Professor Harriet Tenenbaum

The COVID-19 pandemic may be considered a unique mass-trauma experience. This study examined the relations between Italian late adolescents’ emotion regulation strategies, their anxiety states, and their experience of the lockdown (in terms of discomfort related to restrictions, capacities to create new functional daily routines, and to find positive changes in one’s own life) during the first wave of this pandemic. We analysed how participants’ reports of cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression were associated with anxiety states during the 2020 Italian COVID-19 lockdown (large scale physical distancing and movement restrictions) and one month after the lockdown restrictions had been removed. We also examined how cognitive reappraisal, expressive suppression, and anxiety states were linked to late adolescents’ experience of lockdown. The participants were 497 Italian adolescents, aged from 17 to 24 years (Mage = 21.11, SD = 1.83). A longitudinal structural equation modelling showed that emotion regulation strategies and anxiety states were not associated across time. Cognitive reappraisal was positively associated with routine reorganization and positive changes. In contrast, participants’ expressive suppression was negatively related to their discomfort related to restrictions, ability to functionally reorganize their daily routine, and ability to find positive changes related to the COVID-19 emergency. Anxiety was positively linked to discomfort related to restrictions. The findings are discussed in light of the current literature related to emotion regulation and anxiety. Limitations and implications for practice are presented.

Abstract The COVID‐19 pandemic may be considered a unique mass‐trauma experience. This study examined the relations between Italian late adolescents' emotion regulation strategies, their anxiety states, and their experience of the lockdown (in terms of discomfort related to restrictions, capacities to create new functional daily routines, and to find positive changes in one's own life) during the first wave of this pandemic. We analysed how participants' reports of cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression were associated with anxiety states during the 2020 Italian COVID‐19 lockdown (large scale physical distancing and movement restrictions) and one month after the lockdown restrictions had been removed. We also examined how cognitive reappraisal, expressive suppression, and anxiety states were linked to late adolescents' experience of lockdown. The participants were 497 Italian adolescents, aged from 17 to 24 years ( M age  = 21.11, SD = 1.83). A longitudinal structural equation modelling showed that emotion regulation strategies and anxiety states were not associated across time. Cognitive reappraisal was positively associated with routine reorganization and positive changes. In contrast, participants' expressive suppression was negatively related to their discomfort related to restrictions, ability to functionally reorganise their daily routine, and ability to find positive changes related to the COVID‐19 emergency. Anxiety was positively linked to discomfort related to restrictions. The findings are discussed in light of the current literature related to emotion regulation and anxiety. Limitations and implications for practice are presented.

The promotion of citizen’s democratic and intercultural competence is one of the main actions that European societies may take against some of the most significant challenges they are facing nowadays. The paper is aimed at briefly describing the Council of Europe’s Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture, some actions that can be taken to promote democratic and intercultural competences and a case of implementation of this framework in the context of primary school, that is the Erasmus+ Project “Children’s Voices for a new Human Space” (CVS). The paper also aims at illustrating the intellectual outputs produced by CVS project consisting in a training course for teachers, a curriculum for children, an app assisting trainers and teachers during the implementation of the training and the curriculum, and a scientific study aimed at investigating the efficacy of the educational processes in which teachers and children have been involved. Keywords: Democratic Competence; Intercultural Competence; Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture; Teacher Training; Curriculum Journal of Clinical & Developmental Psychology, Online First Articles

The rise of feminist and LGBTQIA+ movements paved the way for many equality reforms. These include language reforms, which facilitate inclusion of multiple groups in society. For example, the shift from the generic "he" to "he or she" and "they" allows for the inclusion of women, transgender, and non-binary individuals in many narratives. For this reason, many institutions worldwide encourage neutral language. It remains unclear how individuals interpret neutral language. One case of neutral language is the pronoun "they," which has been assigned multiple definitions from the 1970s to 2022. We examine how the pronoun "they" has been interpreted, used, and accepted over time. We discuss trends in the findings and make suggestions for future research directions, including the need for better methods to investigate pronouns and clarification on what the focus of neutral language should be. This timely commentary has implications for action on equality, diversity, and inclusion.

Objective. Evaluate and compare the efficacy of pharmacological and psychosocial interventions on work-relevant outcomes, such as time management and productivity, for adults with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Method. A meta-analysis that searched 12 databases. Included studies had a control group and an outcome measure related to workplace functioning or addressing time management/organisation. Studies included intervention groups with 52% men and a mean age of 33.2 years. We evaluated studies using the random effects model and summarised standardised mean difference. We assessed sensitivity, publication bias, and risk of bias. Results. We evaluated the efficacy of 23 studies, including 3,835 participants. Overall, pharmacological (d = .19) and psychosocial (d = .56) interventions were more efficacious at improving work-relevant outcomes than control. Treatment with Methylphenidate was the only robust effect comparing the pharmacological interventions. For psychosocial interventions, cognitive behavioural therapy showed the most robust effect. There was evidence of heterogeneity, hence findings need to be interpreted with caution. Conclusions. Findings suggest that combining pharmacological and psychosocial interventions may be useful for improving work related outcomes. However, we contend that these need to be designed with transferability to the workplace in mind. For example, improving organization skills in workplace settings.

Background: Parental support plays an important role in children’s schoolwork motivation and may have been especially important during the first UK COVID-19 pandemic lockdown because all schoolwork was completed at home. When examining the effect of parental support on children’s schoolwork motivation, research has typically focused on comparing families with each other (i.e., difference between families). However, the effect unfolds as a transactional, bidirectional process between parents and children over time (i.e., a within family process). Failing to account for this complexity can result in imprecise conclusions about the association between parental support and children’s schoolwork motivation. Objectives: We examined bidirectional effects between perceived parental schoolwork support and children’s schoolwork motivation at both the between-family and within-family level. Methods: This study reports findings from a weekly-diary study conducted during the first UK Covid-19 school lockdown. Cross-lagged within and between multilevel modelling was used to analyse data from UK secondary school students (N = 98) in School Years 7 to 9. Results: Between-family results show that there is no evidence of association between motivation and parental support. Within-family results indicate that higher motivation (assessed as higher expectations of success) predicted more support from parents. However, in contrast with predictions, weekly levels of parental support did not predict children’s weekly fluctuations in motivation. Conclusions: Within-family results were not consistent with between-family results. This study is novel in showing that child-driven effects appear to be important in eliciting parental support within families over time

This study focuses on Saudi mothers’ and their children’s judgments and reasoning about exclusion based on religion. Sixty Saudi children and their mothers residing in Saudi Arabia and 58 Saudi children and their mothers residing in the United Kingdom were interviewed. They were read vignettes depicting episodes of exclusion based on the targets’ religion ordered by peers or a father. Participants were asked to judge the acceptability of exclusion and justify their judgments. Both groups rated the religious-based exclusion of children from peer interactions as unacceptable. Saudi children and mothers residing in the UK were less accepting of exclusion than were children and mothers residing in Saudi Arabia. In addition, children and mothers residing in the UK were more likely to evaluate exclusion as a moral issue and less likely as a social conventional issue than were children and mothers residing in Saudi Arabia. Mothers in the UK were also less likely to invoke psychological reasons than were mothers in Saudi Arabia. Children’s judgments about exclusion were predicted by mothers’ judgments about exclusion. In addition, the number of times children used moral or social conventional reasons across the vignettes was positively correlated with mothers’ use of these categories. The findings, which support the Social Reasoning Development model, are discussed in relation to how mothers and immersion in socio-cultural contexts are related to children’s judgments and reasoning about social exclusion.

Two studies investigated the development of children's gender knowledge using a procedure designed to tap into children's unconventional gender beliefs. Study 1 revealed a developmental progression with 34 3- to 4-year-old children providing more unconventional reasons than conventional reasons to explain the gender of a series of drawings. By contrast, 39 5- to 6-year-old and 42 7- to 8-year-old children provided more conventional than unconventional reasons. Study 2 found that a second sample of 423- to 4-year-old children mastered a close-ended assessment of gender stereotyping, while they relied on unconventional and conventional reasoning equally when explaining the gender of a series of drawings displaying conventional cues only. This research supports the model that children's conventional gender schemas do not develop before their unconventional gender schemas. © 2010 The British Psychological Society.

