Children's Evaluations Research Articles

With a Little Help From My Friends: Bystander Context and Children's Attitude Toward Peer Helping

This experimental vignette study examined children's perceptions and evaluations of helping a peer, in the context of friendships and in the presence of by-standing peers. A total of 1246 children (8 to 12 years) reported their attitude toward helping when either friends of the helper, friends of the recipient of help, or no bystanders were present. In agreement with the competitive altruism model, children most strongly endorsed helping when friends of the helper were present compared to the other two situations. This indicates that children take reputation concerns into account when evaluating helping situations. However, in contrast to lower prosocial children, the evaluations of higher prosocial children were not influenced by the presence of by-standing peers. These children seemed to base their evaluation on increasing the recipient's welfare and less on reputation concerns of the helper.

Evaluations Versus Expectations: Children's Divergent Beliefs About Resource Distribution

Past research reveals a tension between children's preferences for egalitarianism and ingroup favoritism when distributing resources to others. Here we investigate how children's evaluations and expectations of others' behaviors compare. Four- to 10-year-old children viewed events where individuals from two different groups distributed resources to their own group, to the other group, or equally across groups. Groups were described within a context of intergroup competition over scarce resources. In the Evaluation condition, children were asked to evaluate which resource distribution actions were nicer. In the Expectation condition, children were asked to predict which events were more likely to occur. With age, children's evaluations and expectations of others' actions diverged: Children evaluated egalitarian actions as nicer yet expected others to behave in ways that benefit their own group. Thus, children's evaluations about the way human social actors should behave do not mirror their expectations concerning those individuals' actions.

American and Chinese Children's Evaluations of Personal Domain Events and Resistance to Parental Authority

A total of 267 five-, seven-, and ten-year-olds (M = 7.62), 147 in Hong Kong and 120 in the United States, evaluated hypothetical personal (and moral) events described as either essential or peripheral to actors' identity. Except for young Chinese in the peripheral condition, straightforward personal events were overwhelmingly evaluated as acceptable based on personal justifications. Children primarily endorsed compliance, but attributed negative emotions to actors when mothers forbade personal choices, especially when described as essential to identity. Conventional justifications declined among Chinese children and pragmatic justifications for these judgments increased with age for all children, as did judgments that personal events were up to the child. Rules were seen as more legitimate and events were seen as more up to mothers to decide for moral than personal events.

Matters of accuracy and conventionality: Prior accuracy guides children's evaluations of others' actions.

Studies show that children trust previously reliable sources over previously unreliable ones (e.g., Koenig, Clément, & Harris, 2004). However, it is unclear from these studies whether children rely on accuracy or conventionality to determine the reliability and, ultimately, the trustworthiness of a particular source. In the current study, 3- and 4-year-olds were asked to endorse and imitate one of two actors performing an unfamiliar action, one actor who was unconventional but successful and one who was conventional but unsuccessful. These data demonstrated that children preferred endorsing and imitating the unconventional but successful actor. Results suggest that when the accuracy and conventionality of a source are put into conflict, children may give priority to accuracy over conventionality when estimating the source's reliability and, ultimately, when deciding who to trust.

Efficacy and safety of transdermal buprenorphine in the management of children with cancer‐related pain

The current study investigated the efficacy, safety, tolerability, and compliance of a transdermal buprenorphine delivery system for the management of chronic cancer pain in the pediatric population. Sixteen pediatric patients with moderate to severe cancer-related pain not satisfactorily controlled with previous non-opioid therapies were enrolled. Transdermal buprenorphine was administered following a 72 hour schedule and rescue medication (tramadol) was allowed for breakthrough pain. Pain intensity was assessed using the Wong-Baker faces pain rating scale (WBS) and other parameters related to the global quality of life were evaluated. Children's evaluations of efficacy, compliance, and tolerability were recorded using numerical scales. Adverse events were monitored during the study and the medications needed to control opioid-related nausea and constipation were recorded. Eleven patients (68.75%) responded to transdermal buprenorphine after 2 weeks of treatment. Pain intensity measured with WBS decreased from 6.25 at baseline to 1.38 at Day +60 (P < 0.001). All outcome measures of global quality of life (quality of sleep, alimentation, play and activity, speech, and crying) significantly improved over the 60-day study period. Children's evaluations of compliance and tolerability of the drug were always positive over the entire period of treatment. No severe adverse events were recorded. Opioid-related nausea was well controlled with medication on request, and the need for laxative therapy was greater at the end of the second month of treatment. Transdermal buprenorphine was found to represent an efficient, safe and well tolerated approach to the management of children's chronic cancer pain.

