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Publications (68)
The purpose of the present study was to examine links between thinking about criminal behavior and committing criminal behavior This research investigated youth offenders’ participation in aggravated and simple assault and whether their involvement was associated with different aspects of social thinking (i.e., egocentric and victim blaming biases,...
In this study, we tested a theoretical model with moral disengagement, a mediator, and generalized social trust (GST), a mediator and a moderator of the relationship between personality traits and rule-respecting behaviors (i.e., social distancing and stay-at-home), during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak in Italy. The data were col...
Much of the existing literature on intergroup attitudes in preschool does not look at the intersections of race and gender. Integrating key developmental and social theories, the current study asked 58 diverse preschoolers (31 white, 27 non-white) to make decisions about other children when given only racial and gender information. The preschoolers...
Task cohesion (i.e., perception of team unity towards a task goal and positive feelings towards one's own involvement) is associated with myriad psychosocial benefits for youth athletes. Accordingly, sport researchers and youth sport stakeholders are interested in ways of fostering task cohesion. Recent work has found evidence that prosocial and an...
In this commentary, major contributions of the conceptualization of positive orientation as a measure of a personal disposition to optimistically evaluate oneself, one's past, and one's future experiences, promoting growth and commitment to life (Caprara, Alessandri, & Caprara, 2018), were presented. The evidence includes psychometric properties de...
When studying longitudinal phenomena, the notions of traits and states can be a useful classification. Specifically, traits represent basic human characteristics that have a permanency or enduring property, while on the other hand, states are environmental or ephemeral that are more time specific. Admittedly, research often focuses on traits and th...
This research examined similarities and differences in gender regarding social aggression, criminal assault, depression, and familial factors. The participants were 251 youth offenders (158 males) who were arrested and incarcerated in a juvenile facility. The measures consisted of self-reported acts of social aggression, simple and aggravated assau...
Several theories of aggression agree that aggression may be a part of a decision-making process, influenced by current internal states and environmental influences. With more than one-quarter of preschool-age children living in single-parent households, we sought to understand how these children might differ from their peers regarding specific subt...
The primary goal of the current study was to examine cultural differences in Chinese and U.S. adolescents’ and parents’ perceptions and evaluations of adolescent misconduct behaviors. A total of 395 U.S. and Chinese adolescents (ages 11-19 years) and 255 parents participated in this study. Each participant generated adolescent misconduct behaviors...
The participants included 251 (158 males; 93 females) youth offenders who were arrested and incarcerated in a juvenile facility in the Midwest United States. The aims were to assess (a) how often they were a victim, a witness, and/or a perpetrator of social aggression, simple assault, and aggravated assault during the past year; (b) to examine whet...
Previous research has examined at what age and in what contexts males and females develop gender-congruent stereotypes. Research indicates that social experience may provide a great influence on the presence of such stereotypes, but this is likely influenced by the development of gender schemas. The current study interviewed 99 children (3–6.5 year...
The purpose of the study was to examine preschoolers' aggression expression and concurrent Theory of Mind development. Children completed two standard ToM False-Belief tasks; teacher report was used to assess four types of aggression: Reactive-Physical, Proactive-Physical, Reactive-Relational, Proactive-Relational. More developed ToM ability indepe...
Both peer relations problems and moral disengagement – the set of social-cognitive processes by which the moral content of an antisocial act is altered or removed so that the act may be more easily performed – have been repeatedly demonstrated to have a considerable impact on social development. Despite the fact that each has been found to be a rel...
This study examines the role of moral disengagement in fostering engagement in aggression and violence through adolescence to young adulthood in accordance with a design in which the study of individual differences and of their relations is instrumental to address underlying intraindividual structures and process conducive to detrimental conduct. P...
This paper examined empirically the value of a conceptual model in which emotional stability and agreeableness contribute to engagement in aggression and violence (EAV) indirectly through irritability, hostile rumination and moral disengagement. Three hundred and forty young adults (130 male and 190 female) participated in the study. The average ag...
