Conference ProgramDownload the full program in Adobe Acrobat format: JPS-2004-Program.pdf (950KB)
Thursday, June 3, A.M.Thu 8:30-5:00 Lobby Registration (all day) Registration (all day) Bay Book Display (all day) Thu 9:00-9:15 Salon CD Opening Remarks Opening Remarks JPS President, Elliot Turiel Conference Organizers: Cecilia Wainryb, Judith Smetana Thu 9:15-10:30 Salon CD PL01 Plenary Session 1 - Steele Social identity threat: How it affects intellectual performance, development, intergroup relations and what can be done about it Claude Steele (Stanford University) This talk is based on 15 years of research begun to identify unseen pressures affecting the academic performance of certain groups—groups whose abilities are negatively stereotyped in important areas such as women in math and minorities in most academic fields. Group inequality in educational performance is, for the most part, a product of group inequality in educational opportunity. But some group differences in performance persist even when opportunity is, by most reckonings, roughly equal. Why? This research has pursued a particular answer: Performing in areas where the abilities of one’s group are negatively stereotyped puts one under a powerful pressure, the pressure that any difficulty in the area could cause one to be judged and treated in terms of that group stereotype. We have called this pressure “stereotype threat” and argue that it can be powerful enough to shape the intellectual performance and academic identities of entire groups of people. The first part of the talk will document the powerful interfering effects of this “threat” on the academic performance of women in math and minorities more generally, as well as its interfering effects on a broad range of other performances—sports, language usage, emotional sensitivity, memory, etc.—and in a broad set of other groups—Asians, white males, Latinos, the elderly, etc. Most important, it will show that when this pressure is alleviated, these performances—even those understood to be tenaciously low—improve dramatically. The second part of the talk will describe new research showing that the very sense of having a group identity—of being black, of being old, of being white—is significantly rooted in the perception that one is under threat because of that identity, and that this perception arises from cues in a setting that, while often incidental, may nonetheless signal that the identity is devalued there—cues such as the minority status of those with the identity, their under-representation in prestigious roles in the setting, or patterns of association and friendship being organized around group identity. The talk will end with principles of remedy, derived from this analysis that have been successfully applied to the group underperformance problem that launched this research, and to the more general problem of how to manage a successfully diverse society. Thu 10:45-12:00 Salon C SY01 Symposium Session 1 Inequality and injustice: Implications for social reasoning, autonomy, and relationship interactions Organizer: Kristin D Neff (University of Texas at Austin) Jean Piaget was one of the first psychologists to seriously consider the impact of relational power inequality on social reasoning in his seminal work The Moral Judgment of the Child. Until recently however, psychologists have not given a great deal of research attention to the study of social inequality and its influence on development. In keeping with the theme of this year’s conference program, the proposed symposium will present contemporary theory and research that explores the impact of power inequality and injustice on social cognition and interpersonal interaction. In particular, the symposium will highlight how one’s place within a social hierarchy can influence reasoning about peer group exclusion, the legitimacy of aggression, judgments about autonomy and authority, and the ability to act authentically within relationships. It will also consider the role of cultural norms of social hierarchy in this process, taking a critical stance on simplistic portrayals of autonomy and connectedness concerns in individualistic versus collectivistic societies. As a whole, these papers will illustrate why it is essential to consider contexts of power inequality to obtain a fuller understanding of the complexities of social development in a broad range of domains. Social hierarchy and social inequality in the peer group: The relationship between group status, social identity, and adolescents’ reasoning about peer harassment Stacey S Horn (University of Illinois at Chicago) The Effects of Social Injustice and Inequality on Children’s Moral Judgments & Behavior: A Theoretical Model William F Arsenio (Yeshiva University) Culture and the relation between autonomy and social hierarchy: Judgments about democratic decision making in Mainland China Charles C Helwig (University of Toronto) The link between power inequality, authenticity and psychological well-being within interpersonal relationships Kristin D Neff (University of Texas at Austin) Thu 10:45-12:00 Salon D SY02 Symposium Session 2 Images, identity, and intergroup relations: Images in global adaptations of Sesame Street and young children’s concepts of self and other Organizer: Elizabeth L Nisbet (Sesame Workshop) Most television series present a distorted view of the world that provides a great deal of information about the lives of a small number of people and is silent about the day-to-day realities of many viewers. Before children begin to differentiate between what is real and what is not, the divergence between the world they see and the world represented in media may communicate subtle messages about what—or who—is valuable, acceptable, and ideal, and how others are better, different, or worse than they. As pre-school-age children form a sense of self and develop mechanisms to understand differences, media images they see of young children may influence their thinking. Images that put forth unspoken negative messages about different groups may contribute to poor images of self and others. If so, it may be true that images that positively portray everyday lives of those groups most often seen in a negative light could have a more beneficial effect on children. This symposium examines efforts to present children with positive representations of local culture through international adaptations of Sesame Street. Drawing from Sesame Street’s experience around the world, the symposium explores children’s responses to both positive and negative images of themselves and others; raises questions that require further study; and offers a theoretical view of how externally- and locally-created images may impact the development of children who are in the earliest stages of identity formation, pre-school age children. Representations of children in global media and their impact on identity formation Charlotte F Cole (Sesame Workshop) Stereotypes and conflict resolution strategies in Mid-East children’s social judgments prior to- and post-broadcast of Rechov Sumsum/Shara’a Simsim Melanie Killen (University of Maryland) Self and other: case studies from international productions of Sesame Street from Bangladesh to Mexico Yolanda Platon (Sesame Workshop) Thu 10:45-12:00 York A PS01 Paper Session 1 Moral Reasoning and Language Moderator: Ulrich Mueller (University of Victoria) Children’s early moral development: An analysis of moral language in children’s talk Jennifer C Wright (University of Wyoming) Conducting target word analysis on transcripts from the CHILDES language database (MacWhinney & Snow, 1990), this study looks at young children’s use of moral language. Thirty-four target words will be coded for two children (Abe & Sarah) from the ages of 2.5 to 5.0 years. The questions being investigated are: 1) what words do children use, 2) how do they use them (e.g. to approve/disapprove, to give reasons, to elicit sympathy, etc.), 3) what do they refer to (e.g. feelings, welfare/needs, rules/standards, obedience, principles, etc.), 4) are there are any developmental trends in their use. Word use by mother, father, and other adults will also be coded and relationships between child/adult use will be examined. Child competency (correct use of words), role (active vs. passive use), context (situation specific vs. generalized), and form (declarative, directive, narrative, other) will also be looked at. Moral development: A collaborative process Doug H Mollard (University of Victoria) My paper examines children’s peer interaction and the construction of social knowledge. In my research I revisited Jean Piaget’s classic work The Moral Judgment of the Child and experimentally examined children’s moral judgments and reasoning. In my paper I discuss the results of my study, in which 7 and 8-year-old children worked together to solve a Piagetian vignette. The vignette used within my study required children to arrive at a joint agreement when the stimulus characters’ subjective intentions were counterpoised with the material consequences of their actions. At this developmental stage some children found it challenging to incorporate subjectivity within their social reasoning. As a group these children demonstrated progress in reasoning when paired in interaction with more advanced peers. As well, gender identity had a mediating influence on the children’s communication patterns and their joint construction of social knowledge. Developing wisdom in end of life care Michel Ferrari (University
of Toronto) Physicians must solve problems that require expertise in medicine and wisdom in ethics. Our interdisciplinary research focuses cases of medical informed consent (or refusal) at the end of life, when life-sustaining treatment is offered to a patient. Our study examined how new doctors (residents) (n=53) compare with senior doctors (n=9) when assuring informed consent to end-of-life care. Subjects were first asked general questions about end-of-life care and were then shown a short true-life videotaped conversation between an intern and a patient about his refusal to accept life-sustaining treatment. Results show that while residents have the same theoretical knowledge about the ethics of informed consent as more experienced doctors, experienced doctors are more dialogic in their approach; for example, they advocate engaging patients repeatedly in discussions of the sort of care they wish, and checking patients’ understanding; these differences are a hallmark of greater wisdom in experienced doctors. Literary voice, moral voice, and becoming a cultural critic in middle childhood Marsha D Walton (Rhodes
College) Recent research and theory have aligned children’s development of literacy and narrative skills with entrance into a cultural dialogue, in which children become active participants in the negotiation of cultural meanings. In this study we consider how the development of literary voice in personal narratives relates to children’s inclination to make moral justifications and critiques of the events they describe. 452 inner-city 4th-6th graders wrote narratives about personal conflict, which we evaluated independently and reliably for literary voice and moral evaluative stance. Children with a strong literary voice made more explicit moral critiques than children whose literary voice was judged as weaker. The child authors came from schools differing in severity of neighborhood crime and poverty, and the relationship between literary voice and severity of violence described in children’s stories was opposite for the two neighborhoods. Findings are discussed in light of children’s developing ability to become critics of cultural context. Thu 10:45-12:00 York B PS02 Paper Session 2 Self Moderator/Discussant: Marc D Lewis (University of Toronto) Personal Persistence and Personal Projects: How everyday undertakings express abstract conceptions of self Christopher E Lalonde (University of Victoria) Our everyday conception of ourselves and others includes the notion that persons persist at being themselves through time and despite change. Whatever else it might mean to be you, some principled means of maintaining a sense of personal persistence or self-continuity is needed to bridge the sometimes vast differences that exist between the person you once were, the person you currently take yourself to be, and any imagined future version of you. Our research has shown that young persons not only entertain various kinds of abstract and elaborate notions about personal persistence, but that these conceptions are expressed in their everyday plans and personal goals. Using Personal Projects Analysis, and the Self-Continuity Interview, we report on the ways in which routine plans and personal strivings function to maintain and modify abstract conceptions of selfhood. “I” talk about thoughts and desires: Social, dialectic, and monologic construction of self Kaya Ono (Clark University) Researchers have speculated about the relationship between language and the construction of self, by examining various self-reference terms some children use during the course of pronoun acquisition (e.g. Budwig, 1989, 1990; Gerhardt, 1989; Nelson, 1989). This paper presents analyses of Nelson’s transcriptions (1989) of one child’s pre-sleep monologues, and examines the link between the construction of self and others. The focus will be placed on the child’s use of various self-reference terms and mental state terms. The finding indicates how earliest mental state terms are linked to pronominal self-reference, adding new insights into the child’s understanding of self in relation to others, as well as Budwig’s (2002) claim about the development of self-reference forms as a precursor to later use of mental state terms. The current finding will be discussed in light of Mead’s (1934) and BenVeniste’s (1971) accounts of social, linguistic, and dialectical construction of personhood. Resolving Jekyll and Hyde: Age-graded and cultural variation in the warranting of a synchronically unified self Travis B Proulx (University of British
Columbia) Many theorists in psychology and philosophy have emphasized the importance of maintaining a synchronically unified self, or a self which is unified cross-sectionally across roles. The focus of this paper will the continuously developing manner in which young people, of different ages, and from differing cultural subgroups, warrant their beliefs in synchronic unity, both for themselves and others, in the face of apparent evidence to the contrary. Utilizing a variation on an experimental methodology developed by Chandler and his colleagues as a means of measuring changing conceptions of diachronic self-continuity, 80 Native and non-Native adolescents were tested. Available results indicate strong differences in the way that young persons of various ages and divergent cultures reason about matters of self-unity.
