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Developmental Theories for the 1990s: Development and Individual Differences

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Abstract

Understanding both typical human development and individual differences within the same theoretical framework has been difficult because the 2 orientations arise from different philosophical traditions. It is argued that an evolutionary perspective can unite the study of both species-typical development and individual variation. Research on determinants of development from many perspectives can be understood within an evolutionary framework in which organism and environment combine to produce development. Species-normal genes and environments and individual variations in genes and environments both affect personality, social, and intellectual development. These domains are used as examples to integrate theories of normal development and individual differences. Within the usual samples of European, North American, and developed Asian countries, the results of family and twin studies show that environments within the normal species range are crucial to normal development. Given a wide range of environmental opportunities and emotional supports, however, most children in these societies grow up to be individually different based on their individual genotypes. Understanding the ways in which genes and environments work together helps developmentalists to identify children in need of intervention and to tailor interventions to their particular needs.

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... Beforehand, experimental psychologists would typically disregard individual differences or view them as a nuisance that hindered the understanding of the fundamental principles of learning (Shuell, 1986), leading to tensions with differential psychologists (e.g., Weinert et al., 1989). The compatibility of the theoretical orientation of differential psychology with developmental psychology was likewise questioned (Fischer & Silvern, 1985;Scarr, 1992). To investigate both typical human development and individual variation in developmental psychology, new theoretical frameworks were introduced in the 1990s and the 2000s, namely, the evolutionary approach (Geary & Bjorklund, 2000;Tooby & Cosmides, 1990;1992;Scarr, 1992) and the bioecological approach (Bronfenbenner, 2005). ...
... The compatibility of the theoretical orientation of differential psychology with developmental psychology was likewise questioned (Fischer & Silvern, 1985;Scarr, 1992). To investigate both typical human development and individual variation in developmental psychology, new theoretical frameworks were introduced in the 1990s and the 2000s, namely, the evolutionary approach (Geary & Bjorklund, 2000;Tooby & Cosmides, 1990;1992;Scarr, 1992) and the bioecological approach (Bronfenbenner, 2005). The evolutionary approach focused on the biological and the cultural influences on learning, showing how instruction may modify primary abilities such as speaking into secondary academic competencies such as reading (Geary & Xu, 2022), and investigating the link between uncertainty and procrastination (e.g., Chen & Chang, 2016). ...
... The compatibility of the theoretical orientation of differential psychology with developmental psychology was likewise questioned (Fischer & Silvern, 1985;Scarr, 1992). To investigate both typical human development and individual variation in developmental psychology, new theoretical frameworks were introduced in the 1990s and the 2000s, namely, the evolutionary approach (Geary & Bjorklund, 2000;Tooby & Cosmides, 1990;1992;Scarr, 1992) and the bioecological approach (Bronfenbenner, 2005). The evolutionary approach focused on the biological and the cultural influences on learning, showing how instruction may modify primary abilities such as speaking into secondary academic competencies such as reading (Geary & Xu, 2022), and investigating the link between uncertainty and procrastination (e.g., Chen & Chang, 2016). ...
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Over two centuries, research has delved into individual differences in learning across educational and professional contexts. This commentary conducts a bibliometric analysis of 6556 articles, identifying key research keywords, topics and themes, and their historical evolution. The findings revealed a longstanding emphasis on educational psychology, particularly motivation and achievement, rather than cross-curricular competencies and learner’s well-being and socio-economic background. Notably, self-regulated learning (SRL) emerged as an overarching research subject in terms of motivation and achievement, but, surprisingly, not (meta)cognition. Prospects for the field build on cross-disciplinary research, theoretical refinement, and methodological advances. Further, the field is expected to maintain academic rigor, address diversity among learners, foster global collaboration, and focus on underprivileged populations.
... Esto da lugar a un intenso debate, en parte, porque sus consecuencias sociopolíticas son de amplio alcance. Así, los teóricos que sostienen la hipótesis genética conceden poca importancia a los programas educativos destinados a grupos sociales desfavorecidos (Herrnstein y Murray, 1994¸ Jensen, 1998 mientras que lo contrario ocurre con quienes consideran que las características intelectuales heredadas pueden mejorarse con ellos (Angoff, 1988) o con los que señalan que las diferencias en la inteligencia son debidas a razones ambientales (Flynn, 1994;Okagaki, 1994) o de interacción ambiente-genética (Bronfenbrenner y Ceci, 1994;Scarr, 1992). A su vez, profusas investigaciones cuestionan la implementación de estos tests en poblaciones vulneradas o poco estimuladas, aduciendo que los mismos han sido diseñados pensando en niños, niñas y adolescentes de clase media y/o alta que habitan entornos familiares-culturales con mayor acceso a la estructura de oportunidades sociales (Elosua Oliden, 2013;Espy, Molfese y DiLalla, 2001;Estefanía y Tarazona, 2003;Kohen, Brooks-Gunn, Leventha, 2002). ...
... Desde hace algunas décadas viene constatándose un efecto sistemático del nivel socioeconómico sobre el rendimiento de los tests de inteligencia (Flanagan y Kaufman, 2009;Fletcher-Janzen, 2010). Las explicaciones incluyen hipótesis genéticas (Herrnstein y Murray, 1994;Jensen, 1969), de interacción genéticaambiente (Bronfenbrenner y Ceci, 1994;Scarr, 1992) o ambientales (Hanscombe, et al., 2012;Seifer, 2001). En Gran Bretaña (Hanscombe, et al., 2012) se evaluó la inteligencia de 8716 pares de gemelos en diversas edades desde los 2 hasta los 14 años con el objetivo de analizar estas tres hipótesis alternativas para la explicación de la relación entre el NSE y la inteligencia. ...
... Esto es, que existe una covariación comprobable entre los componentes genéticos y los del entorno (Hannigan, et al., 2016;Kendler, et al., 2011;Plomin, DeFries y Loehlin, 1977;Rutter, 2007). Esto dio lugar a dos modelos: el bioecológico (Bronfenbrenner y Ceci, 1994) y el de las desventajas ambientales (Scarr, 1992). No obstante, la evidencia no es concluyente. ...
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En este trabajo se presentan aportes para la evaluación psicométrica y psicodinámica del rendimiento cognitivo de niños, niñas y adolescentes atendiendo a las múltiples mixturas nacidas del interjuego entre los desarrollos teóricosmetodológicos y la práctica de procesos diagnósticos que incluyen las evaluaciones psicométricas. El paradigma percentilar continúa guiando parcializaciones diagnósticas. Prueba de ello es la evidencia científica acerca de diferencias en el desempeño de los niños, niñas y adolescentes en los tests de inteligencia según el factores socioeconómicos y educativos. Además de los factores contextuales que involucran el aspecto estructural -acceso a oportunidades sociales y educativasaflora el subjetivo -representaciones mentales de apego y estilos parentales-. En virtud de esto, los objetivos de esta tesis son: 1) evaluar el desempeño de niños, niñas y/o adolescentes a partir de un test de inteligencia (WISC-IV) y constatar diferencias según variables contextuales y vinculares y 2) delinear un análisis normativo a partir de nuevos índices del WISC-IV.
... This is not new, of course, and behavioral scientists have been thinking carefully about the issue for decades [10]. Though she was not contemplating our specific subject per se, Scarr's ( [27]; see also [28]) writings about this concern are instructive. Characterizing this problem of selection bias as geneenvironment correlations (rGEs), she proposed a general framework intended to describe the ways in which humans across all ages play at least some role in shaping their own environments. ...
... Scarr was concerned with better describing how and why certain environmental experiences-be they positive or deleterious-collide with some individuals and not others. rGEs can manifest in three varieties: passive, evocative, and active [27,28]. ...
... Passive rGEs capture situations in which biological parents-each of whom provide half of their genetic material to a child-are also involved in shaping their child's suite of experiences. A classic example involves active parents filling a child's environment with athletic commitments [27]. Because physical abilities are partly heritable, the child's environment acts to reinforce traits impacted by genetic overlap shared with parents [29,30]. ...
Article
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Average life expectancies have lengthened across human history. As a result, there is an increased need to care for a greater number of individuals experiencing common age-related declines in health. This has helped to spur a rapidly increasing focus on understanding “health span”, the portion of the life-course spent functionally healthy. Yet to penetrate the science of health span, however, is a topic which seems fundamental to the ability to age in functional and healthy ways, and has received considerable attention in other fields . As more of the population ages, the risk of exposure to abuse and neglect among older citizens not only rises, but can manifest as both cause and effect of declining health span. Among our goals here is to make a case for including this subject among the other central components of health span science. In so doing, we also outline reasons why quantitative genetic designs using samples of twins can be a versatile tool for improving causal inference when studying maltreatment among older persons specifically, but also on a range of other health span topics in general.
... By this explanation, those with genes well suited to a task can better nurture their skills in a wealthier environment than in a poorer environment. That is, initially small differences in genetic potential become gradually amplified over time due to the iterative matching of environments to abilities: an increase in expressed ability brings forth new environmental conditions that enable further growth along that dimension (Bronfenbrenner & Ceci, 1994b;Dickens & Flynn, 2001;Scarr, 1992). Such processes can increase genetic heritability, but through reciprocal shaping between genetic potential and environment, rather than through innately specified ability levels. ...
... In some studies, the interaction is apparently due to an increase in variance explained by the shared environment (the C component of the ACE model) in lower-SES households compared to higher-SES households (e.g., Hanscombe et al. 2012;Kremen et al. 2005), while other studies suggest that it is instead due to a decrease in variance explained additively by genes (the A component of the ACE model) (e.g., Bates, Lewis, and Weiss 2013; Kirkpatrick, McGue, and Iacono 2015). The shared environment explanation is more consistent with cultural dynamics, although reality may be more complicated with other processes such as reciprocal causation (Bronfenbrenner & Ceci, 1994b;Dickens & Flynn, 2001;Scarr, 1992) contributing to the same effect through other pathways, such as via moderation of the additive genetic component. Moreover, we would predict that this environmental variance would be reduced if cultural opportunities and transmission networks among low-SES households became more broadly connected, supporting greater cultural homogeneity. ...
... Sauce et al. (2018) found that mice reared in an enriched environment exhibited lower heritability of a rodent analog of general intelligence (for standard rodent learning tasks such as odor discrimination and navigation) than did mice reared in a control environment, with a heritability of 0.15 in the enriched group versus 0.55 in the controls. The directionality of this difference is opposite of what we have described above for the human literature, and the opposite of what the reciprocal causation explanation would suggest (Bronfenbrenner & Ceci, 1994b;Dickens & Flynn, 2001;Scarr, 1992). If we assume that this type of environmental enrichment paradigm can be mapped onto differences between highand low-SES environments in humans, as has been argued (Hackman et al., 2010;Rosenzweig & Bennett, 1996), the reported discrepancy between rodent and human studies might appear surprising. ...