Since the Covid-19 pandemic and the resulting social restrictions, children’s peer interactions have been altered. Peer interactions help children learn from each other to develop their understanding of conversation, emotion, and group norms. In addition, friendships can reduce intergroup bias and prejudice and increase independence. In this paper, we review the ways that peers contribute to children’s cognitive and social development in informal and formal settings. Although restrictions are necessary to control the spread of the virus, social restrictions do not have to be the detriment of peer relations.

This article examines gender differences in emotion understanding as measured by the Test of Emotion Comprehension (TEC). Answers to the TEC given by 353 English-speaking children (172 girls, 181 boys; age range = 3 to 8 years) were examined. First, the nine components of the TEC were analysed for differential item functioning (DIF), using gender as the grouping variable. To evaluate DIF, the Mantel-Haenszel method and logistic regression analysis were used applying the Educational Testing Service DIF classification criteria. Results showed that the TEC did not display gender DIF. Second, when absence of DIF had been corroborated, gender differences in the total TEC score and its components were examined. Girls scored higher than boys on the belief component. Several hypotheses are discussed that could explain the differences found between boys and girls in the belief component.

This study investigated whether demographic variables, efficacy beliefs, visions and worries are associated with four different forms of (dis)engagement with the European Union: intended voting in the 2019 EU elections, non-conventional political engagement, psychological engagement, and the wish that one’s own country should leave the EU. The sample comprised 3.764 young people aged 16 to 25 years living in seven European countries: Albania, Austria, Germany, Italy, Romania, Spain and UK. Economic challenges, human rights and the environment were the most important future visions; unemployment and poverty, climate change, civil unrests and the collapse of the EU were the most important future worries. The four forms of (dis)engagement with the European Union were differentially associated with predictors, although internal efficacy and future vision of economic challenges predicted all forms. Implications for future EU policy are discussed.

This study examined children’s and adolescents’ reasoning about the exclusion of others in peer and school contexts. Participants (80 8-year-olds, 85 11-year-olds, 74 14-year-olds, and 73 20-year-olds) were asked to judge and reason about the acceptability of exclusion from novel groups by children and school principals. Three contexts for exclusion between two groups were systematically varied: unequal economic status, geographical location, or a control (no reason provided for group differences). Regardless of condition, participants believed that exclusion was less acceptable in peer than school contexts, and when children excluded rather than principals. Participants also used more moral and less social conventional reasoning for peer than school contexts. In terms of condition, whereas 8-year-olds rated exclusion based on unequal economic status as less acceptable than when based on geographical location or no reason when enacted by a principal, 14-year-olds rated the unequal economic condition as more acceptable than the other two contexts. Eleven- and 20-year-olds did not distinguish economic status differences. The findings suggest that children and adolescents are sensitive to context and take multiple variables into account, including the type of group difference (socioeconomic status or other reasons), authority status of the perpetrator of exclusion, and setting (school or peer). Patterns may have differed from past research because of the socio-cultural context in which exclusion was embedded and the contexts of group differences.

Inducing emotional reactions toward social groups can influence individuals’ political tolerance. This study examines the influence of incidental fear and happiness on adolescents’ tolerant attitudes and feelings towards Muslim asylum seekers. In our experiment, 219 16- to 21-year-olds completed measures of prejudicial attitudes. After being induced to feel happiness, fear, or no emotion (control), participants reported their tolerant attitudes and feelings toward asylum-seeking young people. Participants assigned to the happiness condition demonstrated more tolerant attitudes toward asylum-seeking young people than did those assigned to the fear or control conditions. Participants in the control condition did not differ from participants in the fear condition. The participants in the happiness condition also had more positive feelings toward asylum-seeking young people than did participants in the control condition. The findings suggest that one way to increase positive attitudes toward asylum-seeking young people is to improve general emotional state.

The present study examined mother-child talk about disgust. A total of 68 mothers and their 4-, (Mage = 55.72 months, SD = 4.13), 6- (Mage = 77.70 months, SD = 5.45), and 8- (Mage = 100.90 months, SD = 4.61) year-old children discussed four tasks relating to moral and pathogen disgust. Tasks comprised labelling facial expressions of emotions, generating items that would make participants disgusted or angry, identifying moral and pathogen transgressions as either causing anger or disgust, and finally rating the degree to which moral and pathogen transgressions were disgusting and justifying their responses. Mother-child dyads recognized the facial expression of happiness more accurately than that of disgust, but disgust was recognized equally well as expressions of sadness and anger across all age groups. Dyads associated moral transgressions with anger, whereas they associated pathogen transgressions with disgust. Finally, mothers and children and mothers individually rated pathogen transgressions as more disgusting than moral transgressions. Taken together, findings show that moral disgust is understood at a later age and is only used metaphorically, if at all, in children as old as 8 years old.

To examine the ways that 6- to 11-year-old children's conversation with their parents support their developing understandings of evolution, 49 parent–child dyads participated in a study with two elicited discussion tasks: origins of species and potential species change. Conversational data were transcribed, coded, and qualitatively and quantitatively analyzed to compare the appearance of reasoning in each type of task. Quantitative analyses revealed correlations between tasks in informed naturalistic reasoning as well as differences in the way reasoning was expressed in each task. In addition, parent–child dyads with older children were more likely to use informed naturalistic reasoning than parent–child dyads with younger children. A subset of the data was analyzed qualitatively and showed that irrespective of how much evolution reference was present in the conversation, parents supported their children's learning through scaffolding. However, greater amounts of nonscientific reasoning appeared in the groups with less evolution talk. This study demonstrates that family talk about evolution varies with context both within and between families.

This pilot study is the first to examine whether a novel curriculum based on the Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture (RFCDC) could increase children's endorsement and knowledge of children's rights. We conducted a pre-test-post-test design with an intervention and a comparison school. Pupils (n = 172) from Bulgaria, Italy, Norway, Romania, and Spain attended schools in which the curriculum was taught, whereas pupils in the comparison group (n = 120) attended schools in the same city where the curriculum was not taught. Both groups were tested on their endorsement and knowledge of rights before and at the end of the intervention. Children in the intervention group increased in endorsing children's rights at post-test more than did children in the intervention group. Most children believed that children had rights. Children in the intervention group showed modest increases in their knowledge of rights. Future ways of implementing the RFCDC are suggested.

This study examined relations between 124 British children’s and their parents’ endorsements about the origins of three living things (human, non-human animal, plant) as reported on questionnaires. In addition to completing questionnaires, half of the sample discussed the origins of entities (n = 64) in parent-child dyads before completing the questionnaires. The 7-year-old age group endorsed creationism more than evolution and the 10-year-old age group endorsed both concepts equally for all three living things. Children’s endorsements were correlated with their parents’ endorsements for all three living things. Children’s endorsement of evolutionary theory was more closely related to parent-child conversational mentions of evolution than to parents’ endorsement of evolutionary theory in questionnaires. A similar pattern was found for children’s endorsement of creationism. Parent-child conversations did not consistently invoke evolution or creationism even when parents endorsed a particular theory. Findings are interpreted in relation to the pivotal role of joint collaborative conversation in children’s appropriation of scientific content.

Mother-child emotion talk is one of the main ways through which children learn about emotions. Some previous research studies have suggested that mother-child emotion talk is a gendered process, influencing how girls and boys talk about emotions. Despite inconsistent findings in establishing if mothers use different amounts of emotion talk with their daughters and sons, there is no known meta-analysis of the literature examining gender differences in the frequency of mother-child emotion talk. The aim of this comprehensive meta-analysis is to explore gender comparisons in the frequency of mother-child emotion talk as well as the moderators of these differences. Based on 34 independent group samples (samples of unique individuals) consisting of 3649 participants, no gender differences in the frequency of emotion talk between mothers of daughters and mothers of sons were found. Using a random-effects model, the meta-analysis had a mean weighted effect size of Cohen’s d = .04 (95% CI = [−.05, .13], p = .36). It was not heterogeneous, Qw (33) = 39.36, p = .21. Thus, findings of the present meta-analysis suggest that mother-child emotion talk has not been shown to be gendered, which has implications for children’s socialization of emotions.

