Table of Content

15 September 2013, Volume 29 Issue 5

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The Characteristics of 3-4-year-old Children’s Conceptual Knowledge of Lying：the Role of Theory of Mind and Parenting Style

XU Fen, GUO Xiao-lin, ZHANG Jia

Psychological Development and Education. 2013, 29(5):  449-456. 

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The purpose of this study is to investigate the contribution of children's theory of mind and parenting style to the individual differences in children's conceptual knowledge of lying. One hundred and sixty-five 3-to 4 year-olds were tested on language, theory of mind, and lying understanding measures. Parents were also given measures of parenting style. The results showed that all the children performed better on the judgment of the concept of lying than the judgment of the concept of truth-telling and 4 year-olds outperformed 3 year-olds. With age and verbal ability controlled, children's theory of mind was positively associated with their conceptual knowledge of lying, whereas authoritarian parenting was negatively associated with children's conceptual knowledge of lying. In addition, children's theory of mind was a part mediator between authoritarian parenting and children's conceptual knowledge of lying.

An Eye-movement Research on Cartoon Face Processing of 5-6-year-old Children in Different Task Situations

ZHAO Qian, WANG Jing-mei, XU Kan-hong, LU Ying-jun

Psychological Development and Education. 2013, 29(5):  457-465. 

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In this research, with cartoon pictures as stimuli, the authors tried to compare the difference of eye-movement in different tasks by giving three different processing tasks including cartoon face recognition, classification and attractiveness evaluation in 5-6-year-old children. The research results showed that: (1) the task situation affected the cartoon face processing of children. The reaction time, accuracy, fixation time and frequency varied when children were performing different face processing tasks; (2) the processing degree of children increased according to the three tasks with increasing degrees of difficulty; (3) the processing modes of children were consistent in the three tasks, and different parts of the cartoon face got different amount of attention from children. In the beginning, attention was first paid to the nose, and then most attention went to the eyes, next were the nose, the mouth, the forehead and the cheeks, while the chin was rarely noted; (4) a significant difference in gender was shown in the cartoon face classification task between boys and girls - girls had an advantage over boys in processing speed, while boys were more active in searching for key information.

The Influence of Different Rule Characteristics on Children’s Judgments

ZHOU Shuang-zhu, CHEN Ying-he

Psychological Development and Education. 2013, 29(5):  466-474. 

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This study explored the influence of different domains (prudential domain; personal domain) and different authorities (adult; peer) on children's judgments. 48 children aged from 4 to 7 participated. The results showed that: (1) 7-year-olds had a more complex understanding of rule. They predicted that the protagonists shouldn't break rules of prudential domain more than rules of personal domain and should be criticized more for breaking rules of prudential domain. And they also predicted that the protagonists should be criticized more for breaking the rule claimed by adult authority. Whereas 4 and 5-year-olds' predictions did not differ significantly in different rule situations. (2) Children's predictions of praise didn't differ significantly across conditions. (3) Older children are more inclined to predict that a protagonist would insist to do what he prefers, even though there is a prohibitive rule. (4) There was no significant difference on behavior predictions. The amount of children who predict compliance and transgression are even.

Real and Artificial Linguistic Labels Effect in Category Learning：Evidence from Eye Movements

TANG Zhi-wen, XING Qiang

Psychological Development and Education. 2013, 29(5):  475-482. 

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Linguistic labels play an important role in category learning. in these studies, we explored how the artificial linguistic labels and real linguistic labels influence the category learning by the eye tracker. In experiment 1, Were 33 undergraduate Measurement,four kinds of artificial linguistic labels were designed in form of appearance (similar vs. dissimilar)×label (similar vs. dissimilar). The result indicated that, in the artificial linguistic label circumstance, participants tended to classify the targets based on the label similarity. In experiment 2, Were 34 undergraduate Measurement,the participants were presented the real linguistic labels under the condition that the familiarity of the labels was controlled. Four kinds of the labels were similar appearance and familiar-labels, similar appearance and unfamiliar-labels, dissimilar appearance and unfamiliar-labels, similar appearance and familiar-labels. Under the real linguistic label circumstance, participants tended to classify the targets based on knowledge category of the label. From above 2 experiment, we found artificial linguistic results corroborated the similarity-based account in adults group, but real linguistic labels contributed to the knowledge-based. Linguistic labeling effect of familiarity in category learning affects the classification. classification is based on similarity in unfamiliar category linguistic label, while in familiar category linguistic label, it is based on knowledge; classification is higher in accuracy and faster based on category knowledge.

