Developmental Social Psychology

This book presents a comprehensive overview and evaluation of our current knowledge about children’s understanding of society. It systematically reviews the research which has been conducted into the development of children’s understanding of the school, economics, politics, the law and legal processes, gender roles, social class and occupational groupings, racial groups, ethnic groups and national groups. Written by the leading international authorities in each field, the chapters summarize clearly and lucidly our current state of knowledge, and carefully explain and evaluate the theories which have been proposed to account for children’s development in all of these areas.

Children’s Understanding of Society will be an invaluable resource for undergraduate students taking courses in Developmental Psychology, the Sociology of Childhood, and Education. The book will also be of considerable interest to postgraduate students and researchers working in all of these fields for its state-of-the-art reviews. 

Book Contents

Chapter 1
Emergent Themes in the Study of Children’s Understanding of Society
Martyn Barrett and Eithne Buchanan-Barrow

Chapter 2
Children’s Understanding of the School
Eithne Buchanan-Barrow

Chapter 3
Children’s Understanding of Economics
Paul Webley

Chapter 4
Children's Understanding of Politics
Anna Emilia Berti

Chapter 5
Children’s Understanding of the Law and Legal Processes
Stephen J. Ceci, Faith A. Markle and Yoo Jin Chae

Chapter 6
Children’s Understanding of Gender Roles in Society
Kevin Durkin

Chapter 7
Children’s Understanding of Social Class and Occupational Groupings
Nicholas Emler and Julie Dickinson

Chapter 8
Children’s Understanding of Racial Groups
Lawrence A. Hirschfeld

Chapter 9
Children's Understanding of Ethnic Belonging and the Development of Ethnic Attitudes
Alida Lo Coco, Cristiano Inguglia and Ugo Pace

Chapter 10
Children’s Understanding of, and Feelings about, Countries and National Groups
Martyn Barrett

Chapter 11
The Development of Societal Cognition: A Commentary
Giyoo Hatano and Keiko Takahashi

Author index
Subject index

Qualitative research provides opportunities to study bullying and peer harassment as social processes, interactions and meaning-making in the everyday context of particular settings. It offers the possibility of developing a deep understanding of the culture and group processes of bullying and the participants’ perspectives on peer harassment as well. It gives participants opportunities to discuss their own understanding and experiences of bullying in their own words. This article reviews qualitative studies on bullying or peer harassment in school (including some studies in which qualitative and quantitative methods — so-called mixed methods — have been used).

"Elinizdeki bu kitap, sosyal psikolojinin konularını en geniş kapsamıyla ele almakta, klasikleşmiş deneysel ve saha araştırmalarını en güncel bilimsel çalışmalarla harmanlamaktadır. Bu bakımdan, akademisyen ve öğrencilerin yararlanabileceği eşsiz bir kaynaktır. Kitapta, sosyal psikoloji konuları bölüm bölüm ele alınmıştır; ilgili kavram, terim, kuram ve araştırmalar aktarılırken her bölüm kendi içinde bir bütünlük arz edecek şekilde akıcı bir öyküsel kurguyla ve dille yazılmıştır ayrıca bu kitap; tarihsel olaylarla, edebî ve felsefi metaforlarla zenginleştirilmiştir.
Ayrıca bu kapsamlı çalışma, sadece bilimsel bir disiplinin temel konularını okuyucuya aktarmakla kalmamakta, aynı zamanda savaş, açlık, çevre gibi gerçek dünya sorunlarının sosyal psikolojik boyutlarıyla ilgili çözüm önerileri de getirmektedir. Bu bakımdan elinizdeki kitap yalnızca bir ders kitabı değil, aynı zamanda sosyal psikolojiye ilgi duyan herkesin merakla okuyabileceği bir kitaptır."