Parental responses following children's answers to parental questions (Parent Question → Child Answer → Parent Response) were examined during play between Mexican-descent children and their parents. Nineteen boys and 18 girls were videotaped playing separately with each of their parents with a toy zoo set. Patterns of parental responses following children's answers to parental questions indicated that mothers provided more scaffolding responses than did fathers. Furthermore, mothers were more scaffolding in their responses even when sequences were analysed separately for child gender. The results support past research with European-American families which has found that mothers may be more aware of children's cognitive capabilities than are fathers. Suggestions for future research that investigate scaffolding versus cognitive demand strategies are included.

Objective: Self-control supports many positive life outcomes. However, the processes underlying the development of self-control are not well understood. Drawing on the TESSERA model of personality development (Wrzus & Roberts, 2017), we examined whether weekly schoolwork effort predicts self-control (in the subsequent week). We also examined the role of schoolwork emotions and whether these emotions moderated the impact of schoolwork effort on self-control based on predictions from the TESSERA model. Methods: Data are from a weekly diary study (N=98) that measured children’s schoolwork effort, schoolwork emotions, and self-control during five consecutive weeks. Data were analysed at the between and within person levels using multilevel models. Results: Between-person results show that schoolwork effort is related to variations in children’s self-control. Furthermore, some emotions moderated the influence of schoolwork effort on self-control at the between and within person levels. Conclusion: In line with the TESSERA model of personality development, positive state expressions of effort during schoolwork (e.g., putting in effort) predicted higher self-control in the subsequent week. However, this finding was dependent on the reactions and reinforcement children felt about their effort (e.g., emotional responses to their remote schoolwork). The discussion examines how these findings extend previous literature.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the consequent restrictions imposed by governments worldwide have had profound social and psychological effects, particularly for young adults. This study used longitudinal data to characterise effects on mental health and behaviour in a UK student sample, measuring sleep quality and diurnal preference, depression and anxiety symptoms, wellbeing and loneliness, and alcohol use. Self-report data was collected from 254 undergraduates (219 females) at a UK university at two-time points: autumn 2019 (baseline, pre-pandemic) and April/May 2020 (under 'lockdown' conditions).  Longitudinal analyses showed a significant rise in depression symptoms and a reduction in wellbeing at lockdown. Over a third of the sample could be classed as clinically depressed at lockdown compared to 15% at baseline. Sleep quality was not affected across the sample as a whole. The increase in depression symptoms was highly correlated with worsened sleep quality. A reduction in alcohol use, and a significant shift towards an 'evening' diurnal preference, were also observed. Levels of worry surrounding contracting COVID-19 were high. Results highlight the urgent need for strategies to support young people's mental health: alleviating worries around contracting COVID, and supporting good sleep quality, could benefit young adults' mental health as the COVID-19 crisis unfolds.

This study investigated the family as a context for the gender typing of science achievement. Adolescents (N = 52) from 2 age levels (mean ages = 11 and 13 years) participated with their mothers and fathers on separate occasions; families were from predominantly middle-income European American backgrounds. Questionnaires measured the parents' and the child's attitudes. Each parent also engaged his or her child in 4 structured teaching activities (including science and nonscience tasks). There were no child gender or grade-level differences in children's science-related grades, self-efficacy, or interest. However, parents were more likely to believe that science was less interesting and more difficult for daughters than sons. In addition, parents' beliefs significantly predicted children's interest and self-efficacy in science. When parents' teaching language was examined, fathers tended to use more cognitively demanding speech with sons than with daughters during one of the science tasks.

Four quantitative meta-analyses examined whether teachers' expectations, referrals, positive and neutral speech, and negative speech differed toward ethnic minority students (i.e., African American, Asian American, and Latino/a) as compared with European American students. Teachers were found to hold the highest expectations for Asian American students (d = -.17). In addition, teachers held more positive expectations for European American students than for Latino/a (d =.46) or African American (d =.25) students. Teachers made more positive referrals and fewer negative referrals for European American students than for Latino/a and African American students (d =.31). Although teachers directed more positive and neutral speech (e.g., questions and encouragement) toward European American students than toward Latino/a and African American students (d =.21), they directed an equal amount of negative speech (e.g., criticism) to all students (d =.02). In general, teachers' favoring of European American students compared with African American and Latino/a students was associated with small but statistically significant effects. The meta-analyses suggest that teachers' expectations and speech vary with students' ethnic backgrounds. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2007 APA, all rights reserved.

Debate exists regarding the extent to which Mexican-descent parent-child conversations are explanatory. This study reports on two studies investigating conversations between parents and children in two different contexts.

Recent work regarding children's rights has advocated for research in non-Western settings and with participants who are ethnic/racial minorities. We addressed these issues through secondary analysis of interviews with 63 mixed-race South African children (9-, 11-, and 13-year olds) and their mothers. Participants' responses to hypothetical vignettes depicting children's nurturance and self-determination rights scenarios were coded using social cognitive domain theory and subsequently analysed with mixed-design anovas. Outcomes figured prominently in children's and mothers' reasoning. Moral reasoning was primarily invoked when discussing the right to privacy, extending earlier work and suggesting the importance of privacy across cultural contexts.

This study examined gender, age, and task differences in positive touch and physical proximity during mother-child and father-child conversations. Sixty-five Spanish mothers and fathers and their 4- (M = 53.50 months, SD = 3.54) and 6-year-old (M = 77.07 months, SD = 3.94) children participated in this study. Positive touch was examined during a play-related storytelling task and a reminiscence task (conversation about past emotions). Fathers touched their children positively more frequently during the play-related storytelling task than did mothers. Both mothers and fathers were in closer proximity to their 6-year-olds than their 4-year-olds. Mothers and fathers touched their children positively more frequently when reminiscing than when playing. Finally, 6-year-olds remained closer to their parents than did 4-year-olds. Implications of these findings for future research on children’s socioemotional development are discussed.

Much research has investigated maternal and child predictors of educational attainment. This longitudinal study builds on past research by examining how everyday mother-child conversations about decision-making in early adolescence predict adolescents' decisions to drop out of high school, terminate their education with a high school degree, or complete high school and enroll in tertiary education. Forty-four mothers' use of emotionally enabling speech and willingness to allow their 7th grade children (25 girls; 19 boys) to select their friends predicted children's later decisions about educational attainment in high school. In contrast, children's reported intrinsic motivation, receptive vocabulary scores, and mothers' education did not predict children's educational attainment. These findings underscore the importance of going beyond status variables such as maternal education, to incorporate measures of parent-child interaction in predicting adolescents' educational trajectories. © 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Homework is a multifaceted process that involves a complex interplay of factors. However, the processes underlying homework behavior are not yet fully understood. In Study 1, we tested a model of homework processes by examining the influences and consequences of homework behavior based on 473 Chinese students. In Study 2 with 159 British students, we aimed to verify our homework model. We measured Year 7 to 9 children's perceptions of parents' and teachers' expectancies and teachers' feedback as well as children's homework motivation (expectancy and value beliefs), homework effort, academic outcomes, and academic stress in both samples using two waves of data. The findings from structural equation modeling revealed that children's perceptions of parents' and teachers' expectancies and teachers' feedback are more highly associated with children's homework motivation than children's homework effort. Homework effort was not related to children's academic outcomes and academic stress across both cultures.

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is estimated to affect 3.5% of the global workforce. Despite the high prevalence rate, little is known about how best to support adults with ADHD (ADHDers) at work. Relevant research is dispersed across different disciplines such as medicine, health studies and psychology. Therefore, it is important to synthesize interventions aimed at ADHDers to examine what learning can be gleaned for effective workplace support. We conducted a systematic review of relevant interventions framed by realist evaluation and the Context-Intervention-Mechanism-Outcome classification to identify key mechanisms of effectiveness for workplace interventions. We searched 10 databases including a range of journals from medical science to business management applying predetermined inclusion criteria and quality appraisal through a risk of bias assessment for quantitative and qualitative methods. We synthesized 143 studies with realist evaluation. Most studies evaluated the effectiveness of pharmacological interventions highlighting the dominance of the medical approach to supporting ADHDers. Key mechanisms of effectiveness were identified from psychosocial interventions including group therapy, involvement of people in the ADHDers network, and the importance of the client-patient relationship. Overall, there is limited research that examines the effectiveness of workplace interventions for ADHDers. Furthermore, much of the existing research evaluates pharmacological interventions which is difficult to transfer to the workplace context. It is recommended that future research and practice consider the key mechanisms identified in this review when designing interventions as well as barriers to accessing support such as disclosure and self-awareness.

