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While there is a general consensus that temperament forms the enduring, biologically based foundation of personality and that this biological basis should imply some continuity within the individual across time, [...]

Given the increased emphasis on understanding the complex set of interrelations between individual development and family processes, links between the home and the school would seem to be an obvious [...]

Depressive symptoms have been represented in the research and clinical literature in terms of both an episodic phenomenon and as enduring individual differences. We investigated depressive symptoms longitudinally in a sample of older adults. Participants were 737 individuals (MAge = 73 years initially, 39% women) in the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging who provided biennial Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression data on up to five occasions over an 8-year period. We found both trait and state-residual variability, with symptoms increasing longitudinally on all subscales and accounting for an approximately 1-point increase per decade. Trait-like variability accounted for at least two thirds of the reliable variance. Interindividual differences were consistent over time, but occasion-specific variability diminished across occasions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Recent research on parental agreement on child-rearing values has found it to be positively related to effective parenting. The exact nature of the relation, however, is not clear. Are they different constructs, or is agreement simply one more variable that describes effective parenting? A sample of 136 families and their preschool children was studied by observation and an extensive self-report questionnaire package. Parental agreement was assessed using the Block Child-rearing Practices Report. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses revealed that the agreement score rarely added any information not already provided by the parental effectiveness scores. A Q-factor analysis revealed that the agreement score actually represented agreement to a standard of good parenting. The parents who were high agreers were good parents who agreed with other good parents, while the low agreers were ineffective parents who disagreed with other parents, good or bad. Implications of these results for future research on parental agreement are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because of the impressive replicability of the Five-Factor Model (FFM) in adult personality psychology, developmental psychologists have recently begun a search for the antecedents of these five adult dimensions in childhood. The FFM originates in rating scales applied to ’personality words’, notably adjectives, selected from dictionaries. To test the explanatory power of the FFM as a model for individual differences in childhood, we used a different source for the lexicon of personality. Parents of children aged 3, 6, 9, and 12 years were asked simply ’to describe your child’. The audiotaped interviews were transcribed literally and then coded using an elaborate coding scheme. We here describe data from three of the countries involved in this cross-cultural project (Holland, Belgium, and Greece). The data are the results of coding free descriptions for a total of 186 3-year-olds and 229 9-year-olds. These data represents the first phase of a four-phase project that includes researchers from The Netherlands, Belgium, Greece, Poland, Germany, and the USA, and China. Results from this first phase were very similar over the participating countries although there were some interesting culture-specific differences. In the second phase, questionnaire items based on the free descriptors in each category of the coding scheme will be written by the research teams. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A global measure of newborn constitutional adequacy was found to be positively related to competent functioning at the age of 5-6 years. In a sample of 15 boys and 5 girls, newborn constitutional adequacy was related to aspects of focused (versus unfocused) activity, outgoingness, cognitive and verbal ability, and motor skill at the early childhood follow-up. Additionally, some preschool data were available on most of the sample and continuity of competent functioning was traced across the 3 age periods. Also, hyperactive behaviors at the preschool period had negative implications for functioning in early childhood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Selected literature on childhood hyperactivity and suggestions for management of this behavior syndrome are reviewed in this article. It is argued that little consideration has been given to the consequences for parents and siblings of having a hyperactive child present in the family setting. Furthermore, it is suggested that little attention has been focused on the implementation of management techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the effects of sex-typing schemas on children's memory. Distortion on the sex of the actor; Development of confidence of memory for pictures remembered; Maintenance of sex stereotypes.

The thesis of the present paper is that sex stereotyping is a normal cognitive process and is best examined in terms of information-processing constructs A model is proposed in which stereotypes are assumed to function as schemas that serve to organize and structure reformation The particular schemas revolved in stereotyping are described, and the functions and biases associated with these schemas are elaborated Both the development and maintenance of stereotypes are explained using the schematic processing model. The schematic model is found to be useful for explaining many of the results from sex-typing and stereotyping studies, as well as indicating areas needing further investigation. To describe the relation between sex schemas and other types of schemas, a typology is proposed which divides schemas according to whether they are potentially self-defining and according to their salience or availability. Using the typology, stereotyping and sex stereotyping are said to occur because the schemas revolved are self-defining and salient. The role of salience in mediating the use of schemas is dicussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To test the inversion of intensity interpretation based on negative relations between newborn and preschool intensity behaviors (Bell, Weller, & Waldrop 1971), 106 normal children were examined at the neonatal and preschool periods. Data analyses were carried out in 2 parts: Part I was an attempt to reconstruct the same measures of intensity Bell et al. used at both periods, and Part II was a broader factor analytic analysis using all measures conceptually related to intensity in the neonatal and preschool periods. In Part I, several correlations were in the direction consistent with inversion, but only 1 of 20 correlations reached significance. In Part II, several significant correlations between intensity behavior at newborn and preschool periods were obtained, indicating intense newborn behavior to be related to low levels of socially negative behaviors. Interpretations of intensity behaviors at both periods and their longitudinal relations are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study replicated and extended earlier findings on the relationship between minor physical anomalies and several classes of problem behavior in an unselected group of elementary school children. Teachers and peers were the judges of problem behavior. The problem checklist and a teacher ranking of hyperactivity were related to the incidence of minor physical anomalies for boys. A negative peer factor was also consistently related to the incidence of minor physical anomalies for both boys and girls. The behavior of high-anomaly girls was not easily characterized in terms of any one type of problem behavior. Sex differences and their implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data on peer relations were obtained when a group of children were 2% years old and again when they were 7½ years old. The children who at age 2½ were friendly, involved with their peers, and able to cope with aggressive peers were likely, at age 7½, to spend many hours outside school with peers, to be socially at ease, and to be the ones who decided with whom they would play and what they would play. In other words, sociability at 2½ was positively related to sociability at 7½. Social behavior at 7½ had very different meanings for boys than for girls. The highly social boys, when with peers, tended to have extensive peer relations; that is, they usually played with groups of boys. The highly social girls, when with peers, tended to have intensive peer relations; that is, they usually played with only 1 other girl. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of a new observational measure of marital interaction using a Q-sort methodology is described. The Q-sort is one way of obtaining observer measures of marriage which complements both microcoding and global ratings of marital processes. High interrater agreement was obtained in coding the marital interaction of couples participating in a 2-year study of families with a preschool child. Evidence of construct validity is presented in terms of how the Q-sort relates to CISS ratings, the Dyadic Adjustment Scale, and the Relationship Inventory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]