Adolescents’ Narratives of Schadenfreude

This study explored the experiential determinants of schadenfreude, how schadenfreude changes as a function of relationship, and how recollections of schadenfreude may vary by age. Using a narrative approach, 12‐ and 15‐year‐olds (N = 60) described times they felt schadenfreude toward various peers and adults. We coded their responses to extract information regarding preceding misfortunes and underlying reasons for schadenfreude. We found that adolescents' schadenfreude often involved another’s physical harm and failure, and was rooted in reasons of deservingness and personal gain. There were unique trends in the types of misfortunes and reasons mentioned toward each target of interest. Finally, deservingness reasoning was prominent within 15‐year‐olds’ schadenfreude experiences. The findings are discussed in relation to adolescents’ emotional experiences in conflict situations.     

Sleep and Its Association With Socioeconomic Status,Health, and Risky Behaviors Among Ghanaian School Children

Socioeconomic differences in sleep and how sleep relates to health and risky behaviors among 12‐ to 18‐year‐old Ghanaians (N = 1,195) were investigated. Overall, 49.2% of boys and 60.8% of girls had inadequate sleep. Girls (OR = 1.6, 95% CI = 1.3–2.0) and older (16‐ to 18‐year‐olds) adolescents (OR = 1.6, 95% CI = 1.3–2.1) had higher probability of inadequate sleep than boys and younger (12‐ to 15‐year‐old) adolescents, respectively. High material affluence, low parental education, low parental occupational grade, drunkenness, marijuana use, drug use, and not having plans to continue schooling after graduation decreased the chances of inadequate sleep, while low school performance, low fruit and vegetable intake, and tiredness during daytime increased the probability of inadequate sleep. Promotion of adequate sleep and gender equality should be taken into consideration in adolescent health promotion programs.     

“It's Just a Lot of Work”: Adolescents’ Self‐Presentation Norms and Practices on Facebook and Instagram

We explored adolescents’ (12‐ to 18‐year‐olds; n = 51) awareness of their audience and subsequent self‐presentation practices on Facebook and Instagram through focus group discussions. Findings suggest that teens, who are developmentally able to perceive a situation from the third‐person perspective and who value peer approval, purposefully share content to appear interesting, well liked, and attractive. Some teens invested great effort into posting by these norms, even asking their friends to help; however, this was more common among girls. Older teens especially discussed taking the perspective of their audience when deciding what to post, which is consistent with the finding that perspective taking continues to develop throughout adolescence. These findings suggest that perspective taking skills and need for peer approval influence self‐presentation online.     

Trends in Cohabitation Outcomes: Compositional Changes and Engagement Among Never‐Married Young Adults

Cohabitation is now the modal first union for young adults, and most marriages are preceded by cohabitation even as fewer cohabitations transition to marriage. These contrasting trends may be due to compositional shifts among cohabiting unions, which are increasingly heterogeneous in terms of cohabitation order, engagement, and the presence of children, as well as across socioeconomic and demographic characteristics. The author constructs 5‐year cohabitation cohorts for 18‐ to 34‐year‐olds from the 2002 and 2006–2010 cycles of the National Survey of Family Growth (n = 17,890 premarital cohabitations) to examine the outcomes of cohabitations over time. Compared to earlier cohabitations, those formed after 1995 were more likely to dissolve, and those formed after 2000 were less likely to transition to marriage even after accounting for the compositional shifts among individuals in cohabiting unions. Higher instability and decreased chances of marriage occurred among both engaged and non‐engaged individuals, suggesting society‐wide changes in cohabitation over time.     

Toddlers’ Responses to Infants’ Negative Emotions

Early developments in toddlers’ responses to adults’ distress have been extensively examined, but less work has been directed to young children's responses to other children in distress. In the current study, we examined 12‐, 18‐, and 24‐month‐old children's (N = 71) behavioral and affective responses to a crying infant (doll) present in the room with the child. A comparison condition included a contented, neutral infant to contrast with the crying infant so as to disambiguate social interest from distress‐specific responding. Results showed that 12‐month‐olds were neither particularly interested in nor concerned about the infant, although they did discriminate between conditions. In contrast, 18‐ and 24‐month‐olds were socially interested and attentive to the infant, but 24‐month‐olds exhibited greater affective concern to the crying infant than did 18‐month‐olds. Children at all three ages were also mildly distressed themselves by the infant's crying, and this did not decline over the second year. Both girls and children without siblings were more interested in the infant; no effects were found for gender, daycare experience, or siblings on affective concern.     

