The Role of Peers and Siblings in Toddlers’ Developing Understanding of Incompatible Desires

According to previous research, social experiences with other children might explain why three‐year‐olds are already quite proficient in understanding desires but not beliefs as subjective mental states. This study investigated toddlers’ (N = 50) developing subjective understanding of incompatible desires around the age of 3 years (M = 35.5 months) and the associated social factors (i.e., family demographics, peer, and sibling variables). Results indicated a developmental sequence from understanding desires to understanding desire‐dependent emotions with an unexpected positivity bias in toddlers’ prediction of own emotions. A hierarchical regression model revealed that specific social factors (i.e., reported quality of peer interactions and day care attendance) individually contributed to explaining the variance in children's desire‐reasoning skills. Findings are interpreted as supporting a belief–desire asymmetry, and specific social experiences, such as positive peer interactions and desire conflicts, may promote toddlers’ understanding of incompatible desires as subjective mental states.     

Maternal depression and children’s false belief understanding

Children of depressed mothers show substantial social impairment, which increases their risk for developing depression. Theory of mind understanding forms the basis of social functioning, and is impaired in children of currently depressed mothers. Models of risk emphasize that a history of any maternal depression confers risk to later psychopathology. Therefore, we tested a novel model of the impact of lifetime maternal depression on children’s false belief understanding that accounts for three primary factors that scaffold this understanding: maternal mental state talk, and children’s executive functioning and language abilities. Children aged 41–48 months with a maternal lifetime history of major depressive disorder (MDD; n = 19) performed significantly more poorly on the false belief battery compared to those without (n = 44). Further, lower levels of mental state talk, child executive functioning, and child language ability were significantly associated with poorer false belief scores. However, the relation between maternal MDD and children’s false belief performance was not mediated by any of these factors. These results indicate that maternal depression predicts poorer false belief understanding independently of other crucial scaffolding variables, and may be a social cognitive mechanism underlying the intergenerational transmission of depression.     

Role of Temperament,Parenting Behaviors,and Stress on Turkish Preschoolers’ Internalizing Symptoms

Child‐ and family‐related factors that predict internalizing symptoms are understudied in preschool years and have a negative influence on children's functioning. We examined observational assessments of preschoolers' temperamental fearfulness and exuberance, mother reports of negative control, warmth, and parenting stress in a sample of 109 Turkish preschoolers. High temperamental fearfulness and low joyful/exuberant positive affectivity in addition to low warmth and high parenting stress had significant effects on internalizing symptoms. Parenting stress had both direct and indirect relations to internalizing symptoms via lower maternal warmth. When comorbid elevations in externalizing symptoms were controlled, the results were consistent with the interpretation that poor parenting practices and stress associated with the parenting role predict maladaptation in general but that the specific form of maladaptation may be best predicted by individual differences in children's temperamental characteristics. This study contributes to our understanding of risk and protective factors that predict preschoolers' internalizing symptoms with a sample from a non‐Western population. These findings can guide early prevention and intervention programs to address internalizing problems in a culturally‐sensitive way.     

Actualization of Social Cognitions into Aggressive Behavior toward Disliked Targets

The basic premise that social cognitions guide behavior (aggression) was evaluated within relationships marked by dislike. At Time 1, a disliked target was identified for each participant (195 fifth‐grade children; 109 boys; 11–12 years old at Time 1) who then responded to questions about different aggression‐supporting social cognitions with regard to the chosen target. In addition, aggression directed at the identified peer (from the disliked child's perspective) was measured twice over a one‐year interval. Our results show that aggressogenic thought predicts increases in aggression only when the target is chronically disliked. Moreover, within chronically disliked relationships, the actualization of aggressogenic thought is maximized when children have high initial levels of reactive (in the case of hostile attributions) and proactive aggression (in the case of self‐efficacy beliefs), and when targets are initially high on reactive aggression. These findings suggest that social cognitions, assessed within a specific relationship context, can have more predictive validity than traditionally used decontextualized measures.     

