ABSTRACT

What do children do when they do not want to obey but cannot afford to disobey? Might they, like adults, feign misunderstanding and seek out loopholes? Across four studies (N = 723; 44% female; USA; majority White; data collected 2020–2023), we find that loophole behavior emerges around ages 5 to 6 (Study 1, 3–18 years), that children think loopholes will get them into less trouble than non-compliance (Study 2, 4–10 years), predict that other children will be more likely to exploit loopholes when goals conflict (Study 3, 5–10 years), and are increasingly able to generate loopholes themselves (Study 4, 5–10 years). This work provides new insights on how children navigate the gray area between compliance and defiance and the development of loophole behavior across early and middle childhood.

ABSTRACT

Research with Western samples has uncovered the rapid development of infants' visual attention. This study evaluated spatial attention in 6- to 9-month-old infants living in rural Malawi (N = 511; nBoys$$ {n}_{\mathrm{Boys}} $$ = 255, nYao$$ {n}_{\mathrm{Yao}} $$ = 427) or suburban California, United States (N = 57, nBoys$$ {n}_{\mathrm{Boys}} $$ = 29, nWhite$$ {n}_{\mathrm{White}} $$ = 37) in 2018–2019. Using the Infant Orienting With Attention (IOWA) task, results showed that infants were faster and more accurate to fixate a target when a cue validly predicted the target location and were slower and less accurate when the cue was invalid. However, compared to US infants, Malawian infants took longer to fixate the target and were more accurate. These results both provide information about the development of spatial attention in an underrepresented population and demonstrate differences in spatial attention in infants with different lived experiences.

Child Development, Volume 96, Issue 2, Page 469-474, March/April 2025.

ABSTRACT

Joint attention (JA) has been found to correlate with many developmental outcomes. However, little is known about how naturalistic JA is established and develops during early infancy. In this study, free-flowing tabletop toy play between infants at 5 and 15 months and their mothers (N = 48 dyads; 65% white) was observed to (1) examine changes in JA, (2) investigate whether infants become better leaders or followers of JA, and (3) explore the role of intentionally mediated forms of communication. JA episodes increased in frequency and duration, and initiations of JA became more evenly distributed between members of the dyad. Older infants became better at leading as well as following their mothers' attention behaviors and more frequently directed their attention towards their partner, though this had minimal impact on the organization of episodes of JA.

ABSTRACT

The out-group homogeneity effect has been found to contribute to adults' inter-group biases. Three studies examined whether 5- and 8-year-old Arab (i.e., minority) children in Israel also manifest this effect (March 2017–January 2020). Arab children from different religious affiliations and social environments (N = 272, 54% females) were asked to choose either a homogeneous or a heterogeneous sample of group members to infer if a given property (biological or psychological) was true of a whole group: either the participant's in-group (Arabs) or out-group (Jews). Overall, differently from Jewish (i.e., majority) Israeli children, Arab children did not exhibit the out-group homogeneity effect. Nevertheless, there were indications that religious affiliation, social environment, and group identification affected children's responses.

ABSTRACT

Quality early childhood education (ECE) can improve children's learning and development in low- and middle-income countries, but little evidence exists of programs targeting marginalized girls in vulnerable rural communities. This study used a matched-pair mixed-methods community-randomized trial to evaluate a preschool program for marginalized girls (N = 466, M _age = 5-years; W₁ = 2022; W₂ = 2023) from 16 rural Hausa-ethnic communities in Nigeria. The program yielded considerably large impacts on every domain of school readiness assessed (dt = 0.89–1.52). In qualitative interviews (N = 30, data collected in 2023), parents discussed witnessing their daughters' learning and development as well as their future educational and life goals for their daughters. Results demonstrate that access to high-quality ECE in highly disadvantaged communities can dramatically improve girls' learning and potentially change parental perceptions about girl-child education.

ABSTRACT

Counterfactual emotions such as regret may aid future decision-making by encouraging people to focus on controllable features of personal past events. However, it remains unclear when children begin to preferentially focus on controllable features of such events. Across two studies, Australian 4–9-year-olds (N = 336, 168 females; data collected during 2021–2022) completed tasks that led to positive or negative personal outcomes, and then reported their emotions toward different aspects of these tasks. In both studies, younger children unexpectedly reported stronger sadness toward uncontrollable or unforeseeable aspects of negative events, and only by 8–9 years did many children report stronger sadness toward controllable or foreseeable aspects. The tendency to focus on more functional counterfactuals may therefore emerge relatively late in development.