The aim of this study was to investigate how individuals;who had been victims of school bullying;perceived their bullying experiences and how these had affected them;and to generate a grounded theory of being a victim of bullying at school. Twenty-one individuals;who all had prior experiences of being bullied in school for more than one year;were interviewed. Qualitative analysis of data was performed by methods from grounded theory. The research identified a basic process of victimising in school bullying;which consisted of four phases: (a) initial attacks;(b) double victimising;(c) bullying exit and (d) after-effects of bullying. Double victimising refers to a process in which there was an interplay between external victimising and internal victimising. Acts of harassment were repeatedly directed at the victims from their social environment at school – a social process that constructed and repeatedly confirmed their victim role in the class or the group. This external victimising affected the victims and initiated an internal victimising;which meant that they internalised the socially constructed victim-image and acted upon this image;which in turn often supported the bullies’ agenda and confirmed the socially constructed victim-image. The findings also indicate the possible positive effect of changing the social environment.

The aim of the present study was to examine to what degree different mechanisms of moral disengagement were related to age, gender, bullying, and defending among school children. Three hundred and seventy-two Swedish children ranging in age from 10 to 14 years completed a questionnaire. Findings revealed that boys expressed significantly higher levels of moral justification, euphemistic labeling, diffusion of responsibility, distorting consequences, and victim attribution, as compared with girls. Whereas boys bullied others significantly more often than girls, age was unrelated to bullying. Moral justification and victim attribution were the only dimensions of moral disengagement that significantly related to bullying. Furthermore, younger children and girls were more likely to defend victims. Diffusion of responsibility and victim attribution were significantly and negatively related to defending, while the other dimensions of moral disengagement were unrelated to defending.

Compared to the few public higher education institutions in the prewar era, postwar Somalia boasts a large number of academic institutions at the tertiary level, mainly as privately owned universities. Although these community-initiated academic establishments are making tremendous contributions to the higher education sector, particularly in the absence of an effective national government, one can argue that much still remains at stake in terms of evaluation and quality assurance, key elements necessary for institutional accreditation and acceptance of credentials by other educational establishments issuing the same level of certificates. In this essay we aim to provide an overview discussion of the trends of higher education in Somalia and the way forward for newly emerged institutions, which have taken the bold initiative of changing the landscape of Somalia’s higher education.

Perfectionism has been associated with higher levels of psychological maladjustment and disorder in adolescence and lower levels of subjective well-being and psychological adjustment. Perfectionism, however, is a multidimensional disposition, and not all dimensions of perfectionism are necessarily unhealthy or maladaptive. This entry presents an overview about perfectionism in adolescence and the main dimensions of perfectionism: perfectionistic strivings and perfectionistic concerns. It shows how the two dimensions are related to subjective well-being, psychological adjustment and maladjustment, and disorder. Moreover, it informs on how perfectionism can be measured and what factors influence the development of perfectionism in children and adolescents. Finally, the entry will discuss what is still unknown about perfectionism and why the notion that perfectionism can be healthy or adaptive is controversially debated.

The aim of the present study was to explore how teenagers explain why bullying takes place at school, and whether there were any differences in explaining bullying due to gender and prior bullying experiences. One hundred and seventy-six Swedish students in Grade 9 responded to a questionnaire. Mixed methods (qualitative and quantitative methods) were used to analyze data. The grounded theory analysis generated five main categories and 26 sub categories regarding accounts of bullying causes. Results indicated that youth tended to explain bullying in terms of individualistic reasons (bully attributing and victim attributing) than in terms of peer group, school setting, or human nature/society reasons. Girls were more likely to attribute bullying causes to the bully and much less to the victim, compared to boys. Moreover, youth classified as bullies were more likely to attribute the reason for bullying to the victim and much less to the bully, compared to victims, bystanders, and victims/bullies.

The aim of the present study was to investigate how basic moral sensitivity in bullying, moral disengagement in bullying and defender self-efficacy were related to different bystander behaviors in bullying. Therefore, we examined pathways that linked students' basic moral sensitivity, moral disengagement, and defender self-efficacy to different bystander behaviors in bullying situations. Three hundred and forty-seven teenagers completed a bullying survey. Findings indicated that compared with boys, girls expressed higher basic moral sensitivity in bullying, lower defender self-efficacy and moral disengagement in bullying. Results from the SEM showed that basic moral sensitivity in bullying was negatively related to pro-bully behavior and positively related to outsider and defender behavior, mediated by moral disengagement in bullying, which in turn was positively related to pro-bully behavior and negatively related to outsider and defender behavior. What differed in the relations between outsider and defender behaviors was the degree of defender self-efficacy.