State and Trait：The Evidence from Social Creativity

GU Chuan-hua, ZHANG Xiao-rong, CHEN Jie, HAO En-he, WANG Ya-li

Psychological Development and Education. 2013, 29(5):  483-490. 

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In order to investigate the characteristics of social creativity in problem solving situation and stable social creativity in daily life, 650 elementary school children selected by group sampling were measured by the questionnaires. The questionnaire of story situation about social creativity was adopted to measure their social creativity in the problem situation; the questionnaire of social creativity of elementary school children was adopted to measure their persistent social creativity in daily life. The subscale of openness to experience in the questionnaire of five personality factors for elementary school children, Rosenberg self-esteem scale, and the information communication subscale in the questionnaire of internet use preference were also adopted to analyze the characteristics and nature of social creativity in problem situation and social creativity in daily life. The results indicated that, firstly, the developmental trajectories of two types of social creativity differ from each other, and the scores of social creativity in problem situations showed the "inverted Z" curve, however, the social creativity in daily life of children showed the "U-shaped" curve; secondly, two types of social creativity had different associations with openness to experience, self-esteem, and information communication preference of children, and the social creativity in daily life was correlated positively with openness to experience, self-esteem, and information communication preference, however, social creativity in the problem situation was correlated with openness to experience, self-esteem with low correlation coefficients, and meanwhile was not associated with the information communication preference; finally, openness to experience, self-esteem, and information communication by internet could predict significantly the social creativity in daily life instead of that in the problem situation. The results indicated that there may be state creativity and trait creativity which differs from each other.

Trust Level of Adolescents and Their Parents and Its Intergenerational Transmission

CHI Li-ping

Psychological Development and Education. 2013, 29(5):  491-499. 

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Previous studies on intergenerational transmission found that parents could transmit some of their characteristics, values and behaviors to their children. Some researchers concluded the level of parent' s trust correlated to that of their child, that is, there exists intergenerational transmission of interpersonal trust. Studies from the United States of America, Canada and Germany provided evidences. By now, no empirical research has been done in China to examine the intergenerational transmission of trust. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate how parents' trust predict their child's trust. Research in this aspect may shed light on the family origins of people's interpersonal trust.Some research about intergenerational transmission of trust found that father and mother played different roles in development of child's trust. Some studies showed that father's level of trust strongly impacted on that of son, but had little influenced on daughter; whereas trust level of mother affected both son and daughter slightly. A study from Canada indicated it was mother's level of trust, not father's that could predict trust level of their next generation. Recently, German researchers suggestted both father's and mother's trust impacted their offspring's trust. Althought it was not clear that who being more important for offspring's development of trust, some investigations pointed out parental investment to their offspring influenced the intergenerational transmission of trust: Parents who invest more in the upbringing of their children are more similar to them with respect to trust attitudes; thus transmit their own attitudes more strongly. A study of evolutionay psychology found that father invested in son more than daughter, while mother's investment in son and daughter were same. So it can be concluded that the trust level of boy's father would predict offspring's trust level more strongly than that of girl's father; and both boy's and girl's mother influence her offspring's trust level indifferently. Based on a Chinese sample of 198 parents-adolescent pairs, the present study aimed to examine whether parents' trust could be transmitted to their offspring or not. The study collected pariticipants' responses to trust game by questionnare to measure their interpersonal trust. Each participant including adolescent and adult was asked to decide how much money would he or she like to send a stranger and guess how much would the stranger return to him or her after receiving pariticipant's money. The amount of money pariticipants sending and estimating to be returned was used to measure the level of trust. The results showed that (1) the rate of amount of money sending from adolescents and their fathers and mothers were 57.3%, 56.7% and 54.8%, respectively; and fathers' trust levels were higher than mothers'; and male adolescents were more trusting than female. (2) Gender of the offspring impacted on the strength of intergenerational transmission. Parents' trust could not predict their daughter's trust; whereas they did for sons. The transmission patterns of father and mother were different: relationship of father's and son's trust level fit a linear model but data of mother's and son's trust fit a negative quadratic model. The study has potentially important implications for understanding the mechanisms of intergenerational transmission of trust, and it is shed light on the basic question of where trust comes from.