Thesis
This thesis presents a framework for understanding how the organisation of the human mind and its psychobiological basis are produced through the mechanisms of cultural evolution. It foregrounds three characteristics of the human mind: its cross-cultural variation, its responsiveness to environmental inputs, and its collective construction. Each of these characteristics has been studied on its own, but cultural evolution serves as an integrative theoretical framework for understanding how they relate to each other. A key insight is how the developmental environment is shaped extensively by cumulative cultural evolution, allowing culture and nervous system to be meshed in a functionally productive and highly evolvable coupling. Classical conceptions of nature and nurture are insufficient for capturing this dynamic, and instead reinforce conceptual and methodological barriers that obscure the effect of culture. This thesis articulates a theoretical interface that allows a number of insights derived from cultural evolutionary theory to be productively employed within the psychological sciences—fields such as psychology, behavioural biology, behavioural genetics, developmental science, and cognitive neuroscience. Chapter 1 briefly introduces the subsequent chapters, and Chapter 2 charts the overall theoretical framework of the thesis. Chapter 3 attempts a theoretical integration of cultural evolution and behavioural genetics in particular, offering new insights about the interpretation of genetic effects like heritability. Chapter 4 is an empirical test of a prediction given in the prior chapter, and demonstrates how cultural variance influences heritability across countries. Chapter 5 shows cross-cultural variation in the structure of internal representations using factor analysis and a questionnaire, and provides preliminary evidence that writing systems shape mental organisation. Chapter 6 proposes a theoretical integration between cultural evolution and neuroscience. Taken together, these studies give substance to a novel theoretical framework for the psychological sciences that elucidates the rich coordination of mind, biology, the developmental environment, and cultural dynamics.
... The concept of youth development pertains to a structured framework of activities designed to facilitate the holistic developmental process in young individuals (Hamilton et al., 2004). The theoretical debates that unfolded in the 1990s concerning youth development were characterized by a division between the influences of inherent characteristics (nature) and environmental factors (nurture) on development (Benson et al., 2007;Scarr, 1992). Contrary to this binary, developmental scholars contended that development results from the interplay between an individual's inherent traits and their environmental context (Scarr, 1992). ...
... The theoretical debates that unfolded in the 1990s concerning youth development were characterized by a division between the influences of inherent characteristics (nature) and environmental factors (nurture) on development (Benson et al., 2007;Scarr, 1992). Contrary to this binary, developmental scholars contended that development results from the interplay between an individual's inherent traits and their environmental context (Scarr, 1992). ...
Article
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Background Historical trauma and cultural loss resulting from colonialism have contributed to educational and health disparities among Pacific youth. Recognizing the protective factors is essential for mitigating disparities and enhancing the overall well-being of these youth. Objective This review provides evidence about the current state of youth development among Pacific youth. Methods We conducted a systematic review of the literature published between 2010 and 2020, including the fields of education, social, psychological, and medical sciences. We employed qualitative data analysis of 35 peer-reviewed studies. Results The majority (69%) of the studies focused on program interventions among 10–19-year-old youth at-risk primarily in New Zealand among Māori (51%) and in the U.S. among Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders (46%). Health interventions were common in Hawai‘i, while the New Zealand studies focused more on measuring youth resilience. Among the three outcomes identified, health/well-being was the most studied area, followed by social-emotional, and cognitive development. The outcomes suggest mainly positive effects on health and well-being, socio-emotional, and cognitive development related to Pacific youth. Conclusions While the last decade has seen a growth of culturally anchored programs, more research is needed to account for wider social, economic, and political dynamics that impact youth development, which was largely unaccounted for in the extant studies. There is a need for broader developmental frameworks that would, first, align with the context and culture of the youth’s community, and second, expand our horizon of the developmental patterns as they occur in diverse sociocultural contexts.
... Children's genetically influenced behaviors (e.g., personality and temperament) may elicit different responses in the form of treatment and opportunities, a concept known as reactive genotype-environment correlation . The bidirectional influence of parent and child characteristics on their evolving relationship has been widely acknowledged (Scarr, 1992;Thomas & Chess, 1986). In contrast, variation in reproductive potential among siblings as differentially influencing parent-child relations and rearing practices has received less attention. ...
... Attention to the genetic and evolutionary underpinnings of behavior continues to flourish in the psychological community (Charlesworth, 1992;Scarr, 1992), but questions of mechanisms and development remain primary concerns (Plomin, 1988;Sternberg, 1987). The potential compatibility between an evolutionary perspective and more traditional approaches to human development has been critically examined by Smith (1987). ...
Article
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Twin, sibling, and adoption studies have long been used by behavioral geneticists to identify genetic and environmental influences underlying human behavioral and physical variation. The full potential of these methodologies for unraveling the blend of biological, cultural, and experiential factors affecting human development has been insufficiently appreciated. The application of twin, sibling, and adoption designs for examining hypotheses generated by evolutionary theory is described. Potential contributions from a closer association between these disciplines are underlined.
... This enterprise assumes a universal form of language that most people have to ask how this ideal form of language works. This nomothetic goal treats individual differences as error variance that, as Scarr (1992) noted, derives from what Ernst Mayr called the typological (Platonic) approach in biology, that "abstract[s] typical patterns and ignore variations" (p. 1). ...
... This paradigmatic division is as old as psychology: Cronbach (1957) noted that at the time, research methods in psychology either employed experimental or correlational methods and that the problems and knowledge addressed by these paradigms were quite distinct. He argued for a need to merge these methods (Scarr, 1992); yet even now, these disciplines remain separate. Applied psycholinguistics has attempted to bridge this, using the tools of psychometrics alongside experimental work on mechanism. ...
Article
Classic psycholinguistics seeks universal language mechanisms for all people, emphasizing the “modal” listener: hearing, neurotypical, monolingual, and young adults. Applied psycholinguistics then characterizes differences in terms of their deviation from the modal. This mirrors naturalist philosophies of health which presume a normal function, with illness as a deviation. In contrast, normative positions argue that illness is partially culturally derived. It occurs when a person cannot meet socio-culturally defined goals, separating differences in biology (disease) from socio-cultural function (illness). We synthesize this with mechanistic functionalist views in which language emerges from diverse lower-level mechanisms with no one-to-one mapping to function (termed the functional mechanistic normative approach). This challenges primarily psychometric approaches—which are culturally defined—suggesting a process-based approach may yield more insight. We illustrate this with work on word recognition across multiple domains: cochlear implant users, children, language disorders, L2 learners, and aging. This work investigates each group’s solutions to the problem of word recognition as interesting in its own right. Variation in the process is value-neutral, and psychometric measures complement this, reflecting fit with cultural expectations (disease vs. illness). By examining variation in processing across people with a variety of skills and goals, we arrive at deeper insight into fundamental principles.
... P-E fit does not only appear to some degree in person(ality) × environment interactions or result from directional person(ality)  environment effects (Scarr, 1992), it can also emerge from dynamic bidirectional transactions between persons' dispositional traits and environments over time, generating or increasing the nonrandom (i.e., positive and negative) associations between persons and environments (Fraley & Roberts, 2005). The associated process can be seen as P-E fitting. ...
... avoidance), evocation, modulation, and creation (Rauthmann, 2021), may serve as (self-)regulatory functions. They do not only lead to non-random associations between specific traits or profiles of traits and certain characteristics of the environment, but can also act as driving forces of personality development (Scarr, 1992). Selected, evoked, or modified environments could act to stabilize and reinforce the dispositions that have led people to those environments in the first place (Caspi, Shiner, & Moffitt, 2005;Scarr & McCartney, 1983). ...
Article
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Based on a perspective on personality coherence as the extent to which personality-relevant characteristics are differentiated and integrated within a person in his or her environment, we propose a synthesis that builds on and harmonizes existing and partly conflicting theories, methodological approaches, and empirical findings. This understanding of personality coherence needs clear definitions of person and environment characteristics. We define traits as characteristics of the person, adaptations as characteristics of the person-in-contexts, and states as characteristics of the person-in-situations. Thus, our synthesis involves concepts of environments and person-environment units. Next, we provide testable criteria to differentiate characteristics of persons from characteristics of person-environment units and to identify dispositional traits for a narrow-sense perspective on personality coherence. We raise awareness of the importance of fit between (profiles of) person and environment characteristics for an understanding of the integrated uniqueness of persons in their environments. We outline implications of this broader perspective on personality coherence for personality development, self-regulation, social integration, well-being, and psychological interventions. Lastly, we conclude that the analysis of an individual’s uniqueness and personality differences requires information about how well-defined, well-differentiated, well-integrated, and well-operationalized person(ality) variables are actually expressed in, or interact and transact with, the individual environment.
... P-E fit does not only appear to some degree in person(ality) × environment interactions or result from directional person(ality)  environment effects (Scarr, 1992), it can also emerge from dynamic bidirectional transactions between persons' dispositional traits and environments over time, generating or increasing the nonrandom (i.e., positive and negative) associations between persons and environments (Fraley & Roberts, 2005). The associated process can be seen as P-E fitting. ...
... avoidance), evocation, modulation, and creation (Rauthmann, 2021), may serve as (self-)regulatory functions. They do not only lead to non-random associations between specific traits or profiles of traits and certain characteristics of the environment, but can also act as driving forces of personality development (Scarr, 1992). Selected, evoked, or modified environments could act to stabilize and reinforce the dispositions that have led people to those environments in the first place (Caspi, Shiner, & Moffitt, 2005;Scarr & McCartney, 1983). ...
Preprint
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Based on a perspective on personality coherence as the extent to which personality-relevant characteristics are differentiated and integrated within a person in his or her environment, we propose a synthesis that builds on and harmonizes existing and partly conflicting theories, methodological approaches, and empirical findings. This understanding of personality coherence needs clear definitions of person and environment characteristics. We define traits as characteristics of the person, adaptations as characteristics of the person-in-contexts, and states as characteristics of the person-in-situations. Thus, our synthesis involves concepts of environments and person-environment units. Next, we provide testable criteria to differentiate characteristics of persons from characteristics of person-environment units and to identify dispositional traits for a narrow-sense perspective on personality coherence. We raise awareness of the importance of fit between (profiles of) person and environment characteristics for an understanding of the integrated uniqueness of persons in their environments. We outline implications of this broader perspective on personality coherence for personality development, self-regulation, social integration, well-being, and psychological interventions. Lastly, we conclude that the analysis of an individual’s uniqueness and personality differences requires information about how well-defined, well-differentiated, well-integrated, and well-operationalized person(ality) variables are actually expressed in, or interact and transact with, the individual environment.
... This finding sparked widespread debate and marked the formal exploration of family roles in educational circles. Early discussions regarding the family environment and education predominantly focused on genetics, analyzing the influence of parents on children's development through innate factors, including inherited cognitive abilities [49]. Subsequent research increasingly emphasized the nurturing role of the factors acquired by parents. ...
Article
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The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the integration of online learning into primary and secondary education. However, gaps persist in academic research, particularly in understanding its impact on educational equity within the third-type digital divide. This study conducted an equity-focused review to assess online learning’s impact on primary and secondary education within this context. It developed a theoretical framework integrating elements from schooling and home environments to explore equity implications in online learning. Building on this, the study proposed and validated a conceptual model using structural equation modeling (SEM), analyzing data from 1236 students in Shenzhen, China. The study found that both school investment and family involvement indirectly influence students’ online learning outcomes through complete mediating effects on students’ online learning engagement. Family investment slightly outweighs school education in its influence on outcomes. Consequently, online education within the environmental divide potentially hinders educational equity, necessitating caution with large-scale online education initiatives. This study fills research gaps on the digital divide in the third environment, leveraging China’s pandemic experience with online education. It also integrates school education and family input to examine the impact of large-scale online learning and its associated strategies on educational equity, providing insights into the promotion of educational equity.
