Children's Expectations Research Articles

Children Expect Leaders to Oust Intruders, Refrain From Unprovoked Aggression, but Not to Be Generally Prosocial

Humans in every society encounter social hierarchies. Previous research has shown that children use various cues to say who is, “in charge”. In the present studies we ask how children think those who are in charge treat others. In Studies 1 and 2, children heard stories and saw drawings of social groups where one character wore a crown and sat on a throne (Study 1) or just wore a crown (Study 2) and three other characters stood alongside with no special clothing or markings. The children were told about an action, and then had to guess who had done it. When asked who pushed someone down, most 6- to 8-year-old children guessed that one of the uncrowned characters had done the pushing, while 3- to 5-year-old children seemed to consider the crowned and uncrowned characters equally likely to push someone. When asked who kicked out a hostile intruder, children of all ages chose the crowned character more often than an uncrowned character. Study 3 asked whether children expect crowned characters to put themselves in harm’s way to protect uncrowned characters and whether they expect crowned characters to be actively prosocial. Here, neither the older nor the younger children expected the crowned characters to put themselves in harm’s way to protect the others, and they thought the crowned character was less likely than others to perform prosocial actions such as helping someone up or sharing a cookie. These data suggest that children expect leaders, at least in this context, to provide specific benefits such as expelling hostile intruders, but not to be more prosocial than other people overall. These data are consistent with the hypothesis that children use inferences about social roles to predict people’s behavior.

Quality In Pediatric Nursing Care: Children's Expectations

Quality In Pediatric Nursing Care: Children's Expectations

Associations between pre-adolescents' cognitive responses to alcohol-related cues, maternal drinking, and direct exposure to alcohol.

The current study investigated pre-adolescent children's (N=140, Mage=10.11 years, SD=1.48, 59.5% girls) implicit evaluations of and explicit expectancies about alcohol-related cues as a function of their mothers' drinking behaviors and their exposure to alcohol. Children's implicit evaluative responses were measured using the Affect Misattribution Procedure (AMP), which consisted of trials that depicted pictures of either alcoholic or non-alcoholic beverages, half of which were presented alone (inactive) and half of which were presented with a human interacting with the beverage (active). In addition, children's explicit expectancies, whether they had ever tasted alcohol, and their mothers' alcohol dependency and escape drinking motivations were measured. Results indicated that overall children's implicit evaluations were less positive for alcohol- than for non-alcohol-related cues, and those whose mothers reported higher alcohol dependency evaluated inactive alcohol-related cues more negatively. Moreover, those who had previously tasted alcohol endorsed positive expectancies more than negative expectancies. These findings contribute to our understanding of the processes through which implicit associations are learned in the context of addiction. Understanding cognitive as well as other potential biological and environmental factors that may predict drinking behaviors in youth will aid in the development of more effective evidence-based strategies for the prevention of alcoholism.

What Motivates Parents to Participate in Their Child’s Brain Gym Therapy

The findings in the clinical practice field indicate problems related to the inconsistency of parental participation in the therapy that the child undergoes, namely the absence of parents according to the schedule, non-adherence to the therapist's advice, and premature termination. It raises questions of parents' motivation to participate in their children's therapy while no research in Indonesia examines this topic. The current study aims to understand the description of parents' motivation to participate in their child therapy. This qualitative study was conducted by interviewing 3 mothers (age 23-36 years) whose children (age 3-5 years) undergo brain gym therapy at a psychology bureau in Bandung. They are from the same socioeconomic class, have joined the therapy program for at least one month, and were selected using the purposive sampling technique. The results indicate that the underlying motivation for parental participation in child therapy is parents' need for a change in the child's condition and parents' expectation of the therapeutic outcome. Therapy results that match expectations and positive responses from the environment act as reinforcers that make parents willing to continue participating in child therapy.

Using the PODCI to Measure Motor Function and Parent Expectations in Children With Cerebral Palsy.

