Merrill-Palmer Quarterly

Can Children Read Evolutionary Trees?

Shaaron Ainsworth et al. — Tue, 14 May 2013 11:18:51 PDT

Representations of the “tree of life” such as cladograms show the history of lineages and their relationships. They are increasingly found in formal and informal learning settings. Unfortunately, there is evidence that these representations can be challenging to interpret correctly. This study explored the question of whether children aged 7–11 can read these trees and, if so, what factors influence their understanding. A total of 28 children were shown cladograms with both different content (species and features shown) and form (how branches rotated). Questions required these children to reason about different aspects of cladogram interpretation and to search varying depths of the tree. Overall, children did remarkably well: 56% of their answers were completely correct after only 15 minutes of instruction. The youngest quartile of children performed worse than other ages, but there were no further age differences. Children’s performance was influenced by the content and the depth of tree searched but not by the rotation of the branches. Like adults, they found reasoning about the relatedness of species particularly difficult. Children’s explanations revealed varied insights: from correct semantic interpretation to syntactic interpretation to a variety of misunderstandings. Demonstration of this basic competency provides a foundation from which to design a more extended curriculum for children that uses cladograms to support evolutionary understanding.

Essentialist Reasoning and Knowledge Effects on Biological Reasoning in Young Children

Patricia A. Herrmann et al. — Tue, 14 May 2013 11:18:49 PDT

Biological kinds undergo a variety of changes during their life span, and these changes vary in degree by organism. Understanding that an organism, such as a caterpillar, maintains category identity over its life span despite dramatic changes is a key concept in biological reasoning. At present, we know little about the developmental trajectory of children’s understanding of dramatic life-cycle changes and how this might relate to their understanding of evolution. We suggest that this understanding is a key precursor to later understanding of evolutionary change. Two studies examined the impact of age and knowledge on children’s biological reasoning about living kinds that undergo a range of natural life-span changes—from subtle to dramatic. The participants, who were 3, 4, and 7 years old, were shown paired pictures of juvenile and adult animals and asked to endorse biological or nonbiological causal mechanisms to account for life-span change. Additionally, reasoning of 3- and 4-year-old participants was compared before and after exposure to caterpillars transforming into butterflies. The results are framed in terms of a developmental trajectory in essentialist reasoning, a cognitive bias that has been associated with difficulties in understanding and accepting evolution.

Anthropomorphizing Science: How Does It Affect the Development of Evolutionary Concepts?

Cristine H. Legare et al. — Tue, 14 May 2013 11:18:47 PDT

Despite the ubiquitous use of anthropomorphic language to describe biological change in both educational settings and popular science, little is known about how anthropomorphic language influences children’s understanding of evolutionary concepts. In an experimental study, we assessed whether the language used to convey evolutionary concepts influences children’s (5- to 12-year-olds; N = 88) understanding of evolutionary change. Language was manipulated by using three types of narrative, each describing animals’ biological change: (a) need-based narratives, which referenced animals’ basic survival needs; (b) desire-based or anthropomorphic narratives, which referenced animals’ mental states; and (c) scientifically accurate natural selection narratives. Results indicate that the language used to describe evolutionary change influenced children’s endorsement of and use of evolutionary concepts when interpreting that change. Narratives using anthropomorphic language were least likely to facilitate a scientifically accurate interpretation. In contrast, need-based and natural selection language had similar and positive effects, which suggests that need-based reasoning might provide a conceptual scaffold to an evolutionary explanation of biological origins. In sum, the language used to teach evolutionary change impacts conceptual understanding in children and has important pedagogical implications for science education.