Günümüzde daha pek çok çalışmayı gerektiren dilbilim ve psikoloji alanına giren sorunlar, dil edinimi ile ilgili çalışmalardan gelecek verilerle aydınlanma bulmakta ve ortaya çıkan bilgi ise bir takım soruları beraberinde getirmektedir. Kavram mı yoksa sözcük mü önce edinilir? Dil gelişimi ile birlikte öğrenilen yeni kavramların zihinde örgütlenmesi, nasıl bir düzeni takip eder? Bu soruları merkezinde bulunduran Öntür Kuramı, ulamın dereceli bir içyapısı olduğunu öne sürerek ulam öğelerinin, bulunduğu ulamı en iyi temsil eden öğeler etrafında odaklandığını savunmaktadır. Dereceli bir üyelik söz konusu olunca, zihinden çağrılma ve kavranma zorluğu üzerinde kavramın öntürlüğü etkili olmaktadır. İşte bu çalışma, deyimlerin bileşen adlarının öntürlüğü ve deyimin anlamlandırılması arasında bir koşutluğun olup olmadığını sorgulamaktadır. Araştırma grubu, anasınıfı, 3. sınıf, 5. sınıf ve 8. sınıflardan çocukları kapsamakta olup ilk uygulamada BEDEN BÖLÜMÜ üst ulamına ait kavramların bu yaşlara göre öntürlük değerleri sormaca yöntemiyle belirlenmiştir. Ortaya çıkan verilerden yola çıkarak seçilen kavram adlarını bileşeni olarak bulunduran ad + eylem yapısındaki deyimler, ad bileşeninin öntürlüğüne göre derecelendirilmiş ve her biri bir öykünün sonuç tümcesi olarak verilmiştir. Deyimlerin ya değişmeceli ya da gerçek anlamlarını yansıtan ya da konu dışı olan resimler hazırlanarak, bir kavrama testi oluşturulmuştur. Çocuk katılımcılar, öyküleri dinleyip sonundaki deyimi duydukları anda, öyküden anladıklarına dayalı olarak resimlerden birisini seçmişlerdir. Verilen yanıtların doğruluğu ve tepki süresi dikkate alınarak, deyimlerin anlamlandırılmasında bir öntürlük etkisi olup olmadığına yönelik çözümleme yapılmıştır. Anasınıfı grubu, ağırlıklı olarak gerçek anlamı seçmiş olup, diğer gruplarda ise ilerleyen yaşla birlikte değişmeceli anlama bir yönelim gözlenmiştir. Deyimlerin anlamlandırılmasında öntürlük etkisinden bahsetmeyi mümkün kılan bu bulgular, deyimlerin kalıplaşmış ve tek parça sözcükler olduğunu dolayısıyla bileşen sözcüklerin deyimin değişmeceli anlamı üzerinde bir etkisi olmadığını öne süren varsayımlara karşıt veri niteliğindedir. Diğer bir deyişle, deyimlerin anlamlandırılmasında, değişmeceli anlama erişildiği durumda bile gerçek anlama bir şekilde erişim sağlandığına dair, alanda yaygın çalışılmış tanınırlık ve saydamlık kriterlerinden farklı olarak, öntürlük kriteriyle kanıt sunulmuştur.