... When parental education and SES were low, there was a strong relationship between RU2-Short and reading performance. This supports the diathesis-stress model 51,52 , in which the heritability for reading is greater in a high-stress environment where stressors may lead to expression of risk genes. In contrast to the findings of Friend et al. 1,12 , we do not show that the genetic influence on reading disability is higher among children whose parents have a high level of education; this may be because Friend et al. did their studies in monozygotic and dizygotic twins, whereas we studied unrelated children. ...
Article
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Proficient reading requires critical phonological processing skill that interacts with both genetic and environmental factors. However, the precise nature of the relationships between phonological processing and genetic and environmental factors are poorly understood. We analyzed data from the Genes, Reading and Dyslexia (GRaD) Study on 1419 children ages 8–15 years from African-American and Hispanic-American family backgrounds living in North America. The analyses showed that phonological awareness mediated the relationship between DCDC2 -READ1 and reading outcomes when parental education and socioeconomic status was low. The association between READ1 and reading performance is complex, whereby mediation by phonological awareness was significantly moderated by both parental education and socioeconomic status. These results show the importance of home environment and phonological skills when determining associations between READ1 and reading outcomes. This will be an important consideration in the development of genetic screening for risk of reading disability.
... In this sense, understanding the genetic, environmental and cultural contexts of normal development of children and adolescents is relevant [42]. Since this information can help professionals and specialists in the area to identify the 6MWT reference curve that best fits the particular needs of schoolchildren. ...
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Background The assessment of cardiorespiratory fitness is important because it allows the identification of subgroups with poor health status and the targeting of effective intervention strategies to improve health. Objective To compare the cardiorespiratory capacity of children and adolescents living in a moderate altitude region of Peru with international studies and to develop reference values for the 6-min walk test (6MWT) according to age and sex. Methodology A descriptive cross-sectional study of schoolchildren from a region of moderate altitude in Peru was carried out. A total of 704 schoolchildren (400 males and 304 females) with an age range of 6 to 17 years were studied. Weight, standing height, waist circumference (WC), body mass index (BMI) and tri-ponderal mass index (TMI) were evaluated. The 6MWT was assessed in a straight line over a distance of 30 m. Percentiles were created through the LMS method [L (skewness: lambda), M (median: mu) and S (coefficient of variation: Mu)]. Results There were discrepancies in cardiorespiratory fitness performance with international studies by age and sex. The schoolchildren in the study reached stability and the highest number of meters in the last two age ranges (14 to 15 years: 698.1 m and 16 to 17 years 686.3 m in males). While females (14 to 15 years: 698.1 m and 16 to 17 years: 686.3 m). The proposed percentile values show ascending values as age advances. The cut-off points adopted are: low cardiorespiratory fitness < p25, moderate p25 to p75 and high cardiorespiratory fitness p > 75. Conclusion We verified that the cardiorespiratory fitness evaluated by means of the 6MWT is ascending with the course of age. Even the performance with other countries is heterogeneous at early and middle ages, stabilizing during adolescence. The proposed reference values can be used to evaluate and monitor cardiorespiratory fitness during physical education classes.
... The present study "only" tested simple associations between parenting styles and Big Five traits and did not consider potential bidirectional effects. Previous conceptual work as well as empirical evidence provide strong support for considering reciprocal effects between measures of socialization processes and measures of individual differences (Bell & Chapman, 1986;Plomin & Daniels, 1987;Scarr, 1992). Of course, it is also important to note that even such future longitudinal studies would not be able to provide evidence of causality, and in this sense, the present study simply documents correlations between parenting styles and Big Five traits. ...
Article
The present meta-analysis tested the associations between parenting styles and Big Five personality traits; N = 11,061 adolescents in 28 studies were included. The results provided evidence that authoritative parenting style was positively associated with openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, and agreeableness and negatively related to neuroticism. A positive association was also found between authoritarian parenting style and neuroticism. Indifferent or neglectful parenting style was negatively associated with conscientiousness and agreeableness and positively with neuroticism. Several factors moderated the relationships between specific parenting styles and personality traits, including age, ethnicity/racial background, and mode of assessment. The study provides evidence that parenting styles are important correlates of personality traits among adolescents.
... Youth development occurs within a dynamic social environment in which youth influence and are influenced by others. Scarr (1992) argued that "children are active, influential partners in their interactions with the people around them" (2). While youth development in general has attracted researchers for the past several decades (Edwards et al., 2010), less is known regarding the development of minority adolescents residing in remote communities, such as Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders (Minority Health, 2020) who are often susceptible to disparities related to education (Chung-Do et al., 2015;Durand et al., 2016). ...
Article
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In this cross-sectional study, we investigated the multi-level educational intervention among youth in a low-income, remote community in Hawai‘i, United States. The program aided with middle schoolers’ transition into adulthood through youth-adult partnerships, teen mentoring, and community sustainability. Drawing upon social capital framework, we explored participants’ experiences and how the intervention promoted positive developmental outcomes among the youth. We recruited youth from a rural Title I Middle School in Hawai‘i. Nine youth, three teen mentor, and an adult partner participated in 26 virtual club meetings in Spring 2021. This qualitative study consisted of 27 participants who took part in focus groups and observations. Three themes emerged: skill development, youth-adult relationship building, and sense of belonging. These social components encouraged the sharing of knowledge and feelings among participants on horizontal and oblique directions through reciprocity and helped create a social norm of a supportive environment to make youth feel belonging to the group and the local community. Multi-level interventions that draw upon community resources and youth-adult partnerships can benefit at-risk, minority adolescent populations. We identified non-familial role models and a sense of belonging to one’s community as two key protective factors that may lead to positive cognitive changes when youth transition into adulthood.
... Theory suggests that temperament dimensions will not have a direct relationship to tobacco and alcohol use but rather will be related to intermediate factors, such as self-regulation ability or patterns of social relationships, that are relevant for producing exposure to proximal factors for substance use (Moffitt, 1993;Scarr, 1992;Scarr & McCartney, 1983). Good self-control and poor self-control are construed as distinct constructs that are not strongly related (1 H. Block & Block, 1980;Rothbart & Bates, 1998); risk-taking tendency is construed as another intermediate construct that is distinct from poor self-control (Wills, Windle, & Cleary, 1998). ...
Article
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This research tested predictions from a self-regulation model of factors relevant for early onset of tobacco and alcohol use with a community sample of 889 African American children (mean age = 10.5 years). Criterion variables were peer substance use, willingness to use substances, and resistance efficacy (intention to refuse substance offers). Structural modeling indicated effects of temperament dimensions were mediated through self-control and risk-taking constructs, which were related to school involvement, life events, and perceived vulnerability to harmful effects of substances. Peer use was predicted by life events, poor self-control, and parent–child conflict; willingness was predicted by life events, risk taking, and (inversely) parental support; and resistance efficacy was predicted by perceived vulnerability and (inversely) poor self-control. Findings are discussed with reference to theoretical models of early protection and vulnerability processes.
... positing an interplay between heritable characteristics and environmental factors (Scarr, 1992;Tarter, Moss, & Vanyukov, 1995). ...
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Predictions concerning mediating processes for the effects of C. R. Cloninger's (1987a) constructs were tested; criterion variables were substance use level and substance use problems. Participants were 1,225 adolescents (M age: 15.5 years). Structural modeling indicated indirect effects for novelty seeking, harm avoidance, and task reward dependence, mediated through self-control; harm avoidance also had an inverse direct path to substance use level, and social reward dependence had a positive direct path to coping motives for substance use. Good self-control had inverse paths to life events and deviant peer affiliations; poor self-control had positive paths to life events and coping motives; and risk taking had positive paths to coping motives and peer affiliations. Coping motives had a path to level and a direct path to problems; peer affiliations had a path only to substance use level.
... In a recent large study, less sensitive mothers who value work more chose poorer quality child care in the infants' first six months, enrolled their infants in centers at earlier ages for more hours per week, and were more likely to have insecurely attached infants (NICHD Early Child Care Research Network, in press). Of course, variations in parents' interactions with their children and in parents' personality, intelligence, and attitudes determine the characteristics that will be transmitted to children genetically as well as environmentally (Scarr, 1992a;1993). How can these confounds be sorted out? ...
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Child care has 2 purposes: mothers’ employment and children's development. These are conflicting goals, because the first focuses on the quantity and affordability of child care whereas the second favors expensive quality services. Affordable child care fosters maternal employment and gender equality. With welfare reform demanding more child-care places to move mothers from welfare to work, the pressure for larger quantities of child care is great. Demanding regulations raise the quality of care and give more assurance of children's well-being, but they also increase the cost. More expensive regulations price more working parents out of licensed care and force them to use unregulated home care. Widely varying qualities of child care have been shown to have only small effects on children's current development and no demonstrated long-term impact, except on disadvantaged children, whose homes put them at developmental risk. Parents have far greater impact on their children's development through both the genes and environments they provide. Thus, greater quantities of affordable, regulated child care may be possible.
... The similarity of MZA and MZT twins shows, however, that these centripetal influences work nearly as well when the twins are reared as singletons in different families, unaware of each other's existence, as when they are reared in the same family. As Scarr (1992) has pointed out, the family is not the "unit of environmental transmission," because "ordinary differences between families have little effect on children's development, unless the family is outside of the normal developmental range" (p. 16) McCartney, Harris, and Bernieri (1990) have shown that the modest effects of common rearing that are observed for some traits when assessed in childhood or adolescence attenuate toward zero as the youngsters mature and move apart. ...
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The authors administered inventories of vocational and recreational interests and talents to 924 pairs of twins who had been reared together and to 92 pairs separated in infancy and reared apart. Factor analysis of all 291 items yielded 39 identifiable factors and 11 superfactors. The data indicated that about 50% of interests variance (about two thirds of the stable variance) was associated with genetic variation. The authors show that heritability can be conservatively estimated from the within-pair correlations of adult monozygotic twins reared together. Evidence for nonadditive genetic effects on interests may explain why heritability estimates based on family studies are so much lower. The authors propose a model in which precursor traits of aptitude and personality, in part genetically determined, guide the development of interests through the mechanisms of gene–environment correlation and interaction.
... Research in behavioral genetics shows that environments moderate the expression of genetic dispositions (Rowe et al., 1999): in a more enriched environment, the expression of the trait is more stimulated, a mechanism through which the genotype can more strongly influence the expressed phenotype (Bronfenbrenner & Ceci, 1994;Scarr, 1992). Studies demonstrate how the social context can act as a moderator of the expression of genetic predispositions (Baier & Van Winkle, 2021;Heath et al., 1985;Rowe et al., 1999;Scarr-Salapatek, 1971;Shanahan & Hofer, 2005;Turkheimer et al., 2003), supporting the enriched environment hypothesis. ...
