{"title":"Using numbers strategically: Proportional reasoning induces wealth in-group bias in an equity task","authors":"Nadia Chernyak , Taylor Ashqar","doi":"10.1016/j.cogdev.2025.101572","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cogdev.2025.101572","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Prior work in cognitive development has shown a strong association between our numerical cognition abilities and our abilities to engage in equity-based social evaluation. At the same time, work in social development has found that children generally prefer wealthier others and prefer in-group members. Integrating these two perspectives, we investigated whether children’s developing proportional reasoning skills might help <em>overcome</em> their in-group preferences, or alternatively, to <em>enact</em> them. In a social evaluation task (modeled after McCrink et al., 2010), 4–8-year-olds viewed a series of characters with different resource constraints (e.g., one character had 2 cookies and another had 6), each of whom then shared a proportion of their resources with a friend (e.g., one character shared 1/2 of his cookies while another shared 2/6). Children were then asked to make a series of social evaluations about the characters. We also assessed children’s proportional reasoning skills, cognitive control, and subjective social status. Children’s proportional reasoning skills prompted them to select their wealth-ingroup members: High-income children were more likely to select the richer participant if they had high proportional reasoning skills, whereas low-income children were more likely to select the poorer participant if they had high proportional reasoning skills. Results suggest that proportional reasoning abilities help enact strategic in-group bias.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51422,"journal":{"name":"Cognitive Development","volume":"74 ","pages":"Article 101572"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2025-03-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143724505","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Netanel Y. Weinstein , Samuel Heilenbach , Megan Oshiro , Dare A. Baldwin
{"title":"The development of disability and foreignness concepts: A comparative approach","authors":"Netanel Y. Weinstein , Samuel Heilenbach , Megan Oshiro , Dare A. Baldwin","doi":"10.1016/j.cogdev.2025.101570","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cogdev.2025.101570","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Children with disabilities are at particular risk for peer rejection but little is known about the conceptual basis underlying such stigmatization. Here, we assessed North American children’s (aggregate sample: n = 156, Mage = 5.65, SD = 1.6, range = 3:9; filtered sample: n = 64, Mage = 6.25, SD = 1.4, range = 3:9) developing disability-related concepts through the lens of comparison with another dimension of individual difference that is often evident in speech and appearance: foreignness. We observed developmental change in children’s tendency to distinguish cues to disability versus foreignness but limited evidence of peer rejection, and no measurable developmental change in that regard. Furthermore, perceptions of reduced physical competence and enhanced dependence were generally not predictive of stigma towards targets with a disability. These findings hold potential to inform development of empirically oriented interventions to reduce the expression of disability prejudice in childhood.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51422,"journal":{"name":"Cognitive Development","volume":"74 ","pages":"Article 101570"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2025-03-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143704099","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Children’s developing disability concepts: A review and recommendations for continued research","authors":"Nicolette Granata, Jonathan D. Lane","doi":"10.1016/j.cogdev.2025.101566","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cogdev.2025.101566","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Concepts of persons with disabilities, the largest minority group in the United States, have received little attention in psychological science. Yet, such work can have significant societal and scientific implications. In this paper, we review three areas in which research on children’s developing concepts of disabilities is especially promising, including research on concepts of human abilities and biology, impressions and evaluations of behavior, and social essentialism. We introduce and describe traditional research in each of these areas, then describe and integrate work on concepts of disability that contributes uniquely and impactfully to these areas. Along the way, we pose questions and future directions for studies of disability concepts, which we hope will inspire continued work on these topics for decades to come.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51422,"journal":{"name":"Cognitive Development","volume":"74 ","pages":"Article 101566"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2025-03-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143704220","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Does the experimenter presence impact children’s working memory?","authors":"Valérie Camos , Stéphanie Mariz Elsig , Yagmur Öncü , Marion Wohlhauser , Clément Belletier","doi":"10.1016/j.cogdev.2025.101569","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cogdev.2025.101569","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The literature on audience effect shows that the presence of even a single person is enough to undermine performance in tasks relying on executive functions. This detrimental effect would result from the automatic capture of attention. Despite evidence in adults, investigations are still lacking in children. Here, we tested for the first time whether the common situation in psychology research to have an experimenter present at testing may impact children’s working memory (WM). According to the attentional capture hypothesis, and in line with adults’ findings, an experimenter presence effect should be observed when children use attention for WM maintenance, that is after the age of 7, and younger children should be immune to this effect. The experimenter presence was manipulated in a complex span task in which children memorised names of pictures or letters while naming colours of smileys aloud. Across three experiments, we varied the age of our participants (5, 8 and 11), the memory test (recognition and serial recall), and the difficulty of the secondary task by changing the speed of the presentation of the smileys. Despite these variations, results were congruent across experiments. As expected, the presence of an experimenter did not affect performance in 5-year-olds. However, contrary to the predictions based on attentional capture hypothesis, performance in older children was similar across conditions, with evidence in favour of the absence of interaction between age and presence condition, despite the expected better performance in older compared to younger children. These results departed from what was observed in adults and have implications for understanding the audience effect.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51422,"journal":{"name":"Cognitive Development","volume":"74 ","pages":"Article 101569"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2025-03-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143685196","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Giorgia Morosini, Alessandro Cuder, Chiara De Vita, Maria Chiara Passolunghi, Sandra Pellizzoni