This manuscript is part 1 of a 3-part study that concentrates on a group of people who have been afflicted with genetic negative karma experienced in their past-parallel lives, as well as similar experiences they have accumulated during their present course of incarnation, that have created severe negative ego pathologies manifested in them, expressing themselves and experiencing their lives as narcissists and/or psychopaths. These individuals often have negative aliens AI technology implanted in them who commonly suffer from parasitic-vampiric energetic attacks and feedings by the negative aliens, be it through their devastating inner Shadow Selves. The result of the ensuing discussion has been inspired, identified, and verified through the author actually having been compassionately observing or witnessing such individuals, that although initially disturbing and discomforting, provided a great and fruitful case study to seek further researching, analyzing, and discerning the problems with such individuals, whose results are presented, herein, together with its two companion published papers for the benefit of the public at large. Narcissism and psychopathy constitute, respectively, the second and third most severe stages of negative egotistic behavior or insanity, often plaguing an individual with psychosis-neurosis that needs to be therapeutically dealt with using cleaning-cleansing of such negative entropic karmic energies, that although often the person is aware of their existence, blatantly refuses to go about it the proper way effectuating their own healing. Instead, they continue indulging in such negative egotistic impulses as anger, hatred, seeking conflict with others. In this respect, the assailant often refuses to properly look WITHIN and using constructive full mindfulness and critical thinking and behaviors alleviating the source of the problem. Instead, by adopting a variety of pathological venues that each represent one or more aspects of soul fracture or fragmentation such as splitting, transference, compartmentalization, etc., these individuals commonly resort to ineffective schemes to temporarily find an easy way in order to comfort themselves. Accordingly, it turns out that this way they manage to deny the root of the problem, which in fact, in most cases exacerbate the issue at hand through their inherent delusional notion of self-superiority, which in reality, emanates from their sense of self-inferiority, self-insecurity, and lack of self-confidence. A narcissist-psychopath commonly resorts to manipulation and controlling of others to assert themselves. While the issue of manipulation and control has been addressed in a companion paper, this manuscript provides a rather detailed discourse regarding the exact description of narcissistic-psychopathic tyrants, including their characteristics, their possible motivations, how to identifying them, and finally how to respond to them. Additionally, a significant issue with these individuals regarding how they go about reducing their inherent anxieties and fears has been discussed. As for the case of effective leadership versus what tyrants seek to accomplish for themselves through service to self only, the discussion has been presented in another companion paper.

is obscured because of the compelling actuality of our dualistic experience within the dualistic forms of phenomena. Phenomena is compelling! Our indivisibleness within each other and our indivisibleness with Being is obscured and made invisible by the dramatic compelling experience of the different range and forms of our experience such as pleasure and pain, happiness and horror, anxiety and relational yearning, sex and death, starvation and torture, to name a few.

National Identity and Ingroup-Outgroup Attitudes in Children: The Role of Socio-Historical Settings

Edited by Louis Oppenheimer and Martyn Barrett, M. (2011).

Special Issue of the European Journal of Developmental Psychology, Volume 8, Issue 1. 

The purpose of this special issue is to report on the findings from eight studies dealing with national identity and ingroup-outgroup attitudes in 7- and 11-year-old children from countries that have not experienced violence or war in the recent past (England and The Netherlands) and countries that have recently been or still are subject to armed conflict or intergroup violence (Israel, Bosnia, North and South Cyprus, Northern Ireland, and the Basque Country).  In total 12 national groups participated in the studies involving Jewish and Arab children (Israel), Bosniak and Serbian children (Bosnia), Catholic and Protestant children (Northern Ireland), North and South Cypriot children (Cyprus), Basque and Spanish children (the Basque Country), and Dutch and English children (The Netherlands and England). 

As the papers in this special issue reveal, the development of national identifications and national attitudes shows considerable cross-national variation as a function of the specific socio-historical contexts within which children develop. These studies, considered together, indicate the need for developmental theorising within this area to avoid simplistic conclusions based upon data collected within just one specific location, and to instead adopt a broader cross-national comparative perspective when attempting to address questions concerning how children’s national identifications and attitudes develop within real-world settings.

Contents

Louis Oppenheimer and Martyn Barrett
Introduction to the Special Issue

Martyn Barrett and Louis Oppenheimer
Findings, theories and methods in the study of children’s national identifications and national attitudes

Daisy Clay and Martyn Barrett
National identifications and attitudes towards a ‘traditional enemy’ nation among English children

Louis Oppenheimer and Emina Midzic
National identification and ingroup-outgroup evaluations with Bosniak and Serbian children in Bosnia.