Thursday, June 3, P.M.Thu 1:30-2:45 Salon C IS01 Invited Symposium 1 – Killen Intergroup relationships, stereotyping, and social justice Organizer: Melanie Killen (University of Maryland) In this symposium, four researchers draw on developmental psychological and social psychological theories to address issues of social justice and intergroup relationships. While social justice has most often been analyzed from a policy viewpoint, we take the view that there is much to be gained from investigating children’s and adolescents’ social developmental perspectives on matters directly relevant to social justice, equality, and fairness. Further, we argue that children’s and adolescents’ perspectives about intergroup relationships provides essential information for understanding how social justice emerges (or fails to emerge) in societal contexts. Sheri Levy and her co-authors focus on how individuals’ lay theories are related to egalitarianism as well as notions of inequality. Melanie Killen discusses research on how children and adolescents evaluate social exclusion, and the extent to which explicit and implicit intergroup biases influence these judgments. Clark McKown reports on how stereotype-consciousness influences children’s interpretations of social events. Joshua Aronson describes the developmental consequences and onset of “stereotype threat,” which refers to the ways in which an awareness of stereotypes about one’s abilities hinders performance in a range of contexts. In sum, these integrative papers provide an understanding of the multitude of ways in which intergroup attitudes influence the potential for equal treatment, that is, social justice, in the daily lives of children, adolescents, and adults. Lay theories and intergroup relations: Implications of a social-developmental process Sheri R Levy (SUNY Stony Brook) Social exclusion, intergroup bias, and fairness: The role of intergroup contact Melanie Killen (University of Maryland) What Stereotype-Consciousness is and how it affects children’s lives Clark McKown (University of Illinois, Chicago) On the development and the remediation of stereotype vulnerability Joshua Aronson (New York University) Thu 1:30-2:45 Salon D PS03 Paper Session 3 Interventions and Social Justice Moderator: Brian D Cox (Hofstra University) The impact of a juvenile intervention program and parents perceptions Jeffrey
A Brentley (Michigan State University) The primary objective of this project; is to assess the impact of a short-term residential juvenile delinquency intervention program (Youth Attention Program), provide policy related recommendations to program managers, staff and stakeholders and assist in the dissemination of program results throughout the district, state and nation. The current study is descriptive assessing both program structure and child behavior. 150 participants were randomly selected to complete open-ended short answer and demographic quantitative survey. Variables measured were race, marital status, socioeconomic status, gender, and age. Preliminary results show the Youth Attention Program lacks the familial interaction component, which is a necessary component of successful intervention program (Clevenger, Pacheco, & Birkbeck, 1996). Since 1998, 73% of all participants who completed the program have had no new petitions filed at a 3-month follow up. However, longitudinal assessments beyond the initial three month period are still under investigation. Unraveling the relationship between who is served and what is learned in academic service-learning Rick A Sperling (University
of Texas-Austin) Service-learning provides students with opportunities to apply course concepts in naturalistic environments. Increasingly, educators are also choosing to use service-learning as a pedagogical tool in breaking down students' racial/ethnic stereotypes and for teaching them to perceive the social world in more complex and informed ways. Since university classrooms tend to be somewhat homogeneous environments with regards to racial assignment, class, ability status, etc., service-learning represents a promising method for teaching multicultural issues. However, research suggests that only some students in some contexts profit from their service-learning experiences. Drawing on evidence from student journals, interviews with program staff, and other related documentation, this paper describes one service-learning program's unsuccessful attempt at developing students' self- and social awareness. In considering whose interests are most at stake, it becomes clear how subtle messages contradicting the stated purpose of the course influence student thinking about social issues. Building a scaffold for the "problem child": Restorative justice Rick J Kelly (George Brown College) “Problem children” who exhibit social and behavioural challenges that bring harm to others in their middle years, need to be seen as the developmental crises and opportunity that they represent. In an atmospheres of “safe schools” legislation the developmental moment is lost when a child is suspended. In fact a pattern of removal and isolation is begun. What needs to be restored to all is a sense of justice. At a minimum, justice and equity for the child is to be given the opportunity to learn from her actions, experience the impact her actions has on others and participate in ways to repair the harm. For others such as parents, family members and teachers it is the opportunity to provide the scaffolding for this opportunity. Restorative Justice Conferencing is a model that blends both individual and social processes together in a way that repairs a series of harms. The construction of identity among incarcerated male adolescents Judith
A Chicurel This paper will present a participant observational study of incarcerated males, 11-17 years of age. Informal interview data illuminates several aspects of identity, including relations to same-sex parents, gang membership, use of resistance strategies, and perceived treatment at school. These will be considered in relation to institutional procedures designed to have an impact on identity. Case studies will be presented of students who, despite having relatively strong academic skills, had an especially difficult time complying sufficiently to proceed through the levels of the program and attain release. Descriptive accounts will be interpreted in a broader context of the lives of disenfranchised youth in society. Thu 1:30-2:45 York A PS04 Paper Session 4 Social Cognition & Culture Moderator: Grace Iarocci (Simon Fraser University) Developmental change in co-constructive mother-child interactions Aziza
Y Mayo (University of Amsterdam) As many immigrant children remain to enter the school-system lacking cognitive skills that are important for school success, our study focused on two different kinds of mother-child interactions in the year prior to school entrance in which such skills could be co-constructed. Fifty-eight mother-child dyads with different ethnic and SES backgrounds participated. Results showed significant group differences regarding share in task, cooperation, cognitive skill-levels, and range of skill-levels. Different patterns of over-time skill-level changes were found between the groups, both for mothers and children. When controlling for previous cognitive development of the children, small but significant parts of the variance in children’s cognitive development at kindergarten entrance could be predicted from children’s and mother’s skill-levels during cooperative behaviors. However, cultural beliefs, ethnic background and SES only provided additional (significant) explained variance, when the control for previous cognitive development was abandoned. Stage vs. sociocultural paradigms in studies of religious development: Searching for a synthesis W George Scarlett (Tufts University) Studies of religious beliefs have generally fit one of two major paradigms: stage theory and sociocultural theory. This paper explores possibilities for achieving a meaningful synthesis—by making faith, not belief, the central focus for study. One of the central foci in the study of religious development has been on religious beliefs, their acquisition, and their changing meanings during childhood and adolescence. Studies of religious beliefs have generally fit one of two major paradigms: stage theory with its emphasis on qualitative transformations heading toward "maturity" and sociocultural theory with its emphasis on the acquisition of intuitive and counterintuitive ontologies through cultural transmission. Stage theories have been strong on defining religious maturity but weak on describing religious diversity. Sociocultural theories have been strong on describing religious diversity but weak on defining religious maturity. This paper explores possibilities for achieving a useful and meaningful synthesis to preserve what each has to contribute. Development of Indian children’s prosocial reasoning and behavior: A naturalistic study Neerja Chadha (Indira Gandhi National
Open University) Prosocial reasoning and behavior of 167 Indian children (5 to 13 years of age), from low and high socioeconomic strata, was examined in naturalistic contexts. Prosocial reasoning was characterized primarily by authority/punishment orientation, concern for needs of others, pragmatism, mutual gain orientation, and orientation to honoring request made. Orientation to physical needs as well as honoring request made increased with age. Some gender and social class differences in prosocial reasoning were also noted. Prosocial behavior, however, was not significantly influenced by age, socioeconomic group, or gender. Apart from a low negative correlation with authority/punishment orientation, prosocial responding was found to be unrelated to the use of any reasoning category. Interestingly, even in cases of non-prosocial behavior, children could take the perspective of the potential recipient or perceive the need for prosocial behavior. The observations and findings are discussed from the methodological and socio-cultural perspectives. Identity, political ideology, and self-esteem among young women Jonathan
Livingston (Michigan State University) The present study was conducted to assess the relationship between political ideology, exposure to Black Studies courses, and self-esteem in African American females. Such an investigation was conducted to investigate how the nationalist position is cultivated in young African American women and how exposure to information affirming one’s culture and history can yield better psychological outcomes. To assess how the aforementioned factors are related, 163 African American females were sampled from a historically Black university in the southeast and asked to indicate the number of Black Studies courses they had taken. Participants ranged in age from 18 to 22. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was employed to assess the relationship between the aforementioned variables. Results of the study indicate that students’ identity and perceptions of the Black Studies’ experience moderated the relationship between the aforementioned variables. Such an assessment may be beneficial in developing mentoring programs for adolescent females. Thu 1:30-2:45 York B SY03 Symposium Session 3 – Hildebrandt Social and logico-mathematical reasoning in cooperative and competitive games Organizer: Carolyn Hildebrandt (University of Northern
Iowa) Group games can provide a rich context for the study of social, moral, and cognitive development. They can also provide many excellent opportunities for promoting children’s social and academic development (Piaget, 1932; Kamii & DeVries, 1980/1996; DeVries, Zan, Hildebrandt, Edmiaston, & Sales, 2002). Over the past 20 years, a number of teachers and researchers have expressed concern over the possible harmful effects of competitive games on children’s social, emotional, and cognitive development (Kohn, 1986). In this symposium, we will present a summary of arguments for and against the use of competitive games in early education, and present three new studies on the topic. Zan and Hildebrandt will present a summary of previous research on the differential effects of competitive and cooperative games on young children’s social and moral development in constructivist and traditional classrooms. Then they will report the results of a new study of first grade children’s aggression, turn-taking, and rule-following in the context of cooperative and competitive games. Kamii will present a study of the effects of competitive card games on kindergarten children’s logico-mathematical development. The study will address the following questions: (1)In what ways do card games like “Card Dominos” and “Making Families” foster children’s logico-mathematical thinking (e.g., temporal, classificatory, seriational, and numerical relationships)? and (2)Do the various aspects of logico-mathematical knowledge develop in an interrelated way when children play these games? Finally, Hildebrandt will present a comparative analysis of challenges in perspective taking encountered by third grade children while designing, playing, and teaching their own cooperative and competitive games. The differential benefits of competitive and cooperative games for young children’s social and moral development Betty
Zan (University of Northern Iowa) The Development of Logico-Mathematical Thinking in Two Kindergarten Card Games Constance Kamii (University of Alabama at Birmingham) Perspective-taking in children’s invented cooperative and competitive games Carolyn Hildebrandt (University of Northern Iowa) Thu 3:00-4:30 Salon C SY04 Symposium Session 4 – Mascolo Transition mechanisms in development: Towards an evolutionary synthesis Organizer: Michael F Mascolo (Merrimack College) The question of how change occurs is central to the study of human development. The purpose of this symposium is (a) to identify strengths and weaknesses in current models of developmental change processes, (b) to elaborate features of an evolutionary model of developmental change, and (c) to explore ways that an evolutionary approach can synthesize competing and complementary conceptions of developmental change. Models of change processes fall into several categories. These include (a) Piagetian models that implicate equilibration and adaptation as the primary movers of development; (b) information processing models that argue for greater specificity in conceptions of change within local cognitive domains; (c) sociocultural models that emphasize semiotic mediation within social relations, and (d) neural network approaches that analyze development in terms of distributed patterns of neural activity. Critics of Piagetian theory have argued that the concept of equilibration is not only vague, but cannot account for how cognitive conflicts purported to spur development are initially detected. However, alternative models also have limitations. Although information processing models provide greater specificity, many fail to account for the role of social context in cognitive development. Conversely, while sociocultural theorists explain how cognition is mediated by socially-embedded symbol systems, they have been less clear in specifying the processes that individual children bring to social interactions. Finally, while neural network models offer exciting ways to understand how cognition is distributed throughout patterns of neural activity, it remains important to analyze how individual agents contribute to development on the psychological plane of functioning. This symposium explores how an evolutionary process model can provide an overarching conception on developmental change capable of uniting these disparate views. The papers begin the proposition that, at any given point in time, children exhibit developmental variability rather than uniformity in the production of skills. Ontogenesis involves the gradual selection of successful from unsuccessful skills. The first two papers extend these ideas by addressing several foundational questions: What is the source of the cognitive variability upon which selection operates? How do controlled action, social context and neural network coact to account for variability and selection? The final papers focus on specific mechanisms of developmental change important to an evolutionary framework. The third paper examines the role of form in intellectual development. From this basis it probes possible limitations of approaches that emphasize pragmatic aspects of cognitive change. The final paper explores specific ways in which variation in levels of cognitive functioning within the same task function to spur microdevelopmental change. The origins of variability in evolutionary models of cognitive transition: Varieties of scaffolding in development Monica Cowart
