. The psychometric properties of these measures were a major concern; consequently, internal consistency reliability as well as age- and sex-related differences among item means, which were presumed to reflect differences in item difficulty, were examined for each component of both measures. Finally, relationships among all measures were examined.

Research has indicated a relationship between overt marital conflict and childhood behavior problems (Porter & O'Leary, 1980). Overt marital conflict has been correlated with behavior disorders in boys, particularly conduct disorders. A similar relationship has not been found for girls, although findings have suggested that both boys and girls are equally accurate in their perceptions of parental conflict (Emery & O'Leary, 1982). Another potentially damaging but uninvestigated form of marital discord is covert conflict. ~he present study assessed whether children could discriminate between overt conflict, covert conflict, and problem solving styles of parental interaction. Age and sex differences were also assessed. Participants viewed videotapes depicting the three styles of parental interaction then responded to a questionnaire assessing the perception of parental conflict and its effects on children. Children consistently perceived greater conflict in the overt interaction than in the covert interaction, and greater conflict in both the overt and covert interactions than in the problem-solving interaction. Children also predicted that the overt and covert interactions would have similar negative effects for the child, while they viewed the child in the problem-solving interaction as being relatively unaffected. Sex differences were not obtained. This study indicates that children view covert conflict as harmful, and that they prefer a problem-solving style of interaction and perceive such a style as having less negative impact on the marital relationship and the child.

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This study investigated the relationship between visual cues in art reproductions, simple linguistic time vocabulary and children's temporal understandings. During interview sessions, 33 third-grade students attending two suburban schools were asked to place three art postcard reproductions sets in chronological order. Interviews were recorded, transcribed, and coded for analysis. Linguistic references used to represent historical time and visual cues within the art postcards which caused students to place art works in a particular time sequence were documented.