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This article uses a behavioral genetics approach to study gender differences in expressed political interest, applying the enriched environment hypothesis to gendered political socialization. As girls are less stimulated to develop an interest in politics than boys, we theorize that these differences in the socialization environment reduce the expression of girls’ genetic predispositions compared to boys’, leading to a gender gap in the heritability of this trait. Analyses using data on German twins (11–25 years) demonstrate relevant differences by gender and age in heritability estimates. While differences in political interest between boys are largely explained by genes, this is less the case for girls, as they have considerably higher shared environment estimates. Our results imply that gender differences in expressed political interest are sustained by both genetic variation and environmental influences (such as socialization), as well as the interaction between the two.
... There are several types of parenting styles that are commonly known in the child development psychology literature (Chao, 1994). Each type of parenting has unique characteristics that can affect a child's development differently (Scarr, 1992). Keep in mind that there is no one right or wrong parenting style, and many parents combine elements of different types of parenting styles in their child's upbringing. ...
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This research explores the relationship between parenting styles and child development in the community context. It delves into the various parenting styles, including authoritarian, democratic, permissive, and others, and examines their distinctive characteristics and effects on children's physical, emotional, social, and cognitive development. The study acknowledges the significance of the family environment in shaping a child's growth and development. It emphasizes that positive parenting practices, such as a balanced and democratic approach, tend to foster a healthy and independent developmental trajectory. However, it also underscores the influence of various factors such as culture, education, personal experiences, and socioeconomic context in determining parenting choices and practices. Furthermore, the research highlights the role of the broader community and the surrounding environment in influencing parenting styles. It discusses how schools, peer groups, and media contribute to the formation of parenting patterns. The practical implications of this research are substantial. The findings can be used to develop parent education programs, psychological support services, and community awareness campaigns aimed at promoting healthy parenting practices. Policymakers can also consider the research outcomes in designing policies that support families in adopting positive parenting approaches. Despite its valuable insights, the study acknowledges certain limitations, including sample constraints and the use of secondary data. Thus, there is room for further in-depth and extensive research in this area. In conclusion, this research significantly contributes to our understanding of parenting styles and their impact on child development in the community. It lays the foundation for efforts to promote healthier parenting practices and better child development in the future
... Given the positive valence structure of resilience and parental nurturance, there are two likely models under which GxE could conceivably operate: bioecological and diathesis-stress (see ). The bioecological model (Burt and Klump 2014;Lewontin 1982;Pennington et al. 2009) adheres to the notion that genetic predispositions are most strongly expressed in "average" or more positive environments (Scarr 1992;Visscher et al. 2008), whereas environmental influences may be amplified in the absence of positive offsets. Under the bioecological GxE model, we would thus expect increases in genetic influences and perhaps decreases in environmental influences on resilience with increasing exposure to parental nurturance (akin to that observed in Turkheimer's seminal SES and IQ paper;Turkeheimer et al., 2003), such that parental nurturance activates genetic influences on resilience. ...
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Parenting behaviors are among the most robust predictors of youth resilience to adversity. Critically, however, very few studies examining these effects have been genetically-informed, and none have considered parenting as an etiologic moderator of resilience. What's more, despite the multidimensionality of resilience, extant etiologic literature has largely focused on a single domain. The current study sought to fill these respective gaps in the literature by examining whether and how parental nurturance shapes the etiology of academic, social, and psychological resilience, respectively. We employed a unique sample of twins (N = 426 pairs; ages 6-11) exposed to moderate-to-severe levels of environmental adversity (i.e., family poverty, neighborhood poverty, community violence) from the Twin Study of Behavioral and Emotional Development in Children. As expected, parental nurturance was positively correlated with all forms of resilience. Extended univariate genotype-by-environment interaction models revealed that parental nurturance significantly moderated genetic influences on all three domains of resilience (academic resilience A1= -0.53, psychological resilience A1= -1.22, social resilience A1= -0.63; all p < .05), such that as parental nurturance increased, genetic influences on youth resilience decreased. Put another way, children experiencing high levels of parental nurturance were more resilient to disadvantage, regardless of their genetic predisposition towards resilience. In the absence of nurturing parenting, however, genetic influences played an outsized role in the origins of resilience. Such findings indicate that parental nurturance may serve as a malleable protective factor that increases youth resilience regardless of genetic influences.
... When parental education and SES were low, there was a strong relationship between RU2-Short and reading performance. This supports the diathesis-stress model 48, 49 , in which the heritability for reading is greater in a high-stress environment where stressors may lead to expression of risk genes. In contrast to the ndings of Friend et al. 1,12 , we do not show that the genetic in uence on RD is higher among children whose parents have a high level of education; this may be because Friend et al. did their studies in monozygotic and dizygotic twins, whereas we genotyped unrelated children. ...
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Proficient reading requires critical phonological processing skill that interact with both genetic and environmental factors. However, the precise nature of the relationships between phonological processing and genetic and environmental factors are poorly understood. We analyzed data from the Genes, Reading and Dyslexia (GRaD) Study on 1,419 children ages 8 to 14 years from African-American and Hispanic-American family backgrounds living in North America. The analyses showed that phonological awareness mediated the relationship between DCDC2 -READ1 and reading outcomes when parental education and socioeconomic status was low. The association between READ1 and reading performance is complex, whereby mediation by phonological awareness was significantly moderated by both parental education and socioeconomic status. These results show the importance of home environment and phonological skills when determining associations between READ1 and reading outcomes. This will be an important consideration in the development of genetic screening for risk of reading disability.
... This then results in, or explains, correlations between a child's genotype and the environments in which they develop. Over time this phenomenon came to be called, in genetic literature, evocative gene-environment correlation and was expanded into a developmental model (Scarr & McCartney, 1983) suggesting that these evocative effects are likely to persist throughout the lifespan (Scarr, 1992). As noted, in this monograph we refer to these correlations more simply as "child effects." ...
Article
The focus on the role of parenting in child development has a long‐standing history. When measures of parenting precede changes in child development, researchers typically infer a causal role of parenting practices and attitudes on child development. However, this research is usually conducted with parents raising their own biological offspring. Such research designs cannot account for the effects of genes that are common to parents and children, nor for genetically influenced traits in children that influence how they are parented and how parenting affects them. The aim of this monograph is to provide a clearer view of parenting by synthesizing findings from the Early Growth and Development Study (EGDS). EGDS is a longitudinal study of adopted children, their birth parents, and their rearing parents studied across infancy and childhood. Families ( N = 561) were recruited in the United States through adoption agencies between 2000 and 2010. Data collection began when adoptees were 9 months old (males = 57.2%; White 54.5%, Black 13.2%, Hispanic/Latinx 13.4%, Multiracial 17.8%, other 1.1%). The median child age at adoption placement was 2 days ( M = 5.58, SD = 11.32). Adoptive parents were predominantly in their 30s, White, and coming from upper‐middle‐ or upper‐class backgrounds with high educational attainment (a mode at 4‐year college or graduate degree). Most adoptive parents were heterosexual couples, and were married at the beginning of the project. The birth parent sample was more racially and ethnically diverse, but the majority (70%) were White. At the beginning of the study, most birth mothers and fathers were in their 20s, with a mode of educational attainment at high school degree, and few of them were married. We have been following these family members over time, assessing their genetic influences, prenatal environment, rearing environment, and child development. Controlling for effects of genes common to parents and children, we confirmed some previously reported associations between parenting, parent psychopathology, and marital adjustment in relation to child problematic and prosocial behavior. We also observed effects of childrenʼs heritable characteristics, characteristics thought to be transmitted from parent to child by genetic means, on their parents and how those effects contributed to subsequent child development. For example, we found that genetically influenced child impulsivity and social withdrawal both elicited harsh parenting, whereas a genetically influenced sunny disposition elicited parental warmth. We found numerous instances of children's genetically influenced characteristics that enhanced positive parental influences on child development or that protected them from harsh parenting. Integrating our findings, we propose a new, genetically informed process model of parenting. We posit that parents implicitly or explicitly detect genetically influenced liabilities and assets in their children. We also suggest future research into factors such as marital adjustment, that favor parents responding with appropriate protection or enhancement. Our findings illustrate a productive use of genetic information in prevention research: helping parents respond effectively to a profile of child strengths and challenges rather than using genetic information simply to identify some children unresponsive to current preventive interventions.
... Son varias las teorías contemporáneas y las posiciones que buscan explicar el desarrollo de la persona, entre estas están la de Scarr (1992) acerca de los efectos del genotipo-ambiente en el desarrollo y la teoría ecológica del desarrollo de Bronfenbrener (1979Bronfenbrener ( , 1997 que lo define como una interacción entre la persona en desarrollo y su medio ambiente. ...
Chapter
A fines de la década de 1990, el trabajo de Amartya Sen produjo un cambio radical en la forma de entender el desarrollo. Su enfoque, basado en las categorías de capacidades y de libertad, representó un desafío a la perspectiva predominante hasta entonces, sostenida en indicadores económicos. Sen plantea tomar en consideración distintas esferas de la vida de las personas, destacando la importancia de las condiciones que les permiten o no realizar sus proyectos de vida. Este enfoque es denominado Desarrollo Humano. Un grupo de docentes de la PUCP de diferentes especialidades, y con una amplia experiencia de trabajo en el tema del desarrollo, asumió el reto de pensar colectivamente la propuesta de Sen. Este libro es el resultado de esta iniciativa. Los artículos, elaborados desde diferentes disciplinas (tales como la fi losofía, la psicología, la sociología, la teología, la antropología, la economía y la ingeniería), miran hacia un horizonte común: la reflexión interdisciplinaria y dialógica sobre las posibilidades del Desarrollo Humano en el Perú.
... Genes and experiences of environments reciprocally interact with psychological and social factors which are relevant for inequality, such as personality traits, available resources, educational and career paths, or social and political integration. In this context, research using TwinLife data is often driven by the assumption that the expression of one's genetic potential depends on environmental circumstances (Scarr, 1992(Scarr, , 1993, with synergistic and dynamic interplays between genetic predispositions and environments (Kandler et al., 2021). First, the interplay can be described by gene-environment interactions, with mechanisms of the social context to a) trigger or b) compensate a genetic predisposition, c) enhancing the realisation of genetic potential or d) acting as a social control for behaviour when there is a genetic predisposition (Shanahan & Hofer, 2005). ...
Article
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The major aim of the German TwinLife study is the investigation of gene-environment interplay driving educational and other inequalities across developmental trajectories from childhood to early adulthood. TwinLife encompasses an 8-year longitudinal, cross-sequential extended twin family design with data from same-sex twins of four age cohorts (5, 11, 17, and 23 years) and their parents, as well as their non-twin siblings, partners, and children, if available, altogether containing N = 4,096 families. As such, TwinLife includes unique and openly accessible data that allows, but is not limited to, genetically informative and environmentally sensitive research on sources of inequalities regarding educational attainment, school achievement, and skill development.
... According to the theory of evolution, characteristics of all species arise through a process of mutation and selection in their development (Judge, Piccolo, & Kosalka, 2009;Scarr, 1992). We believe this is also true with leaders' traits, as evidenced by the research on trait development in psychology literature. ...