A study examined the cognitive demand in the questions directed to Mexican-descent children by their mothers and fathers during play with three sets of toys.

Young children's everyday scientific thinking often occurs in the context of parent-child interactions. In a study of naturally occurring family conversation, parents were three times more likely to explain science to boys than to girls while using interactive science exhibits in a museum. This difference in explanation occurred despite the fact that parents were equally likely to talk to their male and female children about how to use the exhibits and about the evidence generated by the exhibits. The findings suggest that parents engaged in informal science activities with their children may be unintentionally contributing to a gender gap in children's scientific literacy well before children encounter formal science instruction in grade school.

Within Western cultures, most women in heterosexual relationships adopt their husbands’ surnames after marriage. In attempting to explain the enduring nature of this practice, researchers have noted that women tend to encounter stereotypes when they break with tradition by retaining their own surnames after marriage. A complementary possibility is that stereotypes are also directed toward men whose wives violate the surname tradition. The current research provides initial insight into this possibility through three studies that were conducted in the United States and United Kingdom with undergraduate and community samples (total n = 355; 254 women and 101 men). Study 1 revealed that participants predominantly referenced expressive traits when describing a man whose wife retained her surname. Study 2 built on these findings with an experimental design. Relative to a man whose wife adhered to the surname tradition, a man whose wife retained her surname was rated as less instrumental, more expressive, and as holding less power in the relationship. In Study 3, participants high in hostile sexism were particularly likely to rate a man as lower in power when his wife retained her surname. Collectively, findings provide insight into attitudes that may help to explain the longevity of the marital surname tradition. Findings also join with prior research in revealing links between commonplace marriage traditions and gendered power dynamics.

This study examined children's reasoning about single‐gender and single‐faith schools and play contexts. Young people (twenty‐three 8‐ to 10‐year‐olds and fifty‐three 12‐ to 14‐year‐olds) were asked to judge and reason about the acceptability of exclusion based on gender and religion by children and school principals. Participants rated exclusion based on gender as more acceptable than based on religion. Exclusion from school contexts was rated as more acceptable than exclusion from play contexts. Participants tended to invoke moral reasons to condemn exclusion when reasoning about religion, whereas they tended to invoke social conventional reasons when reasoning about gender. Young people's greater support for religiously inclusive schooling compared to gender inclusive schooling suggests that societal and governmental acceptance of religious diversity has support from future generations.

Everyday parent-child conversations may support children's scientific understanding. The types and frequency of parent-child science talk may vary with the cultural and schooling background of the participants, and yet most research in the USA focuses on highly schooled European-American families. This study investigated 40 Mexican-descent parents' science talk with their children (mean age = 5 years 7 months, range = 2 years 10 months to 8 years 6 months). Parents were divided between a higher schooling group who had completed secondary school, and a basic schooling group who had fewer than 12 years of formal schooling. Parents and children were videotaped engaging with science exhibits at a children's museum and at home. Conversations were coded in terms of parents' explanatory talk. In both contexts, Mexican-descent parents engaged children in explanatory science talk. At the museum, parents in the higher schooling group used more causal explanations, scientific principles explanations, and encouraging predictions types of explanations than did parents in the basic schooling group. By contrast, the only difference at home was that parents in the higher schooling group used more encouraging predictions talk than parents in the basic schooling group. Parents who had been to museums used more explanations than parents who had never visited a museum. The results suggest that while explanatory speech differed somewhat in two groups of Mexican-descent parents varying in formal schooling, all of these children from Mexican-descent families experienced some conversations that were relevant for their developing science literacy. © 2008 Sage Publications.

Relations between parent-child emotion talk and children's emotion understanding were examined in 63 Spanish mothers and fathers and their 4- (M = 53.35 months, SD = 3.86) and 6-year-old (M = 76.62 months, SD = 3.91) children. Parent-child emotion talk was analyzed during two storytelling tasks: a play-related storytelling task and a reminiscence task (conversation about past experiences). Children's emotion understanding was assessed twice through a standardized test of emotion comprehension (TEC; Pons et al., 2004), once before one of the two parent-child storytelling sessions and again 6 months later. Mothers' use of emotion labels during the play-related storytelling task predicted children's emotion understanding after controlling for children's previous emotion understanding. Whereas fathers' use of emotion labels during the play-related storytelling task was correlated with children's emotion understanding, it did not predict children's emotion understanding after controlling for previous emotion understanding. Implications of these findings for future research on children's socioemotional development are discussed.

This study examined age differences in young people’s understanding of evolution theory in secondary school. A second aim of this study was to propose a new coding scheme that more accurately described students’ conceptual understanding about evolutionary theory. We argue that coding schemes adopted in previous research may have overestimated students’ grasp of evolutionary concepts.Atotal of 106 students aged 12, 14, and 16 took part in individual interviews investigating their understanding of evolution. Using the newcoding scheme, wefound that while 16-year olds were more likely than 12-year olds to endorse scientific concepts when answering a question about finches, their understanding of natural selection, however, did not generalize to the other four questions. Furthermore, students began to incorporate relevant terminology (e.g., adapt, evolve, etc.) and structure their explanations using relevant language at around age 14. Students often used relevant terminology without having a more advanced understanding of evolutionary theory. Instead, they used the relevant terms in a colloquial rather than a scientific sense. Implications of the current findings for teaching and theory are discussed.

Two experiments investigated perceived and physiological changes in anxiety in children (7 – 11 years; N = 222; 98 female) in a performance situation after they observed another child in a similar situation with a negative or neutral outcome. The sample’s London, U.K. school catchment areas ranged from low to high socio-economic statuses with 31% to 49% of children from ethnic minority backgrounds. In Study 1, participants watched one of two films of a child playing a simple musical instrument (a kazoo). In one film, an audience of peers respond negatively to the performance. In the other film, audience response was neutral. Participants were then filmed playing the instrument themselves and measures of perceived and actual heart rate were taken along with individual differences in trait social anxiety, anxiety sensitivity, and effortful control. To better understand findings from Study 1, Study 2 replicated Study 1 but added a manipulation check and measures of effortful control and self-reported anxiety.  Multiple regression analyses found watching a negative performance film, compared with a neutral one, was associated with a blunted heart rate response for children with low effortful control (Study 1 and 2). These findings suggest that children who are low in effortful control may disengage during performance tasks if the situation’s social threat is elevated.  Hierarchical regression analyses found that, compared to the neutral film, the negative performance film elevated children’s self-report anxiety (Study 2). Overall, the findings indicated that anxiety in performance situations can be elevated after observing peers’ negative experiences.

This study examined the understanding of children's rights in 63 (9-, 11-, and 13-year-olds) mixed-race South African children and their mothers. In individual semi-structured interviews participants responded to hypothetical vignettes in which children's nurturance and self-determination rights conflicted with parental authority in the home. Participants were required to decide whether they should support the story characters' rights and provide justifications for their responses. Findings indicated that both children and mothers were more likely to endorse children's nurturance than self-determination rights. In contrast to previous research, no significant differences were found between children and mothers in terms of support for either type of right. In terms of reasoning, both children's and mothers' responses revealed distinct patterns of thinking influenced by the type of right under consideration. The findings are discussed with reference to the available western and non-western literature on children's understanding of rights. Limitations, implications, and directions for future research are considered.

