Faculty Publications, Department of Psychology

Socialization of Boys and Girls in Natural Contexts

Carolyn P. Edwards et al. — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 11:07:17 PDT

Socialization is the general process by which the members of a cultural community or society pass on their language, rules, roles, and customary ways of thinking and behaving to the next generation. Sex role socialization is one important aspect of this general process. The goals of earlier work were to understand how, why, and at what age girls and boys begin to vary behaviorally along such dimensions as "nurturance," "aggression," and "dependency," including determination of how sex-typical dispositions are influenced by cultural factors. This chapter presents a new approach seeking to answer such questions as the following. How are different kinds of gender-specific social behaviors called out or elicited by different contexts of socialization? How are gender differences influenced by children’s relationship to their social companions, for example, their gender, age, status, and kinship relationship? How are gender differences influenced by different activity contexts (e.g. school, work, play) that we know are differentially distributed across cultural communities, depending on such factors as adult subsistence strategies, leisure patterns, family structures, household organizations, and forms of social networks? Finally, how are gender differences affected by where children are found, their location in space (e.g. distance from home)?

The Influence of Model Infant Group Care on Parent/Child Interaction at Home.

Carolyn P. Edwards et al. — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 08:02:34 PDT

The effects of day care participation on parent-child interaction at home were assessed using a university-based, half-day, high-quality infant-toddler program. Hypotheses concerned whether "child-centered" features of the physical and social environment were carried over by parents to the home. Nineteen matched pairs of center and noncenter children (ages 2-24 months at start) were followed for 8 months. All had employed or student mothers. Methods included brief parent-reported "spot" observations, a videotaped observation of a bathing or feeding routine, and home environment assessments. Parents showed few group differences during the first half of the study period. At study end, however, center homes were more child-centered with respect to play, safety, and dinner arrangements. Center parents scored higher in proximity and warmth and lower in "teacher-avoided" behaviors. Noncenter parents at study end scored higher in authority (limit setting) and communicating values and labels. The findings are interpreted as supporting an ecological model of substantial intersection and cross-influence between home and day care settings.

Young Children's Age Group Conceptions of Social Relations: Social Functions and Social Objects

Carolyn P. Edwards et al. — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 09:51:57 PDT

Previous research has shown that by age 3-4, children classify the human world into age groups: babies, “little kids,” “big kids,” young adults (“mommies and daddies”), and old adults (“grandmothers and grandfathers”) (Edwards, 1984).. This study investigates young children’s concepts of age roles, that is, their expectations about what behavior makes most sense or is most appropriate for each age group. Study 1 was conducted at two daycare centers in the greater Princeton area, with 24 African-American and 24 European-American children aged 3.6 to 5.9 years. Each child was told a series of stories involving a set of doll-house figures that involved the seeking of help, seeking of information, giving of resources, and companionable play. Study 2 involved a similar study of social target X function relationships, but was conducted with photographs instead of dolls and at a private nursery school with all European American children. Both studies yielded a similar pattern of preferences, revealing that the children had clear notions of what kinds of social functions are appropriate with which kinds of social partners, e.g. grandparents were selected on the dependency stories but not on the companionable play story. The “big kids” were the most preferred figures overall, selected for all four kinds of social functions.

Morality and Change: Family Unity and Paternal Authority among Kipsigis and Abaluyia Elders and Students.

Carolyn P. Edwards — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 08:38:58 PDT

The responses to moral judgment dilemmas by 25 Kenyan from two rural tribal communities were analyzed for their assertions regarding two salient issues of morality: parental authority and family unit. The two tribal communities were the Kipsigis and Abaluyia, both from Western Kenya men, and the sample contained 14 elders/community leaders, and 11 secondary school students. The moral judgment interviews were originally collected in 1972 -1973 by trained University of Nairobi students, in order to test the cross-cultural validity of Lawrence Kohlberg’s cognitive-structuralist theory of moral development. For this study, the interviews were reanalyzed for their thematic content. The analysis revealed that all of the men—young and old, married and unmarried—shared a common vocabulary for talking about the underlying issues and moral conflicts raised by the dilemmas. The core values of respect, harmony, interdependence, and unity were not only alive and well, they were stressed over and over as the central virtues of family living by members of both tribal communities. In a stylistic variation on these themes, the ideal of seeking “reasonableness” in one’s thinking and behavior seemed more prominent among the Luhyia men, whereas maintaining “respectful” role relations seemed to preoccupy the Kipsigis elders and students.