Chapter
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A leader’s traits evolve over time and are expressed differently under different situations. Based on Xu et al.’ (Leadersh Q 25(6):1095–1119, 2014) research, this study focuses on the dynamic view on the leader trait theory in the Chinese context to explore the distinctive characteristics. There are three patterns (homological, converse, and composite) by which leader traits evolve. The essential feature of the Chinese culture that affects the Chinese thinking the most is the notion of “Yin-Yang.” The composite evolution is distinctive in the Chinese context. The traits leaders demonstrated under specific situations are composite in nature, which also supports the notion that traits evolve.
... Second, we found that similar patterns were reported regularly, but such consistency does not necessarily imply large effect sizes and it is essential to remember that the reviewed studies were largely correlational. Third, child effects (e.g., temperament and agency) should not be ignored (Kuczynski & Parkin, 2007) and relations between parenting and child development may be the result of shared genes (Kendler & Baker, 2006;Scarr, 1992). However, a genetically informed study (Roisman & Fraley, 2012) suggested that a significant and often large part of the link between supportive parenting and child adjustment is attributable to shared environments. ...
Article
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The purpose of this paper is to bring together and highlight common conceptual elements and findings from constructs that involve parents' consideration of children's viewpoints and experiences: parental sensitivity, empathy, perspective taking, responsiveness, autonomy support, and scaffolding. Research on each of these constructs suggests that consideration in the parenting role is associated with better child development, learning, and well‐being. We examine definitions and measures of the constructs to address how parental consideration has been conceptualized. We also review positive child development indicators that have been associated with it, across various periods, contexts, and domains of development. By drawing attention to this common denominator and adopting an integrative perspective, we hope to contribute to future research and help transfer knowledge to parents about this key, facilitative parenting dimension.
... The more exaggerated a facial expression, the stronger the emotions and expectations in that expression (Ekman et al., 1980). A broad smile is associated with high sociability and signals availability to establish social relationships (Scarr, 1992). Presenters of broad smiles are more likely perceived as friendly and easy going, and the demeanor conveys warmth (Wang et al., 2017). ...
Article
Purpose Smiles displayed at varying intensities by service providers may result in different social judgments by customers, affecting decision-making. This study investigates the joint effect of customers' sense of power (low vs. high) and service providers' smile intensity (slight vs. broad) on their warmth and competence perceptions in service encounters. Design/methodology/approach The authors conducted four experiments based on the Stereotype Content Model (SCM) of social judgments and the agentic-communal model of power, and assessed the impact of perceived power and smile intensity in different service encounter contexts. Findings The interaction effect of customers' sense of power (low vs. high) and service providers' smile intensity (slight vs. broad) influences customers' social judgments (warmth perceptions vs. competence perceptions). A service provider who displays a broad smile is more likely to be perceived as warmer by customers with a low sense of power, but less competent by those with a high sense of power. Furthermore, mediation analysis revealed that the combined effect of customers' sense of power and service providers' smile intensity on customers' subjective well-being and purchase intentions might be attributed to their social judgments. Originality/value This study reveals the intrinsic mechanism behind the interaction effect between smile intensity and sense of power affecting customers' purchase intentions and subjective well-being, namely, warmth/competence perceptions.
... Gelman, 1990;Keil, 1992). For this dynamic to occur, engagement in species-typical activities, such as exploration of the ecology (which helps the development of spatial abilities), must be influenced by inherent motivational and affective systems that guide children to seek and repeat some types of experiences more frequently than others (Bjorklund & Pellegrini, 2002;Geary & Bjorklund, 2000;Scarr, 1992). The resulting evolutionarily expectant experiences then adjust the plastic architecture of folk systems (Greenough et al., 1987), adapting them to local social (e.g., the local language) and ecological (e.g., learning to identify hunted species and edible plants) conditions. ...
Article
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Schooling is ubiquitous in the modern world and academic development is now a critical aspect of preparation for adulthood. A step back in time to pre-modern societies and an examination of life in remaining traditional societies today reveals that universal formal schooling is an historically recent phenomenon. This evolutionary and historical recency has profound implications for understanding academic development, including how instructional practices modify evolved or biological primary abilities (e.g., spoken language) to create evolutionarily novel or biologically secondary academic competencies (e.g., reading). We propose the development of secondary abilities promotes the emergence of academic self-concepts that in turn are supported by evolved systems for self-awareness and self-knowledge. Unlike some forms of self-knowledge (e.g., relative physical abilities) that appear to be universal and central to many people’s overall self-concept, the relative importance of academic self-concepts are expected to be dependent on explicit social and cultural supports for their valuation. These culturally contingent self-concepts are contrasted with universal social and physical self-concepts, with implications for understanding variation students’ relative valuation of academic competencies and their motivations to engage in academic learning.
... It is possibleperhaps likelythat the effects are nonlinear, however. For example, there may be a threshold above which variations in environment do not affect puberty, with a certain level of environmental support being "good enough" (Scarr, 1992). ...
Article
Across nonhuman species, pubertal timing is affected by the social environment, with consequences for reproductive success and behavior. In human beings, variations in pubertal timing have not been systematically examined in relation to social environmental antecedents, although their psychological consequences are well documented. This paper focuses on links in human beings between pubertal timing and the childhood social environment, with several sections: A review of studies relating pubertal timing to the family context, a key aspect of the social environment; challenges in studying the issue; and opportunities for future work that takes advantage of and creates links with evidence in other species. The review shows that pubertal timing in girls is accelerated by adversity in aspects of the early family social context, with effects small in size; data in boys are not sufficient to enable conclusions. Inferences from existing studies are limited by variations in conceptualizations and measurement of relevant aspects of puberty and of the family social environment, and by methodological issues (e.g., reliance on existing data, use of retrospective reports, nonrandom missing data). Open questions remain about the nature, mechanisms, and specificity of the links between early family social environment and pubertal timing (e.g., form of associations, consideration of absence of positive experiences, role of timing of exposure). Animal studies provide a useful guide for addressing these questions, by delineating potential hormonal mechanisms that underlie links among social context, pubertal timing, and behavior, and encouraging attention to aspects of the social environment outside the family, especially peers.
... The hierarchical regression analyses further showed that pictorial WM did an even better job predicting spatial structure memory than did age and verbal ability. Age per se may not be the best, albeit perhaps the simplest, indicator for individual differences in children (Scarr, 1992). The results hence showed a close relationship between pictorial WM and the memory of spatial structure. ...
Article
Relatively few studies have directly examined children’s memory of object-based spatial structure of room-sized environments. The current study investigated how children remember the spatial structure of a room, and the role of pictorial working memory (WM) and different testing perspectives in this process. In Experiment 1, 80 children aged 5 to 7 years old participated in a memory of spatial structure task, a pictorial spatial WM task, and a verbal ability test. In the first task, participants explored a square-shaped virtual room where each wall was associated with different objects. The virtual room was viewed on a desktop monitor. Then they recalled wall scenes of different perspectives (0, 90, 180 degrees) relative to a reference wall. Results found that pictorial WM predicted memory of spatial structure after accounting for age and verbal ability. Different from perspective taking tasks, children rarely made egocentric errors. Moreover, the memory of spatial structure is perspective independent because there was no difference in performance between the 90 and 180 degrees conditions. We replicated the basic results in Experiment 2, where 77 children completed the same set of tasks except that the virtual room was round-shaped. Furthermore, the developmental trajectories of memory of spatial structure as a function of pictorial WM varied between different experiments and perspective conditions. Together, our study showed that children aged 5–7 years old could retrieve the spatial structure of a room-sized environment from diverse perspectives, which was also susceptible to pictorial WM capacity, perspectives, and geometric cues.
... If a genetic effect is larger in a more facilitative environment, the bioecological model (Bronfenbrenner and Ceci 1994) is supported. On the other hand, if the genetic effect is larger in less facilitative environments, the diathesis-stress model (Scarr 1992) is supported. If no moderating effect of SES or L2 usage is indicated, heritability estimation of the bilingual abilities may not be affected by these environmental factors. ...
Article
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This study investigated the associations among bilingual phonological awareness, morphological awareness, and vocabulary by focusing on their genetic and environmental etiologies. It also explored the influence of family socio-economic status (SES) and language exposure amount on the genetic and environmental effects. A twin study was conducted with 349 pairs of Chinese–English bilingual twins (mean age = 7.37 years). Cross-language transfer was found in phonological and morphological awareness but not in vocabulary knowledge. A common genetic overlap was found among these bilingual abilities. We also found a common shared environmental effect that may account for the cross-language transfer in phonological awareness and the associations among English abilities. SES and language exposure were significant environmental influences on bilingual phonological awareness and English vocabulary. More teaching in Chinese was related to a stronger genetic effect on Chinese morphological awareness, whereas more teaching in English was related to a stronger environmental impact on English abilities.
... The basic idea is shown in Figure 2. The inherent constraints refer to the underlying brain, perceptual and cognitive systems that provide the initial structure of folk competencies and are elaborated and adapted to local conditions through engagement in common developmental activities, such as social play (R. Gelman, 1990;Gopnik & Wellman, 2012;Keil, 1992). The assumption is that engagement in common developmental activities is influenced by inherent motivational and affective systems that result in infants and children seeking some types of experiences more frequently than others (e.g., engagement with parents or peers) that in turn trigger inherent reward systems (e.g., happy) that reinforce these behaviors (Bjorklund & Pellegrini, 2002;Geary & Bjorklund, 2000;Scarr, 1992). The resulting evolutionarily expectant experiences provide the feedback needed to adjust the plastic architecture of folk systems to nuances in evolutionarily significant domains (Greenough et al., 1987), such as allowing the individual to discriminate one face from another (Pascalis, de Haan, & Nelson, 2002). ...
Article
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The articles in this special issue provide state-of-the-art reviews of the brain and cognitive systems that are engaged during some aspects of mathematical learning, as well as the self-beliefs, anxiety, and social factors that influence engagement with mathematics, along with discussion of any associated sex differences. These issues are integrated into an evolutionary perspective that includes discussion of how evolved brain and cognitive systems might be co-opted for learning in the evolutionarily novel domain of mathematics. Attitudes and beliefs about mathematics are considered in the context of the evolution of self-awareness that in turn explains why many students do not value mathematics, despites its importance in the modern world, as highly as many other personal traits, such as their physical appearance. The overall argument is that reflecting on academic learning and attitudes from an evolutionary perspective provides insights into student learning and self-beliefs about learning that might otherwise elude explanation.
... B. Arbeitslosigkeit unterschiedlich reagieren: "Manche Kinder waren, wenn ein Elternteil seinen Job verlor, extrem besorgt; andere vertrauten darauf, dass alles gut würde" (Siegler et al. 2005, 33). Diese unterschiedlichen Wirkungen gleichartiger Erfahrungen ist einer von vier Faktoren nach Scarr (1992), warum sich Kinder aus einer einzelnen Familie sowie aus verschiedenen Familien so unterschiedlich entwickeln (vgl. Siegler et al. 2005, 32). ...
... Başka bir deyişle, ebeveynlerin yetiştirme davranışları çocuklarının benzer olmasını sağlayan şeyle çok az ilgilidir, aynı zamanda bunlar diğer ailelerden farklıdır. Davranış kalıtımı alanındaki diğer uzmanlarla bağlantılı olarak (Scarr, 1992 gibi) Rowe aşağıdaki yorumu yapmıştır: ...