(Merrimack College) Form-content relations in the development of meaning Joe Becker (University of Illinois at Chicago) Evolutionary perspective to microdevelopment: Variability, selection, and how change occurs Nira Granott (Tufts University) Thu 3:00-4:30 Salon D SY05 Symposium Session 5 – Kalish/Heyman Making distinctions among people: Children’s representations of social categories Organizers: Charles Kalish (University of Wisconsin-Madison), Gail Heyman (University of California, San Diego) The focus of this symposium is children’s acquisition and representation of social categories. Forming categories seems obviously beneficial when thinking about natural objects, plants, animals, and artifacts. However, psychologists have long noted that there are also troubling consequences when categorizing tendencies are applied to people. Stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination have their roots in the partitioning of people into distinct kinds. Identity, both for good and for ill, seems partially rooted in the labels or categories applied to the self. Why do social categories lend themselves to these “extra” meanings? Are the negative consequences of categorization inherent in the process, or are social categories unique? The four presenters in this symposium will present distinct perspectives on children’s social categories. The specific focus of each will be the ways in which children’s categories dispose them to stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination. Presenters will focus both on inherent qualities of children’s thinking, and on the social influences that shape concepts of people. The first step in intervening to change the negative consequences of social categorization is to understand their roots. Gail Heyman will discuss how social category information influences children’s thinking about themselves and others. She will discuss data concerning how social category information such as gender can influence the way behavior is evaluated, and how labels such as “hyperactive” and “math whiz” can shape person perception. Chuck Kalish will discuss children’s appreciation of different kinds of social categories. Ongoing research suggests that roles and status-based kinds may be particularly important in young children’s thinking about people. Roles are inherently normative and invite evaluations in ways that other sorts of categories (e.g., biologically-based) do not. Rebecca Bigler will discuss the role of group characteristics (e.g., proportionate size) and environmental variables (e.g., authority figures’ labeling of groups) in determining which social categories become the basis of stereotypes and biases among children. She argues that the development of specific forms of stereotyping and prejudice can be manipulated within social contexts. Ram Mahalingam will discuss the cultural uses of essentialism. He argues essentialism plays a central role in serving the ideological needs of group interests by creating value laden asymmetries in theories of social groups. These asymmetries, and their implications of power and status, are observable in the gender concepts of very young children. Category labels and the reification of human kinds Gail Heyman (University of California, San Diego) The right kinds of people: Deontic relations in children’s social categories Charles Kalish (University of Wisconsin-Madison) Essentialism, culture, power and representations of gender Ram Mahalingam (University of Michigan) The social engineering of prejudice: Environmental factors affecting children’s use of social categories as the basis for intergroup bias Rebecca Bigler (University of Texas at Austin) Thu 3:00-4:30 York A PS05 Paper Session 5 Moral & Cognitive Reasoning Moderator: Jay G Hook (Harvard Law School) Robotic pets in the lives of preschool children Peter H Kahn, Jr. (University of Washington) This study examined preschool children’s reasoning about and behavioral interactions with one of the most advanced robotic pets currently on the retail market, Sony’s robotic dog AIBO. Eighty children, equally divided between two age groups, 34-50 months and 58-74 months, participated in individual sessions that included play with and an interview about two artifacts: AIBO and a stuffed dog. A card sort task was also employed to assess judgments about AIBO’s relative similarity to a humanoid robot, a stuffed dog, a desktop computer, and a real dog. Evaluation results showed similarities in how often children accorded AIBO and the stuffed dog animacy, biological properties, mental states, social rapport, and moral standing. Based on an analysis of 2,360 coded behavioral interactions, children engaged more often in exploratory behavior, apprehensive behavior, and attempts at reciprocity with AIBO. In contrast, children more often mistreated the stuffed dog and endowed it with animation. Discussion focuses on how robotic pets (as representative of an emerging technological genre) may be (a) blurring foundational ontological categories and (b) impacting children’s social and moral development. Empathic reflection: The path to new social perspectives Julia Penn Shaw (SUNY – Empire State College) Becoming a participant in a new social setting seems impossible; later, it has happened. But how? Transformation of one's perceived efficacy in new environments is germaine to social justice. One framework for studying personal social transformations is Critical Reflection (Mezirow, 1990) the breakdown of one’s perspective by the introduction of alternative points of view. I'd like to suggest that Critical Reflection is confounded with what I call Empathic Reflection, which is based on the intercoordination of multiple personal perspectives within one personal perspective. It is the mentoring relationship that leads to social adaptability, not just the newfound critical thinking skills. Untangling socio-cognitive reasoning in causal explanations towards peer victimization across cultures Ana Maria Almeida (Universidade do Minho) Sociocognitive studies on peer bullying are a promising research area to achieve an integrated knowledge of the phenomenon. This study investigated adolescents' causal explanations about victimization. Using a prototypical story of bullying presented in a script-cartoon narrative, ninety adolescents from Spain, Portugal and Brazil were interviewed. Through a content analysis, we identified the social complexity level of the interpersonal experience. The results showed that adolescents infer different causes to bullying. But, an overview of the spectrum of responses show that the emphasis was put on group processes. Stereotypes and group heterogeneity, group conformity and also peer pressure were viewed as social determinants of bullying. Nevertheless, the multiple causes were inferred in an articulated and integrated perspective as a reflection of complex cognitive processes underlying causal explanations. Few gender and cultural differences were observed, calling attention to wider similarities in developmental and socio-cognitive processes that modulate peer group interactions in adolescence. How parents shape their children's views of poverty, wealth, and economic inequality Deborah Belle (Boston University) Fifty families participated in discussions of poverty, wealth, and economic inequality, stimulated by an ordered sets of prompts (photographs, statements, questions, political cartoons). Family discussions involved at least one parent and one or two children. Fifty mothers and 22 fathers participated in these discussions. Research families were primarily non-Hispanic White, highly educated, and economically advantaged. Sixty-six children participated in the study, ranging in age from 5 to 13 years (mean age: 8.5 years). Of the 66 children, 40 were female. Analyses focus on the ways in which parents structure discussions with their children, convey their own values, and respond to their children's expressed beliefs and attitudes, as well as how children's attitudes are affected by parental discourse. We attempt to locate "turning points" within family conversations in which parents re-direct children's thinking about poverty and wealth. Thu 3:00-4:30 York B SY06 Symposium Session 6 - Lelutiu-Weinberger Diverse youth’s encounters with social injustice Organizer: Corina T Lelutiu-Weinberger
(City University of New York) In this symposium, four accounts of young people’s encounters with and responses to inequality are presented across various educational contexts. Following the principles outlined by progressive educators, including multiculturalists, critical race theorists, and proponents of liberal pedagogy, the presenters draw links between the development of cognitive and emotional skills, and democratic participation among diverse youths. Arguing that schools can both help maintain dominant values and create contexts for revising traditions of racism, class inequality, or other forms of oppression, the presenters give examples of educational practices designed to promote academic success and student-centered social reform. Ammentorp analyzes how social consciousness is fostered through the arts, as part of a literacy curriculum. Students explore historically unjust social relations as represented in documentary photography and poetry, and then utilize these mediums to bring their personal experiences into the classroom. Lelutiu-Weinberger invites culturally diverse students to debate the idea of violence prevention, as a critique of programs that dominate the field and frame students as imminent perpetrators. Given that curricular values are not relevant to all youths, and that minority students continue to be marginalized, education needs to become permeable to student cultural knowledge to validate their socio- historical backgrounds, which are deeply correlated with the phenomenon of violence. Martin analyzes student narratives in response to an imaginary cross-race encounter around Affirmative Action. The results show that students from diverse backgrounds imagine different outcomes to the story presented to them, and that their perceptions of these outcomes are linked to both personal experience and support of Affirmative Action policy. Stern examines academic expression at the college level, where some students find that their success varies greatly between their written and spoken communication. She explores the social-relational causes of the oral-written split to argue that part of the gap can be attributed to students’ beliefs about academic self-expression and its reception. Stern attempts to identify schemas students have about speaking and writing and to locate some of the social antecedents of such schemas. Art for learning’s sake: The potential of the arts for developing social consciousness in the classroom Louise Ammentorp (City University of New York) Young people as authors of violence prevention paradigms Corina T Lelutiu-Weinberger (City University of New York) Affirmative action: An opportunity for interracial dialogue? Daniela Martin (City University of New York) Academic expression: Bridging the schemas for speaking and writing Rebecca K Stern (City University of New York) Thu 4:45-6:00 Salon CD PL02 Plenary Session 2 – Zigler Social Justice and America's Head Start Program Edward Zigler (Yale University) Compared to all the other industrialized
societies America has the largest percentage of its children living
in poverty. This is true today and was true in 1965 when America
mounted its War on Poverty program under the leadership of President
Lyndon Johnson. Our National Head Start program began as part
of the War on Poverty and has now served some 20 million children
and their families. This presentation will describe the conceptual
underpinnings, birth, and implementation of the Head Start program
as seen through the eyes of one of its planners. An overview will
be given of how the field of developmental study influenced Head
Start, and how Head Start reciprocally influenced the study of
human development. Included in the talk will be a discussion of
the huge change in the nature of Head Start that occurred in 1970
when Head Start was moved from the Office of Equal Economic Opportunity
to the new Office of Child Development in the Department of Health,
Education and Welfare. The ambiguity concerning the overarching
goal of Head Start will be discussed, noting the progression from
IQ improvement through every-day social competence to school readiness.
Covered will be the National Laboratory aspect of Head Start in
which a variety of experimental childhood initiatives were mounted.
Also covered will be the relationship of the more recent Early
Head Start program to the original Head Start program. The current
partisan political battles being waged over Head Start will be
explicated with descriptions of the reauthorization efforts in
both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Central in this
current political debate is President Bush’s plan to have
8 states administer the Head Start program, thus ending the historic
federal to local grantee funding of the program. The presentation
will conclude with the speaker’s views concerning the long-term
future of Head Start as America moves towards universal preschool
education. Thu 6:00-7:00 Lobby Area President’s Reception & Poster Session 1 President’s Reception – Sponsored by Laurence Erlbaum Associates Thu 6:00-7:00 Trinity IV-V PT01 Poster Session 1 Posters will be available for viewing all day.
Authors will be present from 6:00-7:00. 1 When social cognition matters: Analyzing the group decision making process in economic games Masanori Takezawa (Max Planck
Institute for Human Development) 2 The development of displaced language in preschoolers during mother-child discourse Jeremy M Anglin (University of Waterloo) 3 “Sometimes they think different things”: Appreciating antagonists’ divergent interpretations of conflict and the development of an interpretive understanding of mind Holly
E Recchia (Concordia University) 4 Children’s attention to different visible features in categorizing people Silvia Guerrero (Universidad Complutense de
Madrid) 5 Morphosyntactic knowledge and portuguese’s spelling in adolescents and adults of the brazilian primary, secundary and high education Bianca A M Queiroga (Universidade Federal de Pernambuco) 6 Rankings of universities: Implications for the academic and intellectual welfare of students Stewart Page (University of Windsor) 7 Pre-school aged children’s expression of causal relations between story events Hélène Makdissi (Université de
Sherbrooke) 8 Developing a concept of function: Children’s knowledge of tools and their properties Marissa L Greif (Yale University) 9 The word is not enough: infants’ developing sensitivity to linguistic actions Jennifer L Sootsman (University of Chicago) 10 The narrative structure in the therapist-patient encounter: A Todorovian analysis Luciane De Conti (University of Santa Cruz) 11 The production of written narratives in adolescents deaf users of LIBRAS and oral Portuguese Viviany A M Alves (Universidade
Catolica de Pernambuco) 12 Three-year-olds’ ability to adapt their communicative behavior to their parents’ knowledge state Samantha Nayer
(University of Calgary) 13 Ethnicities in interaction: the impact of ethnicity on children’s conversations about potential playmates Patrick J Leman (Royal
Holloway University of London) 14 Epistemic and social status influences in children’s peer interactions Patrick J Leman (Royal Holloway University of London) 15 Narrative comprehension among young children and mothers’ educational level Andrée Boisclair (Université Laval) 16 Evolution of writing conception and development of word identification and recognition processes among deaf children Pauline Sirois (Université de
Sherbrooke) 17 Behavioral development of healthy Czech infants: A longitudinal study Jeanette M Reuter (Kent State University) 18 Methods for analyzing cognitive intentions and affect in parent/child telephone discourse Sophia Khan (University of British Columbia) 19 Credulity, absorption, and imagining: Continuity between adults and children Gabriel M Trionfi (Clark University) 20 I have a sinking feeling: Science and non-science majors’ understanding of buoyancy Megan R Luce (CSU Stanislaus) 21 Why the “cultural-historical” perspective is an essential part of Vygotsky’s theory Kaori Yoshida (Clark University) 22 The role of counterfactual reasoning in false belief inference Joseph
Gentet (Universities of Paris5 and Caen) 23 A comparison of false belief and referential opacity tasks: Sorting out the relations Dawn B Mullins (Carleton University) 24 What aspects of children’s environment influence their advanced social-reasoning skills? Eva Filippova (University of Toronto) 25 The development of genre and style as systems of children’s drawing Peter B Pufall (Smith College) 26 September 11, political socialization and children’s idealization the American president Peter B Pufall (Smith College) 27 Somatic markers and the gambling task: Evidence from preschool-age children Keith Happaney (Lehman College City University of New York) 28 Using irony to study the development of meta-representation and meta-linguistic awareness in older children Mary J Thelander (University of Toronto) 29 Rule switching in three- to four-year-old Canadian children and Chinese children Li Qu (University of Toronto) 30 Individual differences in narrative perspective-taking and theory of mind Julie Comay (University of Toronto) 31 Gender roles and children’s schema of leaders, as reflected in their drawing Saba Ayman-Nolley (Northeastern Illinois University) 32 Out of the box: The influence of experiential learning on infants’ understanding of goal-directed action James D Morgante
(The University of Chicago) 33 Assessing children’s drawings in the 21st Century: New beginnings Lynda A Kapsch (Georgia State University) 34 Does naive theory make a sophisticated cognitive structure? Hiroshi Maeda (International Christian University) 35 Can mental attentional capacity predict the Canadian cognitive abilities score of school children? Juan Pascual-Leone (York University) 36 The relation between children’s understanding of seriation and interpretation Sheena Grant (Simon Fraser University) 37 Why inhibition is not enough: The case of the day-night task Ulrich
Mueller (University of Victoria) 38 On identity and necessity: Children's developing conceptions of "indispensability" Jesse C E Phillips (University
of British Columbia) 39 Early learning in mathematics: Reconsidering assumptions Susan L Golbeck (Rutgers University)
Friday, June 4, A.M.Fri 8:30-5:00 Lobby Registration (all day) Bay Book Display (all day) Fri 9:00-10:30 Salon C SY07 Symposium Session 7 – Ferrari Cultural influences on children’s understanding of social inequality Organizer: Michel Ferrari (University of Toronto) This symposium considers children’s experience and understanding of social inequality in three different cultures: Sri Lanka, India, and Canada. Each paper considers how the culturally foundational issue of social categorization is manifested in different contexts (the Indian caste system, ethic divisions in Sri Lanka, and socioeconomic divisions in Canada). The first paper, presents the results of three studies conducted in India that explore the relationship between caste and essentialism (N=192) using three different tasks on essentialism (caste origin task, caste transformation task and brain transplants). Equal numbers of Brahmins and Dalits (formerly treated as “untouchables”) participated in the study. The results suggest a complex interaction between social location and theories of caste. Upper caste Brahmins believed that caste was biologically transmitted at birth whereas Dalits believed in a caste identity that was socially transmitted. The second paper applies an ecological model to child victims of war in Sri Lanka. 180 children were involved in the study (104 girls, 72 boys), classified into four groups: war orphans, refugees, non-war orphans, and unorphaned children. Measures assessing the impact of trauma included the Goodenough-Harris Drawing Test and six in-depth interviews were also conducted along with a journal of detailed field notes. These measures explore how different social-ecological environments can mitigate the effects of war on children’s development. Results show that children who were most well-adjusted resided in ecologically stable environments characterized by healthy interactive social relationships across a variety of social settings. By contrast, less well-adjusted children, who were unable to complete the cognitive tests, lived in social isolated and impoverished environments. The third paper explores what rights are salient to children aged 9-18, as well as parents, at home, in school and in ‘the world-at-large’. Our samples were ethnically diverse and varied from relatively privileged, upper-middle class children to young people who are often more marginalized than their mainstream counterparts (maltreated children living in permanent child welfare care). Participants’ responses were coded for understanding of nurturance rights (such as abuse/safety, ‘basic’ needs, and psychological needs), and self-determination rights (including autonomous decision-making and such civil liberties as freedom of speech/thought and freedom from discrimination). Together, these papers explore how children’s understanding of social power, war, and universal human rights, differs from that of adults. We also consider what these differences in understanding imply for efforts to help children deal with experiences of social injustice—that are sometimes deeply traumatic— through therapy and education. Essentialism, power and folk sociology Ram Mahalingam (University of Michigan) The effects of war on children: A case-study from Sri Lanka Chandi Fernando (University of Toronto) Thinking about children’s rights in the home, school and world at large: The views of children and parents Michele Peterson-Badali (University of Toronto) Fri 9:00-10:30 Salon D SY08 Symposium Session 8 – Kohen Social knowledge, culture, and exclusion Organizer: Raquel C Kohen