Participants (138 children; 7–12 years of age) rated how often nice and not nice behaviors occurred when (a) participants (boys/girls) were the actor and peers (males/females) were the target and (b) when participants were the target of peers’ actions in a school setting. Children indicated they were nicer to their same-gender peers than to their o...
The existence of free will has been both an enduring presumption of Western culture and a subject for debate across disciplines for millennia. However, little empirical evidence exists to support the almost unquestioned assumption that, in general, Westerners endorse the existence of free will. The few studies that measure belief in free will have...
Adolescents, 12 to 18 years (N = 962), were asked how often they worried about, heard about, witnessed, were victimized by, and committed aggression at or near their schools. Social, moderate physical, and violent aggression were assessed. Females heard, worried, and witnessed more social aggression than males, but both were victims and/or perpetra...
The present study assessed children's evaluations of hypothetical peer provocation. Participants (N = 75, ages 8–11) were presented with hypothetical vignettes depicting relationally aggressive, physically aggressive and prosocial peers engaging in provocative behaviours directed at the participant, including (a) relational (not receiving a party i...
This study investigated the development of prosocial thinking in children. The participants were 83 children (7–12 years of age) who responded to questions concerning helping, sharing, cooperating, and comforting. Specifically, for each of the prosocial behaviours studied, participants were asked: (1) whether they would respond in a prosocial manne...
We examined early adolescents’ reasoning about relational aggression, and the links that their reasoning has to their own
relationally aggressive behavior. Thinking about relational aggression was compared to thinking about physical aggression,
conventional violations, and personal behavior. In individual interviews, adolescents (N=103) rated the a...
Aim: To assess college students’ attributions for abstinence from alcohol and illicit drugs. Method: We recruited 125 undergraduates to rate the degree to which each of 41 listed reasons influenced their abstention from six specific substances (alcohol, MDMA/ecstasy, inhalants, cocaine, marijuana, and hallucinogens). Findings: Internal consistency...
Children’s social interactions are often dependent upon the setting or context in which they occur. The current study explored
the school bus as a unique context for social interaction. One hundred and fifty-seven elementary school students (78 males
and 79 females), in grades 3, 4, and 5, completed a questionnaire concerning the rate and types of...
The current study investigated gender differences in the personal hero choices, hero attributions, and characteristics attributed
to “typical” male and female heroes of children living in the Midwestern United States (N = 103; mean age = 10years). Questionnaires were completed in a school setting. The majority of girls chose heroes personally
known...
The present study investigated 42 preschool children's ideas of what constitute “nice” behaviors on the part of their male and female peers, both at home and at school. Children were individually interviewed and asked to describe nice behaviors same-age peers do for others. A total of 285 distinct social behaviors were generated by the children and...
The purpose of the present research is to compare early adolescents’ beliefs about parental and friend jurisdiction over relational aggression to their beliefs about parental and friend jurisdiction over physical aggression and personal behaviors. One hundred three adolescents (Xı age = 12 years, 11 months; SD = 12.46 months) are individually inter...
Forty-five foster youth (9–13 year old and 14–17 year olds) were asked to evaluate moral, conventional, and personal rules and violations by providing judgments and reasons. The results suggest that foster youths' judgments distinguished between the moral, conventional, and personal domains. However, in providing reasons to support their judgments...
Elementary school students (N = 139) read vignettes describing aggressive peers and rated the extent to which they believed the peers' aggression would continue over time and in different contexts. Children also rated their social and moral acceptance of aggression, and how difficult it would be to help the vignette characters desist from aggressio...
Adolescents' (N = 292) relational aggression and outcome expectancies for relational aggression in three different relationship contexts (acquaintanceship, friendship, and dating) were assessed. With respect to each type of relationship, adolescents were questioned about the emotional and dyadic consequences of relational aggression, and about whet...
Research in aggressive behavior development has distinguished between proactive (i.e., intended to achieve an instrumental goal) and reactive (i.e., emitted as an emotional response to provocation) subtypes of aggression. A similar distinction has not been made with regard to prosocial behavior. In this study, subtypes of both aggressive and prosoc...