Korean Children's Evaluation of Parental Restrictions Regarding Gender‐stereotypic Peer Activities

AbstractKorean children's evaluations of parental restrictions of children's activities based on gender stereotypic expectations were investigated. Third and sixth grade Korean (N = 128) children evaluated scenarios in which a boy or girl desired to play ballet or soccer. Participants used stereotypes to support children's desires to play gender‐consistent activities and adhered to parental authority for choice of gender‐consistent social activities. Yet, they also rejected parental decisions to treat sons and daughters differently based on the view that it would be unfair. Stereotypic expectations decreased with age and were used more by boys than by girls when evaluating exclusion. The results are discussed in terms of exclusion, development, and culture.

Disagreement and causal learning: Others' hypotheses affect children's evaluations of evidence.

When children evaluate evidence and make causal inferences, they are sensitive to the social context in which data are generated. This study investigated whether children learn more from evidence generated by an agent who agrees with them or from one who disagrees with them. Children in two age groups (5- and 6-year-olds and 9- and 10-year-olds) observed the functioning of a machine that lit up and played music in the presence of certain objects. After endorsing one of two plausible causal hypotheses, children observed a puppet either agree or disagree with their own hypotheses. The puppet then generated a further piece of evidence that confirmed, disconfirmed, or was neutral with respect to the children's hypotheses. When they were later asked to make causal inferences about objects they did not directly observe, children in both age groups responded differentially to identical evidence depending on whether the agent agreed or disagreed, and they often drew stronger inferences in response to disagreement. In addition, older children were particularly sensitive to disagreement when the evidence was ambiguous. Our results suggest that children consider the relationship between their own and others' hypotheses when evaluating evidence that others generate.

Moral and Group‐based Criteria in Children's Evaluation of Peers after Transgressions

The present study investigated how group membership criteria and moral understanding can affect children's evaluations of peers after different types of transgressions. In all, the study included 47 participants attending a junior school in Cornwall. All participants were allocated to an in‐group and responded to a number of questions which tested intergroup bias and the differential evaluation of norm‐violating peers from the in‐group and the out‐group. Overall, moral transgressions (physical and relational aggression) were evaluated more negatively than a social‐conventional transgression. However, those who violated group norms by expressing positive attitudes towards the out‐group were viewed differently depending on both moral and group‐based criteria. These different criteria for evaluating peers were uncorrelated. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley &amp; Sons, Ltd.

Impact of Discussion on Peer Evaluations: Perceptions of Low Achievement and Effort

The authors placed 5th-grade students into small groups of 3 in order to examine the impact of group discussion and displayed effort on children's evaluations of a low-achieving peer. Low effort by a target peer resulted in negative evaluations across attributional, affective, help-giving, and social response dimensions. Children who participated in group discussion before making individual evaluations exhibited a polarizing effect in which more extreme evaluations were made than when children did not participate in group discussion. Although all children were affected by both effort level and discussion conditions, gender differences were observed. These findings (a) highlight the importance of addressing the role of the peer group when working with low-achieving children and (b) underscore the impact of effort attributions and low achievement on peer perceptions among elementary-age children.

Intergroup bias in children: Development and persistence

AbstractUsing a longitudinal approach, we examined intergroup bias based on randomly assigned novel groups in fourth‐ and fifth‐grade children (roughly 9–11 years old) involved in an afterschool program. We investigated not only the development of intergroup bias but also its persistence over multiple weeks. Our intergroup bias measure assessed children's evaluations of group members uninvolved in the program to determine if intergroup bias could be applied beyond the immediate context. We found that children's intergroup bias toward group members outside their program developed when they were first segregated into classrooms based on their novel groupings and persisted over multiple weeks, adding to our understanding of the impact of categorization on the development and persistence of children's intergroup biases. We consider our findings both in terms of how categorization influences the development of intergroup bias and ways to use re‐ and cross‐categorization to defeat children's intergroup biases. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley &amp; Sons, Ltd.