The Effects of Day Care Participation on Parent-Infant Interaction at Home

Carolyn P. Edwards et al. — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 07:26:57 PDT

This study assessed how parents who placed their children in a high-quality infant and toddler program were, over time, influenced by three salient features of the center: its child-centered focus, its social orientation, and its support for men in nurturing roles.

Children’s Social Behaviors and Peer Interactions in Diverse Cultures

Carolyn P. Edwards et al. — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 13:37:21 PDT

This chapter lays out five principles to guide research on peer relationships in cultural context that reflect both current and earlier bodies of research literature: (1) Cultural scripts for socialization in peer relationships are evident in early childhood. (2) Both across and within cultural communities, children’s own active role in the socialization process becomes increasingly evident as they grow older. (3) Because children are active agents in their own socialization, they can not only make choices, they can also negotiate, deflect, and resist socializing attempts by others. (4) Children’s choices and preferences (self-socialization) during middle childhood have measurable and lasting effects on their developmental outcomes during adolescence. (5) Periods of rapid social change create exceptional stresses as well as opportunities for childhood peers.

Play Patterns and Gender

Carolyn P. Edwards et al. — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 10:09:23 PDT

This cross-cultural analysis examines the gendered patterns of play seen in children worldwide. Play is a culturally universal activity through which children explore themselves and their environment, test out and practice different social roles, and learn to interact with other children and adults. Early in life, children identify themselves as a “girl” or a “boy,” and this basic self-categorization lays a foundation for their developing beliefs about with whom, what, how, and where they will play. Children play an active role in their own and their peers’ “gender socialization” (the process by which they come to acquire the knowledge, values, and skills needed to behave “appropriately” as a male or female in their society). However, they are greatly influenced by the adult community, as represented by institutions of family, neighborhood school, and the media. These agents of socialization contribute to children's understanding of gender roles and expectations, and these in turn influence the developing play patterns of children, as seen in their toy and activity preferences; rough and tumble play; constructive/creative play; and games.

Parent-Child Relationships in Early Learning.

Carolyn P. Edwards et al. — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 09:09:56 PDT

Parental behavior during a child’s first five years of life is critical for the development of important social and cognitive outcomes in children that set the stage for life-long adaptation and functioning. This chapter will review some of the key findings about the importance of parent-child relationships in early learning. Three dimensions of parent behavior will be described as “parental engagement”: (a) warmth and sensitivity, (b) support for a child’s emerging autonomy, and (c) active participation in learning. Cross cultural variations in which the styles of these behaviors are expressed are also considered, contrasting physical, social, and cognitive styles of communicating parental care.

Behavioral Sex Differences in Children of Diverse Cultures: The Case of Nurturance to Infants

Carolyn P. Edwards — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 13:32:19 PDT

This chapter draws on the data from the Children of Different Worlds study (Whiting & Edwards, 1988) to consider the origin of sex differences in children’s behavior worldwide, in particular: (1) how different kinds of social behavior are elicited by different contexts of socialization (defined by the sex, age, status, and kinship of social interactants, ongoing activities, and other potent dimensions of setting); (2) how these contexts of socialization are distributed across cultures and associated with various adult subsistence strategies, family structures, household patterns, and forms of social networks; and (3) how boys and girls of each age in diverse cultures come to occupy different contexts of socialization.

Societal complexity and moral development: A Kenyan study.

Carolyn P. Edwards — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 14:00:58 PDT

This study examines the moral judgment levels (as measured by Kohlberg’s 6-stage moral judgment interview) for two Kenyan samples. The first sample includes a culturally and racially group of 35 young men and 17 women studying at the University of Nairobi, while the second sample consists of 44 males and 14 females living in seven communities in the Central and Western Provinces of Kenya who were interviewed by a cadre of trained University students on their school vacation. The moral judgment interview included four hypothetical moral dilemmas and a standard set of probing questions. Three of the dilemmas were standard Kohlberg stories especially adapted for the Kenyan setting, while the fourth dilemma was constructed in Kenya. Interviews were taped and transcribed and scored using the “global method.” The findings reveal different distributions and highest scores for the two samples, with the University sample generally higher. The discussion suggests why different modes of moral decision-making are appropriate for the tribal versus national frames of reference. In terms of Kohlberg’s stage system of moral judgment, stage 3 is the type of thinking most suitable for a face-to-face community, while stage 4 is more suitable for the national stage.