The Relationships among Family’s Socioeconomic Status, Parental Rearing Behaviors and Career Exploration in College Students

QU Ke-jia, ZOU Hong

Psychological Development and Education. 2013, 29(5):  500-506. 

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Based on questionnaire method, 676 college students were used as participants to explore the relationship of socioeconomic status, parental rearing behaviors and career exploration. Results: (1) Family's socioeconomic status had significantly positive correlations with self-exploration, environment-exploration, self-environment matching exploration, and exploration intention. (2) Parental rearing behaviors had direct effects on career exploration. Parental emotional warmth, maternal intervention, and paternal intervention had positive effects, while paternal punishment had negative effects.(3)Family's socioeconomic status predicted career exploration directly and indirectly. Parental rearing behaviors, especially maternal emotional warmth and maternal intervention, served as mediator in SES and career exploration.

Effects of Family Socioeconomic Status and Parental Involvement on Junior Students’Academic Achievements：The Moderating Role of Students’ Perception of Teachers’ Support

QIAO Na, ZHANG Jing-huan, LIU Gui-rong, LIN Chong-de

Psychological Development and Education. 2013, 29(5):  507-514. 

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Based on a sample of 331 junior students, the present study examined the associations among family socioeconomic status, parental involvement, students' perception of teachers' support and academic achievements. Hierarchical regression analyses were applied to detect the effects of family socioeconomic status on children's academic achievements as well as the moderated mediating role of parental involvement by students' perception of teachers' support. Results indicated that family socioeconomic status was a predictor of academic achievements. Parental involvement served to mediate the link between family socioeconomic status and academic achievements. And the perception of teachers' support moderated the mediating effect of parental involvement.These findings highlight the importance of examining the role of family socioeconomic status, parental involvement and teachers' support in children's academic achievements in modern China, and of expanding the existing research by underlying the role of parental involvement and teachers' support on children's academic achievements.

Enhancing Critical Thinking of College Students：Intervention Study of Service Learning

MA Hui, YAO Mei-lin, TONG Li-juan

Psychological Development and Education. 2013, 29(5):  515-524. 

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To explore the intervention effect of service learning on college students' critical thinking, 72 undergraduate students majoring in psychology accepted quasi experimental design intervention and were assigned to experimental group(N=54) and control group (N=21). Experimental group participated in service learning for 10 weeks(2 hours per week) while control group completed matching tasks (literature translation and summary).Open questions in reflective journals and non-service learning field situational questions were used as experimental materials, and self-compiled critical thinking performance coding schedule was used to encode materials collected pre-post and during the service learning process. Quantitative analysis revealed that experimental group performed significantly better in the posttest, both in service learning and non-service learning area, especially on the dimension of solution improvement. Qualitative analysis revealed during the service learning process experimental group students evaluated solutions in a more objective and comprehensive way,and improved solutions more targeted and operationally.

A Longitudinal Study of Relations between Parents’ Marital Quality and Children’s Behavior Problems：Moderating Effect of Children’s Effortful Control

LIANG Zong-bao, ZHANG An-wei, ZHANG Guang-zhen, SONG Yuan, DENG Hui-hua, LU Zu-hong

Psychological Development and Education. 2013, 29(5):  525-532. 

