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Two studies investigated 5- to 10-year-olds' (N = 194) positivity bias when forecasting the future. Children from two geographic locations (mostly Caucasian, higher income college town; mostly African American, lower income urban community) completed a future expectations task (FET). For multiple scenarios, children predicted whether a positive versus negative (optimism items) or a positive versus extraordinary positive (wishful thinking items) outcome would occur, including its likelihood. In both samples, optimism and wishful thinking decreased with age, optimism was higher than wishful thinking, children did not show a comparative self-optimism bias, and individual differences in the FET optimism score correlated with self-reported dispositional optimism and hope. Exploratory comparisons revealed between-sample equivalence in responses to all measures, except for less tempered wishful thinking in the urban community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined reciprocal contributions between shyness-sensitivity and social, school, and psychological adjustment in urban Chinese children. Longitudinal data were collected once a year from Grade 3 to Grade 6 (ages 9-12 years) for 1,171 children from multiple sources. Shyness-sensitivity positively contributed to social, school, and psychological difficulties over time, with the most consistent effects on peer preference and loneliness. Social and school adjustment negatively contributed to the development of shyness-sensitivity. The initial levels of shyness-sensitivity and social and school adjustment moderated the growth of each other, mainly as a resource-potentiating factor. The results indicate the significance of shyness-sensitivity for adjustment and the role of adjustment in the development of shyness-sensitivity in today's urban Chinese society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined judgments and reasoning about four parental discipline practices (induction or reasoning and three practices involving 'psychological control'; Barber, 1996; two forms of shaming and love withdrawal) among children (7-14 years of age) from urban and rural China and Canada ( N = 288) in response to a moral transgression. Children from all settings critically evaluated love withdrawal and preferred induction. Despite being perceived as more common in China than in Canada, with age, parental discipline based on shaming or love withdrawal was increasingly negatively evaluated and believed to have detrimental effects on children's feelings of self-worth and psychological well-being. Some cultural variations were found in evaluations of practices, perceptions of psychological harm, and attribution of parental goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to examine relations between shyness-sensitivity and social competence, school performance, and psychological well-being in Chinese children with rural and urban backgrounds. Participants were students in rural migrant children schools and city schools in China (Ns = 411 and 518, respectively; M age = 10 years). Data were obtained from peer evaluations, teacher ratings, self-reports, and school records. It was found that shyness was associated with social and school problems and depression in urban children. However, shyness was generally associated with indexes of adjustment such as leadership, teacher-rated competence, and academic achievement in rural migrant children. The results indicate the role of context in defining the functional meaning of social behavior in children’s adjustment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The extent to which parent, school, and peer support differentially affected multiple domains of resilience was examined among 2,600 sixth, eighth, and tenth graders from an urban public school system who took part in a comprehensive survey of high-risk and adaptive behaviors. Structural equation modeling was used to specify the relation among seven domains of resilience and parent, school, and peer support among children who had been victimized by community violence, those who had witnessed such violence, and a no-exposure control group. Results upheld the validity of a multidimensional conceptualization of childhood resilience, and indicated that although both parent and school support factors were significantly positively associated with resilience in children who had been exposed to community violence, peer support was negatively associated with resilience in the domains of substance abuse and school misconduct/ delinquency. These results were most robust among victimized children, followed by children who had witnessed violence. Implications for social policy and community violence research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study tested hypotheses from an organizational-developmental model for childhood resilience. In this model resilience reflects a child's mastery of age-salient objectives, in the face of substantial adversity, by drawing on internal and external resources that enhance processes of adaptation specific to each developmental stage. Interviews were conducted with parents of 122 7- to 9-year-old urban children exposed to multiple risk factors, 69 classified as resilient and 53 as maladjusted. Consistent with predictions generated by the model: (1) characteristics of a child's caregiving system and early development differentiated children with resilient and stress-affected adaptations; and (2) variables reflecting emotionally responsive, competent parenting were direct, proximal predictors of resilient status and mediators of other caregiver resources such as education, mental health, and relational history. Identified predictors of resilient status, including competent parenting and caregiver psychosocial resources, largely replicated findings from a prior study with sociodemographically comparable 9- to 12-year-old children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

First- and fifth-grade kibbutz and city children (320 in 2 studies) were individually requested to distribute rewards between themselves and a partner who had produced either more or less than the subject had. As expected, in both age levels, the kibbutz children, for whom equality is a central norm in socialization and practice, tended more than city children to distribute equally rather than equitably. The fifth graders were also asked about the level of effort and merit of themselves and their partners. The answers reveal that both kibbutz and city children maintain that rewards should be distributed according to effort. However, they differed in their assessment of the partner's level of effort. City children inter level of effort from level of output, whereas kibbutz children tend to believe that their partner has tried as hard as they have, even if the partner has produced less. The results are interpreted in terms of a distinction between structure (e.g., self-constructed principles of distribution) and content (e.g., culturally transmitted beliefs regarding the level of effort of other people). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study explored the effects of socialization and child-rearing practices on the development of individual adaptation and competencies in early childhood. 44 communally raised kibbutz children were compared with 42 urban family raised children (aged 2-10 to 3-2). Adaptation and competencies were assessed by means of semistructured interview, observations, questionnaire, and a series of problem-solving tasks (matching colored disks, arranging insoluble jigsaw puzzle, and fitting cutouts) testing aspects of performance such as systematic approach, perseverance, etc. As compared to city children, the kibbutz children were found to be more instrumentally independent and sell-reliant in routine and daily tasks, but less effective in the problem-solving tasks. They were also less responsive and cooperative with adult strangers. No significant difference between the 2 groups was found with regard to attachment, difficulty in separation from parents, adjustment to a nonfamilial setting (nursery school), and developmental disturbances. The findings raise the possibility that different competence profiles and developmental paths may emerge in different socialization and child-rearing systems, arising from differences in what is adaptive, required, and encouraged in a certain suciocultural environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Performance of Korean and Costa Rican urban and rural children was observed on several of Piaget's tasks. Besides typical procedures requiring a child to judge the meaning of actual transformations, other techniques were used in which a child had to imagine and draw transformations or produce stimulus instances from a deductive base. Following Good now (1969), these less externally structured cognitive tasks are designated "imaging." Older children (11-12 years) were generally more successful than younger subjects (8-9 years) with judgment procedures, and children from rural milieus performed like their urban age peers. With imaging procedures, however, rural children showed deficits in comparison with urban subjects. Findings confirm other cross-cultural investigations in showing the absence of milieu differences in judgment tasks of operations as well as the presence of milieu differences on imaging problems. Imaging processes are discussed in terms of Piaget's concept of development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]