Involving parents in the evaluation of their child with cerebral palsy (CP) is associated with enhanced neurodevelopmental outcomes. The pediatric outcomes data collection instrument (PODCI) is a patient-reported outcome measure primarily used to assess motor function following orthopedic surgical intervention or for older children with more independent motor function. The PODCI expectations scale has infrequently been reported in previous studies. This study aims to determine the relationship between parent-reported motor performance using the PODCI and motor capacity assessed by pediatric therapists for young children with CP across all ability levels and to explore the use of the PODCI expectations scale for quantifying therapy-related parent expectations. This prospective cohort study included 108 participants with CP, 2 to 8years of age, gross motor function classification systems (GMFCS) levels I to V. Measures included the PODCI, gross motor function measure (GMFM), and GMFCS. There were moderate (r = 0.513) to large (r = 0.885) relationships between PODCI and GMFM scores. PODCI scores were significantly different across GMFCS levels. Weak, significant relationships (r = -0.28) were found between function expectations scores and measures of function. The PODCI, GMFM, and GMFCS provide different, but strongly related, information about the abilities of young children. The GMFM measures motor capacity. Parents report daily function and health-related quality of life for their child using the PODCI. Parent expectations for intervention outcomes may relate to a child's motor function. These study results are consistent with those for older children with greater independent mobility, indicating an opportunity for expanded use of the PODCI for measuring motor performance for younger children with CP across all ability levels. A strategy is provided for using the PODCI expectations scale to quantify parent therapy-related expectations in future research and clinical settings. Therapy-related expectations may relate to child outcomes.

The Roles of Sex and Minority Status in Children's Motivation and Psychomotor Learning.

In this study, we had two inter-related goals: (a) to examine sex and minority status differences on children's motivation for physical education (PE; i.e., their expectancy beliefs, subjective task values, and situational interest) and their psychomotor learning outcomes (i.e., motor competence, cardiorespiratory fitness, and in-class physical activity); and (b) to examine the relationships between children's motivation and their psychomotor learning outcomes while testing the moderation effects of sex and minority status. We recruited 195 fourth and fifth-grade students (101 boys; 94 girls; Mage = 10.7, SD = 0.7 years) from three elementary schools in North Texas. Using multivariate analysis of variance, we identified a significant sex difference that favored boys in motivation and psychomotor learning outcomes, with no significant minority status difference in relation to these variables. Regression analysis revealed that children's expectancy beliefs were significantly associated with both motor competence (R2 = 11%) and cardiorespiratory fitness (R2 = 16%), while both situational interest and sex were associated with in-class physical activity (R2 = 18%). Thus, improving children's expectancy beliefs may be a means of enhancing psychomotor learning outcomes in PE, especially for girls. Enhancing children's beliefs in their own ability and offering diversified PE content so as to generate greater interest may facilitate psychomotor learning.

Socioeconomic origin, future expectations, and educational achievement: A longitudinal three-generation study of the persistence of family advantage.

Expectations about the future direct effort in goal-oriented action and may influence a range of life course outcomes, including educational attainment. Here we investigate whether such expectations are implicated in the dynamics underlying the persistence of educational advantage across family generations, and whether such dynamics have changed in recent decades in view of historical change. Focusing on the role of domain-specific (educational) and general (optimism and control) expectations, we examine parallels across parent-child cohorts in (a) the relationships between parental socioeconomic status (SES) and children's future expectations and (b) the associations between children's future expectations and their academic achievement. We estimate structural equation models using data from the prospective multigenerational Youth Development Study (N = 422 three-generation triads [G1-G2-G3]; G1 Mage in 1988 = 41.0 years, G2 Mage in 1989 = 14.7 years, G3 Mage in 2011 = 15.8 years; G2 White in 1989 = 66.4%, G3 White in 2011 = 64.4%; G1 mean annual household income, converted to 2008 equivalents = $41,687, G2 mean annual household income in 2008 dollars = $42,962; G1 mode of educational attainment = high school, G2 mode of educational attainment = some college). We find intergenerational similarity in the relationships between parental educational attainment and children's future expectations. Children's educational expectations strongly predicted their academic achievement in the second generation, but not in the third generation. With educational expansion, the more recent cohort had higher educational expectations that were less strongly related to achievement. Overall, the findings reveal dynamics underlying the persistence of educational success across generations. The role of future expectations in this intergenerational process varies across historical time, confirming a central conclusion of life span developmental psychology and life course sociological research that individual functioning is influenced by sociocultural contexts. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Virtual group visits to reduce psychosocial distress and racial disparities in pediatric vitiligo and alopecia areata patients.

