Children's judgments on the acceptability of prejudice.

By middle childhood, children become aware that discriminatory behavior is unacceptable; however, the development of their anti-prejudice sentiments is largely unknown. Across two studies, 333 Australian 5- to 10-year-olds (51% female, majority White) were asked how acceptable they thought it was to have prejudicial sentiments toward 25 different targets. Children responded privately through a novel digital paradigm designed to minimize social-desirability biases.

Parent Versus Individual Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Youth Anxiety: Protocol for an Overview of Systematic Reviews Over Time.

Background: Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) has shown to be highly effective for treating youth anxiety; yet, there is ongoing debate as to whether involving parents improves outcomes. For example, parents who attend may learn CBT skills to help their child in an ongoing way; yet, they could also distract their child from treatment depending on how they interact. As evidence has accumulated, reviews and meta-analyses have attempted to examine the most effective treatment format.

Do Parents Enhance Cognitive Behavior Therapy for Youth Anxiety? An Overview of Systematic Reviews Over Time.

The last 20 years has seen debate regarding the merits of involving parents in cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) for youth anxiety played out across systematic reviews which have high impact. These reviews examined varying treatment formats in relation to parent involvement, including youth only CBT (Y-CBT), parent only CBT (P-CBT) and family CBT (youth and parent; F-CBT). This is a novel overview of systematic reviews examining evidence for parental involvement in CBT for youth anxiety over the period this was studied.

Is Your Accent Right for the Job? A Meta-Analysis on Accent Bias in Hiring Decisions.

Standard-accented job candidates are perceived as more hireable than non-standard-accented candidates. Two broad perspectives have emerged as to what drives this effect: (a) that it is a pragmatic response to the perception that non-standard accents can impede job-relevant communication (processing fluency explanation) and/or (b) that non-standard accents signal "otherness" and candidates are devalued as a result (prejudice explanation). This meta-analytic integration of 139 effect sizes ( = 4,576) examined these two perspectives.

Something About the Way You Speak: A Meta-analysis on Children's Linguistic-based Social Preferences.

There is growing interest in the role of linguistic cues (accents, dialects, language) in driving children's social preferences. This meta-analysis integrated 131 effect sizes involving 2,680 infants and children from 2 days old to 11 years. Overall, children prefer native-accent, native-dialect, and native-language speakers over non-native counterparts (d = 0.

When efficiency attenuates imitation in preschool children.

Children recognise the social value of imitation but do not opt for tools that are 'normative' if they are also dysfunctional. We investigated whether children would replicate a normative method in a tool-learning task if it was instrumentally functional but less efficient than an alternative. Four- to six-year-old children were presented with a sticker-retrieving task and two equally functional tool options that differed in efficiency.

Lying and Theory of Mind: A Meta-Analysis.

This meta-analysis investigated the link between lying and theory-of-mind (ToM) by integrating findings from 81 studies involving 7,826 children between 2 and 14 years of age from 14 different collectivist and individualist cultures. Overall, there was a small, significant positive association (r = .23).

Age-related changes in children's accent-based resource distribution.

Children display explicit social preferences for native-accented and same-race peers, but when these two markers are in conflict, they prefer native-accented other-race peers over foreign-accented same-race peers. However, to what extent do these preferences translate into children's behavior toward others? This study investigated children's resource distribution decisions based on photographs of unfamiliar children who differed in accent and race. A total of 77 native English-speaking, White 5- to 10-year-old children were given three coins to distribute to pairs of recipients, with an option to distribute equally by discarding a resource.

Lifespan differences in emotional contagion while watching emotion-eliciting videos.

Previous research has examined empathic concern by presenting toddlers with a sad stimulus and examining their emotional response, with the conclusion that toddlers display empathy. Yet, such research has failed to include basic control conditions involving some other aversive stimulus such as white noise. Nor has it compared toddlers to adults to examine potential development in empathy.

Behavioral Investments in the Short Term Fail to Produce a Sunk Cost Effect.

A cognitive bias known as the sunk cost effect has been found across a number of contexts. This bias drives the continued investment of time, effort, or money into an endeavor on the basis of prior investments into it. In Studies 1 and 2, we attempted to observe whether this effect occurs for short-term behavioral investments.

Which button will I press? Preference for correctly ordered counting sequences in 18-month-olds.

Correct counting respects the stable order principle whereby the count terms are recited in a fixed order every time. The 4 experiments reported here tested whether precounting infants recognize and prefer correct stable-ordered counting. The authors introduced a novel preference paradigm in which infants could freely press two buttons to activate videos of counting events.