{"title":"The relationship between executive functions and early numerical skills: A study on three- and four-year-old preschoolers","authors":"Giorgia Morosini, Alessandro Cuder, Chiara De Vita, Maria Chiara Passolunghi, Sandra Pellizzoni","doi":"10.1016/j.cogdev.2025.101568","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cogdev.2025.101568","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Numerical abilities are crucial in numerate societies, which is why it is important to observe their development early in childhood. The aim of the present study was to investigate the interplay between domain-general (i.e., executive functions) and domain-specific precursors in predicting the development of cardinality understanding in early preschool. In this context, we also examined children’s finger use in pointing and touching behaviors, an aspect understudied compared to finger use to represent quantities. A sample of preschool children from the first and second years of preschool (M<sub>age</sub>= 3 years, 7 months; SD = 6 months; months range: 36 – 58; females = 49; males = 51) took part in the study. All participants were evaluated in domain-general and domain-specific precursors. We analyzed the data using a mediation model with visuospatial working memory and inhibition skills as focal variables, verbal counting, enumeration, and finger use as mediating variables, and cardinality understanding as dependent variable. Data show a direct effect of executive functions on early numerical abilities, i.e., counting and enumeration. These latter two specific precursors have an effect on cardinality understanding. Furthermore, data indicate no correlation between inhibition and finger use and a negative correlation between visuospatial working memory and finger use. Data are discussed from both a theoretical and educational perspective, highlighting the role of general cognitive and domain-specific precursors of math abilities with the possibility of observing early signals for the development of specific numerical difficulties.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51422,"journal":{"name":"Cognitive Development","volume":"74 ","pages":"Article 101568"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2025-03-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143628710","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The impact of well-being on self-confidence: The mediating role of soft skills among adolescents","authors":"Lisbeth Laora Silitonga , Sahat Maruli , Haholongan Simanjuntak","doi":"10.1016/j.cogdev.2025.101567","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cogdev.2025.101567","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study explores the relationships between well-being, soft skills, and self-confidence among adolescents, with a focus on the mediating role of soft skills. A total of 200 vocational high school students in Indonesia were recruited from a school selected for its commitment to educational innovation and diverse student population. Participants were voluntarily enrolled based on specific inclusion criteria, and informed consent was obtained prior to participation. Data were collected using the EPOCH Measure of Adolescent Well-being, a reflection instrument for soft skills, and a novel measure of academic self-confidence. Results indicated that higher well-being is associated with enhanced soft skills and self-confidence, with perseverance emerging as a key factor. Structural equation modeling revealed that soft skills, particularly time management and analytical thinking, partially mediated the relationship between well-being and self-confidence. These findings underscore the importance of integrating well-being and soft skills development into educational curricula to support adolescent growth. Further research is needed to explore additional influencing factors and validate these findings across diverse populations.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51422,"journal":{"name":"Cognitive Development","volume":"74 ","pages":"Article 101567"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2025-03-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143628708","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Arts education and its role in enhancing cognitive development: A quantitative study of critical thinking and creativity in higher education","authors":"Jian Li , Yufeng Qi","doi":"10.1016/j.cogdev.2025.101544","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cogdev.2025.101544","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In recent years, the significance of arts education in enhancing cognitive growth and supporting academic success in higher education has gained increasing attention. However, there remains a need for empirical research to comprehensively examine the specific impact of arts education on critical thinking, creativity, communication skills, attention, and overall holistic development among college students. This study employs a quantitative approach to explore how arts education influences cognitive development and academic performance among college students. Utilizing a purposive sampling technique, participants were selected to represent diverse levels of engagement in arts education. The study gathered data using a structured questionnaire aimed at assessing students' involvement in arts education, cognitive growth, and academic achievement. Out of 456 questionnaires distributed, 410 were completed and deemed valid, yielding a response rate of around 90 %. Analysis of the collected data using SPSS software revealed significant associations between arts education and cognitive development. Specifically, results indicate a strong positive correlation between arts education and critical thinking skills, suggesting that active participation in arts-based activities fosters deeper analytical abilities among college students. Additionally, findings demonstrate that engagement in arts activities promotes creative problem-solving skills, enhancing students' adaptability and innovation in academic pursuits. Overall, this research provides novel evidence of the transformative potential of arts education in shaping well-rounded individuals capable of thriving in academic and creative pursuits, thereby informing educational practices and policies aimed at fostering holistic student development.