(Universidad Autonoma de Madrid) The purpose of this symposium is two-fold. First, the empirical findings from several studies conducted in Spain and Colombia on children’s and adolescents’ social knowledge regarding justice, delinquency, exclusion, and nationality will be discussed. Second, the implications that culture and diversity have on current findings of children’s and adolescents’ social knowledge in these different domains will be presented. The authors seek to integrate their findings by exploring the relationships between the cross-culturally common aspects in the construction of social knowledge with the specific aspects related to, and stemming from local cultural customs, traditions, and expectations. In the first paper, results obtained from a set of studies about children’s societal knowledge in the economic and the juridical domains will be presented. Delval and Kohen will provide evidence for their hypothesis that long before building up an institutional domain of thinking children tend to restrictively apply moral and psychological rules to the societal world. In the second paper, Enesco, Navarro and Guerrero will describe their current studies on children’s and adolescents’ attitudes and social reasoning about stereotypic knowledge, ethnic prejudice, and reasoning about ethnic exclusion among Spanish children and adolescents. Further, the authors will compare these results with those obtained in the U.S. by other researchers, and discuss the similarities and differences observed between Spanish and U.S. students. In the third paper, Hoyos, del Barrio, and Corral present a study, which explores the meaning and value that Colombian and Spanish children and adolescents attribute to their own nationality. Besides the relevance of age-related changes found in the national identity, the influence of the national group to which the participants pertain will be explored. Finally, Killen as discussant, will provide a synthesis and overview of the theoretical and conceptual issues relating to culture, exclusion, and social knowledge. Constructing an institutional domain of knowledge in Spanish children and adolescents Juan Delval (Universidad Autonoma de
Madrid) Ethnic stereotypes and reasoning about ethnic exclusion among Spanish children and adolescents Ileana Enesco (Universidad Complutense
de Madrid) The cognitive and emotional meaning of national identity amongst Spanish and Colombian children and adolescents Olga L Hoyos (Universidad del Norte, Barranquilla) Fri 9:00-10:30 York A PS06 Paper Session 6 Social & Moral Theory Moderator: Jeanette M Gallagher (Temple University) Has the expansion of education reduced social inequality? Erna Nairz-Wirth (Vienna University of Economics and Business) Profession, educational status and parents' income have remained the decisive factors in decisions related to education. Even within the tertiary educational sector it is significant that the prestigious fields of study more frequently attract students from the more prestigious social circles, while teachers' training facilities are frequented by students from lesser privileged backgrounds. It can be concluded that the transfer of cultural capital is the best concealed form of transfer through inheritance. Comprehensive data material of the educational status of the parents, parents' profession and type of school attended by the students in Austria will be presented with a view to the selected field of study. What is the "social" in "social development"? Lois Holzman (East Side Institute for Short Term Psychotherapy) In exploring the theme of this year's annual meeting, Social Development, Social Inequalities, and Social Justice, it is important that we not presume a shared conception of "social" -for the theme as a whole or for any of its component phrases-and thereby bypass what could be a fruitful area for dialogue and discovery concerning the very topic under investigation. It will be argued that the too-often taken-for-granted unit of analysis for psychological study, namely, the individual, has become an impediment to both understanding human development and to addressing issues of inequality and injustice. Theoretical and research perspectives from a variety of views (e.g., cultural-historical activity theory, critical and postmodern) will be presented to support this argument. Further, an alternative unit of analysis, relational activity, will be suggested, along with theoretical justification and findings from practice. Philosophy and the human sciences: On the necessity of interdisciplinary symbiosis Zachary A Stein (Hampshire College) This paper will suggest rational reconstruction as a methodology that makes it possible to facilitate a necessary symbiosis between philosophy and the human sciences. This will be done by explaining Habermas's formulation of rational reconstruction, which he views as a distinct and interdisciplinary methodology concerned with the explication of universal deep structures implicit in human capabilities. This methodology points towards a mutually beneficial 'division of labor' between philosophical and scientific engagements. I will examine the work of Piaget and Kohlberg to elucidate both the traps and triumphs of the suggested symbiosis. I will then point towards research currently being done using Dawson's Hierarchical Complexity Scoring System, which is a domain general method for assessing the development of cognition. It serves to orient research across domains along a common metric. It also better facilitates the cooperation of philosophy and the human sciences. An elaboration of the pedagogical vision implied by Piaget’s call for moral reasoning Susan J Mayer (Harvard Graduate School of Education) The Moral Judgment of the Child' stands, arguably, as Jean Piaget’s single most influential text relative to the world of educational practice. This paper explores the reasons for the text’s broad influence, arguing that its compelling blend of convincing empirical finding and theoretical analysis, on the one hand, and readily appreciated educational implication, on the other, distinguishes it among the entire field of Piaget’s published works. In particular, general perceptions and expectations of moral versus intellectual development are investigated in order to illuminate questions regarding educators’ relative willingness to view the nurture of students’ capacity to reason based upon their own experiences of the world as essential to all moral growth. Piaget’s prescriptions for moral education are then expanded to suggest a more general pedagogical model. Fri 9:00-10:30 York B PS07 Paper Session 7 Language & Communication Moderator: Maria Lins (Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro) Considering the impact of beliefs on marital commitment Melissa E Tamas (Clark University) This paper will consider the theoretical place of knowledge, in the form of beliefs regarding commitment, relationships and marriage, in commitment theories, experiences and decisions. Currently there are very few psychological theories that are capable of considering the impact of beliefs on interpersonal commitment. This is problematic because beliefs about love and marriage do influence our commitment experiences and decisions. I will put forth a theory of commitment that is able to hypothesize about the relationship between beliefs and commitment. It conceptualizes commitment as a movement towards or maintenance of a relational state with another individual. Beliefs can impact commitment by either enhancing or deterring this movement. In their role as commitment motivators, beliefs can act as relational barriers that deter exit or relational attractors that increase relational satisfaction, making exit less likely. They can also undermine commitment by removing an exit barrier or by decreasing relational satisfaction. Identification of an ‘intermental development zone’ in informal talk: linguistic ethnography applied to a corpus of mother-children telephone calls Julia K Gillen (Open University) This study demonstrates a contribution by linguistic ethnography to the Vygotskyan explanatory framework regarding the place of language socialization in development. The concept of an ‘intermental development zone’ (Mercer, 2000) is applied in the investigation of children’s learning in informal settings, particularly home. A corpus of telephone calls over six weeks between a mother and two children (aged 5 years 7 months and 7 years 7months) is analysed, with regard to the semiotic affordances of the telephone, as used in particular discursive practices relating to the narrativization of the family. Analysis takes place at a number of levels including a grammatical categorization of verb tenses employed, linked to the creative negotiation of specific discursive practices. Processes illuminated are interwoven: the acquisition of communicative competence in a distinct speech genre; use of a cultural tool to pursue goals and negotiate identity; and socialization into a particular cultural nexus of practice. Media constraints and the construction of knowledge David W Kritt (City University of New York) This paper presents a constructivist perspective on tele-communications media as an aspect of the socio-cultural context of human development. The insights of McLuhan and Orwell will be used to characterize aspects of the mass media context. First, the influence of both form and content on the construction of knowledge will be considered. Second, complementary Piagetian and Vygotskian insights on the importance of diversity of perspectives, especially in light of the obstacles posed by centralized control of mass media, will be discussed. Implications for development and social justice will be examined. Creativity, autonomy and language Ana Luisa Manzini Bittencourt de Castro (Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul) Some students from University demonstrate difficulty in managing written language (reading, comprehending and writing texts) and low performance in activities that need creativity and autonomy of thought. How methods of learning at primary school are related to difficulties in comprehension that persist for all the scholar life? Are creativity, autonomy and language capacity related to each other? How to solve these problems at this level of learning and age? 49 university students were chosen. Two activities were proposed. First, they would report their own experience as students. After that, they would start a program of reading and writing scientific texts. They should comprehend the ideas and concepts in texts, relate the information with different ones and propose new questions trying to build new knowledge and meanings. The methodology and exhausting explanations encouraged them to express themselves. The texts they read created a situation of intimacy and knowledge with written language. Information seeking: An evidence-based approach Stanka A Fitneva (Queen’s University) Piaget observed that children direct to adults about twice as many questions as to peers (Piaget, 1959). He suggested that this is due to the child seeing the adult “above all as the source of truth and not as either an opponent or a collaborator with equal intellectual rights” (p. 253). Examining children’s information seeking behavior, the results from the present study suggest that children do not perceive adults as omniscient. Children’s choice of an addressee – an adult or a peer – depends on children’s representation of peer and adult knowledge. Children’s interactions present different types of evidence for the knowledge of peers and adults, which may result in unbalances in information seeking behavior. Fri 10:45-12:00 Salon CD PL03 Plenary Session 3 - Wikan Honour killings and the problem of justice in modern-day Europe Unni Wikan (University of Oslo) Honour killings - popularly perceived to belong to the Middle East - have gone West. Over the past few years, several young European women have met their deaths at the hands of their father or brother for choosing their own way in life. Hundreds live under the threat of being murdered. Honour killings—committed for the sake of redeeming the honour of a collective, not an individual—highlight crucial challenges facing modern European nations as they struggle to make a plural society work. Democracy, social development and social justice all presuppose the integrity and freedom of the individual person. The honour code, on the other hand, subjects individual will and purpose to the interests of the group—as defined by those in power. Hierarchy, inequity, and gender inequality are key values. Taking Sweden as my concrete case, I shall give a grounded analysis of honour vs. the rule of law, and show how a welfare state that saw itself as immune to “honour” until c. 2000, now leads the ground in calling international attention to violence in the name of honour. The Swedish experience provides a lesson that goes to the heart of the theme of our conference: social development, social equality, and social justice. Fri 12:00-12:30 Salon CD MMTG Annual Member’s Meeting
Friday, June 4, P.M.Fri 1:30-2:45 Salon C SY09 Symposium Session 9 – Stajanov Piagetian theory in artificial intelligence and robotics practice Organizer:
Georgi Stojanov (University of Sts Cyril and Methodius) During the late ‘80s and throughout the ‘90s of the 20th century, we have witnessed a boom of the so called embodied intelligence paradigm in the fields of AI and robotics. One of the most prominent directions was seen in the behavior based robotics where the behavior of the artifact was produced by combination of basic behavioral modules. Variations of reinforcement learning were by far the most used learning algorithms. Although mitigating some of the problems encountered by the classical (symbolic) AI, this “behaviorist” robotics soon encountered problems that can be related to those faced some 50 years earlier by behaviorism. As a response we are now witnessing a kind of “cognitive turn” in both AI and robotics. This symposium central theme are artificial intelligent agents (simulated or physical) directly inspired by Piaget’s theory. The presentations complement each other: One gives an overview of piagetian architectures, beginning with the seminal work of Gary Drescher (Made-up Minds, MIT Press,1991), and contrasting different construals and implementations of schema, assimilation, accomodation, and other terms from genetic epistemology. Second presentation gives a description of a computer program that illustrates main ideas of the interactive model of representation of Mark Bickhard, and the assimilation/accommodation framework of Piaget, through a rhythm recognition demonstration software. The third presentation addresses the problem of the emergence of meaning in natural and artificial systems. An integrative theory of meaning is presented, based on the concept of value, understood both as a biological and as a socio-cultural category, synthesizing ideas from evolutionary and developmental psychology, semiotics and cybernetics. Negative implications are drawn for the meaning potential of (current) artificial systems. The last presentation is concerned with the emergence of representation in artificial or natural agents, treated as action systems. Selection among multiple action potentialities is necessary for complex agents interacting with their worlds. Anticipations of what actions and interactions are possible in the current situation, and what the flows of such interactions would be, is necessary for such selections. Representation is emergent in the implicit definitions of action anticipations. Competencies for interacting with an environment cannot be impressed into a passive system: they must be constructed. Baring prescience, this construction must be variation and selection construction process: An action framework forces an evolutionary epistemology. A rhythm recognition computer program to advocate interactivist perception Jean-Christophe Buisson (University of Toulouse) Developmental robotics and AI: Implementing Piagetian theory Georgi Stojanov (University of Sts Cyril and Methodius) Representation, development, robots: A common action framework Mark H Bickhard (Lehigh University) Fri 1:30-2:45 Salon D IS02 Invited Symposium 2 – Daiute Toward justice-sensitive research on youth conflict Organizer: Colette Daiute (City University of New York) The study of youth conflict in the U.S. has focused on problems in individuals, their cultures, or neighborhoods but rarely on the social-relational systems involved in conflict. Although previous research has identified some correlates of individuals’ conflict behavior (Elliot, Hamburg, & Williams, 1998), an increasing number of researchers has identified the need to examine issues of injustice related to social conflicts. Based on the idea that conflict is social (Turiel, 2002), the approach to justice-sensitive youth conflict research in this symposium is that young people are not the cause nor embodiment of violence, so we need to move away from creating profiles of anti-social youth. Instead, theory can characterize the social-relational dynamics and power relations that create the circumstances for conflict and represent young people in complex ways. Speakers in this symposium explain how theory-based methods are central in the process of expanding analyses of youth conflict and offer examples like doing social histories to ensure the appropriate choice of subject, designing within-group comparisons to avoid reducing young people’s experiences, and creating collective units of analysis. We also explain the importance of representing young people, in particular those from poor and minority backgrounds, not as perpetrators or victims but as embedded in broader social-relational dynamics fraught with inequities and injustices. After a brief review of the major trends in recent research on youth conflict in the U.S., Colette Daiute will define “justice-sensitive” research in terms of the theoretical and methodological issues at stake in representing the perspectives and circumstances of young people in a heterogeneous society with social, economic, and political divisions. Dr. Daiute also offers examples of how within-group methods reveal diverse experiences and understandings of conflict by children identifying as African-American, Latino, and European-American, and she discusses implications of these diversities for research and practice. In his paper, “Myths and realities of black youth violence in the United States, 1900 – 2000,” William E. Cross, Jr. examines the cultural representation of Black Americans as perpetrators of violence