Tuition vs. Intuition: Effects of Instruction on Naïve Theories of Evolution

Andrew Shtulman et al. — Tue, 14 May 2013 11:18:44 PDT

Introduction to the Special Issue

David H. Uttal — Tue, 14 May 2013 11:18:43 PDT

The development of conceptions of evolution is a problem of both great practical concern and important theoretical interest. Many Americans do not understand basic principles of evolution, such as natural selection, and part of the reason may be that these concepts are notoriously difficult to learn and to teach. The four contributions in this special issue all investigate the development of conceptions in evolution. Several of the articles focus on the interaction between children’s prior beliefs and their interpretation and cognitive construction of evolutionary concepts. For example, essentialist beliefs (e.g., Gelman, 2003) may affect how children understand and interpret natural selection and the evolution of species. The four articles all demonstrate that prior beliefs constrain and influence how children and adults interpret what they observe and are taught about evolution. Taken together, the articles demonstrate the importance of taking a developmental approach to understanding the development of conceptions of evolution.

Consulting Editors

Merrill-Palmer Quarterly Editors — Tue, 14 May 2013 11:18:39 PDT

Consulting Editors

Merrill-Palmer Quarterly Editors — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 13:38:19 PST

Similarity Between Friends in Social Information Processing and Associations With Positive Friendship Quality and Conflict

Sarah V. Spencer et al. — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 12:48:07 PST

This study of 166 best friend dyads (M = 10.88 years) examined (a) whether children and their best friends were similar in social information processing (SIP) that pertained to two relationship contexts (unfamiliar peer, friend); (b) the associations between children's and their best friends' SIP and friendship quality and conflict ratings; and (c) the relations between SIP similarity and dyadic friendship ratings. Analyses revealed a greater number of similarities for the friend context (hypothetical scenarios involving each other) than the unfamiliar-peer context (scenarios involving unknown peers). Significant relations were found, in both relationship contexts, between children's angry reactions, appeasement coping, and friendship quality ratings, and between external blame attributions and appeasement coping, and conflict ratings. A number of significant associations between similarity, or lack thereof, in aggression-related SIP and friendship qualities suggest that t e extent to which children and their friends are similar in aggression-related SIP may explain some variability in the quality of friendships.

Enhancing Preschoolers' Understanding of Ambiguity in Communication: A Training Study on Misunderstandings

Ana M. Carmiol et al. — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 12:48:06 PST

Understanding knowledge acquisition involves a comprehension of the relationship between a person's access to relevant information and that person's subsequent knowledge. This report investigates how preschoolers improve in their ability to evaluate the effects of two distinct types of messages—ambiguous and informative—on a listener's knowledge. Three- and four-year olds were pre- and posttested for their ability to judge message quality from a third-person perspective. Between sessions, children were assigned to one of three training conditions. In all conditions, children observed a speaker providing ambiguous messages and informative messages to a listener. In the general-feedback condition, children were informed as to whether the listener gained knowledge after each message. In the specific-feedback condition, children were informed as to whether, as well as why, the listener gained knowledge. In the no-feedback condition, children were not informed as to the listener’s state of knowledge. Children in the specific-feedback condition improved their ability to judge messages, and children in the general-feedback condition showed a marginally significant improvement. No learning effects, however, were observed in a transfer task for any of the groups. Results suggest that informing preschoolers about message quality during conversational exchanges contributes to their developing understanding of how people acquire knowledge about the world.

The Medium Is the Message: Pictures and Objects Evoke Distinct Conceptual Relations in Parent-Child Conversations

Elizabeth A. Ware et al. — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 12:48:06 PST

An important developmental task is learning to organize experience by forming conceptual relations among entities. (For example, a lion and a snake can be linked because both are animals; a lion and a cage can be linked because the lion lives in the cage.) We propose that representational medium (i.e., pictures vs. objects) plays an important role in influencing which relations children consider. Prior work has demonstrated that pictures more readily evoke broader categories, whereas objects more readily call attention to specific individuals. We therefore predicted that pictures would encourage taxonomic and shared-property relations, whereas objects would encourage thematic and slot-filler relations. We observed 32 mother-child dyads (M child ages = 2.9 and 4.3) playing with pictures and objects, and identified utterances in which they made taxonomic, thematic, shared-property, or slot-filler links between items. The results confirmed our predictions and thus support representational medium as an important factor that influences the conceptual relations expressed during dyadic conversations.