We examined the potential for virtual, pediatric group visits to reduce racial disparities in psychosocial isolation and access to care among children of color with pediatric vitiligo and alopecia areata as well as their caregivers. We have conducted 10 visits with 30 pediatric skin of color patients between 5 and 16 years old: 18 patients with alopecia areata, 12 with vitiligo, 59% female, 64% Black, and 23% Latinx, and 33 parents. After the visits, children and parents felt they had more people they knew and could reach out to about their dermatologic condition, the visits exceeded both children's and parents' expectations, and both children and parents reported that they would continue attending future group visits if offered. Group visits in the virtual format may present an opportunity for reducing racial disparities in psychosocial isolation and access to care across geographic locations in pediatric dermatology.

The advantage of daughters in hypogamous families: parental heterogamy and educational outcomes among children of highly educated parents

ABSTRACT Increasing female educational attainment across OECD countries is making hypogamy a widespread phenomenon. This trend provides an opportunity to re-examine the effects of educational assortative mating on children's educational outcomes. This research explores the effects of hypergamy, homogamy, and hypogamy on gender differences in children's expectation of university graduation and actual college graduation. For the first purpose, logistic regression with country fixed-effects is applied to individual-level data from PISA 2015; a similar analysis is carried out for the second purpose with data from the European Social Survey. Three characteristics make us expect higher female advantage among children of hypogamous couples: higher probability of mothers being the main family breadwinner; higher probability of gender value conflict, eventually leading to family breakup and the father's absence; and the possibility that the father's occupation discourages sons from pursuing higher education. A systematic female advantage is indeed found among children of hypogamous couples in terms of expectation of college graduation and actual college graduation. Among the possible mechanisms behind this female advantage, only the father's and the mother's occupation could be explored with the data at hand, but none of them explain this advantage.

Two-Year-Old Children Expect Native, but Not Foreign Speakers to Use the Same Tool for the Same Purpose.

Previous research has already demonstrated that even very young children are sensitive to language cues and learn differently from native and foreign speaker models. A possible explanation for this phenomenon suggests that spoken language is a sign of someone's cultural background and in this sense demonstrates the person's culture specific knowledge. The aim of the present study was to investigate what children think about native and foreign speakers' behavior in a domain that is typically regulated by cultural norms (tool usage), specifically whether they expect group members to act alike or not. In a violation of expectation paradigm, two-year-old toddlers first watched a video on which a native and a foreign speaker person used different tools for achieving the same goal. In the test phase a new native speaker model appeared and selected one of the previously seen tools for the same goal as it was used before. Results indicated that toddlers were surprised if the native speaker model had chosen the tool that had previously been used by the foreign speaker. In Experiment 2, the familiarization phase was exactly the same as in Experiment 1, but during the test phase, the model spoke a foreign language. Results, in this case, showed no significant differences between looking times. These experiments suggest that two-year-olds expect native (but not foreign) speakers to use the same tool for the same goals. As tool usage is a fundamental element of cultural knowledge, we propose that this pattern of results suggest that children expect native speakers to possess shared cultural knowledge at least in the domain of artifacts.

Strategi Mendisiplinkan Anak dalam Perspektif Praktisi dan Psikologi Anak

The development and growth of children are much influenced by intrinsic and extrinsic factors, the impact on children's habits which are often even difficult to control. When bad habits are always seen and felt, their response tends to be very fast and has a tremendous effect. This means that their good and bad habits are severed from habits through the visions and feelings that are present in their lives. This article describes strategies for disciplining children from a practical perspective and child psychology. Writing is done by using a library approach and analyzed descriptively so that readers can do it practically based on the psychology of their respective children. The result is that considering the different characteristics of the child according to the child's age, among them are trying to ignore the child when feeling bad, giving a good time guard, trying to get rid of favorite items by heart, trying to let the child face the consequences of their own actions, trying to express your feelings, try to give choices to children, try to give assignments to children, try to give understanding, try to reflect their behavior and try to reward children's good behavior. In addition to some of the things above, to practice discipline, the principles that must be carried out include setting long-term goals of caring for or educating children, thinking of ways to provide warmth (emotional security, unconditional love, verbal and physical affection) to children, guiding behavior and helping support children's expectations and encouraging children to think independently and understand children's thoughts and feelings.