This study investigated 282 eight- to twelve-year-old Danish majority children's judgments and justifications of exclusion based on gender and ethnicity (i.e., Danish majority children and ethnic-minority children of a Muslim background). Children's judgments and reasoning varied with the perpetrator of the exclusion and the social identity of the target. Children assessed exclusion based on ethnicity as less acceptable than exclusion based on gender and used more moral reasoning for the former than the latter. Children judged it less acceptable for a teacher than a child to exclude a child protagonist. Children were sensitive to status, judging it less acceptable to exclude a less powerful group member. The findings are discussed in relation to intergroup relations in Denmark. © 2011 The Authors. Child Development © 2011 Society for Research in Child Development, Inc..

This longitudinal study investigated sex and age differences and the short- and long-term effects of low-income mothers' talk to their children. Twenty-four girls and twenty-four boys were audiotaped playing with magnets with their mothers at the ages of 5 and 9 years. When children were in sixth grade, they completed a test of reading comprehension. Mothers' science-related talk and their social pretend-play talk at ages 5 and 9 were examined as predictors of children's sixth grade reading comprehension with a science and a narrative text. Mothers were found to use a higher proportion of both science process and social pretend play talk with boys than girls, and with older than with younger children. After controlling for children's mean length of utterance at age 3, maternal education, and children's proportion of science process talk at ages 5 and 9, mothers' proportion of science talk when children were 9 years old predicted children's reading comprehension for science text 2 years later when children were in the sixth grade. Results suggest the long-term impact of parent–child interaction on literacy outcomes, and also note the existence of sex differences in opportunities to learn about science at home.

Meta-analyses were conducted of 43 articles (with 48 different samples) investigating the relationship between parents' gender schemas and their offspring's gender-related cognitions. The parents' offspring ranged in age from infancy to early adulthood. Offspring measures included gender self-concept, gender attitudes toward others, gender-related interests, and occupational attitudes. Overall, a small but meaningful effect size (r = .16) indicated a significant and positive correlation between parent gender schemas and offspring measures. Specifically, parents with more traditional gender schemas were more likely than parents with more nontraditional schemas to have offspring with gender-typed cognitions about themselves or others. In addition, the magnitudes of observed effect sizes were influenced by particular moderator variables, including type of parent gender schema (gender self-concept vs. gender attitudes toward others), type of offspring gender-related cognitions, parent gender, offspring gender, offspring age, and publication characteristics. The results are cautiously interpreted as suggesting a possible influence of parents on the development of their children's gender-related thinking.

The present study examined 60 (30 early-to-middle adolescents and 30 late adolescents) British adolescents' understanding of the rights of asylum-seeker children. Participants completed semi-structured interviews designed to assess judgments and evaluations of hypothetical asylum-seeker children's nurturance and self-determination rights in conflict with the practices of authority. Findings indicated that participants were more likely to endorse asylum-seeker children's nurturance rights over their self-determination rights. Reasoning about both types of rights was multifaceted and focused on moral, social-conventional and psychological considerations. In addition, significant differences were found between males and females with regard to both endorsement and reasoning. The limitations of the study are discussed and future research is considered.

This study explored declarative knowledge about children's rights in 67 South African children between 9 and 14 years old, using semi-structured interviews addressing the following questions: What is a right? Who has rights? Do children have rights? What rights do children have? Why should children have rights? Can anyone take away your rights? Who can take away your rights? Data were analysed quantitatively to examine age and gender differences. Qualitative content analyses explored salient themes. There were no gender differences for any of the questions and significant age differences only for the question: What rights do children have? Although the children's responses shared some similarities with other research findings, their perspectives on rights strongly reflected their specific social context, especially the prevalence of crime and child abuse. The findings are discussed in relation to previous research and specific features of the South African socio-cultural landscape.

This study investigated the effectiveness of a combined museum and classroom intervention project on science learning in low-income children. The focus of the program was on children’s content knowledge and concept complexity. Thirty children were in the experimental group. A control group of 18 children visited literacy and social studies exhibits at the museum. Results indicate that children in the experimental group learned content knowledge about the components of bubbles and the definition of a current. Although children in the experimental group exhibited more complex concepts about buoyancy, they did not become more correct in their judgments. In general, the program supported children’s science literacy development with regard to both concept complexity and content knowledge. Results are interpreted in relation to socio-cultural and constructivist frameworks from developmental psychology.

Research on children’s understanding of emotion has rarely focused on children from nonindustrialised countries, who may develop an understanding at different ages as compared to children reared in industrialised countries. Quechua children from an agro-pastoralist village were given an adapted version of the Test of Emotion Comprehension (TEC) to assess their understanding of nine aspects of emotions. Older children performed better on the entire TEC than younger children. Eight- to 11-year-olds were more accurate in identifying emotions connected to individual desires and to a moral misdemeanour than were 4- to 7-year-olds. In addition, there was a trend for 8- to 11-year-olds to understand external causes of emotions better than 4- to 7-year-olds. Compared to British children, the Quechua children were less accurate overall. However, similar to the British children, certain aspects of emotion (e.g., recognition) were understood at younger ages than others (e.g., regulation), suggesting similar patterns in the sequence of emotional understanding despite the radical difference in cultural context. In contrast to children from industrialised settings, children from this Quechua village have little access to formal education. Moreover, Quechua children have fewer opportunities to engage in discussions about emotions with adults, which may also contribute to how well they performed on the TEC. Suggestions for improving the TEC and including a more naturalistic testing situation are made.

This study investigated whether demographic variables, efficacy beliefs, European identifications, future visions, and worries are associated with four forms of (dis)engagement with the European Union. The sample comprised 3,764 young people aged 16 to 25 years living in seven European countries: Albania, Austria, Germany, Italy, Romania, Spain, and the UK. Economic challenges, human rights, and the environment were the most important future visions. Unemployment and poverty, climate change, civil unrests and the collapse of the EU were the most important future worries. The four forms of (dis)engagement with the European Union were differentially associated with the predictors explaining 7.2 to 23.8% of the variance. Internal efficacy and the future vision economic challenges predicted all constructs. Regarding European identifications, the sub-constructs belonging and exploration were most important. Implications for future EU policy are discussed.

This study explored relationships between perspective-taking, emotion understanding, and children's narrative abilities. Younger (23 5-/6-year-olds) and older (24 7-/8-year-olds) children generated fictional narratives, using a wordless picture book, about a frog experiencing jealousy. Children's emotion understanding was assessed through a standardized test of emotion comprehension and their ability to convey the jealousy theme of the story. Perspective-taking ability was assessed with respect to children's use of narrative evaluation (i.e., narrative coherence, mental state language, supplementary evaluative speech, use of subjective language, and placement of emotion expression). Older children scored higher than younger children on emotion comprehension and on understanding the story's complex emotional theme, including the ability to identify a rival. They were more advanced in perspective-taking abilities, and selectively used emotion expressions to highlight story episodes. Subjective perspective taking and narrative coherence were predictive of children's elaboration of the jealousy theme. Use of supplementary evaluative speech, in turn, was predictive of both subjective perspective taking and narrative coherence. © 2010 The British Psychological Society.

© 2014 Patrick J. Leman and Harriet R. Tenenbaum. All rights reserved.Children are born into a world infused with gendered information. An understanding of what it is to be a boy or girl can be critical in forming social relationships, social identities, and learning how to think and behave. Gender and Development is an important new volume that charts how children practice these gendered identities at different ages and in different social contexts.Taking a socio-cognitive approach, and integrating both theoretical and applied perspectives, the book looks at a range of contexts in which gender affects development and socialisation, from the child's place in the family unit and their interaction with parents and siblings, to the influence of communication with peers over the internet. Throughout the chapters an age-old issue is addressed through a contemporary, empirically focused perspective-namely the nature and extent of equality between the genders, and how difficult it is for attitudes, perceptions and stereotypes to change. Key social issues are covered, including pro-social behaviour, career choice and academic competencies.Gender and Development brings together some of the latest research in this important and enduring field of study. It is a timely and invaluable collection, and will be essential reading for all students and research in developmental psychology, social psychology and gender studies.