ABSTRACT

This four-wave longitudinal study among 698 Chinese early adolescents explored (1) how personal identity coherence and confusion develop; and (2) whether parenting style and peer relationships (i.e., close friend relationships and peer preference) were related to personal identity development. Participants (M _age = 11.39 yrs., SD_age = 0.53; 53.7% girls) reported perceived parenting style, close friend relationships, and personal identity in Grade 6. Peer preference was assessed using peer nominations. Personal identity was remeasured in Grades 7, 8, and 9. The multiple-indicator latent growth curve models revealed a decreased pattern in identity coherence and a curvilinear pattern in identity confusion. Higher authoritarian parenting and friend support were associated with sharper decreases in identity coherence. Implications for improving adolescent identity development were discussed.

ABSTRACT

The late positive potential (LPP), an event-related potential reflecting affective processing, may exhibit developmental shifts in magnitude and scalp location. In the present longitudinal study, 501 youth (47.3% female; 89.4% White; 12.0% Hispanic) completed the emotion interrupt task to elicit the LPP to neutral, positive, and negative images at approximately 9, 12, 15, and 18 years old (data collected 2010–2022). Multilevel growth models indicated an initial decrease in the occipital LPP and an increase in the parietal and central LPP during late childhood, with rates of change leveling off across adolescence. Trial condition (i.e., valence) significantly impacted trajectories only when the LPP was measured over occipital sites. Results provide novel evidence of stability and change in the LPP across development.

ABSTRACT

The present study examined the justifications used by children, adolescents, and adults to justify eating animals. Children (n = 100, M ^age = 9.82, SD = 0.77, female n = 49) as compared to adolescents (n = 76, M ^age = 14.0, SD = 1.62, female n = 36) and adults (n = 113, M ^age = 44.1, SD = 14.4, female n = 54) were more ambivalent or opposed to eating animals, and they showed a distinct reasoning pattern. Children relied less on arguments about meat eating being natural or with to humane slaughter practices. These findings align with recent theoretical perspectives that reasoning may be used to counter cognitive dissonance arising from knowledge of food production systems.

ABSTRACT

In critical approaches to the study of whiteness, white ignorance refers to systematic and intentional ways of (not) knowing that function to perpetuate racism. The current critical qualitative analysis examines how white ignorance surfaces in the racial identity narratives of white adolescents (N = 69, M _age = 15.91, SD = 0.49, data collected 2017–2019). Using semi-structured interview data, we identified three manifestations of accommodation to white ignorance: constructing white as disadvantaged, framing race(ism) as unimportant and elsewhere, and the active refusal to know or imagine racial oppression. Alongside this accommodation we also observed a less common but important thread of resistance to white ignorance: seeing (and naming) systemic racism. The findings reveal how white ignorance as a macrosystemic cultural practice becomes embedded in, and strengthened through, the micro-level racial identities of white adolescents. Implications for conceptualizing and contextualizing white racial identity in developmental science are discussed.

ABSTRACT

This study used a natural experiment design to examine the impact of ethnic studies courses on students' ethnic-racial identity (ERI) development, multicultural attitudes, and civic engagement during the 2021–2022 school year in Minneapolis, MN (N = 535; 33.5% White, 29.5% Black, 21.1% Latine, 10.7% multi-racial; 44.7% female, 7.1% non-binary). Compared to students who were quasi-randomly assigned to a control class, 9th graders taking an ethnic studies class (treatment group) engaged in significantly more midpoint ERI exploration (β = 0.12), resulting in stronger endpoint ERI resolution (β = 0.48–0.57). Increased exploration mediated more favorable attitudes toward multiculturalism (indirect effect = 0.05) and more frequent civic engagement activities (indirect effect = 0.02). Results have implications for policy efforts to expand ethnic studies.