Six‐ and 9‐Month‐Old Infants Discriminate Between Goals Despite Similar Action Patterns

Behne, Carpenter, Call, and Tomasello (2005) showed that 9‐ to 18‐month‐olds, but not 6‐month‐olds, differentiated between people who were unwilling and unable to share toys. As the outcome of the two tasks is the same (i.e., the toy is not shared), the infants must respond to the different goals of the actor. However, visual habituation paradigms have shown an earlier onset of goal awareness. The present study reconciles this disparity by replicating the findings of Behne et al. with both 6‐ and 9‐month‐olds, using similar tasks and additional response measures.     

Sensitivity to Confidence Cues Increases during the Second Year of Life

We investigated the emergence in infancy of a preference to imitate individuals who display confidence over lack of confidence. Eighteen‐ and 24‐month‐olds (N = 70) were presented with an experimenter who demonstrated the use of several objects accompanied by either nonverbal expressions of confidence or lack of confidence. At 24 months, infants were more likely to imitate the actions when demonstrated by a confident experimenter than by an unconfident experimenter; 18‐month‐olds showed no such preference. The experimenter then presented an additional imitation trial and a word‐learning trial while displaying a neutral expression. Twenty‐four‐month‐olds persisted in preferentially imitating a previously confident experimenter, but prior confidence had no effect on their word learning. These findings demonstrate a developmental increase in infants’ use of confidence cues toward the end of the second year of life.     

Eighteen‐Month‐Olds,but not 14‐Month‐Olds,Use Social Context to Bind Action Sequences

We demonstrate that 18‐month‐olds, but not 14‐month‐olds, can anticipate others' actions based on an interpretation of shared goals that bind together individual actions into a collaborative sequence. After viewing a sequence of actions performed by two people who socially interact, 18‐month‐olds bound together the socially engaged actors' actions such that they later expected the actors to share the same final goal. Eighteen‐month‐olds who saw nonsocially engaged actors did not have this expectation and neither did 14‐month‐olds when viewing either socially or nonsocially engaged actors. The results are discussed in light of the possibility that experience in collaborations could be necessary for understanding collaboration from a third‐person perspective.     

Losing Sleep Over It: Daily Variation in Sleep Quantity and Quality in Canadian Students' First Semester of University

Daily covariation of sleep quantity and quality with affective, stressful, academic, and social experiences were observed in a sample of Canadian 17–19‐year‐olds in their first year of university. Participants (N=191) completed web‐based checklists for 14 consecutive days during their first semester. Multilevel models predicting sleep quantity and quality from daily experiences indicated that more time on schoolwork, expecting a test, and alcohol use predicted less sleep whereas socializing predicted more sleep. More positive affect and no alcohol use predicted better sleep quality. Models predicting daily experiences from sleep the night before indicated that less sleep preceded increases in negative affect, decreases in schoolwork time, and a higher likelihood of socializing. Better sleep quality preceded increased positive affect, decreased negative affect and stress, and less time on schoolwork. These data are informative for understanding relations between sleep and daily experiences as they occur naturally in first‐year university students.     

12‐Month‐Olds Produce Others' Intended but Unfulfilled Acts

Following Meltzoff's (1995) behavioral reenactment paradigm, this study investigated the ability of 12‐month‐olds (N = 44) to reproduce a model's attempted‐but‐failed actions on objects. Testing was conducted using a novel set of objects designed to enable young infants to readily identify the potential outcome of the model's actions. Infants who saw an adult's attempted‐but‐failed actions now produced her intended outcomes at an equivalent rate to infants who saw the model's completed acts, and significantly more so than infants who either observed an adult manipulating the test apparatus using nontarget actions or who did not see any actions demonstrated on the test apparatus. This result shows that, contrary to previous studies, 12‐month‐olds can produce the intended but unconsummated acts of others.     

9‐Month‐Old Infants Recognize Individual Unfamiliar Faces in a Rapid Repetition ERP Paradigm

To investigate whether infants show neural signatures of recognizing unfamiliar human faces, we tested 9‐month‐olds (N = 31) in a rapid repetition ERP paradigm. Pictures of unfamiliar male and female faces (targets) were preceded either by a central attractor (Unprimed) or by a face (Primed). In the latter case, the prime faces were either identical to the target (Repeated) or not (Unrepeated). We compared processing of primed versus unprimed faces as well as processing of repeated versus unrepeated faces. Primed stimuli elicited decreased P1 amplitude, P1 latency and N290 amplitude, indicating categorical repetition effects very early during the stream of processing. For repeated relative to unrepeated faces, N290 latency was reduced. In addition, we observed an enhanced late positivity at occipital channels for unrepeated compared to repeated male faces, but no difference for female faces. Taken together, these results suggest that 9‐month‐olds categorize faces before discriminating them individually. Furthermore, infants' ability to recognize face identity seems to depend on familiarity with the given face category, as indicated by differences in brain responses to male and female faces.     

