Gender Intensification and Gender Generalization Biases in Pre-adolescents, Adolescents, and Emerging Adults.

The gender intensification hypothesis claims that the socialization pressures of early adolescence lead to the adoption of traditional sex-typed roles. We tested this proposal by examining how extensively children (M  = 9.39 years; N = 69, 31 female), early adolescents (M  = 12.

Age, numeracy, and cultural differences in Chinese and American adolescents' performance on the ratio bias task.

Ratio bias occurs when low-probability events with large numerators are judged as more probable than identical or higher-probability ratios with small numerators. Chinese and American adolescents made judgments on ratio bias problems with identical winning probabilities and unequal winning probabilities and completed a test of numeracy. In general, older participants performed better than younger participants and Chinese participants performed subtly better than American participants.

When (and When Not) to Make Exceptions: Links among Age, Precedent Setting Decisions, and Argument Evaluation.

Negative precedents are set when, in the absence of mitigating conditions, social rules are not enforced by relevant authorities. This study examined the effects of normative (i.e.

Adolescents' base rate judgments, metastrategic understanding, and stereotype endorsement.

Developmental reversals are counterintuitive age trends wherein age is negatively related to optimal responding. We addressed the claims that reversals in judgments and decisions are unlikely between late childhood and adolescence. Children and adolescents indicated the extent to which they endorsed stereotypes salient to adolescents, responded to problems in which base rate evidence conflicted with evidence based on anecdotal evidence (i.

Thin idealization and causal attributions mediate the association between culture and obesity stereotypes: An examination of Chinese and American adolescents.

Few studies have examined age or cultural differences in the stereotypes adolescents have of persons with obesity. The present research explored the hypotheses that American adolescents have more negative obesity stereotypes than Chinese adolescents and that the effects of culture are mediated by weight attributions and thin idealization. Participants (N = 335; 181 female; M age = 14.

Age differences in optimism bias are mediated by reliance on intuition and religiosity.

The relationships among age, optimism bias, religiosity, creationist beliefs, and reliance on intuition were examined in a sample of 211 high school students (M=16.54years). Optimism bias was defined as the difference between predictions for positive and negative live events (e.

Heuristics and biases: interactions among numeracy, ability, and reflectiveness predict normative responding.

In Stanovich's (2009a, 2011) dual-process theory, analytic processing occurs in the algorithmic and reflective minds. Thinking dispositions, indexes of reflective mind functioning, are believed to regulate operations at the algorithmic level, indexed by general cognitive ability. General limitations at the algorithmic level impose constraints on, and affect the adequacy of, specific strategies and abilities (e.

Age differences in understanding precedent-setting decisions and authorities' responses to violations of deontic rules.

To examine age trends in precedent-setting decisions and the effects of these decisions on perceptions of authorities, preadolescents and adolescents were presented with deontic rule infractions that occurred in the absence or presence of mitigating circumstances. In Study 1, in the absence of mitigating circumstances, adolescents recommended punishing rule violations more than preadolescents; when mitigating circumstances were present, adolescents recommended punishing infractions less than preadolescents. In Study 2, before and after receiving information that authorities had punished or permitted rule violations, participants indicated their beliefs in authority legitimacy, rule strength, and rule deterrence value.

College students' awareness of irrational judgments on gambling tasks: a dual-process account.

In 2 studies, the authors examined college students' awareness of irrational judgments on gambling tasks. Participants could express a preference between 2 gambles with equivalent ratios (1:10 vs. 10:100) for Study 1 or no preference for Study 2.

There's something about obesity: culture, contagion, rationality, and children's responses to drinks "created" by obese children.

Theories of the development of obesity stereotypes cannot easily explain the stigma associated with being obese. Evidence that important similarities exist between the symptoms of obesity and contagious illnesses, young children have "theories" of illnesses, and obesity stereotypes are among the earliest that children develop led to the hypothesis that children would find beverages purportedly created by obese children less tasteful and more memorable than beverages created by average weight children. After assignment to two story conditions in which a child became ill after eating an unfamiliar food, Caucasian-American and Chinese 7- and 10-year-olds sampled identically flavored "obese-created" and "average-created" beverages.

Developmental and individual differences in conditional reasoning: effects of logic instructions and alternative antecedents.

In Study 1, 10-, 13-, and 16-year-olds were assigned to conditions in which they were instructed to think logically and provided alternative antecedents to the consequents of conditional statements. Providing alternatives improved reasoning on two uncertain logical forms, but decreased logical responding on two certain forms; logic instructions improved reasoning among adolescents. Correlations among inferences and verbal ability were found primarily when task conditions created conflict between automatic and controlled inferences.

Domain-specific identity, epistemic regulation, and intellectual ability as predictors of belief-biased reasoning: a dual-process perspective.

To explore the hypothesis that domain-specific identity development predicts reasoning biases, adolescents and young adults completed measures of domain-general and domain-specific identity, epistemic regulation, and intellectual ability and evaluated arguments that either supported or threatened their occupational goals. Biases were defined as the use of sophisticated reasoning to reject goal-threatening arguments and the use of cursory reasoning to accept goal-supportive arguments. Across two measures of bias, hierarchical regression analyses showed that domain-specific vocational identity and epistemic regulation best predicted reasoning biases.