Another Style of Competence: The Caregiving Child

Carolyn P. Edwards — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 13:26:11 PDT

This chapter discusses child and sibling caregiving as an opportunity for the learning of nurturance and responsibility. The argument is based on case examples from ethnographic material, that children in multiage dyads or groupings negotiate constantly with one another and thereby reveal their reasoning about rational and conventional moral rules. The observational material is drawn from the work of Carol R. Ember (1970, 1973) who studied children in a Luo community of about 250 people in the South Nyanza district of Kenya. This community, referred to as Oyugis (actually the name of the market town 2.5 miles away, is one in which task-assignment is a prominent feature of the daily lives of children. The women were responsible for most of the agricultural work (except plowing) and also for the housework, food preparation, and child care. The amount of work assigned to a particular child depended upon his or her age, sex, sibling position, and school attendance.

Low-Level Lead Exposure and Contingency-Based Responding in Preschoolers: An Exploratory Study

Melanie McDiarmid Nelson et al. — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 11:23:18 PST

Two reversal paradigm tasks (spatial reversal and spatial reversal with irrelevant color cues) originally designed to assess contingency-based responding in primates were adapted for use with 139 preschool children with a mean peak blood lead level (BLL) of 4.2 μg/dl (SD = 2.2). Sixty-nine children with BLL ≥ 5 μg/dl and 70 children with BLL of < 5 μg/dl were included. Results indicated that preschool children with low-level lead exposure take longer to learn associations than preschool children with very low levels of lead exposure, and this difference cannot be attributed to increased distractibility or perseverative responding. These results support the use of these measures to assess specific cognitive functions in preschool children.

Reducing Courts’ Failure-to-Appear Rate by Written Reminders

Brian H. Bornstein et al. — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 12:12:17 PST

This article examines the effectiveness of using different kinds of written reminders to reduce misdemeanor defendants’ failure- to-appear (FTA) rates. A subset of defendants was surveyed after their scheduled court date to assess their perceptions of procedural justice and trust and confidence in the courts. Reminders reduced FTA overall, and more substantive reminders (e.g., with information on the negative consequences of FTA) were more effective than a simple reminder. FTA varied depending on several offense and offender characteristics, such as geographic location (urban vs. rural), type of offense, and number of offenses. The reminders were somewhat more effective for Whites and Hispanics than for Blacks. Defendants with higher institutional confidence and those who felt they had been treated more fairly by the criminal justice system were more likely to appear, though the effectiveness of the reminder was greatest among misdemeanants with low levels of trust in the courts. The implications for public policy and pretrial services are discussed.

Executive function deficits in preschool children with ADHD and DBD

Kim Schoemaker et al. — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 09:24:09 PST

Background: Impairments in executive functions (EF) are consistently associated with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and to a lesser extent, with disruptive behavior disorder (DBD), that is, oppositional defiant disorder or conduct disorder, in school-aged children. Recently, larger numbers of children with these disorders are diagnosed earlier in development, yet knowledge about impairments in clinically diagnosed preschool children and the role of comorbidity is limited. Therefore, the aim of the current study was to examine EF in clinically referred preschool children with a clinical diagnosis of ADHD, DBD and ADHD + DBD.

Method: Participants were 202 children aged 3.5–5.5 years, 61 with ADHD only, 33 with DBD only, 52 with comorbid ADHD + DBD and 56 typically developing children. Five EF tasks were administered.

Results: Confirmatory factor analysis showed that the two-factor model (inhibition and working memory) fit the data better than a one-factor model in this clinical sample. Preschoolers with ADHD displayed inhibition deficits, also after controlling for IQ. Likewise, preschoolers with DBD displayed impaired inhibition, but when IQ was controlled differences were carried mostly by the effect on the task where motivational demands were high (i.e. when tangible rewards were used). This pattern was also found in the interaction between ADHD and DBD; impaired inhibition in the comorbid group, however, was more severe than in the DBD group. Regarding working memory, few group differences were found.