Toddlers and Preschoolers Understand That Some Preferences Are More Subjective Than Others.

Four experiments examined Canadian 2- to 3-year-old children's (N=224; 104 girls, 120 boys) thoughts about shared preferences. Children saw sets of items, and identified theirs and another person's preferences. Children expected that food preferences would be more likely to be shared than color preferences, regardless of whether the items were similar or different in appeal (Experiments 1-3). A final study replicated these findings while also exploring children's expectations about activity and animal preferences. Across all studies, children expected shared preferences at surprisingly low rates (never higher than chance). Overall, these findings suggest that young children understand that some preferences are more subjective than others, and that these expectations are driven by beliefs about domains of preferences.

Source memory and social exchange in young children.

Reciprocal interactions require memories of social exchanges; however, little is known about how we remember social partner actions, especially during childhood when we start forming peer-to-peer relationships. This study examined if the expectation-violation effect, which has been observed in adults' source memory, exists among 5-6-year-old children. Forty participants played a coin collection game where they either received or lost coins after being shown an individual with a smiling or angry expression. This set-up generated congruent (smiling-giver and angry-taker) versus incongruent (smiling-taker and angry-giver) conditions. In the subsequent tasks, the children were asked to recall which actions accompanied each individual. The children considered the person with incongruent conditions as being stranger than the person with congruent conditions, suggesting that the former violated the children's emotion-based expectations. However, no heightened source memory was found for the incongruent condition. Instead, children seem to better recognise the action of angry individuals than smiling individuals, suggesting that angry facial expressions are more salient for children's source memory in a social exchange.

Constructing gender using visual imagery –a study of early readers

Children's books play a key role in shaping children's gender perceptions and expectations. Noting the paucity of gender research on children's books published in Asian societies, especially in relation to visuals, this study seeks to explore how the two sexes are visually represented in a popular English book series developed by the Education Bureau of Hong Kong, from experiential and interpersonal perspectives. The findings show increased female appearances, but not so in central role construal. Stereotypical descriptions are not uncommon: males are generally described as more individualistic than females. Apparent gender differences in child-father/mother relationship are also evident. It is recommended that visual and critical literacy should be strengthened among readers and writers in the process of achieving gender equality.

Family socio-economic status and children's executive function: The moderating effects of parental subjective socio-economic status and children's subjective social mobility.

Family socio-economic status (SES) is significantly related to disparities in children's executive function. Children from economically disadvantaged backgrounds perform worse on executive function tasks than their peers from high-SES families. The protective factors in the relationship between SES and executive function have not been sufficiently investigated, especially from the perspective of parents' and children's perceptions and expectations regarding SES. Therefore, this study aimed to examine whether parental subjective SES and children's subjective social mobility separately moderated the relationship between family SES and children's executive function among 885 participants aged 9-13years. The results showed that family SES was positively related to the three components of executive function (cognitive flexibility, inhibitory control, and working memory). Moreover, the relationship between SES and cognitive flexibility was weak among the children with a high level of subjective social mobility or those whose parents had high levels of subjective SES. Among children from families with economic hardship, subjective social mobility is a potential protective factor mitigating the negative effects of low family SES on their cognitive flexibility.

Horizon of Expectation of Children’s Ideal Future in 1946 Represented in Enid Blyton’s 'Malory Towers'

1946 was a recovery year after Second World War ended and the early modern era. At the beginning of modern era, children were taught the basic attitude of well manners and respecting others. The social attitudes into children give adults more attention to children as separate beings, innocent, and need of protection. Therefore, this study aimed to explain (1) what British expectation toward children’s future described on Enid Blyton’s Malory Towers (2) children’s characters in Enid Blyton’s Malory Towers formed by the participation of British role and (3) today’s perspective of British ideas in 1946. Qualitative descriptive study is employed with “horizon of Expectation” of reader response theory by Hans Robert Jauss is served to analyze the data. It is found that as illustrated in Malory Towers, British were expected their children to be kind, good-hearted, loved, trusted, and reliable child. In addition, parents, school, and friend’s role are important to forming children’s character to teach some values such as discipline, responsible, politeness, caring, loyal and understanding, respectful, mental strength, steady and wise attitude to reach the ideal future. On other hand, in 1946, education aims to change the society to fit the ideas of the ruling government or to create the utopian society through education. Furthermore, there are some similarities and differences of British ideas in 1946 and today’s perspective of British education system and boarding school in which all the ideas have a good aim for children’s future.s