Maltreated and nonmaltreated children's evaluations of emotional fantasy

IntroductionA range of developmental consequences can result following children’s exposure to maltreatment (see Cicchetti & Toth,2003). Typically, consequences reflect delays in cognitive development and poor mental health functioning (e.g., Myers etal., 2002). However, maltreated children sometimes demonstrate superior performance relative to nonmaltreated childrenwhenengagedinemotion-relevanttasks(e.g.,PollakT Samuels & Taylor, 1994). Atleast two explanations for children’s responses have been proposed. First, responses may reflect children’s desires for onlycertain events to occur (Carrick & Quas, 2006; Woolley, 1997). That is, children find the positive events appealing and wantthem to occur, but perceive the negative events as potentially threatening and consequentially do not want them to occur.

Children's Evaluations of Gender-Stereotypic Household Activities in the Family Context

Research Findings: The goal of this study was to analyze children's (N = 120) evaluations about parental decisions regarding gender-stereotypic household family activities. Children at 5, 8, and 10 years of age were individually interviewed. Contrary to prevailing findings, the majority of children used stereotypic expectations and social-conventional justifications to explain parental exclusion decisions; this pattern was more pronounced for male-stereotypic than female-stereotypic activities. Overall, children's social judgments revealed age-related increases in making stereotypic choices. Boys were more likely than girls to condone stereotypic expectations regarding father–son activities than mother–daughter activities. Practice or Policy: The results are discussed in terms of (a) social–cognitive reasoning about family decision making in the home and (b) gender-stereotypic expectations between parents and children in the home context.

Agreement in children's evaluations of their relationships with siblings and friends

Congruence constitutes a relevant topic in studying interpersonal relationships from a theoretical and methodological point of view but it has rarely been analysed systematically. The main goal of this study was to explore the grade of congruence in sibling and friend dyads. Forty-eight children, their sibling closest in age and their best friend were recruited. Subjects were between 6 and 11 years of age (M = 8.8, SD = 1.4). Friend dyads were of the same age and mostly also of the same gender. An age gap ranging from 1 to 4 years characterized sibling dyads (M = 2.5; SD = 0.9), which varied in terms of gender pairings. Children completed a verbal and a pictorial task. Analyses of their responses focused on four dimensions: Affection, Conflict, Power and Similarity. Members of friend dyads showed significant agreement on Affection and Conflict. Moreover, members of the same sibling dyad appeared to be unrelated in presenting Affection, Conflict, Power and Similarity. These results seem to be unaffected by the sample characteristics in terms of the dyads' gender composition and age gap. Findings are discussed in relation to the differences in nature between the sibling and friend relationship. Congruence in friends may reflect similarities between partners and a strategy to protect the relationship. Independence between siblings may be explained by differences between partners and by the permanent character of the relationship, which is not threatened by the existence of differences of opinion.

Moms at Work and Dads at Home: Children's Evaluations of Parental Roles

Children's evaluations of two parental roles, working outside the home, and staying home to take care of children, were assessed in second (M = 7.13 years, SD = .39) and fifth grade (M = 10.42, SD = .57) students (N = 121). Children viewed it as acceptable for both mothers and fathers to work full-time, and used personal choice and social conventional reasons as justifications. In contrast, children found it less acceptable for fathers to stay at home than for mothers to stay at home, and they used gender stereotypes about domestic roles as justifications. With age, children were more flexible in their reasoning and used fewer stereotypes in their evaluations; children from traditional family structures used more stereotypic expectations than did children from non-traditional ones. Overall, children's interpretations of competence in a caretaker role was highly contingent on the gender of the parent.

Displaced and non-displaced Colombian children's evaluations of moral transgressions, retaliation, and reconciliation.

In order to assess the effects of displacement and exposure to violence on children's moral reasoning, Colombian children exposed to minimal violence (non-displaced or low-risk) (N = 99) and to extreme violence (displaced or high-risk) (N = 94), evenly divided by gender, at 6-, 9-, and 12 - years of age, were interviewed regarding their evaluation of peer-oriented moral transgressions (hitting and not sharing toys). The vast majority of children evaluated moral transgressions as wrong. Group and age differences were revealed, however, regarding provocation and retaliation. Children who were exposed to violence, in contrast to those with minimum exposure, judged it more legitimate to inflict harm or deny resources when provoked and judged it more okay to retaliate for reasons of retribution. Surprisingly, and somewhat hopefully, all children viewed reconciliation as feasible. The results are informative regarding theories of morality, culture, and the effects of violence on children's social development.