Conclusions: Clinically diagnosed preschool children with ADHD showed robust inhibition deficits, whereas preschool children with DBD showed impaired inhibition especially where motivational incentives were prominent. Severity of inhibition impairment in the comorbid group was similar to the ADHD group.

Scaling up: Professional development to serve young children in Chinese welfare institutions

Carolyn P. Edwards et al. — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 10:31:36 PST

As senior program directors and field supervisors, we at Half the Sky Foundation asked ourselves, how can we empower children's welfare institution staff to provide nurture, enrichment, and education for all young children in state care? Creating an infrastructure for providing professional development was the first step. The HTS training infrastructure for early childhood includes international experts and a cadre of skilled Chinese teacher trainers, who together create a network of HTS teacher trainers (program directors and field supervisors for Infant Nurture and Little Sisters). In addition, Blue Sky model training centers-soon to number 31, one for each province of China operate HTS Infant Nurture and Little Sisters Preschools and serve as the provincial bases for training and professional development. Locally hired infant nannies, preschool teachers, and on-site mentors staff these model centers; some become mentors and models within their provinces.

A Preliminary Investigation of Worry Content in Sexual Minorities

Brandon J. Weiss et al. — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 13:23:58 PST

This preliminary study examined the nature of worry content of lesbians, gay men, and bisexual individuals and the relationship between worry related to sexual orientation and mental health. A community sample of 54 individuals identifying as sexual minorities was recruited from two cities in the Great Plains to complete a packet of questionaires, including a modified Worry Domains Questionnaire (WDQ; Tallis, Eysenck, & Mathews, 1992) with additional items constructed to assess worry over discrimination related to sexual orientation, and participate in a worry induction and verbalization task. The content of self-reported worries was consistent with those reported in prior investigations of worry content, and worry related to sexual orientation was not found to be elevated compared to other topics. However, degree of worry related to sexual orientation was significantly associated with increased negative affect, depressive symptoms, and internalized homophobia and decreased quality of life and positive affect. Implications of these findings, limitations, and future research issues are discussed.

Contextual and behavioral control of antipsychotic sensitization induced by haloperidol and olanzapine

Chen Zhang et al. — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 14:35:42 PDT

Repeated administration of haloperidol (HAL) and olanzapine (OLZ) causes a progressively enhanced disruption of the conditioned avoidance response (CAR) and a progressively enhanced inhibition of phencyclidine (PCP)-induced hyperlocomotion in rats (termed antipsychotic sensitization). Both actions are thought to reflect intrinsic antipsychotic activity. The present study examined the extent to which antipsychotic- induced sensitization in one model (e.g. CAR) can be transferred or maintained in another (e.g. PCP hyperlocomotion) as a means of investigating the contextual and behavioral controls of antipsychotic sensitization. Well-trained male Sprague-Dawley rats were first repeatedly tested in the CAR or the PCP (3.2 mg/kg, subcutaneously) hyperlocomotion model under HAL or OLZ for 5 consecutive days. Then they were switched to the other model and tested for the expression of sensitization. Finally, all rats were switched back to the original model and retested for the expression of sensitization. Repeated HAL or OLZ treatment progressively disrupted avoidance responding and decreased PCP-induced hyperlocomotion, indicating a robust sensitization. When tested in a different model, rats previously treated with HAL or OLZ did not show a stronger inhibition of CAR-induced or PCP-induced hyperlocomotion than those treated with these drugs for the first time; however, they did show such an effect when tested in the original model in which they received repeated antipsychotic treatment. These findings suggest that the expression of antipsychotic sensitization is strongly influenced by the testing environment and/or selected behavioral response under certain experimental conditions. Distinct contextual cues and behavioral responses may develop an association with unconditional drug effects through a Pavlovian conditioning process. They may also serve as occasion setters to modulate the expression of sensitized responses. As antipsychotic sensitization mimics the clinical effects of antipsychotic treatment, understanding the neurobiological mechanisms of antipsychotic sensitization and its contextual control would greatly enhance our understanding of the psychological and neurochemical nature of antipsychotic treatment in the clinic.