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51422,"journal":{"name":"Cognitive Development","volume":"74 ","pages":"Article 101544"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2025-03-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143534922","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Baby schema in clumsy movements: Attention bias to infant gait among preschoolers and adults","authors":"Sayaka Kitada , Yuki Shimizu","doi":"10.1016/j.cogdev.2025.101565","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cogdev.2025.101565","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Lorenz (1943) stated that infants possess unique features called <em>baby schema</em>. Most previous studies have examined the responses to infants’ faces, and very little is known about responses to the clumsy movements that are unique to infants. In this study, two experiments investigated baby schema responses to infants’ clumsy gait. Two- to five-year-olds and adults were presented with stimuli converted into Point-Light-Displays of walking videos of an infant, a preschooler, and an adult. Then, their attention bias to each stimulus was measured. The results suggested that (1) baby schema responses are seen toward motor movements and (2) the onset of baby schema responses to motor movements cannot be seen at ages 2–5 years. Infants’ clumsy movements attract the attention of people surrounding them, which may be adaptive in the sense that it averts danger to the infant and increases their chances of survival.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51422,"journal":{"name":"Cognitive Development","volume":"74 ","pages":"Article 101565"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2025-03-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143527246","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Metacognitive monitoring in early elementary school-aged children: Task dependency in monitoring judgments, task consistency in monitoring behaviours","authors":"Janina Eberhart , Kou Murayama , Michiko Sakaki , Donna Bryce","doi":"10.1016/j.cogdev.2025.101561","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cogdev.2025.101561","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Children’s metacognitive monitoring is typically considered as a domain general skill that can be applied in different tasks and situations. However, this assumption lacks empirical evidence as few studies tested whether children’s accuracy of monitoring judgments as well as their monitoring behaviours are consistent across tasks. It is also not clear if children who provide more accurate monitoring judgments also show more frequent monitoring behaviours. In the current research study 53 elementary school children’s metacognitive monitoring was assessed with four tasks: on the one hand, the accuracy of children’s monitoring judgments was assessed with two computer-based tasks (one task required monitoring of memory and the other task required monitoring of reaction times); on the other hand, the frequency with which they engaged in monitoring behaviours was assessed with two construction tasks. Correlational analysis showed that there was no significant association between children’s monitoring judgment accuracies. In turn, children’s monitoring behaviour on two construction tasks was significantly positively associated. Intercorrelations between children’s monitoring judgment accuracies and monitoring behaviours showed that children who more accurately monitored their reaction time showed significantly more monitoring behaviour when working on construction tasks. Conversely, children’s monitoring judgment accuracy on a memory task was not significantly associated with their monitoring behaviour. These findings suggest that the processes underlying children’s monitoring judgments may be task specific, whereas their tendency to engage in monitoring behaviours may be domain general. Implications for promoting metacognitive monitoring are discussed.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51422,"journal":{"name":"Cognitive Development","volume":"74 ","pages":"Article 101561"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2025-02-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143508375","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jenny Yun-Chen Chan , Vanessa Vieites , Jinjing (Jenny) Wang
{"title":"The links between quantitative versus spatial language knowledge and numeracy skills in kindergarten children","authors":"Jenny Yun-Chen Chan , Vanessa Vieites , Jinjing (Jenny) Wang","doi":"10.1016/j.cogdev.2025.101560","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cogdev.2025.101560","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Relational language knowledge, including the understanding of quantitative and spatial terms, is generally associated with children’s developing numeracy skills. Still unclear, however, are the developmental trajectory and direction of the potential links between different aspects of relational language and various facets of numeracy skills. The current study used cross-lagged panel models to analyze the links between quantitative versus spatial language knowledge and facets of numeracy skills among 104 kindergarten children (5.9 years; 44 % boys; 37 % White, 25 % Black, 14 % Asian, 24 % Other), who were tested at two separate time points six weeks apart. The models revealed that, after controlling for children’s general vocabulary knowledge, their quantitative language knowledge at Time 1 predicted their number comparison skills at Time 2. In contrast, children’s number ordering skills at Time 1 predicted their spatial language knowledge at Time 2. Children’s number line estimation skills at Time 1 also predicted their spatial language knowledge at Time 2. However, when replacing general vocabulary knowledge with spatial or quantitative language knowledge as a covariate, only the link from number line estimation skills to later spatial language knowledge remained significant. Together, these results provide some evidence for the specificity and directionality of the influences between quantitative versus spatial language and facets of numeracy skills.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51422,"journal":{"name":"Cognitive Development","volume":"74 ","pages":"Article 101560"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2025-02-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143508374","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}