Since the nearly universal ratification of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child (U.N. General Assembly, ), children's rights have received increasing empirical attention. While there is an established body of research on how youth view their own rights, few studies have examined their views about the rights of out-group members. Employing a social-cognitive domain approach, the current study investigated British young people's (N = 260) views regarding the rights of asylum seekers. The data come from a secondary analysis of interviews on British young people's views about the religious and nonreligious rights of asylum seeker youth. Rather than being influenced by broader variables such as age, participants' judgments, and reasoning took into account the features of the specific rights situation under consideration. Moreover, the use of moral justifications was related to endorsing the rights of asylum seekers while social conventional justifications pertained to rejecting asylum seeker's rights. The implications for theory, future research and social policy are discussed. © 2014 The Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues.

This study investigated how Italian emerging adults coped during COVID-19 from a Positive Youth Development framework. Five hundred sixty-five 18- to 29-year-olds completed surveys measuring personal (cognitive reappraisal, optimism), ecological (support and emotional connection with community) assets, and adaptation outcomes (anxiety and future societal expectations) during (T1) and after (T2) lockdown. Utilizing a person-centered approach, four profiles emerged at T1: promotive (high personal/ecological assets), personal (high personal/low ecological), contextual (low personal/high ecological), vulnerable (low on both). The promotive profile had the highest future societal expectations. The promotive/personal/contextual profiles reported the lowest anxiety at T2. Employing a variable-centered approach, only support and emotional connection with the community at T1 linked to reduced anxiety at T2; personal/ecological assets at T1 were not related to future societal expectations at T2. Findings supported PYD assumptions, indicating alignment of personal/ecological assets aids adaptation. We discuss implications for supporting young adults during crises like pandemics.

Depression is found in about 30%-40% of all patients with Parkinson's disease (PD), but only a small percentage (about 20%) receive treatment. As a consequence, many PD patients suffer with reduced health-related quality of life. To address quality of life in depressed PD patients, we reviewed the literature on the health correlates of depression in PD (eg, cognitive function), etiology of depression in PD, and treatment options (ie, antidepressants, electroconvulsive therapy, and psychotherapy). The current review is unique in its focus on psychosocial aspects, as well as neuropathological factors, of depression in PD. Overall, we conclude that neurochemical (eg, serotonin) and psychosocial factors (eg, coping style, self-esteem, and social support) contribute to the affective disturbances found in this neuropsychiatric population. Therefore, we recommend that a multidisciplinary (eg, pharmacotherapeutic, psychoeducational, and/or psychotherapeutic) approach to treatment be taken with depressed PD patients. © 2008 Dove Medical Press Limited. All rights reserved.

Forgiveness, as a response to interpersonal transgressions, has multiple societal and individual benefits. Individual differences in attachment have been identified as a predictor not only of forgiveness but of state responses frequently associated with forgiveness. The current meta-analysis is the first systematic analysis of the effect of attachment dimensions (i.e., anxiety and avoidance) on forgiveness of others. Analysis of published and unpublished studies (k = 26) identified significant, small-to-medium effects of attachment anxiety (r = −.25) and attachment avoidance (r = −.18) on forgiveness of others. No significant difference was obtained between measures of state and trait forgiveness. The moderating effects of study paradigm, attachment measure, publication type, and sample population were also investigated. The findings of a stable negative effect of insecure attachment dimensions on forgiveness of others provide a base for future research that may focus on reducing attachment anxiety and avoidance to support forgiveness.

Background. Museums can serve as rich resources for families to learn about the social world through engagement with exhibits and parent-child conversation about exhibits. Aims. This study examined ways of engaging parents and child about two related exhibits at a cultural and history museum. Sample participants consisted of families visiting the Animal Antics and the Gone Potty exhibits at the British Museum. Methods. Whilst visiting two exhibits at the British Museum, 30 families were assigned to use a backpack of activities, 13 were assigned to a booklet of activities, and 15 were assigned to visit the exhibits without props (control condition). Results. Compared to the families in the control condition, the interventions increased the amount of time parents and children engaged together with the exhibit. Additionally, recordings of the conversations revealed that adults asked more questions related to the exhibits when assigned to the two intervention conditions compared to the control group. Children engaged in more historical talk when using the booklets than in the other two conditions. Conclusions. The findings suggest that providing support with either booklets or activities for children at exhibits may prove beneficial to parent-child conversations and engagement with museum exhibits. © The British Psychological Society.

Children’s adherence to gender stereotypes can be detrimental, yet interventions to tackle stereotyping have achieved mixed success. Few studies have examined interventions developed collaboratively by educators and researchers, and the impact of interventions that focus on increasing perceived similarities between genders has yet to be tested. The present study evaluated an intervention among 6- to 10-year-old British children (47 boys; 37 girls) compared to a control group (61 boys; 47 girls). Led by their class teacher via weekly 30-minute lessons, over a four-month period, children learned to identify and challenge stereotypes, and explored similarities between genders and diversity within gender (e.g., not all girls like pink). Key measures of gender flexibility in relation to toy play, occupations, and perceived similarity to gender groups were utilised. After controlling for baseline scores, the intervention group felt more similar to the other gender and reported that they could do a wider range of occupations in the future. Those who showed less flexibility around toy play at baseline were more flexible after the intervention. Boys in the intervention group reported that gender stereotypes were more unfair than did the control group. Findings are discussed in relation to theories of gender stereotyping and intervention research.

The aim of the Foundation Year of university is to prepare students for their undergraduate study. Part of this preparation is enculturation into ways of speaking. Undergraduate study involves small group interaction in which students are expected to use educational dialogue to co-construct conceptual understanding and engage in critical thinking. In this study, we were interested in whether and to what extent Foundation Year Bioscience students used educational dialogue in problem-solving tasks. Seven groups were audio recorded during online group discussions at three points during the semester. Transcripts were analysed according to a framework of educational dialogue codes. While some groups engaged in educational dialogue, there was variability within group members, within the session and across sessions. Based on this small case study, we argue that Foundation Year teachers can support the development of students’ educational dialogue by raising metacognitive awareness of language and providing opportunities through task design. We conclude the paper with specific suggestions for classroom practice which are not restricted to Biosciences Foundation Year and relevant to all stages of university study and across disciplines.

Gender, as a topic of study in psychology, can sometimes be treated as a messy inconvenience for researchers who would rather focus on illuminating universal laws of human behaviour.Developmentalists have been no less guilty of this approach than many others. Yet, gender is a topic thatwill not go away, and it will not disappear because it is a ubiquitous and fundamental part of any child’s development. As such, it is hard to imagine how a child can ever develop without gender influencing her behaviour, thinking, or social relationships. Therefore, developmental psychologists should be interested in gender because research demonstrates that from a young age children react to their own and others’ gender and think about gender in complex, subtle, and nuanced ways. By understanding how gender links with relationships across development, we can also come to understand and possibly begin to address an enduring source of inequality in adult social relationships and roles. This Special Issue explores how gender influences children’s and adolescents’ behaviour, communication, and thinking across contexts.

This study examined the parent-child dyad as a context in which children's gender-stereotyped course selections are reinforced. Fifty four children from two age groups (Ms = 10.67 and 12.71 years) and their mothers and fathers selected courses for when children reached secondary school. Afterwards, children and parents discussed their decisions. Parents of sons selected fewer foreign language courses than mathematics, language arts or science courses, whereas parents of daughters selected fewer science and foreign language than mathematics or language arts courses. Girls selected fewer science than language arts courses, whereas boys selected fewer foreign language than mathematics or science courses. Although parents' course selections followed gender-stereotyped patterns for language arts and science, their discouraging comments were not confined to cross-gender-stereotyped domains. Instead, parents made more discouraging comments in general to daughters than to sons. Counter to the hypotheses, daughters made more encouraging comments about science courses than did sons while talking to mothers. The findings suggest that parents and children may show gender-differentiated preferences for children before children are old enough to make course decisions. © Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2008.