Neighborhood stressors, perceived neighborhood quality, and child mental health in New York City

This paper examines the relationship between neighborhood stressors, stressors related to parenting, children's evaluations of neighborhood quality, and child depression. One hundred and twenty-six young adolescents in three disadvantaged New York City neighborhoods completed surveys on neighborhood quality and child depression and the children's parents provided information on their mental health and parenting practices. Neighborhood stressors were measured through observations by outside raters. Children's evaluations of neighborhood quality were positively related to their assessments of depression and there was an unexpected positive association between the neighborhood drug/alcohol stressor and child depression. Moreover, the relationship between the drug/alcohol stressor and child depression was fully mediated by the children's assessments of neighborhood quality. Future directions for neighborhood and health research are discussed.

Children's Evaluation of Other People's Self-Descriptions.

Children's evaluations of what people communicate about themselves were examined in three studies with a total of 296 participants (aged four to 12). Participants heard scenarios in which characters' motivations to reveal truthful information were systematically manipulated to examine (1) children's understanding that people do not always reveal true information, and (2) children's use of contextual cues to judge the credibility of what individuals say about themselves. Results from Study 1 suggest that elementary school children are quite sophisticated at reasoning with reference to motive information. Study 2 suggests that preschool children can also make use of motive information that is salient and familiar. For example, even preschool children responded that boys are less likely than girls to reveal to peers that they like to play with dolls. Study 3 suggests that children's reasoning about self-presentation is linked to their beliefs about social acceptability norms.

Children's Social and Moral Reasoning About Exclusion

Developmental research on social and moral reasoning about exclusion has utilized a social-domain theory, in contrast to a global stage theory, to investigate children's evaluations of gender- and race-based peer exclusion. The social-domain model postulates that moral, social-conventional, and personal reasoning coexist in children's evaluations of inclusion and exclusion, and that the priority given to these forms of judgments varies by the age of the child, the context, and the target of exclusion. Findings from developmental intergroup research studies disconfirm a general-stage-model approach to morality in the child, and provide empirical data on the developmental origins and emergence of intergroup attitudes regarding prejudice, bias, and exclusion.

Children's evaluations of ambiguous provocation by relationally aggressive, physically aggressive and prosocial peers

The present study assessed children's evaluations of hypothetical peer provocation. Participants (N = 75, ages 8–11) were presented with hypothetical vignettes depicting relationally aggressive, physically aggressive and prosocial peers engaging in provocative behaviours directed at the participant, including (a) relational (not receiving a party invitation); (b) physical (having a beverage spilled on him/her); and (c) prosocial (being given stale snack food) provocations. Children rated the hostility of the peer's intentions and explained what they themselves would do if actually confronted with the situation. Children were more hostile in their attributions for the behaviour of relationally and physically aggressive peers as compared with the prosocial peers. Additionally, when children reported that they liked the peer, they were less likely to attribute hostility to that peer's behaviour. Results involving children's responses indicate the importance of considering peer reputation and provocation type when examining children's social problem solving. For example, very few children said that they would seek help from an adult when relationally provoked by an aggressive peer; however, in response to physical provocation from an aggressive peer, seeking the assistance of an adult was a common response.

Development of the positive–negative asymmetry effect: in‐group exclusion norm as a mediator of children's evaluations on negative attributes

AbstractTwo studies were conducted that go beyond previous research by examining when and why children might show intergroup bias in the attribution of positive, but not negative traits (PNAE: the positive–negative asymmetry effect, Mummendey &amp; Otten, 1998, European review of social psychology, Vol. 9). In Study 1 (n = 107) children completed a ‘mixed’ trait attribution task in a dichotomous group context. As predicted there was a developmental trend between 7 and 12 years of age in the PNAE. The 7‐year olds were the only age group not to show the effect. Study 1 also found a quadratic developmental trend in children's national intergroup bias. Study 2 (n = 62) replicated the developmental path of the PNAE found in Study 1 using a wider age range of 6–16 years. This study used a ‘mixed’ list of traits which were not only antonyms and a procedure that made the positive and negative trait dimensions explicitly independent. Significantly, Study 2 found in‐group exclusion norm partially mediated the development of the PNAE. These findings support an account of the positive–negative asymmetry effect based upon normative processes. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley &amp; Sons, Ltd.