Children's Interpretation of Ambiguous Behavior: Evidence for a 'Boys are Bad' Bias

Possible gender-related evaluative biases were investigated among a group of 64 second and third graders (ages 6 y 11 m to 9 y 7 m). Participants were shown photographs of 8 unfamiliar children, and were told that each had performed a particular behavior. Each of the behaviors was consistent with multiple interpretations, including a positive interpretation and a negative interpretation. When the unfamiliar peers were male, participants were more likely to remember behaviors in unfavorable ways and to select more negative attributions for the behavior. This pattern of results held even among male participants, who reported greater expectations of liking the male peers.     

The association of caregivers’ and children’s characteristics with children’s social preference and being a class leader in China

Children’s social status in China includes both informal (e.g., social preference) and formal (e.g., class leader) statuses. This study examines the associations among caregivers’ characteristics, children’s characteristics, children’s social preference, and being a class leader by using multiple sources of information (caregiver reports, self‐ratings, sociometric methods, and achievement data). The participants were 1,926 fourth‐ to ninth‐ graders (M_age = 12.7; 49.7% males) and their primary caregivers. The caregivers’ characteristics were found to be related more closely to class leader than to social preference. Both higher children’s interpersonal character and academic achievement were associated with higher social preference and class leader; however, academic achievement showed stronger relationships with both types of status than interpersonal character. The children’s characteristics mediated the associations between caregivers’ characteristics and children’s social statuses. The grade difference test showed that interpersonal character had a stronger association with social preference, and academic achievement had a stronger association with class leader in secondary school than in primary school. The results suggest that children’s characteristics (especially academic achievement) are strongly related to Chinese children’s social preference and being a class leader. In addition, the potential role of caregivers’ characteristics and the influence of child age are noteworthy.     

Preschoolers' Beliefs About the Stability of Antisocial Behavior: Implications for Navigating Social Challenges

The relation between 3‐ to 5‐year‐old children's beliefs about sociomoral stability (the tendency for antisocial behavior to remain stable over time) and their reasoning about peer interactions was examined. Participants were 100 preschoolers enrolled in a Head Start program. Children who endorsed sociomoral stability beliefs were less likely than their peers to make prosocial inferences, were rated by their teachers as less likely to engage in prosocial behavior, and were more likely to endorse the use of aggression to solve conflict with peers. These findings suggest that as early as preschool, children have general patterns of beliefs about the stability of antisocial behavior that predict a tendency to de‐emphasize prosocial strategies that can mediate social challenges.     

Eyetracking measures of social attention in young children: How gaze patterns translate to real‐life social behaviors

The aim of this study was to evaluate to what degree eyetracking paradigms of social attention, in combination with synchronous measurements of affective arousal, were associated with real‐life social behavior of children aged 3–7 years. Several eyetracking paradigms were used, involving social interactions, single/multiple faces, and emotional faces. Arousal was measured using electrocardiography. Real‐life social behavior was measured using structured behavior observations, parent questionnaires, and developmental interviews. Time spent looking at social stimuli was significantly associated with real‐life social behaviors, and independent of age, IQ, or gender. Paradigms involving social interactions and looking time to the eyes showed the most consistent relations with social behaviors. Stronger affective arousal responses were associated with shorter looking times toward eyes, which in turn were associated with less social awareness in real life. Eyetracking and arousal measures allow for sensitive and objective assessment of social abilities that have great relevance for real‐life social behaviors, with the potential to use in a broad and diverse population. These measures may help gain insight into the underpinnings of social behavior and may serve as a valuable marker or outcome measure in understanding, monitoring, and stimulating social‐emotional development early in life.     

Equal But Not Always Fair: Value‐laden Sharing in Preschool‐aged Children

Prior work has shown that preschoolers divide resources fairly and expect others to do the same. The majority of research, however, has focused on how children make distributions with respect to number. Here we explore whether preschoolers attend to the value of the objects being shared. We presented four‐year‐olds and five‐year‐olds with two puppets and four stickers of different values to split between them. Our central question was whether children would share more valuable stickers with their preferred puppets. In Experiments 1–2, value was induced by making one sticker rarer than the others. In Experiments 3–4, value was measured subjectively (by asking the child which sticker s/he personally preferred). Across all experiments, children made fair numerical splits, but showed favoritism according to value. This work supports the hypothesis that young children coordinate number and value to show both fairness and favoritism when making resource distributions.     