Age‐Specific Preferences for Infant‐Directed Affective Intent

This study examined the developmental course of infants' attentional preferences for 3 types of infant‐directed affective intent, which have been shown to be commonly used at particular ages in the first year of life. Specifically, Kitamura and Burnham (2003) found mothers' tone of voice in infant‐directed speech is most comforting between birth and 3 months, most approving at 6 months, and most directive at 9 months. Thus, the aim of this study was to assess whether there is a relation between the type of affective intent used by mothers at each age point, and infants' affective intent preferences. Each infant group, 3‐, 6‐, and 9‐month‐olds, was played the 3 types of affective intent alternating across a single test session. When analyzed across age, the interactions revealed the predicted developmental trajectory; that is, infant preferences transformed between 3 and 6 months from comforting to approving, and between 6 and 9 months, from approving to directive. However, when analyzed separately by age, it was shown that 3‐month‐olds preferred comforting to other types; 6‐month‐olds preferred approving to directive, but listened equally to approving and comforting; and 9‐month‐olds showed no preference for any type of affective intent. Because it was possible that 9‐month‐olds were more focused on phonetic and phonotactic information, a new group of 9‐month‐olds was tested with intonation‐only versions of the 3 affective intent types. Under these conditions, they were found to prefer directive to comforting, but not directive to approving types. The results of this study have implications for what infants pay attention to in their social and linguistic environment over the course of the first year.     

Evidence that Two‐Year‐Old Children are Sensitive to Information Presented in Arguments

Preschoolers are more likely to endorse testimony supported by strong arguments than by weak, circular ones. Two‐year‐olds exchange arguments with others, but no experiment has demonstrated that they are sensitive to information presented as argument. In the first phase of this study, 2‐year‐olds were shown ambiguous pictures—for instance a bird–fish hybrid—and asked what they thought the picture represented. An informant then contradicted them, providing either a strong argument, a circular argument, or no argument, and the children were asked what they now thought the hybrid was. The second phase was identical to the first, with new hybrids, except that the informant never provided any argument for her position. Finally, in the third phase, the informant left the room and the children were asked again to tell what the hybrids from the first two phases were. On the whole, there was an effect of the amount of information provided in the argument so that children were more likely to endorse labels provided by the informant who had supported her answer with a strong argument in the first phase. Moreover, they generalized the trust granted to informants who provided strong arguments. These results constitute the first experimental demonstration that 2‐year‐olds possess some argument evaluation skills.     

Integration of Thought and Action: Arm Weights Facilitate Search Accuracy in 24‐Month‐Old Children

Search errors are common in cognitive tasks with infants and toddlers, and these errors reveal important insights to the development of competence and performance. Rivière and Lécuyer (2008, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 100, 1) demonstrated that 29‐month‐olds typically make an error during a search task involving invisible displacement. However, performance improves significantly when children wear weighted wrist bands while doing the task. To investigate this phenomenon further, we tested 24‐month‐old children in an identical search task (N = 35). Half the children wore weighted wrist bands, and the rest were in a no‐weight condition. To test how far this phenomenon generalizes, we also tested the same children in a second search task where they needed to find a ball that had rolled behind one of four doors. The results showed that children in the no‐weight condition replicated previous findings of poor performance on both search tasks. Unlike 29‐month‐olds, the 24‐month‐olds in the weighted condition did not immediately show improvement on the search tasks. However, after an initial search attempt, children wearing weights performed significantly better than chance. The findings shed new light on the interplay between thought and action.     

The Relationship of Smoking Status to Alcohol Use,Problems, and Health Behaviors in College Freshmen

Differences in drinking, consequences, and perceptions were examined between alcohol‐using college students by smoking status (current, past, and lifetime nonsmoker). Entering freshmen (N = 558: 45% male, 72% Caucasian, age M = 18) completed a questionnaire assessing smoking, drinking and current health perceptions. Results indicated current smokers drank more frequently, were more likely to drink to intoxication, and had more physiological consequences (e.g., blackouts, coordination problems) than past or lifetime nonsmokers, but past smokers also reported riskier drinking than lifetime nonsmokers. Despite a higher prevalence of alcohol‐related health problems in both current and past smokers, no current health differences were found. Results replicate findings that current smokers are at increased risk for problematic drinking and identify past smokers as another risk group.     