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Marital relationship is the core of the stability of family, and parents' marital quality is significantly associated with children's externalizing and internalizing behavior problems. Apart from the environmental factors, children's temperament (e.g. effortful control) might have the direct effect on children's behavior problems. Effortful control refers to the ability to inhibit a dominant response to perform a subdominant response, and it has been suggested as a moderator of the relation between parents' marital quality and children's behavior problems. However, few researches have studied the independent prediction on children's concurrent and later behavior problems from marital quality and effortful control and their interaction, especially in Chinese culture. The present short term longitudinal study aimed to explore concurrent and longitudinal relations among mothers' marital quality, children's effortful control, and children's behavior problems. Participants were 474 children (wave 1, M=49.67 months) as well as their mothers. Mothers reported their own marital quality on the Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS) and their children's effortful control on the Child Behavior Questionnaire (CBQ).Children's behavior problems were also reported by mothers using the Children's Social Behavior Questionnaire (SCBE). Multiple regression analyses were conducted to examine the hypotheses.It was found that mothers' marital quality negatively predicted concurrent children's externalizing and internalizing behavior problems. Children's effortful control negatively predicted children's externalizing and internalizing behavior problems currently and one year later. At the first year, children's effortful control moderated the relation between mothers' marital quality and children's externalizing behavior problems. For children with low levels of effortful control, mothers' marital quality could negatively predict children's externalizing behavior problems. In contrast, for children with high levels of effortful control, mothers' marital quality could not predict children's externalizing behavior problems.

The Detriment of Mother’s Depression and Punishment on Preschooler’s Problem Behaviors and the Protecting Father

LIU Li-sha, LI Yan-fang

Psychological Development and Education. 2013, 29(5):  533-540. 

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Young children are more likely to be vulnerable to the negative mother. Maternal depression and negative parenting could be associated with a range of development problem in early childhood, while father's positive parenting behavior could mitigate the adverse effects and protecting children's smoothly developing. A sample of 184 preschoolers' parents (both mother and father) participated in current study devoted to investigating the mechanism of maternal depression and punishment on preschooler's problem behaviors and the buffer effect of father's positive encouragement. Results showed that: (1) maternal depression predicted children's internalizing problem behaviors while maternal punishment predicted both internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors significantly. (2) Maternal punishment mediated the relations between maternal depression and children's externalizing behaviors completely and partially mediated the associations between maternal depression and children's internalizing behaviors. (3) Paternal positive encouragement significantly moderated the influences of maternal depression on children's externalizing behaviors, but marginal positively moderated the impact of maternal depression on children's internalizing behaviors. Otherwise, paternal positive encouragement couldn't moderate the negative effects of mother's punishment on children's internalizing and externalizing behaviors, which implicated that positive paternal encouragement could buffer the negative effects of maternal depression against young children's problem behaviors.

School Climate and Adolescents’ Suicidal Ideation and Suicide Attempts：The Mediating Role of Self-Esteem

YANG Xue, WANG Yan-hui, LI Dong-ping, ZHAO Li-yan, BAO Zhen-zhou, ZHOU Zong-kui

Psychological Development and Education. 2013, 29(5):  541-551. 

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Although quite a few adolescents committed suicide in school settings, few studies have examined whether school climate was associated with adolescent suicide as well as the mediating mechanisms underlying this association. The present study examined the relationship between different dimensions of school climate (i.e., teacher-student support, student-student support, and opportunities for autonomy in the school) and adolescents' suicidal ideation and attempts as well as the mediating role of self-esteem underlying these associations. With stratified-cluster sampling method, 2,758 middle school students completed questionnaire measures of school climate, self-esteem, suicidal ideation and attempts, as well as covariates (e.g., family functioning). The results revealed that: (1) After controlling for gender, age, socioeconomic status, family functioning, and neighborhood problems, teacher-student support and student-student support were significantly and negatively associated with adolescents' suicidal ideation and suicide attempts, whereas the effect of opportunities for autonomy in the school was not significant; (2) Self-esteem mediated the relationship between teacher-student support and student-student support, and adolescents' suicidal ideation and suicide attempts. Therefore, school climate shapes adolescents' self-system beliefs, which in turn impact their suicidal ideation and suicide attempts.

“Audience Design” of Referential Communication

ZHANG Heng-chao

Psychological Development and Education. 2013, 29(5):  552-560. 

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"Audience design" has been a hot spot in the research of referential communication. The communicators usually adjust their behavior based on the assessment of shared information in the process of referential communication. But when and how to adjust behavior are still in dispute. This thesis reviewed the existing research perspectives and research progress of "audience design", and summarized the perspectives of referential convention, memory and attention, communication situation. Future studies should extend the existing research design to explore the formation, acquisition, development of "audience design" and the interaction between "audience design" and other limited factors by the control of information of communicators. It requires a combination of behavioral evidences and eye movement evidences, brain imaging evidences to help reveal the behavioral characteristics and cognitive mechanisms of "audience design".