Neural basis of the potentiated inhibition of repeated haloperidol and clozapine treatment on the phencyclidine-induced hyperlocomotion

Changjiu Zhao et al. — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 08:33:57 PDT

Clinical observations suggest that antipsychotic effect starts early and increases progressively over time. This time course of antipsychotic effect can be captured in a rat phencyclidine (PCP)-induced hyperlocomotion model, as repeated antipsychotic treatment progressively increases its inhibition of the repeated PCP-induced hyperlocomotion. Although the neural basis of acute antipsychotic action has been studied extensively, the system that mediates the potentiated effect of repeated antipsychotic treatment has not been elucidated. In the present study, we investigated the neuroanatomical basis of the potentiated action of haloperidol (HAL) and clozapine (CLZ) treatment in the repeated PCP-induced hyperlocomotion. Once daily for five consecutive days, adult Sprague–Dawley male rats were first injected with HAL (0.05 mg/kg, sc), CLZ (10.0 mg/ kg, sc) or saline, followed by an injection of PCP (3.2 mg/kg, sc) or saline 30 min later, and motor activity was measured for 90 min after the PCP injection. C-Fos immunoreactivity was assessed either after the acute (day 1) or repeated (day 5) drug tests. Behaviorally, repeated HAL or CLZ treatment progressively increased the inhibition of PCP-induced hyperlocomotion throughout the five days of drug testing. Neuroanatomically, both acute and repeated treatment of HAL significantly increased PCP-induced c-Fos expression in the nucleus accumbens shell (NAs) and the ventral tegmental area (VTA), but reduced it in the central amygdaloid nucleus (CeA). Acute and repeated CLZ treatment significantly increased PCP-induced c-Fos expression in the ventral part of lateral septal nucleus (LSv) and VTA, but reduced it in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). More importantly, the effects of HAL and CLZ in these brain areas underwent a time-dependent reduction from day 1 to day 5. These findings suggest that repeated HAL achieves its potentiated inhibition of the PCP-induced hyperlocomotion by acting on the NAs, CeA and VTA, while CLZ does so by acting on the mPFC, LSv and VTA.

Correlated and Coupled Within-Person Change in Emotional and Behavior Disturbance in Individuals with Intellectual Disability

Scott M. Hofer et al. — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 08:41:10 PDT

Individual change and variation in emotional/behavioral disturbance in children and adolescents with intellectual disability has received little empirical investigation. Based on 11 years of longitudinal data from the Australian Child to Adult Development Study, we report associations among individual differences in level, rate of change, and occasion-specific variation across subscales of theDevelopmental Behavior Checklist (DBC) with 506 participants who had intellectual disability and were ages 5 to 19 years at study entry. Correlations among the five DBC subscales ranged from .43 to .66 for level, .43 to .88 for rate of change, and .31 to .61 for occasion-specific variation, with the highest correlations observed consistently between disruptive, self-absorbed, and communication disturbance behaviors. These interdependencies among dimensions of emotional/behavioral disturbance provide insight into the developmental dynamics of psychopathology from childhood through young adulthood.

Judgments of Omitted BE and DO in Questions as Extended Finiteness Clinical Markers of SLI to Fifteen Years: A Study of Growth and Asymptote

Mabel L. Rice et al. — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 14:41:45 PDT

Purpose—Clinical grammar markers are needed for children with SLI older than 8 years. This study followed children studied earlier on sentences with omitted finiteness to determine if affected children continue to perform at low levels and to examine possible predictors of low performance. This is the first longitudinal report of grammaticality judgments of questions.

Method—Three groups of children participated: 20 SLI, 20 age controls and 18 language-matched controls, followed from ages 6–15 years. An experimental grammaticality judgment task was administered with BE copula/auxiliary and DO auxiliary in Wh- and Yes/No questions for 9 times of measurement. Predictors were indices of vocabulary, nonverbal intelligence, and maternal education.

Results—Growth curve analyses show that the affected group performed below the younger controls at each time of measurement, for each variable. Growth analyses show linear and quadratic effects for both groups across variables, with the exception of BE acquisition which was flat for both groups. The control children reached ceiling levels; the affected children reached a lower asymptote.

Conclusions—The results suggest an on-going maturational lag in finiteness marking for affected children with promise as a clinical marker for language impairment in school-aged and adolescent children and probably adults as well.