Linking Changes in Parenting to Parent–Child Relationship Quality and Youth Self‐Control: The Strong African American Families Program

A randomized prevention trial was conducted contrasting families who took part in the Strong African American Families Program (SAAF), a preventive intervention for rural African American mothers and their 11‐year‐olds, with control families. SAAF is based on a conceptual model positing that changes in intervention‐targeted parenting behaviors would enhance responsive‐supportive parent–child relationships and youths' self‐control, which protect rural African American youths from substance use and early sexual activity. Parenting variables included involvement‐vigilance, racial socialization, communication about sex, and clear expectations for alcohol use. Structural equation modeling analyses indicated that intervention‐induced changes in parenting were linked with changes in responsive–supportive parent–child relationships and youth self‐control.     

Twelve‐Month‐Olds Know Their Cups From Their Keps and Tups

Fourteen‐month‐olds are sensitive to mispronunciations of the vowels and consonants in familiar words (N. Mani & K. Plunkett (2007), Journal of Memory and Language, 57, 252; D. Swingley & R. N. Aslin (2002), Psychological Science, 13, 480). To examine the development of this sensitivity further, the current study tests 12‐month‐olds’ sensitivity to different kinds of vowel and consonant mispronunciations of familiar words. The results reveal that vocalic changes influence word recognition, irrespective of the kinds of vocalic changes made. While consonant changes influenced word recognition in a similar manner, this was restricted to place and manner of articulation changes. Infants did not display sensitivity to voicing changes. Infants’ sensitivity to vowel mispronunciations, but not consonant mispronunciations, was influenced by their vocabulary size—infants with larger vocabularies were more sensitive to vowel mispronunciations than infants with smaller vocabularies. The results are discussed in terms of different models attempting to chart the development of acoustically or phonologically specified representations of words during infancy.     

THE PASS‐THROUGH OF BEER TAXES TO PRICES: EVIDENCE FROM STATE AND FEDERAL TAX CHANGES

From a policy perspective, it is crucial to understand how changes in beer taxes affect retail beer prices. This study provides new evidence of the pass‐through rate of state beer taxes to prices in a post‐merger era. Our estimates that use state‐level beer tax changes suggest that a 10‐cent increase in beer taxes raises retail prices by about 17 cents. Comparable findings from the 1991 federal beer tax increase show a rise in retail beer prices of 19–22 cents. Our findings suggest that consumers fully bear the burden of increased beer taxes. (JEL H2, I0, D4)     

Mothers’ Work Status and 17‐Month‐Olds’ Productive Vocabulary

Literature examining the effects of mothers’ work status on infant language development is mixed, with little focus on varying work schedules and early vocabulary. We use naturalistic data to analyze the productive vocabulary of 44 17‐month‐olds in relation to mothers’ work status (full time, part time, stay at home) at 6 and 18 months. Infants who experienced a combination of care from mothers and other caretakers had larger productive vocabularies than infants in solely full‐time maternal or solely other‐caretaker care. Our results draw from naturalistic data to suggest that this care combination may be particularly beneficial for early lexical development.     

Real‐world scene perception in infants: What factors guide attention allocation?

The foci of visual attention were modeled as a function of perceptual salience, adult fixation locations, and attentional control mechanisms (measured in separate tasks) in infants (N = 45, 3‐ to 15‐month‐olds) as they viewed static real‐world scenes. After controlling for the center bias, the results showed that low‐level perceptual salience predicts where infants look. In addition, high‐level factors also played a role: Infants fixated parts of the scenes frequently fixated by adults and this effect was stronger for older than younger infants. In line with this finding, infant fixation durations were longer on regions more frequently fixated by adults, implying longer time taken to process the available information. Fixation durations decreased with age, and this decline interacted with orienting skills such that fixation durations decreased faster with age for infants with high orienting skills, relative to infants with low orienting skills. There was a further interaction between fixation durations and selective attention abilities: Infants with low selective attention skills showed a decrease in fixation durations with age, whereas infants with higher selective attention skills showed a slight increase in fixation durations with age. These findings imply that infants' visual processing of static real‐world stimuli develops in accord with attentional control.