Childhood Experience Reduces Gender Differences in Spatial Abilities: A Cross-Cultural Study.

Spatial experience in childhood is a factor in the development of spatial abilities. In this study, we assessed whether American and Faroese participants' (N = 246, M = 19.31 years, 151 females) early spatial experience and adult spatial outcomes differed by gender and culture, and if early experience was related to adult performance and behavior.

Intuitive Dualism and Afterlife Beliefs: A Cross-Cultural Study.

It is widely held that intuitive dualism-an implicit default mode of thought that takes minds to be separable from bodies and capable of independent existence-is a human universal. Among the findings taken to support universal intuitive dualism is a pattern of evidence in which "psychological" traits (knowledge, desires) are judged more likely to continue after death than bodily or "biological" traits (perceptual, physiological, and bodily states). Here, we present cross-cultural evidence from six study populations, including non-Western societies with diverse belief systems, that shows that while this pattern exists, the overall pattern of responses nonetheless does not support intuitive dualism in afterlife beliefs.

Geographical Cues and Developmental Exposure: Navigational Style, Wayfinding Anxiety, and Childhood Experience in the Faroe Islands.

The current study assessed potential relationships among childhood wayfinding experience, navigational style, and adult wayfinding anxiety in the Faroe Islands. The Faroe Islands are of interest because they have an unusual geography that may promote the use of an orientational style of navigation (e.g.

Early group bias in the Faroe Islands: Cultural variation in children's group-based reasoning.

Recent developmental research demonstrates that group bias emerges early in childhood. However, little is known about the extent to which bias in minimal (i.e.

Minimal-group membership influences children's responses to novel experience with group members.

Children, like adults, tend to prefer ingroup over outgroup individuals, but how this group bias affects children's processing of information about social groups is not well understood. In this study, 5- and 6-year-old children were assigned to artificial groups. They observed instances of ingroup and outgroup members behaving in either a positive (egalitarian) or a negative (stingy) manner.