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Deciding whose words to trust profoundly impacts children's knowledge acquisition. In evaluating informants' trustworthiness, children are attentive to their social dominance. Previous studies have shown that children's trust preferences may differ across cultures based on the dominance of the informant: children in Western cultures prefer to trust in testimony from dominant informants, whereas children in Eastern cultures prefer to trust subordinate informants (Bernard et al., 2016; Charafeddine et al., 2019). We aim to investigate the potential cultural difference in the trust preferences of European American children (in the United States) and Chinese children (in China) from informants of varying levels of dominance, using a more refined method to assess children's trust preferences. We propose that different levels of authoritarianism – advocacies to obey authorities – in Western and Eastern cultures may explain the potential difference in children's selective trust. Specifically, as impacted by societal cultures, Chinese parents may possess a higher level of authoritarianism than European American parents and may place a higher emphasis on obedience in their parenting. Consequently, Chinese children may show stronger trust preferences from subordinate informants over dominant informants than European American children. Our research will offer insights into the potential mechanism underlying children's different learning preferences across cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Both talent and effort are considered essential sources of achievement, but past research suggests a preference for people who appear to achieve through talent. This research examined the potential naturalness preference in 306 Chinese children (Mage: 6.12 years; 164 girls) and 352 adults (Mage: 19.87 years; 182 women) in 2019. In Study 1, participants evaluated a natural or striver protagonist of equal achievement. Children attributed greater competence and warmth to naturals than strivers; adults exhibited this preference only when attributing competence. In Study 2, participants indicated their behavioral preferences between the two protagonists. Children, but not adults, interacted more with naturals than strivers. These findings indicate the naturalness preference emerges early (ds ≥.27) but declines in strength over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The present study examined the moderation role of pre‐parenthood self‐esteem and sense of mastery in psychological well‐being across the transition to parenthood. Background: Past research has identified negative changes in new parents' psychological well‐being. Less studied are the protective factors that can alleviate this transition impact. Informed by theories of psychological well‐being, the protective role of pre‐parenthood positive sense of self in parenthood transitions was examined. Method: Longitudinal data for 2,588 individuals collected from adolescence through their transition to parenthood were analyzed. Pre‐parenthood sense‐of‐self trajectory groups were formed using data collected during adolescence. Piecewise multilevel models were constructed to explore the effect of pre‐parenthood sense of self on new parents' psychological well‐being measured by depressive symptoms, self‐esteem, and sense of mastery. Results: Compared to nonparent peers, the transitions to parenthood lowered new parents' psychological well‐being. This aforementioned change differed by pre‐parenthood sense‐of‐self trajectory groups. Contrary to expectations, new parents with high self‐esteem or sense of mastery during adolescence experienced greater negative immediate impacts at childbirth, compared to their low sense of self counterparts. Furthermore, new parents with both high pre‐parenthood self‐esteem and sense of mastery demonstrated gradual declines in sense of self after childbirth. Conclusion: Positive pre‐parenthood sense of self during adolescence may not protect individuals against the immediate and longitudinal impact of the transition to parenthood. Implications for research and practice were discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impact of social group information on the learning and socializing preferences of Hong Kong Chinese children were examined. Specifically, the degree to which variability in racial out-group exposure affects children's use of race to make decisions about unfamiliar individuals (Chinese, White, Southeast Asian) was investigated. Participants (N = 212; Mage  = 60.51 months) chose functions for novel objects after informants demonstrated their use; indicated with which peer group member to socialize; and were measured on racial group recognition, preference, and identification. Overall, children preferred in-group members, though out-group exposure and the relative social status of out-groups mattered as well. At a young age, children's specific experiences with different races influence how they learn and befriend others across racial group lines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In two studies, 5- and 6-year-old children were questioned about the status of the protagonist embedded in three different types of stories. In realistic stories that only included ordinary events, all children, irrespective of family background and schooling, claimed that the protagonist was a real person. In religious stories that included ordinarily impossible events brought about by divine intervention, claims about the status of the protagonist varied sharply with exposure to religion. Children who went to church or were enrolled in a parochial school, or both, judged the protagonist in religious stories to be a real person, whereas secular children with no such exposure to religion judged the protagonist in religious stories to be fictional. Children's upbringing was also related to their judgment about the protagonist in fantastical stories that included ordinarily impossible events whether brought about by magic (Study 1) or without reference to magic (Study 2). Secular children were more likely than religious children to judge the protagonist in such fantastical stories to be fictional. The results suggest that exposure to religious ideas has a powerful impact on children's differentiation between reality and fiction, not just for religious stories but also for fantastical stories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children prefer learning from, and affiliating with, their racial in-group but those preferences may vary for biracial children. Monoracial (White, Black, Asian) and biracial (Black/White, Asian/White) children (N = 246, 3-8 years) had their racial identity primed. In a learning preferences task, participants determined the function of a novel object after watching adults (White, Black, and Asian) demonstrate its uses. In the social preferences task, participants saw pairs of children (White, Black, and Asian) and chose with whom they most wanted to socially affiliate. Biracial children showed flexibility in racial identification during learning and social tasks. However, minority-primed biracial children were not more likely than monoracial minorities to socially affiliate with primed racial in-group members, indicating their in-group preferences are contextually based. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although very young children are unable to formulate a personal narrative of the life course, their everyday lives are steeped in narratives. Drawing on ethnographic studies in diverse sociocultural worlds, we argue that the early years of life form a vital preamble to the personal narrative. In this phase of life, the universal predisposition to narrative takes root and burgeons as young children step into whichever narrative practices are at hand, practices that are culturally differentiated from the beginning. As children narrate their experiences, they orient themselves in time and establish the interpretive grounds for intelligibility. This process is highly dynamic. Stories recur, stories are repeated, stories are revamped, and stories disappear. These dynamics constitute, for many children, an intense narrative initiation that defines early childhood as a developmental context. By the end of early childhood, they are well versed in making and remaking narratives and show an incipient ability to open a wider temporal window on their own experience. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children prefer to learn from informants in consensus with one another. However, no research has examined whether this preference exists across cultures, and whether the race of the informants impacts that preference. In 2 studies, one hundred thirty-six 4- to 7-year-old European American and Taiwanese children demonstrated a systematic preference for a consensus. Nevertheless, the initial strength and persistence of that preference depended on the racial composition of the consensus. Children's preference for consensus members belonging to the same race as themselves persisted even when only one consensus member remained to provide information. When the consensus consisted of different-race informants, preference for the consensus was initially apparent but lost when only one member from the consensus remained with the dissenting informant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses an inquiry into the use of culture-specific interpretive frameworks by the families in Longwood, Florida and Taipei, Taiwan when narrating the experiences of the children and whether personal storytelling is still occurring routinely in the families as the children grow older. It explores whether the Taipei families remain slanting their personal storytelling in didactic direction. It expects that personal storytelling would continue to be a strong practice during the children's preschool years and embody the contrasting frameworks. Moreover, it discusses personal storytelling's routine nature.