Discovery learning approaches to education have recently come under scrutiny (Tobias & Duffy, 2009), with many studies indicating limitations to discovery learning practices. Therefore, 2 meta-analyses were conducted using a sample of 164 studies: The 1st examined the effects of unassisted discovery learning versus explicit instruction, and the 2nd examined the effects of enhanced and/or assisted discovery versus other types of instruction (e.g., explicit, unassisted discovery). Random effects analyses of 580 comparisons revealed that outcomes were favorable for explicit instruction when compared with unassisted discovery under most conditions (d = -0.38, 95% CI [-.44, -.31]). In contrast, analyses of 360 comparisons revealed that outcomes were favorable for enhanced discovery when compared with other forms of instruction (d = 0.30, 95% CI [.23, .36]). The findings suggest that unassisted discovery does not benefit learners, whereas feedback, worked examples, scaffolding, and elicited explanations do. © 2010 American Psychological Association.

Studies on how physical gender schemas develop in children have traditionally utilized forced-choice and close-ended tasks, finding that the ability to make gender-related distinctions develops in the first years of a child’s life. To reduce demand characteristics that reinforce gender binaries in children’s models of gender, we relied on open-ended discourse analysis to study children’s physical gender schemas. We focused on whether children’s ability to ask questions that distinguish gender groups was greater in older than younger children. Participants were 44 3–4-year-olds, 35 5–6-year-olds, and 23 7–8-year-old children in the U.K. who were led through a guessing game to elicit gender-related beliefs and compare their beliefs about gender to their beliefs about other entities such as living things. When asking questions to distinguish gender binary groups, older children judging gendered individuals were more likely to ask questions that stereotypically distinguished the gender groups than younger children. Older children were also more likely to focus on individuals’ biological properties, clothing, and hair length than were younger children. Thus, the development of a child’s understanding of physical gender schemas gender is discrete, developing gradually at least until the age of 8.

This study investigated the ways in which families constructed an understanding of evolution exhibits at a natural history museum. We examined museum visitors’ use of exhibit text and the types of evolution-related talk in parent-child conversations while visiting the chimp/human and the artiodactyl exhibits. Participants were 52 families with children aged 2- to 11-years who agreed to be digitally recorded. Analyses of parent-child conversations indicated that families who read exhibit text were more likely to stay longer at the exhibits and to encounter the intended content of the exhibits than families who did not read the text. On-topic conversations tended to focus on labelling and describing the exhibit content rather than talking about evolutionary concepts. Physical descriptions of exhibit displays allowed children to make inferences about novel entities (i.e., those in the exhibits) based on prior knowledge.

Decades of research indicate that peer interaction, where individuals discuss or work on a task collaboratively, may be beneficial children’s and adolescents’ learning. Yet we do not know which features of interaction may be related to learning from peer interaction. This meta-analysis examined results from 62 articles with 71 studies into peer interaction, involving a total of 7,103 participants aged 4 to 18 years. Peer interaction was effective in promoting learning in comparison with other types of learning conditions, Hedges' g = 0.40, 95% CI [0.27, 0.54], p < .0001, across different gender and age groups. In contrast, however, peer interaction was not more effective than child-adult dyadic interaction. Moderator analyses also indicated that peer interaction is more effective when children are specifically instructed to reach consensus than when they are not. Findings extend theoretical considerations by teasing apart the processes through which children learn from peer interactions and offer practical implications for the effective use of peer interaction techniques in the classroom.

Support for children’s rights is greater among children raised in democratic environments. The present two studies examined children’s endorsements and predictors of children’s rights. Five democratic competences taken from the Council of Europe’s Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture served as predictors. We tested the models in a sample of children raised in five European countries and a sample raised in an African country, seeking to extend our model beyond the Global North. In Study 1, we found four of these five competences, namely, higher valuing of cultural diversity, civic-mindedness, cultural openness, and empathy significantly predicted higher endorsements of rights in children from Bulgaria, Italy, Norway, Romania, and Spain (7 – 11-year-olds, N = 292). In Study 2, we found higher valuing of cultural diversity significantly predicted higher endorsements of rights in Nigerian children (7 – 14-year-olds, N = 84). Supporting social cognitive domain theory, children in both studies endorsed nurturance rights more than self-determination rights. Inclusion of children from the Global North and South enabled us to determine whether patterns of rights endorsements were similar for children from both samples. Overall, this research presents novel findings on the salience of valuing cultural diversity in support for children’s rights.

Many technological applications (apps) purport to help children learn academic material. Building on research in developmental and educational psychology, we developed and tested an app to teach biological and physical science content to preschool children. There were 21 children in the control condition (Mage= 50.30 months, SD = 8.61) and 21 children in the intervention condition (Mage= 53.21 months old, SD = 6.36). Children were given pre- assessments and post-assessments of their understanding of living things, inheritance, buoyancy, and balance. Half were assigned to play the app for 3 weeks or to a control condition that only completed the assessments. Based on ANCOVA and ANOVA models, children in the app condition increased in their understanding of living things and buoyancy on a near-transfer task from pre-test to post-test assessment, whereas the children in the control condition did not increase their understanding. The findings suggest that drill and tests apps focusing on science content that take account of folk theories of science can support children’s science learning.

Within most western countries, gendered proposal, surname, and wedding traditions remain widely endorsed. A previous study indicated that endorsement of proposal and surname traditions is associated with higher levels of benevolent sexism (BS) in university students in the USA. Three studies (N = 367) extended research to adolescents (dating age) and 30-year-olds (typical first-time marriage age). For the first time, these studies examined gendered wedding traditions (e.g., father walking a bride down the aisle). Different combinations of ambivalent sexism predicted participants' opinions about surname change after marriage and the choice of children's surnames. In younger adolescents (11-18; 56 boys, 88 girls, 68.1% White years), hostile sexism (HS) predicted endorsement of surname change, whereas benevolent sexism predicted endorsement in 16-to 18-year-olds (58 boys, 84 girls, 76.8% White) and 30-year-olds (37 men, 44 women, 74.1% White). In adolescent samples, both BS and HS predicted endorsement of patronymic traditions for children, whereas only BS did in the adult sample. The findings suggest that different types of sexism predict traditional beliefs in specific age groups.

Eighty girls and 64 boys (M= 6 years; 8 months, SD = .65) narrated a wordless picture book in mixed- or same-gender dyads. In mixed-gender as well as same-gender dyads, girls used more emotion explanations than did boys. Combined across dyad type, girls used more emotion labels than did boys. Girls used a higher proportion of collaborative speech acts than did boys in same-gender dyads, but girls and boys used the same amount in mixed-gender dyads. Whereas girls used a higher proportion of informing acts in mixed-gender dyads than did boys, boys used more than did girls in same-gender dyads. The findings support contextual models of gender and suggest that speaker as well as partner gender influence emotion expression and conversational style. © 2010 The British Psychological Society.

Ninety-three children ranging in age from 5 to 8 years (M = 82:46 months, SD = 13:20) participated in a training study designed to improve their emotion understanding. Children either explained (self-explanation condition) or listened to an experimenter who explained (experimenter-explanation condition) the causes of protagonists' hidden and ambivalent emotional reactions in nine different vignettes. Compared to a control group who listened to the vignettes and answered questions unrelated to emotions, children assigned to the self-explanation and experimenter-explanation conditions increased from pre- to post-test in their emotion understanding. The educational implications of explanatory conversations in facilitating children's emotion understanding and general learning are discussed. © 2008 The British Psychological Society.

In two studies, we investigated the prevalence of gender stereotypes in print magazines targeted at 2– to 9-year-olds, analysing three crucial and distinct aspects of children’s magazines: the front cover, the magazine content, and featured activities. Study 1 focused on the front covers of 106 children’s print magazines aimed at audiences of either girls, boys, or both boys and girls. Content analyses revealed that magazines aimed solely at boys or girls displayed gender-stereotypic colours and more same- than other-gender characters. Front covers aimed at girls contained no speaking characters and, compared to front covers aimed at boys, displayed more words related to appearance. Study 2 analysed the content of 42 magazine issues. Magazines aimed at girls were most likely to incorporate the themes of fashion and home, to instruct the reader to ask for an adult’s help with an activity, and less likely to include activities labelled as educational than were magazines aimed at boys or both girls and boys. In contrast, magazines aimed at boys were most likely to incorporate the theme of occupations. Overall, findings suggest that gender stereotypical messages are embedded throughout young children’s magazines, which are tailored in their style and content based on their target audience.