Children's learning and memory of an interactive science lesson: Does the context matter?

Children often learn information in a context that is vastly different to the one in which they are asked to recall or use that information. Despite this, little is known about the effect of context change on children's recall of educational information. Here, 197 5- and 6-year-olds were taught the same interactive lesson in their classroom or on a field trip and were tested after a 1- to 2-day and 6-month delay.

Practicing for the Future: Deliberate Practice in Early Childhood.

Deliberate practice is essential for acquiring a wide range of skills that have been central to humans' adaptive success, yet little is known about when and how children develop this capability. The current study examined 4- to 7-year-olds' (N = 120) ability to selectively practice a skill that would be useful in the near future, as well as their broader understanding of the role of deliberate practice in skill acquisition. Six- and 7-year-olds demonstrated both an explicit understanding of deliberate practice and the capacity to practice without being prompted.

Theory of mind and prosocial behavior in childhood: A meta-analytic review.

It has been argued that children who possess an advanced theory of mind (ToM) are more likely to act prosocially, yet the empirical findings are mixed. To address this issue definitively, a meta-analytic integration of all prior literature that met appropriate inclusion criteria was conducted. In total, 76 studies including 6,432 children between 2 and 12 years of age contributed to these analyses.

Meta-Analysis of Theory of Mind and Peer Popularity in the Preschool and Early School Years.

It has been argued that children who possess an advanced theory of mind (ToM) are viewed positively by their peers, but the empirical findings are mixed. This meta-analysis of 20 studies including 2,096 children (aged from 2 years, 8 months to 10 years) revealed a significant overall association (r = .19) indicating that children with higher ToM scores were also more popular in their peer group.

I want it all and I want it now: Delay of gratification in preschool children.

On the delay-of-gratification choice paradigm, 4-year-olds typically choose the larger, delayed reward, exhibiting delay of gratification, whereas 3-year-olds typically choose the small, immediate reward. Despite this highly replicated finding, the cognitive mechanism(s) underlying 3-year-olds' failure on the choice paradigm remain unclear. Recently, several researchers have proposed the involvement of the "hot" affective system and the "cool" cognitive system in pre-schoolers' performance on the choice paradigm.

Drawing a close to the use of human figure drawings as a projective measure of intelligence.

The practice of using children's human figure drawings (HFDs) to assess their intellectual ability is pervasive among psychologists and therapists in many countries. Since the first systematic scoring system for HFDs was published in 1926, their continued popularity has led to the development of several revised versions of the test. Most recently, the Draw-A-Person Intellectual Ability Test for children, adolescents, and adults (DAP:IQ) was published.

Social evaluation or simple association? Simple associations may explain moral reasoning in infants.

Are we born amoral or do we come into this world with a rudimentary moral compass? Hamlin and colleagues argue that at least one component of our moral system, the ability to evaluate other individuals as good or bad, is present from an early age. In their study, 6- and 10-month-old infants watched two social interactions - in one, infants observed the helper assist the climber achieve the goal of ascending a hill, while in the other, infants observed the hinderer prevent the climber from ascending the hill. When given a choice, the vast majority of infants picked the helper over the hinderer, suggesting that infants evaluated the helper as good and the hinderer as bad.

The effect of verbal reminders on memory reactivation in 2-, 3-, and 4-year-old children.

For adults, verbal reminders provide a powerful key to unlock our memories. For example, a simple question, such as "Do you remember your wedding day?" can reactivate rich memories of the past, allowing us to recall experiences that may have occurred days, weeks, and even decades earlier. The ability to use another person's language to access our memory of a prior experience is considered to be one of the hallmarks in human memory development, but surprisingly, little is known about the ontogeny of this fundamental ability.

Children's human figure drawings do not measure intellectual ability.

Children typically follow a well-defined series of stages as they learn to draw, but the rate at which they progress through these stages varies from child to child. Some experts have argued that these individual differences in drawing development reflect individual differences in intelligence. Here we assessed the validity of a drawing test that is commonly used to assess children's intellectual abilities.

Episodic memory in 3- and 4-year-old children.

There is considerable debate about the phylogenic and ontogenic origins of episodic memory. In the present experiment, we examined episodic memory in 3- and 4-year-old children. To do this, we developed a hide-and-seek task that allowed us to assess children's recall of the what-where-when (www) of the hiding event.