Elizabeth Gallagher and Ed Cairns
National identity and ingroup-outgroup attitudes: Catholic and Protestant children in Northern Ireland.

Biran Mertan
Children's perception of national identity and ingroup-outgroup evaluations:  Turkish-Cypriot school children

Panayiotis Stavrinides and Stelios Georgiou
National identity and ingroup-outgroup evaluations with Greek-Cypriot children

Luixa Reizabal and Garbiñe Ortiz
National Identity and ingroup-outgroup attitudes with Basque and Basque-Spanish children growing up in the Basque Country.

Louis Oppenheimer
Comparative analyses:  Are there discernable patterns in the development of and relationships among national identification and ingroup-outgroup evaluations?

The phenomenon of commitment is a cornerstone of human social life. Commitments make individuals' behavior predictable, thereby facilitating the planning and coordination of joint actions involving multiple agents. Moreover, commitments make people willing to rely upon each other, and thereby contribute to sustaining characteristically human social institutions such as jobs, money, government and marriage. However, it is not well understood how people identify and assess the level of their own and others' commitments. The Philosophy and Psychology of Commitment explores and explains the philosophical and cognitive intricacies of commitment. John Michael considers how commitments motivate us and their often implicit and tacit nature. To flesh out the philosophical framework of his argument he draws on experimental work with young children, adults and human-robot interaction within the context of joint action, considering the role of the emotions and whether very young children are sensitive to commitment. Providing an important account of the nature and operation of commitment, this book is essential reading for those working in philosophy of psychology, cognitive science, experimental philosophy, and social and developmental psychology. It will also be of interest to those working in emerging fields such as human-robot interaction and behavioral economics.

The aim of this study was to examine whether individual and classroom collective social-cognitive processes (moral disengagement and self-efficacy) were associated with bullying perpetration among schoolchildren. An additional aim was to examine whether changes in these processes from grade 4 (Time 1) to grade 5 (Time 2) were associated with a change in bullying perpetration. Self-reported survey data were collected from 1,250 Swedish students from 98 classrooms. Results of multilevel analysis indicated that individual and classroom collective moral disengagement (CMD) were positively associated with bullying, and defender self-efficacy (DSE) was negatively associated with bullying. The effect of changes in individual moral disengagement on changes in bullying was positive, and the effects of changes in DSE and classroom collective efficacy on changes in bullying were negative. Thus, the findings demonstrate the changeability of moral disengagement, DSE and collective efficacy over time, and how these changes are linked to changes in bullying perpetration.

Life in the classroom is governed by a variety of rules. One typical classroom rule is the rule of silence or low noise. Teachers often deal with students' noise‐making and conversations by hushing them. This article reports an investigation of how hushing can create moral dilemmas for students at their desks in the classroom. This study is part of a larger ethnographic research project on values education in the daily life of school, conducted in two primary schools in Sweden. The findings show that students think that by hushing, teachers are now and then acting in the wrong way and, in consequence, the students are forced to go against the teacher to act in accordance with their own moral standards, or to give up, in order to avoid the risk of getting a reprimand. The analyses revealed three categories of moral dilemmas or conflicts with rules: indiscriminate hushing as (a) a conflict between morality and social conventions; (b) a pure moral conflict; and (c) a conflict between morality and authority.