运用小组工作方法开展青少年攻击行为矫正的探索

青少年攻击性行为是青少年偏差行为的重要表现形式之一,这种偏差行为会给他人带来伤害或安全隐患,甚至会发展成为青少年犯罪,所以应在青少年攻击性行为产生的早期及时进行恰当的矫正,使青少年获得健康的身心发展状态。小组工作方法在青少年攻击性行为矫正方面具有明显的优越性,是行之有效的新兴矫正方法,必将会在青少年社会工作中得到越来越广泛的应用。     

The Rules of ‘Shouting’ in Drinking Groups in Sydney Public Bars

A series of informal discussions were held with fifteen Sydney men who regularly participate in drinking groups. These discussions were used to ascertain what rules if any were adhered to by the members of such groups. It was possible to devise five distinct unspoken rules of shouting which were said to be operant in most Australian drinking groups. A further 35 drinking group participants were then asked independently to assess the rules in the light of their personal experience. A general confirmation of the five unspoken rules of shouting behaviour was obtained. A series of unobtrusive observations in the public bars of some inner city Sydney hotels was then undertaken. One hundred and twenty-four participants in 38 drinking groups were observed. Certain aspects of the shouting behaviour, drinking rates and relevant items of conversation were noted. It was observed that the five unspoken rules of shouting disclosed by the earlier interviews and discussions were strictly adhered to. Furthermore, each group member tended to conform to patterns of behaviour and rates of drinking that were consistent with the rest of his drinking group.     

Ability emotional intelligence and children’s behaviour in the playground

We explored whether emotion understanding promotes positive social functioning in childhood using the ability emotional intelligence (AEI) framework, which defines emotion understanding more broadly than is common in developmental science. The prospective study included children ages 9–11 years who completed a measure of AEI at the start of the school year, and whose playground interactions were observed for one full year. Findings showed that, among girls, low AEI was associated with higher levels of direct aggressive behaviour in the playground; boys and girls high or low in AEI were more likely than their peers to watch others during playground social interactions. Further, higher AEI was associated with indirect aggression in school, suggesting higher AEI during childhood may be associated with the developmental transition from direct to indirect forms of aggression. The implications of the findings for school practice in relation to the teaching of emotion understanding are discussed.     

The implications of dialogicality for ‘giving voice’ in social representations research

Social representations research is often undertaken by scholars who seek to ‘give voice’ to knowledge(s) that are held by socially disenfranchised individuals and groups. However, this endeavour poses a number of problems in practice, not least because it assumes that the ‘voices’ voiced by individuals and/or groups in social research will be unambiguous and uniform, and unchanged by the research encounter. Despite the growth of attention to the critical potential of social representations theory, there remains a lack of scholarship on the relationship between the theory's emphasis on the relational, or dialogical, nature of social life (the Ego‐Alter‐Object relation) and the implications of this for critical research. In this article, I argue that the dialogical epistemology from which social representations research must depart incites reflection upon (i) the design of empirical studies, which must equally attend to both ‘Ego’ and ‘Alter’, and (ii) the researcher‐researched relationship, which may itself be best viewed as an Ego‐Alter interaction. I make the case for adopting dialogical epistemology in critical social psychology, and argue that this is essential to undertaking ethical social research. I conclude by suggesting that claims to ‘giving voice’ have little place in critical social psychology in general, and social representations scholarship in particular.     

Anticipating modernity: the Jewish ‘welfare state’ in biblical and medieval times

The impact of religion on social policies and its role in the development, structuring and functioning of welfare states has only recently attracted significant attention. Studies of the relationship between religion and the welfare state have given little consideration to whether the religious precepts and values of the major religions, and the ways of life which they have shaped, are consistent with the idea of the welfare state. This paper shows that the elements of the definition of the modern welfare state were reflected in Jewish communal life as either prescribed by Jewish law (halakha) or lived during both ancient and medieval times, and that communal life was ‘welfare‐state‐like‘. In doing so this paper demonstrates that the idea of the welfare state is consistent with Judaism.     