Developmental Differences in Parenting Behavior: Comparing Adolescent, Emerging Adult, and Adult Mothers

Amy Lewin et al. — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 12:48:04 PST

The nationally representative Early Childhood Longitudinal Study–Birth cohort data set was used to compare parenting behaviors of adolescent mothers (<19 years old), emerging adult mothers (19–25 years old), and adult mothers (>25 years old) when their children were 2 years old. Regression models controlling for socioeconomic differences indicate that adolescent mothers exhibited less supportiveness, sensitivity, and positive regard than emerging adult mothers, who exhibited less than adults. Adolescent and emerging adult mothers reported comparable frequencies of spanking and use of time out but significantly more than adults. Age differences in coparenting were largely accounted for by different rates of father coresidence. These finding suggest that age differences in parenting behaviors are not solely explained by sociodemographic factors, and that mothers who gave birth during the emerging adult period are a developmentally distinct group; overall, they are not as prepared for optimal parenting as older mothers but are better equipped than adolescent mothers.

Two Sides to Every Story? Parents’ Attributions of Culpability and Their Interventions Into Sibling Conflict

Holly E. Recchia et al. — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 12:48:03 PST

This study examined associations between parents' attributions of culpability and their observed interventions into sibling conflict. A total of 61 primary caregivers judged who was at fault for a sibling conflict and subsequently discussed the event with their two children (aged 4–10 years). Nonunilateral fault attributions (blaming both children or neither child) were related to parents' discussion of the reasons underlying children's behavior/perspectives and were more frequent when the age gap between children was larger. Parents selectively referred to their younger child's point of view in conversation and, when the age gap was larger, selectively provided evidence in favor of their younger child. Results extend previous research by providing novel insight into how parents' conflict judgments are linked to their intervention strategies with older and younger siblings and by identifying the circumstances in which parents intervene in ways that promote children's mutual understanding and constructive conflict strategies.

Index

Merrill-Palmer Quarterly Editors — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 09:20:56 PDT

Popular and Nonpopular Subtypes of Physically Aggressive Preadolescents: Continuity of Aggression and Peer Mechanisms During the Transition to Middle School

Bing Shi et al. — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 09:20:55 PDT

Assessing Mothers’ and Children’s Perceptions of Power Through Personal, Conventional, and Prudential Conflict Situations

Sandra Della Porta et al. — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 09:20:54 PDT

Cross-ethnic Friendships and Sense of Social-Emotional Safety in a Multiethnic Middle School: An Exploratory Study

Anke Munniksma et al. — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 09:20:53 PDT

Group-Based Modeling of Time Spent in Structured Activity Trajectories From Middle Childhood Into Early Adolescence

Andrea D. Mata et al. — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 09:20:52 PDT

The Role of Parents in Young Adolescents’ Competence With Peers: An Observational Study of Advice Giving and Intrusiveness

François Poulin et al. — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 09:20:46 PDT

Consulting Editors

Merrill-Palmer Quarterly Editors — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 09:20:45 PDT

Attentional Processes in Children's Overt and Relational Aggression

Darin J. Arsenault et al. — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 12:06:34 PDT

This study examined attention and memory processes assumed by the social information–processing model to be biased in aggressive children. We also explored whether similar biases were associated with overt and relational ag-gression. A total of 96 fourth through sixth graders saw videos of overtly and relationally aggressive child actors and afterward recalled video content. Par-ticipants' reaction times were also measured as they shifted attention from video content to neutral stimuli. Hierarchical regression analyses showed that, after controlling for processing of nonaggressive stimuli, peer-nominated relational aggression was significantly related to attention shifting and free recall for re-lationally aggressive videos; results were significant after controlling for overt aggression. Peer-nominated overt aggression was related to attention for overtly aggressive videos, but not when relational aggression was controlled. IQ and general attention problems did not explain results. The results suggest that rela- tionally aggressive children are particularly fixated on relationally aggressive events, perhaps because of the socially nuanced nature of relational aggression.