Child Development

It is widely believed that race divides the world into biologically distinct kinds of people—an essentialist belief inconsistent with reality. Essentialist views of race have been described as early emerging, but this study found that young children (n = 203,M_age = 5.45) hold only the more limited belief that the physical feature of skin color is inherited and stable. Overall, children rejected the causal essentialist view that behavioral and psychological characteristics are constrained by an inherited racial essence. Although average levels of children's causal essentialist beliefs about race were low, variation in these beliefs was related to children's own group membership, exposure to diversity, as well as children's own social attitudes.

Eating more or eating less in response to negative emotions, called emotional over‐ and undereating, is common in children, but research on the etiology of these behaviors is in its infancy. Drawing on a large, representative community sample of Norwegian children followed up on a biennial basis from 6 to 10 years of age (analysis sample: n = 802), child and contextual predictors (i.e., child temperament, depression symptoms, serious life events, family functioning, parental sensitivity and structuring) of change in emotional over‐ and undereating were examined. Results revealed that low (temperamental) soothability and less parental structuring at age 6 predicted increased emotional overeating at age 10 and that lower family functioning at age 6 predicted more emotional undereating during the same period.

This research addresses a new construct, co–rumination. Co–rumination refers to extensively discussing and revisiting problems, speculating about problems, and focusing on negative feelings. Friendship research indicates that self–disclosure leads to close relationships; however, coping research indicates that dwelling on negative topics leads to emotional difficulties. Co–rumination is a single construct that integrates both perspectives and is proposed to be related both to positive friendship adjustment and problematic emotional adjustment. Third–, fifth–, seventh–, and ninth–grade participants (N= 608) responded to questionnaires, including a new measure of co–rumination. Co–rumination was related to high–quality, close friendships and aspects of depression and anxiety. Girls reported co–ruminating more than did boys, which helped to account for girls’ more positive friendship adjustment and greater internalizing symptoms. Other analyses addressed whether co–rumination and the related constructs of self–disclosure and rumination had different relations with friendship and emotional adjustment.

The impact of early close relationships on psychological development is one of the enduring questions of developmental psychology that is addressed by attachment theory and research. This essay evaluates what has been learned, and offers ideas for future research, by examining the origins of continuity and change in the security of attachment early in life, and its prediction of later behavior. The discussion evaluates research on the impact of changing family circumstances and quality of care on changes in attachment security, and offers new hypotheses for future study. Considering the representations (or internal working models) associated with attachment security as developing representations, the discussion proposes that (1) attachment security may be developmentally most influential when the working models with which it is associated have sufficiently matured to influence other emerging features of psychosocial functioning; (2) changes in attachment security are more likely during periods of representational advance; and (3) parent–child discourse and other relational influences shape these developing representations after infancy. Finally, other features of early parent–child relationships that develop concurrently with attachment security, including negotiating conflict and establishing cooperation, also must be considered in understanding the legacy of early attachments.

Two studies examined the inductive potential of various social categories among 144 kindergarten, 2nd‐, and 6th‐grade Israeli children from 3 sectors: secular Jews, religious Jews, and Muslim Arabs. Study 1—wherein social categories were labeled—found that ethnic categories were the most inductively powerful, especially for religious Jewish children. Study 2—wherein no social category labels were provided—found no differences across sectors either in the inductive potential of ethnic categories or in children’s capacity to visually recognize social categories. These results stress the importance of labels and cultural background in children’s beliefs about social categories. The implications of these findings for accounts of the development of social essentialism are discussed.

This study investigated children's ability to distinguish between resource inequalities with individual versus structural origins. Children (3‐ to 8‐years‐old; N = 93) were presented with resource inequalities based on either recipients’ merit (individual factor) or gender (structural factor). Children were assessed on their expectations for others’ allocations, own allocations, reasoning, and evaluations of others’ allocations. Children perpetuated merit‐based inequalities and either rectified or allocated equally in response to gender‐based inequalities. Older, but not younger, children expected others to perpetuate both types of inequalities and differed in their evaluations and reasoning. Links between children's allocations and judgments were also found. Results reveal novel insights into children's developing consideration of the structural and individual factors leading to resource inequalities.

Three studies investigated children's belief in causal determinism. If children are determinists, they should infer unobserved causes whenever observed causes appear to act stochastically. In Experiment 1, 4‐year‐olds saw a stochastic generative cause and inferred the existence of an unobserved inhibitory cause. Children traded off inferences about the presence of unobserved inhibitory causes and the absence of unobserved generative causes. In Experiment 2, 4‐year‐olds used the pattern of indeterminacy to decide whether unobserved variables were generative or inhibitory. Experiment 3 suggested that children (4 years old) resist believing that direct causes can act stochastically, although they accept that events can be stochastically associated. Children's deterministic assumptions seem to support inferences not obtainable from other cues.

Two studies (N = 456) compared the development of concepts of animal species and human gender, using a switched‐at‐birth reasoning task. Younger children (5‐ and 6‐year‐olds) treated animal species and human gender as equivalent; they made similar levels of category‐based inferences and endorsed similar explanations for development in these 2 domains. In contrast, 10‐year‐olds and adults treated gender and species concepts as distinct from one another. They viewed gender‐linked behavioral properties as open to environmental influence and endorsed environment‐based mechanisms to explain gender development. At all ages, children demonstrated differentiated reasoning about physical and behavioral properties, although this differentiation became more stable with age. The role of psychological essentialism in guiding conceptual development is discussed.

Power differences are observed in children's early relationships, yet little is known about how children conceptualize social power. Study 1 recruited adults (n = 35) to assess the validity of a series of vignettes to measure five dimensions of social power. Using these vignettes, Study 2 (149 three‐ to nine‐year‐olds, 42 adults) and Study 3 (86 three‐ to nine‐year‐olds, 22 adults) showed that children visiting a science museum at a middle class university town are sensitive to several dimensions of social power from a young age; however, an adult‐like breadth of power concepts does not develop until 7–9 years. Children understand social power whether the powerful character is malevolent or benevolent, though malevolent power is easier to detect for children and adults.

Group‐based social hierarchies exist in nearly every society, yet little is known about whether children understand that they exist. The present studies investigated whether 3‐ to 10‐year‐old children (N = 84) in South Africa associate higher status racial groups with higher levels of wealth, one indicator of social status. Children matched higher value belongings with White people more often than with multiracial or Black people and with multiracial people more often than with Black people, thus showing sensitivity to the de facto racial hierarchy in their society. There were no age‐related changes in children’s tendency to associate racial groups with wealth differences. The implications of these results are discussed in light of the general tendency for people to legitimize and perpetuate the status quo.