The article explores the activeness of Taipei, Taiwan and Longwood, Florida children, in relation to personal storytelling within socializing pathways. It examines how individual children navigate different storytelling versions. It has conducted transcribed story micro-level analysis to answer questions regarding navigation of discursive practice of children over time. It also adds that following of the interactional contexts embedded in the narration and details of form and content of the narrative talk.

The article discusses an analysis of how the children in the families in Longwood, Florida and Taipei, Taiwan get involved in personal storytelling. It states that the analysis is aimed at enriching one's understanding of the way personal storytelling was performed with young children. It explores the types of participant roles children could take and how the participation of children changed over time. It says that the type of personal storytelling in Longwood families demonstrated childrearing ideology elements with different goals, such as helping children realize their potential.

The article discusses the longitudinal study conducted in the late 1980s and early 1990s in Taipei, Taiwan and Chicago, Illinois or Longwood regarding personal storytelling of Taiwanese and European-American families. It offers a sketch of Taipei and Longwood's geopolitical spaces and notes the introduction of families in terms of social conditions, family life and parental folk theories. It highlights the presentation of ethnographic background and methods of the study to demonstrate the socialization among family members. It notes the use of videotapes in the study to identify stories of personal experiences concerning children. Furthermore, it explores the traditional Confucian values applied in the practice of personal storytelling.

In this paper we examine how English and Mandarin speakers think about time, and we test how the patterns of thinking in the two groups relate to patterns in linguistic and cultural experience. In Mandarin, vertical spatial metaphors are used more frequently to talk about time than they are in English; English relies primarily on horizontal terms. We present results from two tasks comparing English and Mandarin speakers' temporal reasoning. The tasks measure how people spatialize time in three-dimensional space, including the sagittal (front/back), transverse (left/right), and vertical (up/down) axes. Results of Experiment 1 show that people automatically create spatial representations in the course of temporal reasoning, and these implicit spatializations differ in accordance with patterns in language, even in a non-linguistic task. Both groups showed evidence of a left-to-right representation of time, in accordance with writing direction, but only Mandarin speakers showed a vertical top-to-bottom pattern for time (congruent with vertical spatiotemporal metaphors in Mandarin). Results of Experiment 2 confirm and extend these findings, showing that bilinguals' representations of time depend on both long-term and proximal aspects of language experience. Participants who were more proficient in Mandarin were more likely to arrange time vertically (an effect of previous language experience). Further, bilinguals were more likely to arrange time vertically when they were tested in Mandarin than when they were tested in English (an effect of immediate linguistic context). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the construction of the culture-specific self through a form of seemingly harmful socializing practices among young Taiwanese children. Spontaneous daily family interactions have been systematically and longitudinally videotaped in seven families and events of shame are found to occur regularly at all datapoints. One third of these events occur in chains, involving multiple episodes about the child’s transgressions committed at different times, mostly in the here-and-now, followed by reenactments of the past and expectations for a better self in the future. While in nearly half of the episodes, some authority is explicitly invoked to judge the child’s behaviors, family members are always co-present with the child and ready to share his/her transgression and shame. Findings of analyses on spatiotemporal and relational markers in these situated events suggest a dynamic and fluid view of the self and a holistic treatment of multi-leveled contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Identifying high‐quality causal explanations is key to scientific understanding. This research (N = 202; 50% girls; Mage: 5.82 years; 64% Asian, 33% White, and 3% multiracial; data collected from 2018 to 2024) examined how explanation circularity and informants' social dominance impact children's learning preferences for causal explanations. Raised in a culture valuing circular logic, Chinese children still preferred non‐circular explanations and learning from informants providing non‐circular explanations (d ≥ 0.50). When informants with non‐circular explanations were subordinate to those with circular explanations, Chinese and American children preferred non‐circular over circular explanations (d = 1.10), but did not prefer learning new information from either informant. Although children weigh explanation quality over informant dominance when seeking explanations for given questions, they consider both cues when evaluating informants' credibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]