This study examined causal attributions about aggression made by 362 participants from three age groups: early (138 7th and 8th graders), middle (121 11th and 12th graders), and late (103 college students through age 22) adolescence. Participants read a brief vignette describing a peer who displayed either proactive (non-emotional, instrumental) or...
The present study examines children's thinking about common classroom punishments. Participants (45 third- and fifth-grade students) were asked questions pertaining to the frequency and effectiveness of teacher-executed punishments for two types of classroom misbehaviours. One misbehaviour was a moral infraction (stealing), and the other misbehavio...
The current study utilized a structural equations approach in developing an instrument to investigate adolescents’ (N = 510; 9th–12th graders) judgments about the likelihood that they would actively respond to a witnessed aggressive situation. Two aggressive subscales were developed: physical and verbal. The instrument controlled for the relationsh...
The present study examines preschoolers' judgments about responses to hypothetical aggressive provocation. Ninety-nine preschool children were read two stories, one depicting an overt provocation and the other depicting a relational provocation. Following each story, children were interviewed to assess their normative (what a peer would do) and pre...
This research assessed young children's perceptions about what misconduct behaviors peers are likely to commit across two contexts, the school and the grocery store. In addition, participants heard one of two versions in which the protagonist was either a boy or a girl. The participants were 70 preschool children (40 males and 30 females) and range...
The constancy or change of an attribute is important to most substantive areas of psychology. During the past decade, 2 independent methodological schools have developed statistical models for the depiction of longitudinal research. One, which might be called the European school, has created latent state-trait models. Alternatively, the American sc...
The constancy or change of an attribute is important to most substantive areas of psychology. During the past decade, 2 independent methodological schools have developed statistical models for the depiction of longitudinal research. One, which might be called the European school, has created latent state–trait models. Alternatively, the American sc...
Samples of 95 preschoolers, first graders, and third graders responded to questions whereby one authority (mother or teacher) permitted an act (moral or conventional) to occur across contexts (home and school) and the other authority prohibited the act from occurring across contexts. Participants (a) were asked which authority the child should acqu...
The chief purpose of the current study was to assess whether young children endorse expectancies specific to alcohol.
In order to accomplish this aim, a 2 (gender of child) by 2 (gender of adult drinker) by 2 (grade level) by 2 (beverage type) repeated measure design was employed with beverage type as the repeated measure.
Data were collected withi...
The goal of the current study was to determine whether aggressive and conventional rule-violating behaviors could be predicted by social-cognitive beliefs and values regarding aggression and conventional rule violations. The extent to which adolescents (N = 398; grades 9 through 12) engaged in both aggressive behavior and conventional school rule v...
The goal of the current study was to determine whether aggressive and conventional rule‐violating behaviors could be predicted by social‐cognitive beliefs and values regarding aggression and conventional rule violations. The extent to which adolescents (N = 398; grades 9 through 12) engaged in both aggressive behavior and conventional school rule v...
The purpose of the current research was to investigate adolescent offenders' perspectives about responses to interpersonal aggressive encounters. Specifically, participants' perspectives were assessed regarding the role of a bystander when either a friend or an acquaintance of the bystander was the victim of an aggressive act. Two aggressive acts w...
The purpose of the current research was to investigate adolescent offenders' perspectives about responses to interpersonal aggressive encounters. Specifically, participants' perspectives were assessed regarding the role of a bystander when either a friend or an acquaintance of the bystander was the victim of an aggressive act. Two aggressive acts w...
The purpose of the current research was to investigate early adolescents' thinking about peer behaviors when associates engage in acts of aggression. The participants (n=195), 4th, 6th, and 8th graders, received two sets of questions. One set pertained to evaluations of bystanders' expected and prescribed behavioral responses when the relationship...
The concepts of reliability and validity and their associated coefficients typically have been restricted to a single measurement occasion. This paper describes dynamic generalizations of reliability and validity that will incorporate longitudinal or developmental models, using latent curve analysis. Initially a latent curve model is formulated to...
This research examined early adolescents' social cognitions about the role a peer plays as a bystander when an aggressor is either a sibling or a friend. One-hundred eleven subjects from 4th, 6th, and 8th grades were posed questions about whether a bystander of an aggressive act would intervene and, if yes, how; whether it would be wrong not to int...