This study examined British young people's understanding of the rights of asylum-seeking young people. Two hundred sixty participants (11-24years) were read vignettes involving asylum-seeking young people's religious and nonreligious self-determination and nurturance rights. Religious rights were more likely to be endorsed than nonreligious rights. In general, younger participants were more likely than older participants to endorse the rights of asylum-seeking young people. Supporting a social cognitive domain approach, patterns of reasoning varied with the type of right and whether scenarios involved religious or nonreligious issues. Few developmental differences were found regarding participants' reasoning about asylum-seeking young people's religious or nonreligious rights. The findings are discussed with reference to available theory and research on young people's conceptions of rights. © 2012 The Authors. Child Development © 2012 Society for Research in Child Development, Inc.

This study examined emotion understanding (as assessed by the Test of Emotion Comprehension; Pons, Harris, & DeRosnay, 2004) and motor skills (as assessed by the Movement Assessment Battery for Children; Henderson, Barnett, & Sudgen, 2007) as predictors of children’s understanding of faux pas (Banerjee, Watling, & Caputi, 2011). Faux paus situations are those in which someone causes unintentional offence or behaves inappropriately. Understanding of faux pas requires knowledge of social norms in specific situations as well as emotion understanding. Misunderstanding faux pas can prevent smooth social functioning. Fifty-six children (aged 7;0 to 9;11 years) completed a measure of faux pas understanding, emotion understanding, and motor skills. Children’s faux pas understanding, emotion understanding, and motor skills were all related to each other. However, when age, motor skills, and emotion understanding were entered into a regression to predict faux pas understanding, only motor skills predicted understanding of faux pas. The findings are discussed in relation to potential pathways between motor skills and social understanding.

This study investigated the relations of emerging adults’ personal (civic competence and interdependent self-construal) and community-based (sense of community and civic engagement) resources as predictors of appraisal of COVID-19 Public Health Emergency Management (PHEM) and attitudes toward preventing contagion in Italy. Participants were 2,873 Italian emerging adults (71% females) aged 19-30 years (M = 22.67, SD = 2.82). Structural equation modelling revealed both direct and indirect positive associations among study variables. Civic competence and interdependent self-construal were related to sense of community and civic engagement behaviour which, in turn, predicted appraisal of PHEM. Appraisal of PHEM in turn predicted attitudes toward preventing contagion. Overall, findings highlight the importance of examining the alignment between personal and collective interests to understand emerging adults’ evaluative and attitudinal experiences during a period of crisis, such as that created by COVID-19.

The purpose of these studies was to investigate the role of distributed cognition in defusing the impact of evaluative pressure caused by performance-approach goals on mental arithmetic performance. Performance-approach goals can generate worrying thoughts that can deplete working memory resources. However, some of these working memory limitations can be compensated by off-loading the internal cognitive process to the external environment. We tested this prediction in two experiments. Participants carried out modular arithmetic tasks in a performance-approach goal or mastery-approach goal condition crossed with interactivity or no interactivity. Performance-approach goal manipulation hampered cognitive performance (accuracies), (Experiment 1). However, these negative effects were defused with the help of interactivity (Experiment 2). Interestingly, the mastery-focused individuals had a performance drop in the interactive condition (Experiment 1 and Experiment 2). Finally, experiment 2 reported higher maths anxiety levels for the performance-focused individuals. Reasons for the findings and future implications will be discussed.

In the Houses of Parliament, politicians within the two leading political parties, Conservative and Labour, were split over the issue, and in the country at large, many families were split about whether the UK should remain or leave. The young people’s political and civic values have been found in previous research to play a significant role in driving their political and civic behaviour. Values may be defined as very general beliefs that individuals hold about the desirable goals that should be striven for in life. In contrast to a value, an attitude is traditionally conceptualized as being the overall mental orientation which an individual adopts towards someone or something. One important attitude that has been found to be linked to young people’s civic and political behaviour is internal efficacy.

This study asked graduate students at the University of California about their relationships with their advisors, satisfaction, and academic success. Both the women and men students worked primarily with male advisors, but not disproportionately to the availability of male and female professors. Instrumental help and networking help contributed positively to productivity (i.e., publications, posters, and conference talks). Psychosocial help contributed to students' satisfaction with their mentor and with their graduate school experience. The results are interpreted and implications are discussed in a framework of recent research on mentoring in organizations.

The present study was designed to investigate gender patterns in early adolescents' and their parents' verbal expression of three gender-stereotyped emotions: anger, sadness, and frustration. Parents and their early adolescent children discussed four interpersonal dilemmas and answered questions regarding those dilemmas in mother-child and father-child dyads. Consistent with previous literature regarding gender stereotypes in emotion expression, daughters used a higher frequency of emotion words than sons did during conversations with their mothers and fathers. Additional analyses regarding the three specific emotions under investigation, however, revealed findings that were inconsistent with conventional gender stereotypes. Contrary to expectations, in conversations with fathers, sons used a higher proportion of references to sadness than did daughters. Daughters used a higher proportion of references to frustration than did sons in their conversations with both mothers and fathers. Mothers and fathers used a higher proportion of references to frustration with daughters than with sons. No gender differences were found in parents' or children's references to anger. The results call into question culturally accepted gender stereotypes about sadness, anger, and frustration. © 2006 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.

Although individuals with Williams syndrome are very sociable, they tend to have limited contact and friendships with peers. In typically developing children the use of positive emotions (e.g., happy) has been argued to be related to peer relationships and popularity. The current study investigated the use and development of emotion words in Williams syndrome using cross-sectional developmental trajectories and examined children's use of different types of emotion words. Nineteen children with Williams syndrome (WS) and 20 typically developing (TD) children matched for chronological age told a story from a wordless picture book. Participants with WS produced a similar number of emotion words compared to the control group and the use of emotion words did not change when plotted against chronological age or vocabulary abilities in either group. However, participants with WS produced more emotion words about sadness. Links between emotion production and friendships as well as future studies are discussed.Learning outcomes: After reading this article, readers will be able to: explain the development of positive and negative emotions in Williams syndrome and recognize that emotion production is atypical in this population. © 2014 Elsevier Inc.

As the incoming editor for the British Journal of Educational Psychology, I would first like to thank Professor Andy Tolmie for his hard work on BJEP. Under his editorship, the impact factor of BJEP has risen, and the journal has become even better known internationally. Following from Andy’s outstanding editorship, I will set out my vision for BJEP for the next 3 years.

The present study examined how Saudi Arabian children (M = 10.50 years, SD = 1.61, Range = 8 to 10 years) evaluate peer exclusion based on religion when the perpetrator of exclusion was a peer or a father. Children believed that it was more acceptable for fathers than for peers to enforce exclusion and were more likely to use social conventional reasons to justify exclusion when the perpetrator was a father. The discussion focuses on how social domain theory needs to take children’s cultural community into account.

This study explored the therapeutic effect of antidepressants in Parkinson's disease (PD) using a meta-analysis. Altogether, 24 placebo-controlled trials qualified for inclusion and revealed that tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs) had a greater antidepressant effect relative to selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), Qb(1) = 8.87, p

As the left hemiface is controlled by the emotion-dominant right hemisphere, emotion is expressed asymmetrically. Portraits showing a model's left cheek consequently appear more emotive. Though the left cheek bias is well established in adults, it has not been investigated in children. To determine whether the left cheek biases for emotion perception and expression are present and/or develop between the ages of 3 and 7 years, 145 children (71 male, 74 female; M age = 65.49 months) completed two experimental tasks: one assessing biases in emotion perception, and the other assessing biases in emotion expression. Regression analysis confirmed that children aged 3-7 years find left cheek portraits happier than right cheek portraits, and age does not predict the magnitude of the bias. In contrast when asked to pose for a photo expressing happiness children did not show a left cheek bias, with logistic regression confirming that age did not predict posing orientations. These findings indicate that though the left cheek bias for emotion perception is established by age 3, a similar bias for emotion expression is not evident by age 7. This implies that tacit knowledge of the left cheek's greater expressivity is not innate but develops in later childhood/adolescence.