Theories of conditional reasoning: a developmental examination of competing hypotheses.

Children and adolescents were presented with problems that contained deontic (i.e., if action p is taken, then precondition q must be met) or causal (i.

Development of quantitative reasoning and gender biases.

One hundred twenty-seven 7-, 9-, and 11-year-old children were presented large or small samples of own-gender enhancing or other-gender enhancing observations. Children read arguments based on the observations, rated argument intelligence, judged the number of other children to whom the observations could be generalized, and provided verbal justifications for their judgments. Own-gender reasoning biases declined with age; these declines were, however, partially accounted for by declines in the strength of self-reported gender affiliations.

Analytic and heuristic processing influences on adolescent reasoning and decision-making.

The normative/descriptive gap is the discrepancy between actual reasoning and traditional standards for reasoning. The relationship between age and the normative/descriptive gap was examined by presenting adolescents with a battery of reasoning and decision-making tasks. Middle adolescents (N = 76) performed closer to normative ideals than early adolescents (N = 66), although the normative/descriptive gap was large for both groups.

Motivated scientific reasoning biases, epistemological beliefs, and theory polarization: a two-process approach to adolescent cognition.

Theory-motivated reasoning biases arise when different reasoning skills are invoked to evaluate evidence that is congruent or incongruent with individuals' belief systems. To explore this phenomenon, 66 early and 73 middle adolescents evaluated evidence relevant to their theories of social class or religion. In both conditions, reasoning biases were found, but in-group biases were evident only in the religion condition.

Personal theories, intellectual ability, and epistemological beliefs: adult age differences in everyday reasoning biases.

Age-related differences in everyday reasoning biases were explored. In each of 2 social domains, examination of theoretical beliefs and biases along 2 dimensions of scientific reasoning, involving the law of large numbers and the evaluation of experimental evidence, revealed that, across age groups, scientific reasoning was used to reject evidence that contradicted prior beliefs; relatively cursory reasoning was used to accept belief-consistent evidence. Biased reasoning was more common among middle-aged and older adults than among young adults.

Representations as mediators of adolescent deductive reasoning.

In Experiment 1, preadolescents, middle adolescents, and late adolescents were presented 3 deductive reasoning tasks. With some important exceptions, conditional reasoning improved with age on problems containing permission conditional relations, and reasoning fallacies increased with age on problems containing causal conditional relations. The results of Experiments 2a and 2b indicated that problem type (i.

Development of scientific reasoning biases: cognitive versus ego-protective explanations.

Two conflicting perspectives have dominated the literature on self-serving reasoning biases. One maintains that individuals have difficulty objectively processing information relevant to their personal theories because they are reluctant to relinquish their cause-effect beliefs relevant to that domain. The ego-protective view claims that such biases arise because they enhance or protect individuals' self-views.

The roles of personal investment and reasoning competence in career-relevant everyday problem solving.

To examine developmental differences in practical problem-solving, 51 late adolescents and 52 young adults were presented measures of everyday problem-solving that were either self-relevant or self-neutral. Results indicated: (a) a developmental shift in everyday problem-solving strategies, such that adolescents rated higher than adults those strategies that involved reconsideration of the problem situations and adapting to the conditions of the problems. By contrast, young adults rated higher more goal-defensive strategies than adolescents; (b) reasoning competence was more strongly related to ratings of self-relevant problems than to ratings of self-neutral problems, but only for the adolescents, providing some support for a relation between reasoning competence and everyday problem-solving; and (c) relevance effects on strategy ratings were clearly evidenced as both age groups rated planning for the future and shaping the present environment to correspond to their current goals higher for self-relevant than for neutral problems.

A change in viewpoint promotes use of height-in-picture as a depth cue in 5- to 7-year-olds' drawings of a simple depth relationship.

Height-in-picture emerges between 6 and 7 years of age in children's drawings as the first indication of portrayal of depth relationships, but can be promoted earlier by the use of a number of experimental manipulations. The present studies investigate whether changing, and hence drawing attention to, the child's viewpoint promotes use of height-in-picture. In the first study, 5/6- and 6/7-year-old children were asked to draw two blocks, arranged in depth.

Bias in adolescents' everyday reasoning and its relationship with intellectual ability, personal theories, and self-serving motivation.

The author presented 60 9th- and 12th-graders with hypothetical arguments that contained logical fallacies. Arguments were either consistent or inconsistent with participants' theories. Participants rated the quality and truth of each argument, identified perceived strengths and weaknesses in the arguments, and verbally described hypothetical experiments that could lead to evidence falsifying the claims made in the arguments.

Everyday statistical reasoning during adolescence and young adulthood: motivational, general ability, and developmental influences.

Research on adolescent problem solving was extended into the domain of statistical reasoning and potential biases in reasoning. In Experiment 1, adolescents solved everyday reasoning problems dealing with the "law of large numbers" and the "intuitive analysis of covariance." In each problem, evidence was presented that portrayed each participant's dominant career goal favorably or unfavorably.