and presents a context-sensitive historical analysis to expose the fallacy of this representation. By questioning the logic behind statistics about violence, Dr. Cross demonstrates an exemplary historical case study comparing violence by White and Black males and discusses the importance of social history in developmental theory and research. Drawing on longitudinal research using Spencer’s Phenomenological Variant of Ecological Systems to identify complex factors in the lives of African-American youth living in urban contexts, Davido Dupree demonstrates how children’s perceptions of the broader society’s views about their racial/ethnic group determine their understandings and behavior. In his presentation, “Perceived social inequity and responses to conflict among diverse youth of color: The effects of social and physical context on youth behavior and attitudes,” Dr. Dupree reports, for example, on how perceptions of discrimination influence the ways in which youth cope with and respond to conflict experiences. Angelica Ware’s presentation “Latina mothers and daughters define protection from violence” examines relationships between Latina mothers and daughters across neighborhoods that differ in terms of crime. In addition to including Latina women in research to inform the study of youth conflict, Angelica Ware creates a collective unit of analysis – the mother/daughter dyad – whose perceptions of neighborhood safety work together to define the appropriateness of parenting practices. Based on analyses of interdependencies of relationships in particular contexts (neighborhoods differing in street violence), the definition of protective factor becomes a dependent variable, thus one that must be made more problematic in developmental models. The presenters will invite discussion with the audience. Complicating the subjects of youth conflict research Colette Daiute (City University of New York) Escalation of black youth violence in the United States, 1900-2000: Myths and realities William Cross, Jr. (City University of New York) Perceived social inequity and responses to conflict among diverse youth of color: The effects of social and physical context on youth behavior and attitudes Davido Dupree (University of Pennsylvania) Latina mothers and daughters define protection from violence Angelica Ware (National Center for Children in Poverty) Fri 1:30-2:45 York A DS01 Discussion Session 1 The moral tensions inherent in the child care trilemma: Quality, affordability and availability of quality Organizers and Participants: In order for a fully just and caring child care system to emerge for all involved—teachers and administrators, children and their families we must solve the trilemma of child care, achieving quality, affordability and availability for all children and families who need it. In this discussion session, the leaders will begin by providing an overview of a recent qualitative study one of them recently completed. This study involved a child care administrator, parent of a preschooler, and preschool teacher. Solutions to the trilemma are riddled with moral challenges. A very positive and morally right decision for any one dimension may profoundly and negatively influence the other two, resulting in morally unjust and uncaring outcomes for the greater whole. An examination of the moral orientations individuals use as they work to resolve the child care trilemma is provided in the following sections. After specifying specify a definition of the trilemma, the discussion leaders will clarify the three mutually dependent dimensions and the inherent confounds that accentuate the moral tensions flowing within and through this complex system. A brief discussion of moral perspectives provides illumination for understanding the inherent and interconnected moral challenges within the dimensions of the trilemma. In doing so, the groundwork for conducting the study that will be overviewed briefly at the beginning of this discussion session is laid, but it also allows the discussion leaders to delve into these various complex issues for the purposes of the whole group discussion with all of the participants who attend this session. Fri 1:30-2:45 York B PS08 Paper Session 8 Theory of Mind Moderator: Bryan Sokol (Simon Fraser University) The development of skepticism Candice M Mills (Yale University) Adults recognize that self-interest and desires may influence people’s subsequent beliefs and interpretations about the world. The current study explores this effect in children, examining how children determine when to believe someone. Twenty-four adults and 20 children each in grades K, 2, and 4 heard four stories: two that were ambiguous and in which participants made statements with or against self-interest, and two that were non-ambiguous truths or lies. Participants used a 5-point scale to rate how much they believed the characters in the stories. All participants clearly differentiated truths from lies. Adults and older children were significantly more likely to believe someone making a statement against self-interest than with self-interest. Kindergartners showed the opposite belief. Adults believed statements against self-interest almost as much as clear truths, and disbelieved statements with self-interest almost as much as clear lies. Implications for the development of skepticism are discussed. How to get back my toy without making my friend cry: Meaningful social context and young children’s understanding of mind Diana Leyva (Clark University) The aim of this study is to explore whether changes in young children’s performance in six trials of a peer-persuasion task reflect their developing understanding of mind. The task entails an everyday social problem requiring children to use language and social skills to accomplish a pragmatic goal. Thirty 3-year-old Colombian children participated in this study. Children’s persuasion-strategy and responses to questions about their desires were independently scored. We find changes across trials both in children’s persuasion-strategies and in responses to questions about their desires. Nonetheless, no significant correlation is found between the performance in persuasion-strategies and the performance in responses, revealing that children who display highly sophisticated persuasion strategies are not necessarily likely to exhibit high levels of desire understanding. Findings are discussed within a psychological pragmatics framework emphasizing the differential use of language and of social skills, and the experiential process involved in making sense of the peer-persuasion problem. Parenting attitudes and an understanding of mind among Hispanic and Anglo mother-child dyads Penelope G Vinden (Clark University) This research examines parenting attitudes and the development of an understanding of mind among predominantly low-income Hispanic and Anglo mother-child dyads. Hispanic mothers were more controlling than Anglo mothers. Regression analysis revealed a detrimental effect of overly-controlling attitudes on ToM performance for Anglo but not Hispanic mothers. However, Hispanic children on the whole performed very poorly on standard ToM tasks, indicating that controlling mothers may also be implicated in the delay in ToM development. These data support previous work regarding the relationship between parenting attitudes and an understanding of mind. The results are discussed in relation to the need to explore the full socio-cultural context within which the child develops in order to understand the distinct orientation toward social interactions present in some under-studied populations. Attention to these populations will help untangle the various pathways children take toward understanding their own and others’ minds. Preschoolers’ use of frequency information to make behavioral predictions and global personality attributions Janet J Boseovski (Florida
Atlantic University) Three experiments examined preschoolers’ use of different types and quantities of frequency information to make global personality judgments. In Experiment 1, children reasoned about an actor who behaved positively or negatively toward a recipient once or repeatedly. Participants were more likely to make a trait attribution after exposure to multiple behaviors, but only older children expected cross-situational stability of behavior. In Experiment 2, the actor behaved positively or negatively toward one or several recipients. Surprisingly, participants made similar trait attributions across conditions. In Experiment 3, participants heard about the behavior of one or many actors toward a recipient and generally capitalized on large quantities of information to make trait attributions. Across experiments, performance was influenced by age-related positivity and negativity biases. Findings indicate that frequency information plays an important role in children’s personality judgments, but that its use is influenced by task complexity and informational valence. Relations between mother-child talk about mind and 3- to 5-year old children’s understanding of belief William Turnbull (Simon Fraser
University) Seventy mothers and their 3- to 5-year old children made up a story from a wordless picture book depicting a situation centrally involving a false belief. Children’s social understanding was assessed on tests of false belief. Stories were coded for the presence of 54 Storybook Elements that might be helpful for understanding the story. Of these elements, 10 (False Belief) were identified as contributing to and 4 (Key) are essential for an understanding of the false belief component of the story. Age, number of Storybook, and number of False Belief Elements were significant predictors of false belief. When the sample was divided by age (median split), children’s false belief understanding was predicted by Age and Key Elements for the younger and by False Belief Elements for the older group. The results are consistent with the view that talk that helps children understand a situation of false belief facilitates social understanding. Fri 3:00-4:30 Salon C SY10 Symposium Session 10 – Commons Stage, social stratification and mental health status Organizer:
Michael Lamport Commons (Harvard Medical School) Hierarchical complexity of tasks (Commons, et al. 1998; Dawson, 2002) and the corresponding stage of performance may be useful in understanding social stratification, social and mental health status. The first paper “Developmental stage of work, class and strata” suggests that work is organized so top tasks demanded by a position meet a given stage of work performance. For example, making beds requires primary stage (early concrete) actions and comparing two sets of axioms in mathematics requires metasystematic actions. The world of work starts at the primary stage. At each subsequent stage, the kind of work people can do and the kind of organizational structure that provides that work is reviewed. The second paper asks if both cultural progress and increased stratification will eventually result from education? Modern societies strive toward the democratic ideals, i.e. personal autonomy, marketplace economics based on informed consent. But empowering consumers may unintentionally stratify society based on individuals’ stage of work performance. Many argue unlimited education will always reduce the social stratification of a meritocracy. Our data shows education does increase the number of people operating at higher stages. However, education also introduces a new overlooked reality. People reach their inherited ceiling of performance for which there is no social remedy. In twin studies, for example, when there is an IQ disparity within a pair, extensive training given to both members of the pair increases the IQ of only the lower IQ individual. The last paper discusses negative adult behavioral-developmental stages of attachment, crime and mental illness. Even with normal development in other domains, negative stages of adult development of attachment are common. At the Preoperational stage, people fail to predict the effects of their own behavior on others and to differentiate fantasies from reality. They require constant supervision. At the Primary stage, people understand that their own behavior may cause others harm but do not understand how others will feel, often ending up in jail. At the Concrete stage, people consider other’s feelings but fail to discriminate social norms, forming most of the jail population At the Abstract stage, people don’t care about out-group people and act prejudicially. At the Formal stage 10, bureaucrats may harm others by blindly following regulations. At Systematic stage 11, people disrespect their competitors, preferring to use power. At the metasystematic stage 12, people fail to co-construct a reality with all the stakeholders, often harming them. Stage of development, class and strata Ardith K Bowman (Team Strategies) Cultural progress and increasing stratification is the result of developmental level of support through education Eric Andrew Goodheart (Dare Institute) Negative forms of adult behavioral-developmental stages of attachment Michael Lamport Commons (Harvard Medical School) Fri 3:00-4:30 Salon D SY11 Symposium Session 11 – Srivastava Social sources of narrative and literacy Organizer: Smita Srivastava (Clark University) Narrative and literacy are cultural conventions that are acquired through social processes from early childhood. Most research to date has focused on the socialization of children’s narrative and literacy through interactions with parents and teachers. We include parents as a source of influence, but we also explore other social interactions, such as with peers, and even social interactions with imaginary others in the case of imaginary companions. Our methods and outcomes are also heterogeneous, from correlational to experimental, and from storytelling to formal reading. Pulling these multifaceted approaches together, we hope to move beyond a direct-transmission model of the socialization of narrative and literacy to a deeper understanding of what the child brings to the interaction cognitively, socially, and emotionally. Bridges over separation: The relationship of attachment security to narrative structure Allyssa McCabe (University of Massachusetts,
Lowell) Links between preschoolers’ shared past event narratives with mothers and early literacy development Smita Srivastava (Clark University) What Hobbs did: Developmental correlates of having an imaginary companion Gabriel Trionfi (Clark University) Peer-group culture as a matrix for narrative development: Toward a more fully sociocultural perspective Ageliki Nicolopoulou (Lehigh University) Fri 3:00-4:30 York A PS13 Paper Session 13 Cognition & Education Moderator: Susan L Golbeck (Rutgers University) Searching for the hidden person with the aid of natural symbols Eugene Abravanel
(George Washington University) Do 3-to-5 year-olds comprehend the significance of footprints as signifiers of a route taken by a hider in a large-scale environment, and do they possess the competence to utlize the footprints when searching? In addition to quantitative measures of competence, the present study revealed the presence of a number of search strategies and biases that dominated performance at 3- and 4-years, but were clearly in decline by 5-years as children succeeded at the task.The study demonstrates that during the early years a number of search strategies compete, and that the ineffective ones must be superceded by one that relies on the presence of naturally made symbols. On “seeing” ducks “as” rabbits: The development of reversals for ambiguous figures. Gary Kose (Long Island University) Two studies were conducted to investigate children’s tendency to reverse ambiguous figures, such as Jastrow’s Duck/Rabbit figure. The first study confirmed that reversing ambiguous figures is a developmental phenomenon. Children three- to five-years of age rarely give spontaneous reversals, although, informing them of possible alternative interpretations increases the tendency to give reversal responses. Seven- and eight-year olds more consistently give spontaneous reversals without prompting. A subsequent study was conducted to facilitate reversal responses by manipulating the interpretive context of the ambiguous figures. The findings suggest that reporting a reversal of an ambiguous figure may have to do with the fine shades of action implicated with visual experience. How is narrative ability related to mathematical thinking? Shilpi Majumder (University
of Waterloo) At first glance, math and language seem to require very different abilities. However, Devlin (2000) suggests that higher mathematical thinking, which involves recognizing patterns and relationships, is related to our ability with language to capture relational actions such as those recounted in conversational narratives. In the present study we examined how narrative ability and mathematical thinking are related. Five-year-old children were given a narrative sequencing task, a narrative theme task, a pattern abstraction task, a general math ability task, and an IQ test. The narrative tasks differed in their relations to the other tasks. The narrative sequencing task was related to verbal aspects of IQ and math ability, while the narrative theme task was related to the aspects of IQ and math requiring abstraction. These findings suggest that experience with abstraction in a linguistic domain may be related to the development of abstraction abilities in a mathematical domain. Spontaneous questioning and its relationship to learning Maria Vittoria Cifone (Italian Consulate General) Based on Piaget and Dewey’s theory of learning, taking a comprehensive notion of questioning and questions, this paper focuses on children’s spontaneous questioning as it pertains to their learning. Four 8-year-olds were observed as they built the miniature model of their classroom and closely listened to what they said about their work. The narratives of the five-day-long work, inclusive of the events that the children saw as the most intriguing, puzzling and hardest steps to overcoming the events that generated questions, show their questioning as it develops throughout the activity. The study suggests the very act of questioning is in fact learning, both being of the same intellectual nature. As the children questioned, that is, they learned. Ultimately, the study indicates, questioning as an inclusive process is learning through questions and answers. It is hoped that the work will contribute to the improvement of children’s learning by informing educators and influencing pedagogy. When the child becomes the illustrator: An investigation of the representational nature of drawings. Julie Wilson (Carleton University) Research has demonstrated that until about 4 years of age, children fail to recognize that drawings do not update to match a change in what they represent (e.g., Thomas, Jolley, Robinson, & Champion, 1999). However, children have not actively constructed representations in such studies. Forty preschool children participated in two sessions, one in which they drew and one in which the experimenter did. Children were shown objects that were altered after drawing of them were complete and asked questions about the drawing and its referent. Results revealed that: (1) performance in both conditions increases with age; (2) performance on both conditions was significantly related after controlling for age; and (3) that children perform significantly better when they create the representations. Based on these results, it may be that children’s representational abilities have been underestimated in the past. Fri 3:00-4:30 York B PS10 Paper Session 10 Moral Reasoning Moderator: Carolyn Hildebrandt (University of Northern Iowa) Modernization influences on socio-moral development: The case of China. Monika Keller (Max Planck Institute for Human Development) This study analyzes the effects of social change in mainland China on the development of socio-moral reasoning in children and adolescents by comparing the findings of a cross-sectional- and a time-lagged longitudinal study. Participants (about 80 and 60 females and males of the ages 7, 9, 12 and 15 years) were asked about their understanding of close-friendship, and about decision-making and moral judgment in a morally relevant hypothetical dilemma in this relationship. Arguments were scored for developmental levels and content of reasoning (Keller, 1996, Keller et al., 1998). Comparisons of reasoning of participants from the cross-sectional and longitudinal sample revealed that the sequence of developmental levels was the same in both samples. Content analysis of reasoning about choices showed similarities, but also differences in the use of some categories. In particular the increase in self-related types of reasons and a corresponding decrease in (altruism) normative reasoning can be explained as effects of cultural change towards individualism. Assessing the development of adolescent concepts of social convention Larry Nucci (University of Illinois