Article
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Background Socio‐economic status is one of the most important factors shaping students' motivation and achievement but has seldom been explored in relation to achievement goals. Aims This study aimed to investigate whether mastery‐approach goals explain the link between SES and key learning‐related outcomes ( mediation ) and whether SES modifies the relationship between mastery‐approach goals and these outcomes ( moderation ). Sample Data came from 595,444 students nested in 21,322 schools across 77 countries. Methods Data were analysed using multilevel‐moderated mediation analyses. Results We found significant mediation and moderation. In terms of mediation, mastery‐approach goals mediated the association between family SES and learning‐related outcomes. However, a different pattern emerged for school SES, as students in higher SES schools had lower mastery‐approach goals. In terms of moderation, we found that family SES strengthened the association between mastery‐approach goals and learning‐related outcomes. However, the association between mastery‐approach goals and learning‐related outcomes was weaker in higher SES schools. Conclusion Theoretical and practical implications for the achievement goal approach to achievement motivation are discussed.
Article
Human genetic enhancement, examined from the standpoint of the new field of political bioethics, displaces the age-old question of truth: What is human nature? This book displaces that question with another: What kind of human nature should humans want to create for themselves? To answer that question, this book answers two others: What constraints should limit the applications of rapidly developing biotechnologies? What could possibly form the basis for corresponding public policy in a democratic society? Benjamin Gregg focuses on the distinctly political dimensions of human nature, where politics refers to competition among competing values on which to base public policy, legislation, and political culture. This book offers citizens of democratic communities a broad perspective on how they together might best approach urgent questions of how to deal with the socially and morally challenging potential for human genetic engineering.
Article
Uchiyama et al. rightly consider how cultural variation may influence estimates of heritability by contributing to environmental sources of variation. We disagree, however, with the idea that generalisable estimates of heritability are ever a plausible aim. Heritability estimates are always context-specific, and to suggest otherwise is to misunderstand what heritability can and cannot tell us.
Article
Epigenetics impacts gene–culture coevolution by amplifying phenotypic variation, including clustering, and bridging the difference in timescales between genetic and cultural evolution. The dual inheritance model described by Uchiyama et al. could be modified to provide greater explanatory power by incorporating epigenetic effects.
Article
We argue that heritability estimates cannot be used to make informed judgments about the populations from which they are drawn. Furthermore, predicting changes in heritability from population changes is likely impossible, and of limited value. We add that the attempt to separate human environments into cultural and non-cultural components does not advance our understanding of the environmental multiplier effect.
Article
We need better understanding of functional differences of behavioral phenotypes across cultures because cultural evolution (e.g., temporal changes in innovation within populations) is less important than culturally molded phenotypes (e.g., differences across populations) for understanding gene effects. Furthermore, changes in one behavioral domain likely have complex downstream effects in other domains, requiring careful parsing of phenotypic variability and functions.
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Poszukiwanie wartości rudymentarnych czy też summum bonum (wartości najwyższej) nie było celem przedstawianego Czytelnikowi zbioru. Intencją redaktorek tomu było zabranie głosu w interdyscyplinarnym dialogu dotyczącym aksjologicznych uwarunkowań wychowania w różnych aspektach tego procesu, zarysowanie aksjologicznych determinant uprawiania pedagogiki. Podstawową cechą wyróżniającą pedagogikę spośród innych nauk nie jest jej niesłusznie, lecz często podkreślany utylitaryzm, niekiedy sprowadzany wręcz do metodycznego rzemiosła nauczycieli, a eksploracja problematyki aksjologicznej jako najważniejszej w intencyjnym formowaniu (się) człowieka. Uniwersalia zdają się niestety być wypierane przez pragmatyczną interpretację współczesnej rzeczywistości kulturowej, społecznej, ekonomicznej, politycznej, także w kontekście sprawstwa wychowawczego [...].
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The pathways through which exposure to maternal depressive symptoms in early childhood are linked to academic performance during adolescence are poorly understood. This study tested pathways from maternal depressive symptoms (age 2–5) to adolescent academic performance (age 15) through cumulative parenting risk (age 7) and subsequent child functioning (age 10), using multi‐informant data from a prospective longitudinal community study spanning 13 years (N = 389, 47% male, 68% White). Structural equation models testing indirect effects revealed small associations between maternal depressive symptoms and increased cumulative parenting risk and poorer child functioning, and, via these pathways, with poorer academic performance. Thus, childhood exposure to maternal depressive symptoms may be associated with pathways of risk that could limit children's educational opportunities.
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Der bvkm hat das Konzept des Familienwochenendes „Diagnose Cerebralparese – Erste Informationen für Eltern“ 2017 und 2018 erfolgreich erprobt und verfeinert. Es bietet Eltern von Kindern, bei denen kürzlich die Diagnose Cerebralparese gestellt wurde, einen kompakten Überblick über Ursachen, Erscheinungsformen und Therapiemöglichkeiten, aber auch die sozial-rechtlichen Grundlagen und Leistungen sowie Beratungs- und Selbsthilfeangebote und nicht zuletzt wichtige Faktoren zur Stärkung der ganzen Familie. Gleichzeitig eröffnet es der ausrichtenden (Selbsthilfe) Organisation die Möglichkeit, eine junge Zielgruppe anzusprechen. Mit dieser Arbeitshilfe möchten wir Ihnen Lust machen, dieses Konzept für sich zu nutzen.
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The furnishings and toys of boys' and girls' rooms were canvassed on the assumption that differences, if found, would indicate parental ideas about appropriateness by sex. The children were 48 boys and 48 girls under 6 years of age, each having his own room. The results showed that the boys were provided more vehicles, educational-art materials, sports equipment, toy animals, depots, machines, fauna, and military toys. Girls were provided more dolls, doll houses, and domestic toys. The rooms of boys were more often decorated with animal motifs; those of girls, with floral motifs and lace, fringe, and ruffles. The differences do indeed show differences in parental behavior.
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Contends, based on a constructionist position on epistemology, that scientific knowledge (and knowledge of all kinds) is a construction of the human mind. Meaning is attributed to sensory data in theoretically guided inventions of "facts." At different times and places, facts invented in one theory become different facts in another. In each generation, psychologists have favored variables that serve loyally within the theoretical boundaries of the scientific wisdom of that time. It is argued that favored variables can blind scientists to other theories and other variables that could compete for favor. What makes theories and facts plausible is examined, and a continuum of persuasion, determined by the contexts of the theorists is proposed. Contemporary research on lead exposure and on parent–child interaction are examined as examples of facts that can become different facts in other theories. (19 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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In the last 5 years, the Colorado and Texas adoption projects have replicated and elaborated the findings of the classical adoption studies of this century: IQs of adoptees are more strongly related to the IQs of their biological parents than to measurable characteristics of their adoptive environment. At the same time, several studies from France have demonstrated substantial IQ gains in children adopted from impoverished biological parents to middle-class adoptive homes. The apparent contradiction between these 2 findings is emblematic of the nature–nurture controversy. A common model for resolving the paradox, the 2-realms hypothesis, is conceptually inadequate and encourages separate analysis of individual and group differences. Subsuming the 2 kinds of findings in a single model shows that they are less divergent than they seem and highlights the need for further research into why some contradictions remain. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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The poor performance of Black children on IQ tests and in school has been hypothesized to arise from (a) genetic racial differences or (b) cultural/environmental disadvantages. To separate genetic factors from rearing conditions, 130 Black and interracial children adopted by advantaged White families were studied. The socially classified Black adoptees, whose natural parents were educationally average, scored above the IQ and the school achievement mean of the White population. Biological children of the adoptive parents scored even higher. Genetic and environmental determinants of differences among the Black and interracial adoptees were largely confounded. The high IQ scores of the socially classified Black adoptees indicate malleability for IQ under rearing conditions that are relevant to the tests and the schools.
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Psychological theories have neglected the fundamental issue of what determines people's life paths. The thesis of this article is that chance encounters play a prominent role in shaping human lives. In a chance encounter the separate chains of events have their own causal determinants (e.g., entry skills, values, emotional ties), but their intersection occurs fortuitously. Some fortuitous encounters touch only lightly, others leave more lasting effects, and still others lead people into new life trajectories. The science of psychology cannot shed much light on the occurrence of fortuitous encounters, but it can provide the basis for predicting their impact on human lives. An analysis is presented of personal factors and milieu properties that govern the branching power of chance encounters. (43 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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"No man can be acquainted with all of psychology today." The past and future place within psychology of 2 historic streams of method, thought, and affiliation—experimental psychology and correlational psychology—is discussed in this address of the President at the 65th annual convention of the APA. "The well-known virtue of the experimental method is that it brings situational variables under tight control… . The correlation method, for its part, can study what man has not learned to control or can never hope to control… . A true federation of the disciplines is required. Kept independent, they can give only wrong answers or no answers at all regarding certain important problems… . Correlational psychology studies only variance among organisms; experimental psychology studies only variance among treatments. A united discipline will study both of these, but it will also be concerned with the otherwise neglected interactions between organismic and treatment variables. Our job is to invent constructs and to form a network of laws which permits prediction." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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We administered the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire (MPQ) to 217 monozygotic and 114 dizygotic reared-together adult twin pairs and 44 monozygotic reared-apart adult twin pairs. A four-parameter biometric model (incorporating genetic, additive versus nonadditive, shared family-environment, and unshared environment components) and five reduced models were fitted through maximum-likelihood techniques to data obtained with the 11 primary MPQ scales and its 3 higher order scales. Solely environmental models did not fit any of the scales. Although the other reduced models, including the simple additive model, did fit many of the scales, only the full model provided a satisfactory fit for all scales. Heritabilities estimated by the full model ranged from .39 to .58. Consistent with previous reports, but contrary to widely held beliefs, the overall contribution of a common family-environment component was small and negligible for all but 2 of the 14 personality measures. Evidence of significant nonadditive genetic effects, possibly emergenic (epistatic) in nature, was obtained for 3 of the measures. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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This essay is an edited and elaborated transcript of a tape recording of remarks made at the presidents' panel at the Bi-Annual Meeting of the Society for Psychological Anthropology, San Diego, California, October 12, 1997.
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Twin studies have indicated that genetic differences among individuals also contribute to interest and personality differences among them. In this study, 114 biologically related families and 100 adoptive families were administered the Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory. The protocols of parents and their adolescent children (total N = 870) were scored on the six scales of Holland's model of interest styles (Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, Conventional). Biological parent--child correlations ranged from -.13 to +.40, with 15 of the 24 scale correlations achieving significance; only 2 of the adoptive parent--child correlations were significant (range from -.15 to +.25). Biologically related pairs were also significantly more correlated than adoptive pairs for interest profiles. Same-sex biological siblings were more similar to each other than either opposite-sex siblings pairs or parent--child pairs. Pairs of unrelated children in the adoptive families were not too similar either on Holland's scales or the profile analysis.