ABSTRACT

Theoretical work has suggested close associations between morphological awareness (MA) and reading skills in Chinese; however, the nature and direction of these time-ordered links are little known. This study examined the interplays of MA and reading skills using a continuous-time modeling approach to three waves of two-year longitudinal data from first- (N = 149; 69 girls) and third-grade (N = 142; 74 girls) Chinese children. Results showed that (a) increases in MA predicted subsequent increases in reading skills (i.e., word-reading accuracy, word-reading fluency, and sentence-reading comprehension) and vice versa, (b) age only moderated the predictive effect of MA on sentence-reading comprehension, and (c) the magnitude of these effects was time-sensitive. The theoretical and educational implications of these findings are discussed.

ABSTRACT

Research examining relations between language skills and social competence has yielded mixed findings. Three meta-analyses investigated links between language skills (overall, receptive, and expressive) and social competence in 2- to 12-year-old children. Data from 130 studies representing 62,120 children (M age at language assessment = 4.70 years; 52% male), predominantly from North America and Europe, and identifying as White (33%), Black (17%), Hispanic (14%), Asian (2%), Mixed (4%), Indigenous (1%), and Other/Unspecified (29%) were analyzed. Analyses indicated significant medium-sized associations between social competence and: overall language (r = 0.27), receptive language (r = 0.23), and expressive language (r = 0.20). Exploratory analyses indicated significant moderating effects of study design, publication status, social type, and geographic region. Results and implications are discussed.

Abstract

Empirical findings on the associations of positive and dysfunctional parent–child relationship (PPCR/DPCR) characteristics with child shame, adaptive guilt, and maladaptive guilt were synthesized in six meta-analyses. The 65 included samples yielded 633 effect sizes (N _total = 19,144; M _age = 15.24 years; 59.0% female; 67.7% U.S. samples, n = 12,036 with 65% White, 12.3% Hispanic and Latinx, 10.8% Black, 6.3% mixed race, 5.6% Asian American, 0.3% Native American participants). Small positive correlations were found between DPCR and shame (r = .17), DPCR and maladaptive guilt (r = .15), and PPCR and adaptive guilt (r = .14). A small negative correlation was found between PPCR and shame (r = −.12). Sample and study moderators and sources of bias are investigated and discussed.

ABSTRACT

Young children's helping can benefit both recipient and helper. This study examined how children and caregivers incorporate helper and recipient interests in evaluations of household helping. Data were collected throughout 2022. US children 4–6 years (N = 87; 47 girls, 40 boys; 71% European American, 23% Asian American, 14% Latinx, 3% Black, 2% Native American) and their caregivers were evaluated whether and why a child in hypothetical scenarios should help their parent. Children's judgments and reasoning incorporated both child helper and parent recipient interests, whereas caregivers' evaluations weighed child interests more heavily, ORs > 0.239. Caregiver judgments about obligation predicted children's judgments. Findings suggest that perceptions of whose interests are served shape judgments and decisions around young children's everyday prosocial behaviors.

ABSTRACT

Using data from the Human Connectome Project in Development (N = 1304; ages 5–21 years; 50% male; 59% White, 17% Hispanic, 13% Black, 9% Asian), multiple measures (self-report, salivary hormones) and research designs (longitudinal, cross-sectional) were used to characterize age-related changes and sex differences in pubertal development. Both sexes exhibit a sigmoid trajectory of pubertal development; females show earlier pubertal timing and increased tempo ~9–13 years, while males show greater tempo ~14–18 years. All hormones increased with age, with sex differences in testosterone and DHEA levels and in testosterone rates of change. Higher testosterone and DHEA corresponded with earlier pubertal timing in both sexes. These findings characterize typical pubertal and hormonal development and inform best practices for handling puberty data.

ABSTRACT

This response to a Commentary by Delgado-Ron, Jeyabalan, Watt, and Salway (2024) on Cimpian, Timmer, and Kim's (2023) paper discusses and clarifies some key issues in applying the new data-validity sensitivity analysis proposed by Cimpian et al. (2023). The differences in the applications of the method by Delgado-Ron et al. (2024) and Cimpian et al. (2023) present an opportunity to recognize the possibilities of this method, while also noting some challenges and limitations. This response-commentary focuses on five key areas: (1) surmising a set of likely motivations of the survey respondents, (2) selecting the screener items, (3) considering the outcomes examined, (4) reflecting on null results in a sensitivity analysis, and (5) recognizing the advantages and disadvantages of the ease of this new method.

Child Development, Volume 96, Issue 1, Page 1-6, January/February 2025.