at Chicago) Although domain theory has dominated research on moral and social reasoning, critics have pointed to the paucity of domain theory studies exploring development within the moral and conventional domains. This paper reports results of research investigating changes in concepts of social convention. A computer-based interview was administered to 70 students in grades 5 through 11. The computer presented scenarios in which matters of social convention were salient. In each case, the scenario was followed by a series of probes which stimulated participants to type in free responses. Free-responses produced on computer were as would be expected from face-to-face interviews. A scoring system was produced with rubrics that could be reliably applied to assess development within this domain. Three major developmental levels were identified similar to those described by Turiel (1978). The paper discusses steps being taken to produce a computer-based system for scoring free-responses to assess development in the conventional domain. Children’s eyewitness testimony: A moral decision-making perspective Herbert D Saltzstein (CUNY Graduate School) Thirty-six 6-9 year olds and 29 (11-13) watched a film where a man takes bags from a locker. The act was described as either: (a) stealing, (b) helping, or (c) morally neutral. Each participant saw photos of the perpetrator and foils, and was asked how confident he/she was that it was/was not the man who took the bags. Twenty-three adolescents (15-17) were tested in the stealing and neutral conditions. Younger children were poorer at discriminating perp from foils, and were more likely to make false positive errors than older children but only in the morally relevant conditions. When asked about false positive/negative errors, younger children rarely referred to consequences for the accused, whereas older children did. But, the latter judged false negatives as worse. Most adolescents either said that false negatives were worse than false positives or that both errors were equally bad, but in performance actually made fewer false positive errors. Children’s understanding of morality as a domain of knowledge Judith H Danovitch (Yale University) Moral development research has often focused on the development of moral reasoning without considering the role of morality as a domain of knowledge. This research investigates the nature of moral knowledge by examining intuitions about expertise. In two studies, children in grades K, 2, and 4 were presented with dilemmas of a moral nature (e.g. whether to keep a promise) or academic nature (e.g. whether to build a tower tall or wide) and chose between two advisors. One advisor was presented as an academic expert, while the other was presented as moral expert. Second and fourth graders chose advisors differentially based on their domain of expertise, while kindergartners did not discriminate between advisors. This finding suggests that older children consider moral knowledge a distinct domain from academic knowledge and use this information appropriately. Implications for character education and children’s conceptualization of the moral domain are also discussed. Fri 4:45-6:00 Salon C SY12 Symposium Session 12 – Amsel Representation and reality: Development of children’s understanding of symbols, models, and the worlds they depict Organizer: Eric
Amsel (Weber State University) Central to most theories of cognitive development is the growth of children’s understanding of symbols and models. Symbols and models stand for reality by being about or making reference to reality, although symbols do so conventionally and models do so through more specific causal, spatial or logical connections. Much is known about when and how children come to successfully reason about specific forms of representations (e.g., words, mental states, scale models, maps, mathematical formulae, etc.). However, much less is known about the general cognitive processes and ontological and epistemological assumptions required to use symbols and models effectively in the service of understanding the world. The present symposium explores the processes and assumptions involved in learning to effectively use or understand symbols and models. Srivastava et al. argue for the role that personal symbols play in preschool-aged children’s generalization of the representational insight (understanding that objects can be both things-in-themselves and function as models of something else) across a variety of representational forms (script, pictures, scale models, and maps). Bowen and Amsel demonstrate the value of manipulating symbols over concrete objects on mathematical tasks that involve elementary school-aged children enumerating sets of arbitrary grouped objects over perceptually salient discrete ones. Campbell and Amsel finds that adults—but not kindergarten-aged children—treat fancifully pretending a false proposition is true as ontologically different from seriously supposing that it is. Finally, Wiser demonstrates high-school students’ difficulties in mapping a computer microworld modeling heat and temperature onto the real world, showing that they require training in the epistemological status of models as representing scientific hypotheses about the physical world. The discussant David Uttal will comment on these talks, highlighting the common themes and suggesting new theoretical and empirical directions. “This is my symbol!”: Do personal symbols enrich symbolic understanding of preschoolers? Smita Srivastava (Clark University) Symbols and manipulatives as sources of support for mathematical reasoning with aggregated units Erik Bowen
(Vanderbilt University) Representation, ontology and truth: Developing the distinction between pretending and supposing a false premise is true Richard Campbell (Weber State University) Epistemological and metacognitive issues in learning physics with microworlds Marianne Wiser (Clark University) Fri 4:45-6:00 Salon D SY13 Symposium Session 13 – Brown Adequation: Inorganic, Organic and Epistemic Development Organizer: Terrance Brown (Private Practice) Piaget’s great project was to explain “adequation”, that is, how it is that mathematical models so fit the world that physical “realities” can be deduced. He believed that intelligence arose from biological adaptation and, in fact, constituted a functional reproduction of adaptation in terms of action, then represented action. Given that stance, the theory of biological evolution is central to all theories of the development of knowledge. But Piaget was not satisfied with the “modern synthesis.” He believed that random variation and after-the-fact selection could only lead to a pragmatic psychology and a conventionalist epistemology. There was nothing “necessary” about it; adequation became impossible. For that reason, he advanced interactionist hypotheses in biology, psychosociology, and epistemology. These have suffered various fates. In biology, Piaget ran up against an entrenched theory—neo-Darwinism coupled to molecular reduction. When the mechanism he proposed, i.e., his interpretation of the phenocopy, did not work out, mainstream biologists gleefully fell back upon molecular genetics without questioning the functional and epistemic limitations of that model. Current biologic knowledge suggests that they were wrong. In psychosociology, Piaget’s studies of concept development in children were quickly sucked into the black hole of modern microphrenologic “cognitive psychology.” The problem of adequation was lost amidst the jousting of Jack-and-the-Beanstalk giant-killers amount prancing steeds of empirical description, innatism, computationism, social-constructivism, interpretationism, and god knows what else. In epistemology, an intellectual battlefield strewn with distinguished corpses, silence reigned. A few of the walking wounded tried to deal with Piaget’s project; most of the stragglers wandered into history of science or medical ethics where it was still possible to make a living. Missing from this dismal account are two ideas necessary to Piaget’s theory. The first is the idea of “the circle of the sciences”; the second is the idea of self-organizing systems. The circle of the sciences is the point at which mathematics closes upon physics and adequation becomes possible. Self-organization is the explanatory principle at every level. There are weak self-organizing principles responsible for the evolution of biosphere-friendly universes. From those emerge stronger self-organizations known as life. From living systems, emerge the representational systems responsible for psychosocial phenomena. And finally, from psychosocial systems emerge self-organizations that are increasingly capable of modeling the “not not-possible”, i.e., the necessary, phenomena of the inorganic, the organic, and the psychosocial worlds. Introduction and overview Terrance Brown (Private Practice) Phenotype-centered models of organic evolution: Elaborating on Baldwin; circumventing Lamarck Sue Taylor Parker (Sonoma State University) Nature and Subject: The concept of self-organization in Piaget’s theory Ulrich Mueller (University of Victoria) “Hell no! – This isn’t my teddy. That’s mine”: From developmental psychology to developmental epistemology Leslie Smith (Lancaster University) Adequation: Cosmogony, phylogeny, ontogeny Mark H Bickhard (Lehigh University) Fri 4:45-6:00 Trinity IV-V PT02 Poster Session 2 Posters will be available for viewing all day. Authors will be present from 4:45-6:00. 1 A comparison of moral reasoning and moral orientation of American and Turkish university students Nilay B Kuyel (The University of Texas
at Austin) 2 Aggression and moral development: Towards an integration of the Social Information Processing and Moral Domain Models William F Arsenio
(Yeshiva University) 3 Analysis and comparison of interpersonal provoking situations among children, adolescents and adults Paul F Tremblay (University of Western
Ontario) 4 Piaget’s “Moral Judgment”: An intellectual history Jay G Hook (Harvard Law School) 5 Values and beliefs of day care center teachers about child development and early education in Brazil Angela R Barreto (University of Brasilia) 6 Cooperation, competition and individualism: 11 years-old children’s belief orientations and moral implications Angela U Branco (University
of Brasilia) 7 Improving social development of adults through better cognition ability according to Piaget’s theory Maria Judith S C Lins (University Federal Rio de Janeiro - Brasil) 8 Talking about exclusion: Semantic elements in children’s narrative accounts Sonia Matwin (University of Utah) 9 The effects of classroom moral narratives upon children’s level of moral development Helena Marchand (Universty of Lisbon) 10 Children learn local, but not global, conventions from ignorant speakers Lisa R Ain (University of Toronto) 11 Adolescents’ and young adults’ evaluations of video games Alaina F Brenick (University of Maryland) 12 Correlates of relational and physical aggression in early adolescence: Is gender really the name of the game? Dana P Liebermann (University
of Victoria) 13 Preschoolers’ thinking about unfairness when targets respond with compliance, subversion, and opposition Leigh A Shaw (Weber State
University) 14 Aversive racism in elementary school children Ann V McGillicuddy-De
Lisi (Lafayette College) 15 Peer choices: a study of white, black and Asian children in same- and different-ethnic dyads Virginia L Lam (University of East London) 16 Mental state talk during two structured interactions and children’s social understanding Timothy P Racine (Simon Fraser University) 17 Request-making, perspective-taking, and theory of mind: A study of Spanish-speaking mother-child interactions Ana M Carmiol (Clark
University) 18 Parent-child conversations about sinking and floating Jennifer
B Esterly (California State University Stanislaus) 19 Power, social obligation, and perception of personal entitlement in Japan Yuki Hasebe (Western Illinois University) 20 Telling selves in time: Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal concepts of identity Ulrich C Teucher (University of British Columbia) 21 Moral reasoning about gender hierarchy in Benin, West Africa: The role of pragmatic concerns and informational assumptions Clare E Conry-Murray (UC Berkeley) 22 Predictors and correlates of social anxiety in early childhood Elizabeth
J Glennie (Carleton University) 23 The children’s version of the Implicit Association Test: Assessing race stereotypical responding in early childhood Stacey
D Espinet (University of Toronto) 24 Adolescent perspectives on social justice Anna M Macri (University of Toronto) 25 Moral identity, community engagement, and discussions with parents and friends Kelly Campbell (Brock University) 26 The impact of intergroup contact on children’s implicit racial biases in multiple contexts Heidi McGlothlin (University of Maryland) 27 The aim for coexistence in conditions of poverty Rebeca Puche
(Universidad del Valle) 28 An exploration of children’s civil rights: Listening to the voice of children Elizabeth Pufall (Boulder Journey School) 29 The development of ethnic-racial awareness in minority group children of Latin-American origin living in Spain: an exploratory study Miguel
A Gomez (Universidad Autonoma de Madrid) 30 Social judgements about ethnic-racial exclusion in Latin-American children living in Spain Lila Gonzalez (Universidad Autonoma de Madrid) 31 Growing up in a violent society: Morality in the context of survival and revenge Roberto Posada (University of Utah) 32 School drop-out rates and cultural continuity: Community-level protective factors in Canada’s First Nations’ Youth Darcy
Hallett (University of British Columbia) 33 Indigenous Canadian perspectives on community efforts to preserve and promote culture Ruth-anne E Macdonell (University of Victoria) 34 The role of child, parent, and the quality of the dyadic relationship in the development of social-cognitive skills in infants with Down syndrome: Preliminary results of a longitudinal study Grace Iarocci
(Simon Fraser University) 35 A research prospectus on anger as resilience in Aboriginal youth: The cognitive elaboration of anger over development and cultural context Kevin Runions (Ontario Institute for Studies in Education) 36 Children’s explanations of harmful behavior: The role of psychological knowledge Beverly A Brehl (University of Utah) 37 Parent involvement in schools: Perspectives from a Samoan community in Hawaii Marianna J Fischer (University of Hawaii) 38 Intra-individual variability in adolescents’ moral judgments Caroline Aris (University Paul Valéry, Montpellier III) 39 Ethnic identification in Aboriginal youth Stephen C Want (University
of British Columbia) 40 Social relations and cognitive development: The influence of conversation type and gender status asymmetries Charis I Psaltis (University of Cambridge) Fri 6:00-7:00 Reception (no host bar)
Saturday, June 5, A.M.Sat 8:30-5:00 Bay Book Display (all day) Sat 9:00-10:30 Salon D SY15 Symposium Session 15 - Orzco Development in poverty-stricken contexts Organizer: Mariela Orozco
(Universidad del Valle) The development and education of poor Latin American children has become a concern for social scientists. From an ethical and scientific standpoint, we are interested in finding out what the contribution of the psychologist to the improvement of the development of children growing up in poverty-stricken conditions could be. Unhealthiness, malnutrition, and the low-quality care children receive highly affect their physical development. Family instability and the priorities for survival imposed by society are a threat to affective parents-children relationships. And in the educational context, things are not any better. The cognitive development of the children who grow up in impoverished contexts reaches a ceiling point. Is this just the result of the poor quality of the education they receive, or are there any other intervening factors? What is the relationship between psychological development and learning, be it school learning or any other type of learning? The consequences of such a ceiling point on children's development are dramatic: a spiral of dominated-dominant that feeds and is fed by an internal feeling of social incapability (which is wrongly assumed as mental incapability) of the former which prevents them from changing their present conditions. But the differences we have found are not only due to the children’s economic status and social opportunities but also to the cultural differences among Latin American social groups. Although legitimate, some of these people’s beliefs and world representation are inadequate to successfully deal with the world representation imposed by the Western culture and technology. Therefore, certain beliefs and shared representations of the world may negatively affect people’s development. Then, this raises questions like: Is there any possibility of development for these people, one which can be compatible with their cultural experiences and is conducive to a greater self-awareness, to their taking distance from their present reality, to a non-religious interpretation of the world, to an alternative vision of their destiny which they currently see as inexorable? Is there a built-in human psychological development, independent from any social peculiarities or compatible with them? How can intervention take place without “colonizing” or indoctrinating these people’s minds? This symposium comes as an invitation to all the people who are concerned about children's development in poverty-stricken contexts, so that we can reflect and share ideas on the problems arising from such conditions. Children migration: Understanding space and place Vera De Vasconcellos (Universidade