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Since 1979, a continuing study of monozygotic and dizygotic twins, separated in infancy and reared apart, has subjected more than 100 sets of reared-apart twins or triplets to a week of intensive psychological and physiological assessment. Like the prior, smaller studies of monozygotic twins reared apart, about 70% of the variance in IQ was found to be associated with genetic variation. On multiple measures of personality and temperament, occupational and leisure-time interests, and social attitudes, monozygotic twins reared apart are about as similar as are monozygotic twins reared together. These findings extend and support those from numerous other twin, family, and adoption studies. It is a plausible hypothesis that genetic differences affect psychological differences largely indirectly, by influencing the effective environment of the developing child. This evidence for the strong heritability of most psychological traits, sensibly construed, does not detract from the value or importance of parenting, education, and other propaedeutic interventions.
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Today, the mothers of half the infants in the United States work outside the home. This concerns psychologists and parents because of the possible detrimental effects on these infants of separations from mother and experience in day care. Available data suggest that infants whose mothers work full time are somewhat more likely as one-year-olds to avoid their mothers after a brief separation and later to be less compliant with their mothers and more aggressive with their peers. The argument that these behaviors indicate that infants in day care are at risk for emotional insecurity and social maladjustment is evaluated in light of current research results. It is concluded that other interpretations of the data are more plausible and that further research on the factors moderating and mediating the effects of infant day care is needed.
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STUDIES ARE SUMMARIZED INDICATING THAT THE BASIC MODEL OF SOCIALIZATION, THE ACTION OF A PARENT ON A CHILD, IS TOO LIMITED TO ACCOMODATE DATA EMERGING FROM RECENT STUDIES OF HUMAN AND ANIMAL SS. A SET OF PROPOSITIONS IS PRESENTED CONCERNING THE EFFECTS OF CONGENITAL FACTORS IN CHILDREN ON PARENT BEHAVIOR. THIS SYSTEM IS APPLIED TO CURRENT FINDINGS IN SEVERAL MAJOR AREAS. CURRENT LITERATURE ON SOCIALIZATION, BASED LARGELY ON CORRELATIONS BETWEEN PARENT AND CHILD BEHAVIOR, CAN BE REINTERPRETED PLAUSIBLY AS INDICATING EFFECTS OF CHILDREN ON PARENTS. A CORRELATION DOES NOT INDICATE DIRECTION OF EFFECT. IT IS FELT THAT THE EFFECT OF CHILDREN ON PARENTS CAN NO LONGER BE DISMISSED AS ONLY A LOGICAL BUT IMPLAUSIBLE ALTERNATIVE EXPLANATION OF A CORRELATION. (2 P. REF.)
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This book raises the idea of a distinct discipline of cultural psychology, the study of the ways that psyche and culture, subject and object, and person and world make up each other. Cultural Psychology is a collection of essays from leading scholars in anthropology, psychology, and linguistics who examine these relationships with special reference to core areas of human development: cognition, learning, self, personality dynamics, and gender. The chapters critically examine such questions as: Is there an intrinsic psychic unity to humankind? Can cultural traditions transform the human psyche, resulting less in psychic unity than in ethnic divergences in mind, self, and emotion? Are psychological processes local or specific to the sociocultural environments in which they are embedded? The volume is an outgrowth of the internationally known Chicago Symposia on Culture and Human Development. It will appeal to an interdisciplinary audience of anthropologists, psychologists, linguists, historians, philosophers and hermeneutists interested in the prospects for a distinct discipline of cultural psychology.
Book
1 Introduction.- 2 The Study of Early Experience.- 3 The Physical Environment and Its Relationship to Cognitive-Intellectual Development.- 4 The Social Environment and Its Relationship to Cognitive-Intellectual Development.- 5 Early Experience and Cognitive-Intellectual Development: The Emotional-Attitudinal Environment.- 6 The Earliest Social Experiences and Their Effect on Social Development.- 7 The Socialization of Young Children.- 8 The Relationship between Social and Cognitive Development.- 9 The Nature of Early Environmental Action.- 10 Early Experience and Development: Implications and Applications.- References.- Author Index.
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The poor performance of black children on IQ tests and in school has been hypothesized to arise from (a) genetic racial differences or (6) cultural/ environmental disadvantages. To separate genetic fac- tors from rearing conditions, 130 black/interracial chil- dren adopted by advantaged white families were studied. The socially classified black adoptees, whose natural parents were educationally average, scored above the IQ and the school achievement mean of the white popu- lation. Biological children of the adoptive parents scored even higher. Genetic and environmental de- terminants of differences among the black/interracial adoptees were largely confounded. The high IQ scores of the socially classified black adoptees indicate malle- ability for IQ under rearing conditions that are relevant to the tests and the schools. It is well known that black children reared by their own families achieve IQ scores that average about a standard deviation (IS points) below whites (Jensen, 1973; Loehlin, Lindzey, & Spuhler, 197S). This finding is at the heart of a continuing contro- versy in the educational arena. Recent studies (Cleary, Humphreys, Kendrick, & Wesman, 1975) confirm the hypothesis that low IQ scores predict poor school performance, regardless of race. Thus, more black children than white children fail to achieve academically and to earn the credentials required by higher occupational status, with its
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• Margit Fischer reported in 1971 that the risk of schizophrenia in the offspring of her Danish schizophrenic monozygotic twins and their normal cotwins was equal and not different from the risks in the children of schizophrenics in the literature. All of her identical and fraternal twins who had children and all of their offspring have been followed up through the Danish National Psychiatric Register as of 1985, some 18 years after study by Fischer. The morbid risk (age-corrected) for schizophrenia and schizophrenia-related disorders in the offspring of schizophrenic identical twins is 16.8%; it is 17.4% in their normal cotwins' offspring. The risks in the offspring of schizophrenic fraternal twins and their normal cotwins are 17.4% and 2.1%, respectively. The results suggest that discordance in identical twins may primarily be explained by the capacity of a schizophrenic genotype or diathesis to be unexpressed unless it is released by some kinds of environmental, including nonfamilial, stressors. Sporadic cases and phenocopies caused by cerebral abnormalities, diseases, or viruses would thus be deemphasized as necessary or sufficient explanatory causes for schizophrenia in our study but could account for some of the remaining discordance. Infrequent phenocopies should encourage linkage researchers, but unexpression of genotypes will frustrate them.
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Medium and long-term effects of types of placement of the offspring of lower class families have been studied. The progeny of 28 mothers was reconstituted. The subjects were divided into three groups: 35 children abandoned and adopted early in privileged environments (A), 46‘biological mother-reared’ children remaining in their disadvantage social environments (B) and 21 children raised in institutions or foster homes (C). Analyses focused on IQ, scholastic performance and behaviour. Results show that the social environment has important effects: the differences between the three groups are very significant. For A and B groups tested in the schools, comparisons were made with the classmates. For the C group the effects of long-term emotional deprivation are superimposed on the effects of the social environment.
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During the last three years, cognitive data have been reported for 4,639 pairings using the family design, 2,540 pairings using the adoption design, and 2,164 pairs of twins. Together, these extensive data point to less heritable influence on IQ than is indicated by the widely cited older data. The difference between the newer and older data could be due to environmental or genetic secular changes in the population or to methodological differences. Contrary to usual assumptions, the newer data also suggest that more of the environmental influences for parents and offspring and for older siblings operate within families (making family members different from one another) than between families (making family members similar to one another).
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The research was conducted to determine whether temperamental characteristics of neonates influence caregiver behavior as early as the second day of life. Visual attentiveness, activity, and irritability of 28 healthy newborns were rated during six 30‐minute sessions. Derived scores represented the infant's behavior during the total observation time and during specified caretaking activities. Several categories of nurturant behaviors and types of comments directed toward each infant by nurse‐caregivers were coded during independent sessions. Variations in caregiver behavior were shown by Pearson correlations to be related to independently assessed differences among neonates. Alert babies received the most nurturant and social contact; active infants received the least contact, but the most comments that reflected concern about their health; irritable infants were soothed most. The data clearly suggest that emerging infant temperament plays a role in shaping the caregiving environment by the second day of life.
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It is argued in this paper that from the point of view of education, individual differences in both temperament and intelligence are of the utmost importance, and that their disregard must account for a good deal of the unsatisfactory state of modern education. Bright and dull children, introverted and extroverted children, stable and unstable children react in quite different ways to different methods of education and teaching and, unless these differences are taken into account, overall averages are meaningless and often hide the true effects of any given method or system. It is further argued that genetic factors exert a very strong effect on individual differences in temperament and intelligence and that these genetic differences are fundamental for any realistic improvements in educational methodology.
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This is a series of short invited contributions from therapists and research workers who have volunteered to answer the following question: “If your fairy godmother were to wave her magic wand and give you an immediate answer to a question or questions, without having to do the relevant research, what would you most like to know?”
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Early intervention typically yields short-term advantages, both for children and their parents, and these effects should not be undervalued. As time passes after program termination, however, cognitive increments usually follow the law of diminishing returns unless the intervention sets off a chain of ongoing, positive consequences. In effect, continuing interventions and maintenance of these changes is unlikely. It follows, therefore, that familial factors (including both unfolding genetic, as well as psychosocial influences) are more important for long-term outcome than brief interventions themselves.
Article
"Family background" frequently has been found to have long-term effects on adult intellectual, occupational, and economic outcomes. Since families differ both genetically and environmentally, it has been difficult to interpret family effects in studies of individuals or biological relatives. This study includes samples of adoptive and biologically-related families with children between 16 and 22 years of age. We regressed child IQ on several family demographic variables, on parental IQ, and on natural parent characteristics (for the adopted children) to estimate the degree of genetic bias in the coefficients on measured family background. The results indicate that there is little effect of those family environmental differences studied on IQ differences among the adolescents in the SES range of working to upper middle class. Parent-child and sibling correlations further indicate that genetic differences among families account for the major part of the long-term effects of "family background" on IQ.
Article
Scientists and philosophers have searched for centuries for a parsimonious answer to the question of what constitutes beauty. We approached this problem from both an evolutionary and information-processing rationale and predicted that faces representing the average value of the population would be consistently judged as attractive. To evaluate this hypothesis, we digitized samples of male and female faces, mathematically averaged them, and had adults judge the attractiveness of both the individual faces and the computer-generated composite images. Both male (three samples) and female (three samples) composite faces were judged as more attractive than almost all the individual faces comprising the composites. A strong linear trend also revealed that the composite faces became more attractive as more faces were entered. These data showing that attractive faces are only average are consistent with evolutionary pressures that favor characteristics close to the mean of the population and with cognitive processes that favor prototypical category members.
