Gerald E. Gruen

The Role of Memory in Making Transitive Judgments.

Abstract This study was designed to determine the effect of a memory aid on childrens transitive judgments. One-half of the children at each of three age levels (5, 6, and 7) were allowed to use a memory aid for initial comparisions (A > B and B > C) while the other half were not. Childrens responses were evaluated according to two criteria: (1) correct (transitive) judgment alone (i.e., A > C), and (2) correct judgment plus verbal explanation of the transitive judgment. S s given the memory aid made significantly more transitive judgments and correct verbal explanations of transitivity at every age level. Transitivity increased monotonically as a function of age. Virtually all S s who could verbally explain transitivity also made correct, transitive judgments, although the converse was not true.

Skill and Chance Orientations as Determiners of Problem-Solving Behavior in Lower-and Middle-Class Children.

This study was an attempt to replicate a previous finding that lower- and middle-class children of the same MA differ in their performance on a partially reinforced three-choice learning task. It was also an attempt to assess the role that skill and chance orientations play in determining this differential performance of social-class groups. The most significant finding of this study was that skill-oriented Ss showed less maximizing (correct responses) and more left, middle, right patterning of their responses than chance-oriented Ss. No main effect of social class was found but an interaction effect did occur that reflected significantly more left, middle, right patterning of responses by middle-class skill-oriented Ss than any other group.

Early Experience and Development

Up to the present point, the major thrust of the book has been to review available evidence on the relationship of early experience to both cognitive and social development. In addition to its implications for theory, as we noted earlier, this evidence also has potential practical applications for child-rearing and early intervention. It will be the aim of this final chapter to specify some of the implications of basic research in early experience for applied work with children.

Incentive Value: The Overlooked Dimension in Childhood Sharing

Abstract This study was conducted to determine the effect of incentive value on the amount shared by children of two age groups. Differences in sharing behavior between kindergarten (n = 42) and fourth-grade (n = 42) children, when sharing high-preferred, less-preferred, and disliked items, were examined. A 2 × 3 × 2 (Age Level × Incentive Value × Sex) analysis of variance (ANOVA) indicated a significant incentive value effect (p < .001). Neither age nor sex was a significant factor. The results suggest that sharing increases significantly as the incentive value of the item decreases and contradict previous findings of age-related increases in sharing. Theoretical implications of the results are discussed with respect to logical learning theory.

A Constructivist View of a Major Developmental Shift in Early Childhood

A decade ago, Sheldon White (1965) reviewed some of the “behavior changes” in children in the 5-year to 7-year age range. In that chapter, he examined the evidence for a hierarchical organization of learning processes in children. He compiled an impressive list of important changes in learning processes, transitions in orientation and localization abilities, changes in performance on intellective measures, and other changes that appeared either to begin or to complete themselves between 5 and 7 years. Although some of the evidence for these changes was acknowledged as weak and requiring further follow-up work, White made the point that the changes occurring in this age range are part of a broad spectrum of change in the child’s learning processes.

The Socialization of Young Children

Thus far, in talking about early experience effects on social development, we have focused primarily on the young child’s immediate, proximal environment and its effects on the child, or on the effects of specific dyadic relationships. In this chapter we will turn our attention to the cultural context in which the young child is reared. More specifically, we will turn our attention to the context provided by the childrearing practices employed by parents, the context provided by the child’s peer group, and that provided by the larger cultural environment. Both parents and peers will be considered in terms of their roles as socializing agents.

The Relationship between Social and Cognitive Development

The young child’s interpersonal environment obviously has powerful effects on both his cognitive and social development. To consider these effects separately, as we have attempted to do thus far, is instructive but in many ways artificial. It is becoming more and more obvious that social and cognitive competencies develop from shared organizational processes and are inextricably bound up with each other. Thus, any specific kind of social interaction is inevitably partially dependent on cognitive processes; cognitions, in turn, are influenced and modified by interpersonal interactions.

The Nature of Early Environmental Action

In previous chapters we have reviewed available evidence on the nature of relationships between specific early experience parameters and subsequent cognitive and social development. For some early experience parameters, clear-cut relationships with development have been shown; for others, few relationships have occurred, and for the remainder unsystematic or weak relationships have been revealed. One question that emerges is what this body of data tells us about the nature of early environmental action per se, over and above the specific relationships reported.

The Social Environment and Its Relationship to Cognitive-Intellectual Development

In contrast to research on the relationship of animate, interpersonal, or mother-child interaction variables upon early cognitive development, there has been relatively little evidence on the relationship of the physical, inanimate environment to early cognitive-intellectual development.1 In part, this paucity of data on the inanimate environment may be due to the contention by certain authors (Provence & Lipton, 1962; Clarke-Stewart, 1973) that the physical environment can have little effect upon development unless mediated by social variables. However, both correlational data (L. J. Yarrow et al., 1975) and experimental evidence (Brossard & Decarie, 1971) clearly do not support this contention. Similarly White (1975) has contended that only after the first year of life, when children can locomote and process language, do the stimulus characteristics of the home become critical for development. However, in contrast, Schaffer and Emerson (1968) have argued that it is the very young infant, lacking self-stimulation capacities, who is most dependent upon physical stimulation.

The Study of Early Experience

In analyzing methodological statements in the area of early experience, one finds two approaches prevalent in the literature. One approach concentrates on the analysis problem (i.e., different types of correlational techniques, ANOVA versus MANOVA). The other approach concentrates on the design aspect (how one studies the phenomena under scrutiny regardless of how the data will be subsequently analyzed). Our emphasis in the present chapter will be on the design aspects of early experience. In part, this decision is based on reviews suggesting that too much emphasis is placed on data analysis with too little emphasis placed on problems in data collection (Wachs & Mariotto, 1978). Badly collected data will yield little of value regardless of how elegant are the statistical approaches used (that is to say, garbage in, garbage out, regardless of how expensive a compactor one has). Our decision is also based on the existence of an excellent volume, The Study of Behavioral Development (Wohlwill, 1973b), which surveys many of the available statistical approaches for individuals interested in developmental problems including the study of early experience. In contrast to Wohl will, we will be concentrating mainly on design problems. Suggestions for data analysis will be made only when specifically relevant.