Preschool children's social interactions with teachers and peers were observed in the context of moral and prudential events. Twenty groups of children were observed during free play for a total of 164 hours (8 hours per each group). Four types of moral transgressions were observed: physical harm, psychological harm, property loss, and property dam...
This research examined children's reasoning about expected (i.e., what a peer would do) and prescribed (i.e., what a peer should do) responses to unprovoked, intentional aggressive actions in two contexts: as a victim of such a transgression and as a witness to the incident. Physical harm and property damage items were used in a structured intervie...
This study investigated adolescent offenders' (81 felons and 83 misdemeanants) evaluations of three types of societal rules (moral, conventional, and personal) on dimensions pertaining to importance, sanctions, authority, and individual choice. In addition, participants selected the acts which should be under personal jurisdiction. Participants pro...
This study investigated adolescent offenders' (81 felons and 83 misdemeanants) evaluations of three types of societal rules (moral, conventional, and personal) on dimensions pertaining to importance, sanctions, authority, and individual choice. In addition, participants selected the acts which should be under personal jurisdiction. Participants pro...
The purpose of the current study was to examine children's reasoning about mixed-domain events containing both conventional and moral Components (i.e., violating a conventional rule and negatively affecting others). The participants were preschoolers, first graders, and third graders (N = 100). Children evaluated (a) the legitimacy of an authority...
The current study was designed to determine whether children's ability to distinguish moral rules from conventional school-based rules, and conventional home- based rules was affected by the amount of experience they had in day-care. Preschoolers (N = 42), ranging in age from 35 to 61 months, were interviewed about: (1) the legitimacy of authority...
Two studies were conducted on adolescents' reasoning about authority and friendship relations within the context of drug usage. One hundred and forty-five subjects were individually interviewed about questions pertaining to (a) the rights of parents to prohibit a friendship, (b) one's obligation to follow parental rules, (c) peers' active response...
Conducted 3 studies of preschoolers' judgments of moral and personal rules when the content and consequences were controlled. 122 children (aged 36–72 mo) were interviewed about punishment, importance, and authority. They considered moral transgressions to be more wrong than personal rule violations, and thought that moral rule violators deserved p...
Children's social reasoning is multifaceted. Moral judgments of justice, welfare, and rights are an important aspect of domains of social reasoning that are not merely the arbitrary and relative products of social formations. In defining all social formations as conventions that are either reified or accurately perceived as arbitrary and relative h...
The purpose of this research was to investigate longitudinally preschool children's conceptions of badness. Forty children from the Block and Block study of personality and cognitive development were interviewed at ages 3, 4, and 5 years. When asked to generate things children do that are "bad," preschoolers predominately generated events entailing...
We examined children's conceptions about moral and conventional transgressions that differed on quantitative dimensions. Sixty-one children in Grades 1, 2, and 5 were administered an interview to assess how variation in seriousness of transgressions influenced their reasoning about moral and conventional events on the dimensions of importance and c...
We examined children's conceptions about moral and conventional transgressions that differed on quantitative dimensions. Sixty-one children in Grades 1, 2, and 5 were administered an interview to assess how variation in seriousness of transgressions influenced their reasoning about moral and conventional events on the dimensions of importance and c...
Children's conceptions of parental authority were examined. 120 children (ages 6, 8, and 10 years) were administered an interview to assess the boundaries of parental authority. Subjects were asked to make evaluations about events pertaining to the restraint of behavior and events pertaining to the enforcement or maintenance of parental rule system...
Examined whether children differentiate between the social-interactional, moral aspects of harm and the nonsocial, prudential aspects of harm. 90 Ss (aged 6, 8, and 10 yrs) were administered an interview about 2 moral rules (pertaining to hitting and theft) and 1 prudential rule. Three types of assessment were obtained: criterion judgments (evaluat...
Previous research has failed to identify an empirically coherent domain of social intelligence despite widespread intuitions among both laypersons and experts that social and academic abilities are at least partly distinct phenomena. The present study resolved this discrepancy between formal and informal observations by employing a behavioral effec...