Article
The publication of a complete English translation of Heinz Hartmann's essay, "Ego psychology and the problem of adaptation," inaugurates the Monograph Series of the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association. This project was conceived several years ago, but its initiation has had to await the availability of a psychoanalytic work of exceptional merit and importance. The editors believe that the appropriate occasion has finally arrived. "Ich-Psychologie und Anpassungsproblem" was first presented in 1937 before the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society and then published in German in 1939 in the Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse und Imago. Historically it represents a turning point in the development of modern psychoanalytic theory. It is a natural sequel to Freud's previous formulations of the structural hypothesis and his contributions to ego psychology. With its appearance there began an evolution in psychoanalytic thought which continues to ramify and the full implications of which for theory and practice are not yet fully realized. To readers intimately acquainted with current psychoanalytic ego psychology, this essay will reveal the first formulations of some of its basic concepts. Many of them will have a ring of familiarity, because of the remarkable degree to which Hartmann's ideas have shaped, and become assimilated into, current psychoanalytic thinking. One becomes aware of the tremendous impact of his theories when one finds that it was in this essay that concepts such as the undifferentiated phase, the conflict-free ego sphere, conflict-free ego development, and primary and secondary autonomy were developed for the first time. Hartmann discusses the role of endowment and of the inborn ego apparatuses and their adaptive nature. The idea that ego defenses may simultaneously serve the control of instinctual drives and the adaptation to the external world finds its expression in this essay. Hartmann's concept of adaptation is in no way restricted to the "cultural" sense of the term. It is a truly inclusive conception, and he views it as an ongoing process, which has its roots in the biological structure, and with many of its manifestations reflecting the constant attempts of the ego to balance intrasystemic and intersystemic tensions. The implications of his theory for the development of perception and thought processes, the concepts of ego strength, ego weakness, and of normality, are also discussed. Neutralization, and the impact of this construct on the concept of sublimation, evolves quite naturally from this paper. One sees in this work a systematic attempt to establish within the framework of a psychoanalytic ego psychology the groundwork for a theory of human behavior in general, normal as well as abnormal. The great sweep of Hartmann's exceptionally rich intellect has made it possible for him in this task to integrate the whole field of psychoanalytic knowledge with the related fields of biology, psychology, sociology, and philosophy. The opportunity to read this essay will reintroduce psychoanalysts to a cardinal requirement of the scientific method which Dr. Hartmann's work demonstrates, namely his unswerving insistence upon precision in methodology, and upon logical consistency of theory. With it all, the rarified atmosphere of theory is flavored by a humanistic tolerance and understanding, which is discernible in his discussions of rational and irrational behavior, automatism and mechanisms of integration. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Article
A review of "the literature relevant to a motivational-experimental theory [of intelligence] which proposes that: (a) manifest intelligence is nothing more than an accumulation of learned facts and skills, and (b) innate intellectual potential consist of tendencies to engage in activities conducive to learning, rather than inherited intellectual capacities, as such. These tendencies are referred to here as experience-producing drives (EPDs)." Among topics discussed in relation to the theory are brain damage, synthetic intelligence, language, mental growth, and some traditional views of intelligence. (155 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Article
Evaluates the data suggesting that most parent–child (or sibling) resemblance is genetic in origin and that environmental treatments tied to the family unit have negligible effects on children's traits. Data support the argument that the association of childrearing styles and trait development is spurious. Possible explanations for the lack of family effects on child behavior are considered. Awareness of weak family environmental effects on children's traits has implications for counselors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Article
Deals with the psychological care of the infant, special attention being placed on the growth of emotional habits, day and night care, and sex education. The ideal toward which all this care leads is a "child as free as possible of sensitivities to people and one who, almost from birth, is relatively independent of the family situation… a problem-solving child… ." The scientific material upon which Watson's philosophy is based was obtained in a maternity ward, a home for crippled children, at the Heckscher Foundation, and in many private homes. Children in the laboratory had none of the ordinary childhood fears until they were conditioned to them. The only things to which the infants tested reacted with a fear response were a loud sound and loss of support. After the infants were conditioned to fear situations, they were unconditioned, this process being a longer one and involving more patience. The method described is the one worked out by Mary C. Jones. "Loves grow up in children just like fears… are conditioned." Rage fits in infants caused by interfering with or hampering their movements may be conditioned and unconditioned. Many of children's rage tantrums can be avoided by gentle handling, by little and loose clothing, and by letting them learn as quickly as possible to do things for themselves. The latter part of the book is largely theoretical: sex education should begin with the parent, who after divesting himself of prudery and studying the subject as he would any other scientific problem, is ready to meet his children's questions; thumb sucking is regarded as unsocial and suggestions are given for the breaking of the habit; masturbation hampers the development of the individual and therefore should be educated against. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Article
The effects of genetic and environmental differences on intellectual differences among children were examined in a study of families with both biological and adopted children. IQ scores of all family members and education of natural parents were used to estimate intellectual similarities among related and unrelated persons, living together and apart. Comparisons of correlations between related and unrelated siblings produced negligible heritability values, whereas the parent-child data suggested moderate heritability for the children's IQ differences. The high mean values of the adopted children's IQ scores and the high degree of similarity among unrelated sibs suggest that IQ scores are more maleable than previously thought.
Article
Thesis (Ph. D)--University of Colorado, 1986. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 71-76).
Article
Two issues that complicate behavioral genetic analyses are the interaction and correlation between genetic and environmental influences. In the present report, the effects of genotype-environment interaction and correlation on behavioral genetic studies (twin and adoption studies) are examined. The analysis suggests that genotype-environment interaction may bias twin study estimates of genetic and environmental influence but need not affect adoption studies. On the other hand, genotype-environment correlation may affect both twin and adoption study estimates of genetic and environmental influence, the direction of the effect depending on the sign of the correlation. New tests of genotype-environment interaction and correlation, using adoption data, are proposed. (27 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Article
The relative influences of genetic and environmental factors for components of locus of control (LOC) were examined in the Swedish Adoption/Twin Study of Aging. The sample consisted of 84 pairs of monozygotic twins separated at an early age and reared apart, 173 pairs of dizygotic twins reared apart, 129 monozygotic pairs reared together, and 168 dizygotic pairs reared together. At the time of data collection, 72% were over 50 years of age. Three LOC components were measured in a mailed questionnaire: sense of personal control or lack of control over the direction of one's own life (Life Direction), beliefs about how responsible people are for misfortunes in their lives (Responsibility), and beliefs concerning the role of luck in determining people's outcomes (Luck). Model-fitting results indicated that genetic influences were of importance for Life Direction and Responsibility, accounting for somewhat over 30% of the variance in each component, while environmental influences explained twin similarity for Luck.
Article
An initial group of 100 children who were not selected a priori on any behavioral features were observed in laboratory settings at 14, 20, 32, and 48 months and their behaviors coded for inhibition and lack of inhibition to the unfamiliar. The children who had been extremely inhibited or uninhibited at both 14 and 20 months differed significantly at 4 years of age in behavior and cardiac acceleration to cognitive stress. However, for the entire sample, there was no significant relation between degree of inhibited behavior at 14 or 20 months, on the one hand, and inhibition at 4 years of age, on the other, nor any relation between behavior and heart rate acceleration. These results suggest that the constructs inhibited and uninhibited to the unfamiliar refer to children who fall at the extremes of a phenotypic continuum from shyness and restraint to sociability and affective spontaneity.
Article
Perceptual asymmetry on a series of four specially constructed dichotic word tests was found to change as a function of the emotional quality of the words in the tests (P = 0.05). This was most pronounced in the case of positively valued words which produced an increase in asymmetry consistent with facilitated left-hemisphere function (P less than 0.004). Changes in asymmetry with emotion differed as a function of personality characteristics of the subjects, with repressors and high anxious subjects showing an increase with emotion while true low anxious subjects showed a decrease (P less than 0.02). Personality groups also differed in asymmetry on an emotionally neutral test (P less than 0.04) and in changes in asymmetry over time independent of emotion (P less than 0.001). These data suggest that emotion mediated activation of the left hemisphere may facilitate information processing within that hemisphere. Moreover, they indicate that dichotic listening tests may provide a non-invasive and inexpensive method for assessing emotion mediated changes in brain state that are clinically relevant.
Article
We propose a theory of development in which experience is directed by genotypes. Genotypic differences are proposed to affect phenotypic differences, both directly and through experience, via 3 kinds of genotype leads to environment effects: a passive kind, through environments provided by biologically related parents; an evocative kind, through responses elicited by individuals from others; and an active kind, through the selection of different environments by different people. The theory adapts the 3 kinds of genotype-environment correlations proposed by Plomin, DeFries, and Loehlin in a developmental model that is used to explain results from studies of deprivation, intervention, twins, and families.
Article
The Louisville Twin Study includes nearly 500 pairs of twins and their siblings who have participated in a longitudinal study of mental development, beginning in infancy and extending to adolescence. The results show that individual differences beginning in infancy and extending to adolescence. The results show that individual differences in intelligence progressively stabilized by school age, and each child followed a distinctive pattern of spurts and lags in mental development. Monozygotic twins became increasingly concordant over ages and matched each other closely for developmental trends. By contrast, dizygotic twins regressed to an intermediate level of concordance, comparable with that found for siblings and parent-offspring sets. A comprehensive home assessment was performed to identify the home/family variables that contributed to mental development. The overall results pointed to a strong developmental thrust in the growth of intelligence, which was principally guided by an intrinsic genetic ground plan. Qualitative features of home and family did, however, add significantly to prediction of offspring IQ. The results are interpreted in the context of Waddington's developmental model, and some recent advances in neurobiology and genetics are surveyed for their implications for developmental behavior genetics.
Article
This article discusses the building blocks for a developmental psychopathology, focusing on studies of risk, competence, and protective factors. The current Project Competence studies of stress and competence are described, with particular attention to the methodology and strategies for data analysis. The authors present a 3-model approach to stress resistance in a multivariate regression framework: the compensatory, challenge, and protective factor models. These models are illustrated by selected data. In the concluding section, an evaluation of the project is offered in terms of future directions for research.
Article
Although it is well established that family members resemble each other in intelligence , the extent to which this results from either shared genes or a shared environment remains controversial, perhaps especially since the relevant evidence presented by Burt has been shown probably to have been fabricated. The influence of heredity and familial environment may be distinguished by studying adoptees. Here we present correlations in intelligence and educational level between genetically related pairs of adult adoptees who have been reared separately, and, conversely, between genetically unrelated pairs of adult adoptees who have been reared together. We are unaware of any previous study of adults which has reported on both of these types of relationship. The results for intelligence conform closely to what would be predicted by a simple polygenic model of genetic transmission whereas those for educational attainment imply both genetic and familial environmental components.
Article
In 1974 we launched 2 large adoption studies for 2 quite different purposes. The Transracial Adoption Study was designed to test the hypothesis that black and interracial children reared by white families perform on IQ and school achievement tests as well as other adoptees because they are reared in the culture of the tests and the schools. In addition, transracial families provided a sample with large numbers of adopted and natural children in the same families. Sources of individual differences among siblings could be studied without fear of possible differences between adoptive families and those with their own children. The Adolescent Adoption Study was designed to assess the cumulative impact of differences among family environments at the end of the child-rearing period. All of the children were adopted in the first year of life and averaged 18.5 years at the time of the study. A comparison sample of families with their own adolescents was also studied. Black and interracial children scored as well on IQ tests as adoptees in other studies. Individual differences among them, however, were more related to differences among their biological than adoptive parents, whether they lived together or not. Young siblings were found to be intellectually quite similar, whether genetically related or not. Adolescents' IQ test scores were similar to those of their parents and siblings only if they were biologically related. Our interpretation of these results is that younger children are more influenced by differences among their family environments than older adolescents, who are freer to seek their own niches.