Recognizing the ‘big things’ and the ‘little things’ in child protection cases

In this article, we explore how ‘family’ is conceptualized and negotiated in a Mexican and a Chilean child protection institution. We draw on empirical material from two qualitative studies, employing a multi‐method approach. By using a theoretical framework from family sociology, we explore how ‘family’ is done and displayed by families of children in residential care despite socio‐economic, structural and institutional constraints. These displays consist mainly of ‘little things’ of a mundane character, such as homemade food, sweets, gifts, clothing and family photos, and more intangible displays as family narratives, affection and parental responsibility. The empirical material reveals how professionals commonly disregard these displays in favour of ‘big things’ such as housing, employment, nuclear family structure, therapy and parental school attendance. The professionals' recommendations and decisions in child custody cases can be interpreted as recognitions or rejections of family displays, as the acceptable limits of unconventionality are legally, socially and culturally drawn.     

Role of Expertise,Consensus, and Informational Valence in Children's Performance Judgments

Two experiments examined the role of expertise, consensus, and informational valence on children's acceptance of informant testimony about the quality of work produced by a target child. In Experiment 1, 96 4‐ to 5.9‐year‐olds and 6‐ to 8‐year‐olds were told about an expert who gave a positive or negative assessment of art or music that was contradicted by one layperson or a consensus of three laypersons. Generally, participants endorsed positive assessments as correct irrespective of expertise and consensus, but older children were more likely than younger children to want to learn from the expert in the future. To examine whether reluctance to accept expertise was due to the negative quality of the information, the expert in Experiment 2 simply stated that additional work was needed. Both age groups selected the expert as correct and reported wanting to learn from the expert in the future. Contributions to social learning models are discussed.     

Multiculturalism and social cohesion: A Japanese community’s perceptions of “being Australian”

Based on a large‐scale survey conducted with parents from Japanese language schools in Sydney in 2015, this paper aims to review multiple dimensions of social cohesion in the Japanese ethnic community in Australia. Looking at several indices such as economic, political, and cultural integration, the paper describes the social profile of the Japanese ethnic community, questioning the generic perception of the community as a coherent body of middle‐class migrants in Australia. This was achieved through a comparative analysis with outcomes of a national survey of the Australian population on social cohesion and draws attention to the ways in which a particular sense of social cohesion with Australian society is constructed by Japanese migrants. The study found a differentiated sense of belonging to the local community, country of residence (Australia), and nation of origin (Japan). It found communal diversity in the Japanese community resulting from there being a majority of women migrants who were part of cross‐border marriages and their children living in multicultural family circumstances. It was concluded that this configuration within the community leads to advocacy related to a re‐identification as a possible ethnic group of migrants that should be recognized in an inclusive migration settlement policy in Australia.     

Changes in preschool children’s social engagement positively predict changes in social competence: A three‐year longitudinal study of portuguese children

To test the hypothesis that social engagement is a foundational aspect of other peer social competence indicators during early childhood, 160 Portuguese preschool children (“3‐year‐olds”) were observed at least in two different school years, using a battery of validated social competence assessments based on direct observations and child interviews. Multilevel growth models tested whether social engagement predicted initial values and linear changes in the other social competence indicators. Results were consistent with the hypothesis, insofar as both initial values and changes in social engagement significantly predicted initial values and changes in other social competence indicators. Additionally, the number of children's reciprocated friendships was also predicted by social engagement. These results are discussed from the perspectives of conceptual frameworks that consider individual differences in social competence during early childhood as a consequence of attachment histories and/or emotional competence.     

Concurrent associations between mothers’ references to internal states and children’s social understanding in middle childhood

Although it is well established that features of maternal speech are associated with children’s social understanding in the preschool years, few studies explore this relationship in middle childhood. Within the context of a prospective longitudinal study of a representative community sample of families (subsample n = 207, mean age = 82.88 months), we investigated concurrent associations between mothers’ internal state language and aspects of 7‐year‐olds’ social understanding, including children’s understanding of belief and spontaneous references to internal states during free play. When sociodemographic, maternal, and child characteristics were controlled, mothers’ references to their own cognitions were associated with dimensions of children’s social understanding. Our findings suggest that exposure to others’ perspectives contributes to children’s advanced understanding of minds, which has implications for interventions that foster social understanding.