do Estado do Rio de Janeiro) The child as a humorist: Environments for development and understanding Rebeca
Puche (Universidad del Valle) Evaluating children's development in poverty-stricken contexts Mariela Orozco (Universidad
del Valle) Sat 9:00-10:30 York A PS12 Paper Session 12 Social Cognition & Education Moderator: Angela U Branco (University of Brasilia) Is schooling a prerequisite for the development of reasoning? A study with children Maria
da Graça Dias (Federal University of Pernambuco) This study investigated the effect of make-believe mode, form of syllogisms and content in three groups of 5-year-old children: schoolchildren from medium socioeconomic families in England; medium SES schoolchildren and nonliterate unschooled children from low SES families in Brazil. The study was a test of the claim that schooling is a prerequisite for deductive reasoning. Results showed that all children produced more responses that are correct and theoretical justifications in the make-believe condition than in the standard mode, mainly for unknown and contrary facts. This pattern held for form, although children’s performance on Modus Ponens was more accurate than on Modus Tollens. Unschooled children’s performance was poorer than schooled. However, this difference was not as strong as that found in the many studies (Scribner, 1977) where unschooled children performed at chance levels, adopting an empirical bias. In this study, unschooled children adopted theoretical attitudes when the make-believe mode was used. Looking for Piaget’s social theory in Vivian Paley’s kindergarten Keith R Alward One purpose of Piaget’s Play, Dreams, and Imitation in Childhood, is to argue that operational knowledge requires total decentering from the object where meaning is obtainable only through social consensus, thus making the establishment of consensus the cornerstone of an implicit social theory. Piaget’s use of 1-directional functions to analyze the thinking of Intuitive Stage children is used to analyze interactions among five year olds that entail collective reasoning about 3 different quantitative problems and three different social problems. The conclusion is that knowledge lies in the interactions between subjects and objects and that the implicit social theory is expressed as collective activity directed towards conserved understanding. The clinical interview is viewed as the model for Piaget’s social theory. The presentation of Piaget’s sensori-motor stage in developmental psychology texts Dalton Miller-Jones (Portland State University) A survey of developmental psychology texts reveals an adherence to the outdated nature-nurture controversy in the sections on the sensori-motor stage. Newer views of development from a psychobiological perspective, with links to Piaget’s revised model of equilibration, are suggested for the improvement of texts. The distribution of charts will assist the audience in understanding the survey. Constructivist teaching at the preschool level; A Piagetian perspective Jeanette
M Gallagher (Temple University) Recent writers (Palincsar, 1998; Woolfolk, 2003) stress the social nature of constructivist teaching based on Vygotsky’s view but underestimate the importance of Piaget’s view of social interaction. An argument is made in this paper that Piaget and Inhelder’s expansion of the symbolic function has great importance for constructivist teaching at the preschool level. The use of a strong theoretical approach assists teachers in selecting relational activities that lead to the development of symbolism. Epistemological development: It’s all relative Theo L Dawson (Hampshire
College) In both Perry’s (1970) and Kitchener and King’s (1990) models of epistemological development, the earliest stages of development are differentiated from later stages by an increasing awareness of the uncertainty of knowledge. At the earliest stages, knowledge is viewed as absolute. In adolescence, an increasing awareness of the uncertainty of knowledge produces relativism. Both Perry’s and Kitchener & King’s research primarily focused on adolescence and adulthood. In this paper, we examine patterns in the emergence of relativism in 5 to 57-year-olds. We identify 6 forms of relativism, each of which appears for the first time at a particular developmental level. The results indicate that relativism, rather than being symptomatic of an adolescent developmental crisis, is a gradually developing phenomenon. We explore the implications. Sat 9:00-10:30 York B PS11 Paper Session 11 Prejudice and Social Inequalities Moderator: David Kritt (City University of New York) Developmental social psychology: Outlining a new approach to the study of prejudice in children Yarrow C Dunham (Harvard Graduate
School of Education) The problem of prejudice has primarily been approached through social psychology and the dominant theories have been social learning hypotheses in which children become prejudiced by internalizing societal values. However, we urge that a satisfactory account of prejudice must also draw on work in developmental psychology which has highlighted the importance of domain-specific constraints on learning and has rejected the notion of the child as a passive internalizer of information. In the social realm, observable cognitive mechanisms governing understanding of and inferences about social categories, as well as processes of group identification, appear to operate automatically and largely outside of conscious control in children and adults. Understanding these mechanisms must be the basis of any attempt to understand how children develop social bias, as well as any attempt to intervene on that developmental process. The stability and change of implicit and explicit prejudice across development Andrew S Baron (Harvard University) To begin exploration of the origin and development of implicit prejudice, race attitudes in White American 6-yr olds, 10-yr olds, and adults were tested. Using a child-oriented version of the Implicit Association Test (IAT), it was possible to measure such attitudes even in young children. Remarkably, pro-White/anti-Black bias was evident even in the youngest group whose home and school life does not include much, if any, direct interaction with African Americans. Self-reported attitudes were likewise pro-White/anti-Black in the youngest group but they became substantially less so in 10-yr olds and vanished entirely in adults (who self-reported equal liking for both groups). These data are the first to indicate the early presence of implicit pro-White preference among White children, alongside its presence in adulthood. The data also point out the increasing divergence of implicit and explicit attitudes with age. Constructivism for educational social justice in urban public schools: Observations of a teacher educator Nancy M Cardwell (City University of New York) As decisions about children’s lives are being increasingly made on the basis of standardized test results, it seems important to consider how teachers nurture students’ humanity in urban public schools by establishing relationships with their students grounded in a constructivist pedagogy. Since emotions drive the intellect, it is important for teachers to support emotional equilibrium so children can sustain the intellectual disequilibrium created by offering increasingly difficult academic challenges (Piaget, 1968). As a teacher educator, I wondered how beginning teachers in predominantly black urban public elementary schools viewed the usefulness of child development theory in their work as students in teacher education college emphasizing a constructivist approach to teaching. To explore this question, I used qualitative methods to interview a group of beginning teachers to surface the connections they might have made between their child development theory course and their students’ behavior (Seidman, 1991; Goodson, 1990; Patton, 1987; Erikson, 1979). Nowhere to turn: The Supreme Court of Canada's denial of a constitutionally-based governmental fiduciary duty to children in foster care Sonja C Grover (Lakehead University) This paper analyzes a recent line of cases in which the Canadian Supreme Court has held that provincial governments owe no broad constitutionally-based fiduciary duty to children who have been abused while in foster care. This despite the fact that it is based on a parens patriae doctrine that the children are apprehended and placed in foster care in the first instance. The failure also of Canadian provincial governments to meet their obligations to street children is examined in light of the reasoning of the Supreme Court of Canada in the foster care cases. The role of the courts in promoting social justice is discussed as is the positive obligation upon government to meet the developmental needs of all children in the society bar none. Differences in Indigenous and Western conceptions of knowledge and knowledge transfers in the context of youth suicide Ulrich C Teucher (University of British Columbia) In British Columbia, 90% of a staggering rate of Aboriginal youth suicides occur in only 10% of the bands. Those bands that experience no suicides appear to possess knowledge critical to lowering their youth suicide rates, knowledge that could be usefully shared with other bands. Government initiatives usually seek to “hand down” knowledge in the forms of health policies. Aboriginal bands, however, resist such “top-down” methods. Instead, “lateral” exchanges of knowledge might be more advantageous, particularly because Indigenous conceptions of what constitutes knowledge and knowledge transfers differ from the Western conceptions that we take for granted. Therefore, it is critical to help identify the particular knowledge(s) that might explain the dramatic differences in suicide rates. With this aim in mind, it becomes a matter of first importance to better understand similarities and differences in the conceptions of knowledge and knowledge transfers that distinguish our Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal cultures. Sat 10:45-12:00 Salon CD PL04 Plenary Session 4 - Nussbaum Beyond the social contract: Capabilities and disability Martha Nussbaum (University of Chicago) The social contract tradition has great strengths in thinking about justice. Its conception of justice as the outcome of a bargain among rational independent adults rightly emphasizes the worth of human dignity and of values of mutual respect and reciprocity. Nonetheless, such theories prove unable to provide satisfactory approaches to several of the most urgent problems of justice in today’s world, justice for people with disabilities. Social contract theories imagine their bargaining agents as “free, equal, and independent,” “fully cooperating members of society over a complete life.” It may be questioned whether such approaches can even adequately handle severe cases of physical disability. What is clear is that severe mental disabilities must, in such theories, be handled as an afterthought, after the basic institutions of society are already designed. Thus people with mental disabilities are not among those for whom and in reciprocity with whom society’s basic institutions are structured. I argue that this is not acceptable. A satisfactory account of human justice requires recognizing the many varieties of disability, need, and dependency that “normal” human beings experience, and thus the very great continuity between “normal” lives and those of people with lifelong mental disabilities. I argue that the capabilities approach, starting from a conception of the person as a social animal, whose dignity does not derive entirely from an idealized rationality, can help us to design an adequate conception of the full and equal citizenship of people with both physical and mental disabilities. Sat 12:00-1:30 Lunch (Board of Director’s Meeting, location TBA)
Saturday, June 5, P.M.Sat 1:30-2:45 Salon C IS03 Invited Symposium 3 – Ruck Perspectives on children’s rights: Implications for theory, research and policy Organizer: Martin D Ruck (City University of New York) The past several decades has seen a substantial increase in social and political commitment to the rights of children and youth and a growing belief that, to some extent, children have a right to participate in decisions about their own lives. Increased international awareness of children’s rights is reflected in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which outlines children’s civic, political and social rights, and attempts to achieve a balance between children’s protection and participation. However, developmental research focusing on issues relating to children’s rights is still surprisingly sparse. This symposium presents relevant developmental theory, research and critique addressing the ways in which children, youth and society conceptualize children’s needs for and entitlement to protection and participation. The symposium will also explore the centrality of children’s rights to questions of social justice and civil society. Advocacy and developmental theory Colette Daiute (City University of New York) Leaving lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students behind: An exploration of LGBT students’ rights and experiences in United States high schools’ Stacey Horn (University of Illinois at Chicago) Examining children’s and parents’ conceptions and attitudes about children’s rights Michele Peterson-Badali (University of Toronto) Youth, citizenship and social justice Lonnie Sherrod (Fordham University) Sat 1:30-2:45 Salon D SY16 Symposium Session 16 – Duckworth Critical exploration in the classroom: A politically powerful form of teaching and research Organizer: Eleanor Duckworth (Harvard Graduate School of Education) Critical Exploration is a term that Inhelder, Sinclair and Bovet introduced in 1974, to refer to their method of research. Clinical interviewing—considered the essence of Genevan methodology—is here combined with following the child’s exploration of the subject matter. “Critical exploration” gives value to the researcher’s devising of situations in which the children are called upon to think, and to talk about what they think. And it has two levels of meaning: both exploration of the subject matter by the learner (or subject) and exploration of the learner’s thinking by the teacher (or researcher). Duckworth has been using clinical exploration as the basis of her teaching and research for the past 25 years. This approach requires the teaching-researcher to engage learners in subject matter, and then, rather than “telling,” to take a researcher’s stance in following the development of learners’ thoughts. In this work, teaching and research are indistinguishable. Duckworth’s students have been using the approach in researching the learning of a variety of subject matters in schools—math, science, poetry, music, history, social studies, language, among others. In this symposium, Duckworth will present the rationale behind this work; its derivation from the theories and methodologies of Piaget and Inhelder, using examples from science education; and the idea that this way of engaging learners has a profoundly political nature as learners come to recognize the power of their minds. Five practitioners of critical exploration in the classroom will present examples from their own subject matters. Margo Okazawa-Rey will describe her teaching of social justice issues in professional contexts. Kate Gill will describe adult learners of English as a second language, as they discuss a Cezanne painting. Paula Hooper and Jessie Auger will describe children’s explorations of programmable media in a second grade classroom. Lara Ramsey will discuss her experience as a current elementary school teacher, and experiences as published by other teachers, as they modify their curriculum in response to their listening to children’s thoughts. In all cases, presenters will convey what can be learned about the development of understanding in these subject matters, highlighting the learners’ growing awareness of the power of their minds. Learning social justice Margo Okazawa-Rey (Mills College) At Cézanne’s table: A study exploring content-based instruction in English in an art museum Kate Gill (Harvard University) Instructions for the turtle: Second graders’ explorations with programmable media Paula K Hooper (Technical Education Research Centers) Children’s ideas and curriculum development Lara Ramsey (Smith College School) Sat 1:30-2:45 York A PS14 Paper Session 14 Self-knowledge and Identity Moderator: Ulrich Teucher (University of British Columbia) Do children start out thinking they don’t know their own mind: Shift in locus of self knowledge during middle childhood Peter Mitchell (University of Nottingham) The purpose of this research was to investigate the circumstances of young children’s tendency not to identify themselves as an authority on knowledge about themselves. 32 6-year-olds, 32 10-year-olds and 64 adults judged who knows best in relation to 6 questions about self knowledge. If children aged 6 really do not have much insight into themselves, them perhaps they are quite correct to say that they do not know best. In that case, their tendency not to identify themselves might appropriately reflect a widely-held view. However, the results show this is not the case, given that adults judged differently than 6-year-olds by judging that 6-year-olds do know best about themselves. This raises the possibility that 6-year-olds genuinely have a misperception about the status of their own self knowledge, in turn suggesting that they start out thinking they don’t know their own mind. The role of critical beliefs in adolescence: The development of a knowing self Laura S Page (University of Toronto) The framework of the “Knowing Self” intersects sociomoral reasoning and critical thinking and considers how adolescents interact with competing knowledge claims during belief formation. “Belief Identification”, the process of identifying critical beliefs as valued parts of the self, is gaining attention. While rigid identification with beliefs can be a barrier to good reasoning, a firm commitment to critical beliefs may be vital to supporting important action. Thus, the role of critical beliefs is explored within the academic, sociocultural and moral domains. Styles of Belief Identification are defined by relational patterns between criteria assessing open-mindedness and personal commitment. Data from structured interviews with 80 adolescents (ages 14 and 18) will be analyzed for effects of domain, age and gender. Relationships with correlates (thinking dispositions, self-concept, moral judgment, social responsibility and academic achievement) will be discussed. The findings will have theoretical and practical implications, enriching our understanding of adolescents’ commitments to their beliefs as guiding principles in their lives. Children’s affective decision making for self and other Angela Prencipe
