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Teaching is the primary way children learn about the world. However, successful learning involves recognizing when teaching is ineffective, even in the absence of overt cues, and divesting from ineffective teaching to explore novel solutions. Across three experiments, we investigated 7- to 10-year-old children's ability to recognize ineffective teaching; we tested the hypothesis that girls may be less likely than boys to divest by exploring new solutions, given documented gender differences in socialization toward conformity and obedience. Overall, we demonstrate that children independently tested taught solutions and, upon learning that the solutions were ineffective, rationally traded off between instruction and exploration. Simultaneously, gender differences in divestment emerged. On average, girls demonstrated greater persistence in applying the taught solution, while boys tended to explore their own ideas, leading to differences in solving and learning. Importantly, these differences were observable across both masculine- and feminine-stereotyped tasks. These results have important implications for children's learning and the development of leadership. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Infants' persistence in the face of challenges predicts their learning across domains. In older children, linguistic input is an important predictor of persistence: when children are praised for their efforts, as opposed to fixed traits, they try harder on future endeavors. Yet, little is known about the impact of linguistic input as individual differences in persistence are first emerging, during infancy. Based on a preliminary investigation of the CHILDES database, which revealed that language surrounding persistence is an early-emerging feature of children's language environment, we conducted an observational study to test how linguistic input in the form of praise and persistence-focused language more broadly impacts infants' persistence. In Study 1, 18-month-olds and their caregivers participated in two tasks: a free-play task (a gear stacker) and a joint-book reading task. We measured parental language and infants' persistent gear stacking. Findings revealed that infants whose parents spent more time praising their efforts and hard work (process praise), and used more persistence-focused language in general, were more persistent than infants whose parents used this language less often. Study 2 extended these findings by examining whether the effects of parental language on persistence carry over to contexts in which parents are uninvolved. The findings revealed that parental use of process praise predicted infants' persistence even in the absence of parental support. Critically, these findings could not be explained by caregivers' reporting on their own persistence. Together, these findings suggest that as early as 18 months, linguistic input is a key predictor of persistence., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Persistence is central to outcomes across a range of domains: the harder you try, the further you get. Yet relatively little is known about the developmental origins of persistence. Here, we highlight key reasons for a surge of interest in persistence in infancy and early childhood., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

The current study explores the neural correlates of action perception and its relation to infants' active experience performing goal-directed actions. Study 1 provided active training with sticky mittens that enables grasping and object manipulation in prereaching 4-month-olds. After training, EEG was recorded while infants observed images of hands grasping toward (congruent) or away from (incongruent) objects. We demonstrate that brief active training facilitates social perception as indexed by larger amplitude of the P400 ERP component to congruent compared with incongruent trials. Study 2 presented 4-month-old infants with passive training in which they observed an experimenter perform goal-directed reaching actions, followed by an identical ERP session to that used in Study 1. The second study did not demonstrate any differentiation between congruent and incongruent trials. These results suggest that (1) active experience alters the brains' response to goal-directed actions performed by others and (2) visual exposure alone is not sufficient in developing the neural networks subserving goal processing during action observation in infancy.

Children often overestimate their contribution to collaborative activities. Across 2 studies, the authors investigated whether this memory bias supports internalization of the actions of others in the context of joint exchanges. After taking turns with (high collaborative condition; Studies 1 and 2) or working independently of (low collaborative condition; Study 2) an adult experimenter to create a series of novel toys, children's agent memory and reconstruction ability were assessed. Children in the high collaborative condition but not the low collaborative condition systematically overclaimed the actions of their social partner, more frequently reporting having completed steps performed by the experimenter than vice versa. This "I did it" bias was related to learning performance: high collaborative children outperformed low collaborative children both during an immediate reconstruction task and 4 months later, and the strength of the bias predicted children's independent toy-building accuracy. It is argued that the "I did it" bias may emerge as part of a general process of learning from others and is supported by a common framework for representing self-actions and other actions., (Copyright 2007 APA.)