A toy or a friend? Children's anthropomorphic beliefs about robots and how these relate to second‐language word learning

AbstractThis study investigates the degree to which children anthropomorphize a robot tutor and whether this anthropomorphism relates to their vocabulary learning in a second‐language (L2) tutoring intervention. With this aim, an anthropomorphism questionnaire was administered to 5‐year‐old children (N = 104) twice: prior to and following a seven‐session L2 vocabulary training with a humanoid robot. On average, children tended to anthropomorphize the robot prior to and after the lessons to a similar degree, but many children changed their attributed anthropomorphic features. Boys anthropomorphized the robot less after the lessons than girls. Moreover, there was a weak but significant positive correlation between anthropomorphism as measured before the lessons and scores on a word‐knowledge post‐test administered the day after the last lesson. There was also a weak but significant positive correlation between the change in anthropomorphism over time and scores on a word‐knowledge post‐test administered approximately 2 weeks after the last lesson. Our results underscore the need to manage children's expectations in robot‐assisted education. Also, future research could explore adaptations to individual children's expectations in child‐robot interactions.

A Good Age to Marry? An Intergenerational Model of the Influence of Timing Attitudes on Entrance into Marriage.

Do timing attitudes-subjective evaluations of particular ages as good ages to marry-influence entrance into marriage? To address this question, we formulated an intergenerational model of how parents' and children's timing attitudes influence children's marriage behavior. We theorized that both parents' and children's timing attitudes influence expectations of when children will marry. In turn, both parents' and children's marital expectations would influence children's actual entrance into marriage. We tested the model using intergenerational panel data from Nepal collected in 2008-2014. Timing attitudes of young people and their parents did influence expectations, as well as entrance into marriage. Young people's own attitudes were more influential than their parents' attitudes in determining children's expectations, but not behavior. Further, while the influence of parents was relatively even, mothers appear slightly more influential than fathers.

Keep the cat in the bag: Children understand that telling a friend's secret can harm the friendship.

Secrets play a powerful role in human social relationships. Here, we examine the developmental trajectory of 3- to 10-year-old children's (N = 630) expectations about (a) how relationships impact whether people will keep secrets, and (b) how relationships are impacted when a confidee keeps versus tells a confider's secret. Sophisticated expectations about the role of secrets in relationship maintenance develop across childhood. In particular, school-age children (6- to 10-year-olds) expect friends to be more likely to keep each other's secrets than nonfriends (Study 1), and expect that if a friend breaks this norm and shares his friend's secret with a third-party, it will harm the friendship (Studies 2 and 3). These expectations were specific to inferences about secrets: school-age children did not expect that sharing (or keeping) a friend's fact or surprise would impact the friendship strength (Studies 2 and 3). These findings did not hold for preschoolers (3- to 5-year-olds), who did not have clear expectations linking secret sharing to friendship strength. Taken together, our results indicate that by 6 years of age, children understand that social relationships can increase people's obligations to keep each other's secrets, and that failing to do so can harm the relationship. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Even his friend said he's bad: Children think personal alliances bias gossip

Children learn about other people through gossip. Although gossip can be a valuable and efficient way to learn about others, evaluating gossip's credibility requires understanding when people may be biased, and using this information to update the truth-value placed on the gossip. For instance, people may be motivated to improve their and their friends' reputations (or to worsen their enemies' reputations). Therefore, testimony that cuts against these social motivations may be more credible. Here, in four studies with 3- to 13-year-old children (total N = 860), we examined (1) children's expectations about the type of gossip people were likely to spread about friends versus enemies, and (2) children's ability to discount testimony that is in line with a speaker's social biases (e.g., negative testimony about a friend). We found that children expect speakers to say nice things about their friends, and mean things about their enemies. And, children were less likely to endorse potentially biased testimony, though the strength of their ability to avoid endorsing biased testimony varied based on the domain of testimony. Overall, these studies suggest that children expect a speaker's testimony to be systematically biased based on her relationships. Our results underscore the importance of tracking and using relationships when evaluating testimony, because relationships have immense power for helping us effectively make sense of an ambiguous world.