(University of Toronto) The current study investigated children’s affective decision making for self and for others. Thirty-two 3- and 4-year-olds were administered the Children’s Gamble task (Kerr & Zelazo, 2003) and a Delay of Gratification task and were asked to perform each task for either themselves (Self) or for the experimenter (Other). Optimal decision-making for each task resulted in a net gain of more rewards in the long run. Age-related improvements in performance were found for both tasks when performing for Self. When choosing for Other, 3-year-olds generally performed better on both tasks. Results are discussed as being in line with previous studies and with current theorizing of the development of children’s decision-making about rewards. Findings are also discussed as being relevant to current theorizing about the role of affect in decision-making because they highlight the roles of perspective and interpretation which are often neglected in psychological approaches to emotion (Blasi, 1999). Self-understanding in autism Ljiljana Vuletic (University of Toronto) Some theoretical accounts of autism have suggested that autistic individuals are drastically impaired in their ability to understand themselves. However, many autobiographical accounts of these individuals testify to the contrary. Not only do they show an unimpaired self-understanding, but they exhibit a high level of self-control and self-determination to consciously ignore and change their thought and behavior tendencies. In this paper, I explore the self-understanding of a twelve year-old autistic boy using both quantitative and qualitative methods. The obtained results suggest that his self-understanding is fairly accurate and age appropriate. I discuss these findings in light of clinical suggestions that the level of self-understanding might be a crucial factor in determining the life outcome of autistic individuals. Sat 1:30-2:45 York B PS15 Paper Session 15 Gender Moderator: Leigh A Shaw (Weber State University) Negotiating ‘hetero-normative masculinity’: Positioning strategies in adolescent male talk about ‘sexual attraction’ Neill Korobov (Clark University) To date, developmental psychologists have under-examined the multifaceted, dilemmatic, and often contradictory ways that young men negotiate their masculinities over the course of their adolescent development. The focus of this paper is to examine adolescent male development in a local and socially discursive way. Using a discursive approach, we will detail several ‘positioning strategies’ that three age groups of adolescent boys (10, 12, and 14) employ during group discussions to mitigate the appearance of ‘shallowness’ and ‘immaturity’ in talking about physical attraction. As developmental psychologists, we conceptualize such positioning strategies as ‘socio-cultural tools’ that facilitate the radical re-orientation from a ‘normatively asexual peer cohort’ during childhood into the ‘normatively heterosexual’ social arrangements that are typical of adolescence. The examination of such ‘positioning strategies’ invites discussion concerning the subtle ways in which prejudice and inequality (as forms of ‘new sexism’) are silently sustained in young men’s everyday social practices. Creative activities and their influence on identity interactions in science Marie-Claire Gagne (University of Toronto) Members of the dominant culture in science, such as scientists and successful science students, are often perceived as unemotional, detached and politically unbiased. Success is attributed to the maximization of objectivity and rationality. (Hodson, 1998; Letts, 2001). Unfortunately, these predominantly masculine-associated traits are often in conflict with the personal identities of many students. This conflict is a major factor in causing them to turn away from science (Brickhouse 2001). This study explores creative activities as a way of expanding school science identities and allowing students of diverse identities to feel confident participating in science. It investigates, using quantitative and qualitative methods, how a group of girls and a group of boys are affected by three lessons involving creative activities. It explores the effects of these activities on students’ enjoyment and confidence in science and their perceptions of science and themselves as good science students. Men don’t make tortillas: Zinacantec Maya children’s understanding of gender roles Ashley E Maynard (University of Hawai’i) This study used an elicited imitation paradigm to explore the puzzling ethnographic finding that children in a very gender-segregated society, the Zinacantec Maya of Chiapas, Mexico, engaged their two-year-old siblings in cross-gender play. Do two-year-olds know that they are performing cross-gender tasks, or are they still developing an understanding of gender? Children as young as 3 years could imitate masculine and feminine tasks by correctly choosing either a male or a female doll after seeing each task performed with a gender-neutral toy. The findings are consistent with ethnographic research indicating that Zinacantec children are considered “babies” until about age 2, and that they are engaged in cross-gender play activities during this early period of development. As they become “little boys” or “little girls,” Zinacantec children play gender-consistent roles in household games and chores, and only perform cross-gender activities when they are teaching two-year-olds. Slow professional participation process of Japanese women Hisako Inaba (Kyoto University) A qualitative study of structures and procedures of a Japanese national university which illustrates how the institution discourages Japanese women’s professional participation. In addition, the reasoning for such discouragement is sought in Japanese cultural psychological tendencies. Five year participant observation was used to examine detailed procedures and structural factors of a Japanese national university. In result, five major processes and structures appear to be obstacles: (1) seminars (zemi) and parties after school; (2) recruitment system based on traditional apprentice system; (3) work assignment and administration structure; (4) hostile environment; and (5) academic associations. In overall, Japanese democratic process does not appear to guarantee procedural justice. Unfair sentiment is legitimized by Japanese “empathy (omoiyari),” “face” of organization, “harmony” in faculty meeting, and “self-others identity illusionary unification” and they appear to make corrective action difficult. The oak and the willow: The shaping of social consciousness in men and women Julia P Shaw (SUNY- Empire State College) Differences in the social consciousness of men and women are real and noticeable, but have not always been identifiable. Research for this study shows that the interpersonal awareness of reflective men in their early years is associated with feelings of personal control, but ends in seniors (in their sixties and beyond) with a loss of control to transpersonal and historical causes. The interpersonal awareness of reflective women follows an inverse path, with a lower sense of personal control in early adult years, and a gaining of control during the senior years through personal and interpersonal efficacy. Sat 3:00-4:15 Salon CD PL05 Plenary Session 5 - Turiel - Presidential Address Development, inequalities, and injustice: Morality in the trenches Elliot Turiel (University of California–Berkeley) Social inequalities and social justice are topics that are infrequently examined in research on social and moral development. In part, this is because of a variety of presumptions in psychological research that converge on accommodation to societal arrangements and cultural practices. In explanations of development as adjustment to the social environment, cultures are portrayed as harmonious, with shared beliefs and meanings. As a process of accommodation to, or compliance with, social or cultural expectations, issues of social justice are not likely to be of concern. An alternative view is that starting at a relatively early age people in most cultures are concerned with social inequalities in interpersonal relationships, and later in age with inequalities embedded in social hierarchies based on gender, social class, and racial or ethnic differences. As a consequence, social lives include opposition, conflict, and contested meanings. The development of social and moral reasoning entails the construction of understandings of welfare, justice, and rights, by which individuals scrutinize social arrangements. Inequalities and injustices provoke opposition, resistance, and subversion in people’s everyday lives. Social opposition and resistance do not solely occur in organized political movements, nor are they the province of people with special features of personality or character. As part of everyday life, social opposition and conflicts commonly occur alongside cooperative relationships. Several examples are presented to illustrate the shape of resistance among people in positions of little power in the social hierarchy. Opposition and resistance, based on moral goals, occur in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, and are integral to processes of social and moral development. Sat 4:30-6:00 Salon D SY17 Symposium Session 17 – Greenfield Interrelations of culture, brain, and development: Introducing the FPR-UCLA Center for Culture, Brain, and Development Organizer: Patricia M Greenfield (UCLA) The goal of this symposium is to introduce
the developmental community to the new FPR-UCLA Center for Culture, Brain,
and Development and to the range of research
that it has begun to produce. The underlying theoretical questions at the core
of the Center’s empirical investigations are dual: On the one hand, what
is the nature of neural functioning that makes the learning, transmission, and
transformation of human culture in general and different cultures in particular
not only possible, but even necessary? On the other hand, what are the developmental
processes of learning, transmitting, and transforming human culture in general
and different cultures in particular that the developing human brain must subserve?
The Center’s primary strategy is to utilize interdisciplinary research
mentoring of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows to make empirical and
theoretical progress in answering the core questions. The Center’s multidisciplinary
nexus includes psychology, anthropology, neuroscience, linguistics, education,
and psychiatry. Three interdisciplinary collaborations will be reported by predoctoral
and postdoctoral trainees in Culture, Brain, and Development. These collaborative
efforts represent diverse integrations of psychology, anthropology, neuroscience,
and linguistics. Cultural attunement in classroom interaction Maya Gratier (UCLA) The imprint of development on the neural processing of grammar of action Istvan Molnar-Szakacs (UCLA) The development of children’s understanding of social relations depicted on video Jennifer H Pfeifer (UCLA) Sat 4:30-6:00 York A SY18 Symposium Session 18 – Falmagne The societal context of personal epistemology: Feminist explorations Organizer:
Rachel Joffe Falmagne (Clark University) From the theoretical perspective informing this symposium, both modes of thought and discourses of knowledge are socially constituted within a complex social order with unequal social and cultural power across social groups. Personal epistemology and epistemic norms alike are generated by social agents situated in particular locations in the social order, whose thinking is constituted in and through the associated discourses and practices. Two converging aims guide the symposium. One is to revisit traditional conceptions of knowledge and epistemology in the light of recent feminist critiques that have problematized the normative discourse of rationalism and the dualisms such as reason/emotion, mind/body or knowledge/self that configure Western thought, and revealed their particular social origins and their exclusionary function. The second is to integrate these analyses with empirical work on personal epistemologies through a transdisciplinary approach. The research discussed draws from in-depth interviews in which participants reasoned through contradictory accounts, explanations or theories in a variety of hypothetical and real situations. Resources brought into the reasoning process were analyzed through a quasi-inductive method so as to reveal emergent patterns. Contributors discuss epistemic resources that have heretofore not been included in accounts of reasoning and personal epistemology. Rachel Joffe Falmagne highlights the varied epistemic uses of the self, for instance as a model for inferring others’ thoughts or behavior, or as a knowledge generating agent, and the varied epistemic status of emotion and intuition. Emily Abbey documents the hybrid nature of many personal epistemologies and explores their relation to hybrid identity in a complex social world. Jennifer Arner draws on the ‘both/and’ notion introduced by Black feminists as reflecting the intersectional nature of social oppressions to examine ways of reasoning about conflicting viewpoints. Marie-Genevieve Iselin and Irina Todorova explore the different epistemic uses of the body in interviewees reasoning through hypothetical and medical dilemmas. The symposium aims to contribute to a conceptualization of personal epistemology that is grounded in the societal context in and through which this epistemology develops and to an enrichment of the analytical vocabulary for that domain. The epistemic uses of the self Rachel Joffe Falmagne (Clark University) Hybrid epistemologies: Challenging traditional notions of knowledge and the self Emily Abbey (Clark University) Deconstructing dualities: Reasoning with the “both/and” concept Jennifer Arner (Clark University) The body as epistemic resource Marie-Genevieve Iselin (Clark University) Sat 4:30-6:00 York B PS16 Paper Session 16 Rights and Social Justice Moderator: Elizabeth Pufall (Boulder Journey School) Are human rights ethnocentric? Cultural bias and theories of moral development Christopher R Hallpike (McMaster University) While the author is a cultural anthropologist, he is not a relativist and broadly accepts Piaget’s and Kohlberg’s theories of moral development. But he considers that some of their assumptions about moral reasoning rely too narrowly on modern Western systems of ethics. Piaget assumes that morality is a system of rules, of a Kantian type, while Kohlberg is a Rawlsian who places justice at the heart of his definition of ethics. Without denying the great importance of rules and justice in moral thought, it can be argued that both thinkers are culturally biased to the extent that they take post-Reformation Western individualism for granted, and that a truly objective theory of moral development has to recognize that society is prior to the individual. This in turn requires us to question the developmental status of such fashionable ideas as equality, social justice, and human rights. Moral maturity and autonomy: Appreciating the significance of Lawrence Kohlberg’s just community Graham P McDonough (University of Toronto) This paper contends that Lawrence Kohlberg’s Just Community program of moral education has conceptual significance to his theoretical work in the field of moral development. A perspective recognizing the Just Community as conceptually significant provides a more comprehensive picture of Kohlberg’s work than do critical perspectives which limit their scope to his Structural Stage Model of moral development. Apprehending the Just Community’s conceptual significance provides the opportunity to respond to critics, like Carol Gilligan and Helen Haste, who have suggested that Kohlberg’s work is inattentive to notions of attachment in morality, but who either neglect or dismiss consideration of the Just Community in making these conclusions. The argument concludes by stating that a more philosophically comprehensive and mature understanding of morality was developing in Kohlberg’s project of moral education, undertaken well in advance of these major criticisms. Self, other and justice: Jacques Derrida and Jean Piaget Helen D Schroepfer (West Chester University) Hope is a precious commodity in a world marked by sharp us versus them dichotomies and hardened ideological stances. Much contemporary social criticism points to a need to position oneself within stark alternatives, with little hope that things might ultimately be structured in terms other than power and powerlessness. This type of thinking encourages the construction of sharp, well-defended borders, building from an understanding of self and other that seems to require just such defensive machinations. Jacques Derrida’s work opens up a way to think differently, training our attention on the essential affirmation of the other that underlies all human experience. He points to a self forged not from exclusion and defense, but in open response to and welcome of the other, an openness that he names justice. The central thesis of this paper is that the work of Jean Piaget lends critical support to this more hopeful reading. The tension between science and power of judgement Horst Pfeiffle (University of Economics) In the relation between science and ethics a decisive change has taken place with regard to the interpenetration of science and ethical issues. This raises the question as to whether the tendency of sociologization, i.e., the refunctioning of ethical issues in so-called scientific questions, implies a danger, even an usurpation of the genuinely ethical field of reflection which has been worked on in the philosophical tradition since the Greeks. It is also to be examined whether Kohlberg’s model of steps in the sense of Kant’s practical philosophy is well founded (bene fundatum). Sat 4:30-6:30 Salon C Book Discussion (4:30-6:00) and Reflections (6:00-6:30) Discussion of Jean Piaget's Moral Judgment of the Child, to be followed with Reflections on Social Development, Social Inequalities, and Social Justice (and wine) Sponsored by Elsevier Science, Publishers Chair, Cecilia Wainryb (University of Utah) The Moral Judgment of the Child, published in 1932, was Piaget's only extensive analysis of the development of moral judgments. Nevertheless, the book has been central to the study of moral and social development and is still the basis of much contemporary research and scholarship. In this session, we will consider key issues in Piaget's thinking about moral development, and reflect on their relevance to current thinking about development, morality, and social justice. The session will extend to 6:30 P.M. so that everyone can gather after the final sessions of the day to reflect on the organizing themes and presentations that framed this year's meeting. Please join us at 6:00 P.M. in Salon C for wine, conversation, and farewells.
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