Background: European and national policies on citizenship education stimulate the implementation of a participative approach to citizenship education, fostering active citizenship. The reason given for fostering active citizenship is the decline of participation in political and social life jeopardizing democracy. Schools have to implement a participative approach through stimulating participation within school and its direct environment, while fostering a certain kind of political literacy, critical thinking and analysing skills, certain kind of values, attitudes and behaviours. Purpose: The purpose of this article is to problematise the participative approach of citizenship education advocated by policy makers and several researchers. In order to do so, four different categories that citizenship education has to cover will be theoretically and empirically analysed: political knowledge, critical thinking, values, attitudes and behaviours, and active participation. The practical implications for educational practice will be discussed.
Source of evidence: Two types of documents have been analysed: The 2005 and 2012 Eurydice reports and the 2009 International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS) research reports. These documents are exemplary of the mainstream idea of citizenship and citizenship education held by policy makers and many researchers on citizenship education. The Eurydice reports have analysed citizenship education in more than 30 countries while promoting a certain concept of citizenship education, namely active citizenship. The ICCS has researched pupils’ competencies on citizenship education and school practices in 38 countries. It is an interesting source because it had to define and operationalise the different constituents of citizenship education.
Main argument: In jurisdictions where citizenship education is compulsory, schools have to implement this participative approach and account for it. We suggest that this educational approach to citizenship education may be problematic because each aspect – political literacy, critical thinking and analysing skills, values, attitudes and behaviours, and active participation – presents challenging demands on the curricu- lum, head teachers and teachers. We argue three kinds of constraints that make the implementation of such a participative approach unrealistic: (1) insufficient specialist knowledge on the part of teachers and head teachers, (2) time and budget constraints and (3) an overcrowded curriculum. We demonstrate that the broad range of themes that political literacy has to cover demand specific knowledge on the part of teachers regarding each of the themes. Then we argue that critical thinking skills are hard to learn and demand continuous practice. Implementing and sustaining active participation structure within school and in the direct environment, again, require specific skills and curricular organisation. The demands made by values, attitudes and behaviours on teachers and pupils could not be explored because of the lack of conceptual clarity in the documentation under scrutiny.
Conclusion: The feasibility of a participative approach to citizenship education has been questioned through theoretical and empirical critical analysis. On this basis, we suggest that the scope of the citizenship education curriculum should be reconsidered or that teacher and head teacher should receive the necessary and adequate training, and support to implement such a participatory structure.

School bullying is a complex social and relational phenomenon with severe consequences for those involved. Most children view bullying as wrong and recognize its harmful consequences; nevertheless, it continues to be a persistent problem within schools. Previous research has shown that children's engagement in bullying perpetration can be influenced by multiple factors (e.g., different forms of cognitive distortions) and at different ecological levels (e.g., child, peer-group, school, and society). However, the complexity of school bullying warrants further investigation of the interplay between factors, at different levels. Grounded in social cognitive theory, which focuses on both cognitive factors and social processes, this study examined whether children's bullying perpetration was associated with moral disengagement at the child level and with collective moral

Perfectionism has been associated with higher levels of psychological maladjustment and disorder in adolescence and lower levels of subjective well-being and psychological adjustment. Perfectionism, however, is a multidimensional disposition, and not all dimensions of perfectionism are necessarily unhealthy and maladaptive. This entry presents an overview about perfectionism in adolescence and the main dimensions of perfectionism: perfectionistic strivings and perfectionistic concerns. It shows how the two dimensions are related to subjective well-being, psychological adjustment and maladjustment, and disorder. Moreover, it informs on how perfectionism can be measured and what factors influence the development of perfectionism in children and adolescents. Moreover, it will discuss what is still unknown about perfectionism and why the notion that perfectionism can be healthy or adaptive is controversially debated.

The purpose of this study was to investigate and generate a grounded theory on how and why students behave as they do in school situations in which they witness another student in distress. Fieldwork and interviews were conducted in 2 Swedish elementary schools and guided by a grounded theory approach. The study resulted in a grounded theory of moral frames in bystander situations in school. In this study, 5 main moral frames of school have been identified: (a) the moral construction of the good student, (b) institutionalized moral disengagement, (c) tribe caring, (d) gentle caring-girl morality, and (e) social-hierarchy-dependent morality. The study highlights how moral action is generally inhibited by the conformity fostered in school settings and by moral dilemmas constructed by the moral frames. A revised model of bystander behavior adapted to the school context is also presented.

The aim of the present study is to investigate schoolchildren's social representations on the causes of bullying. Individual qualitative interviews were conducted with 56 schoolchildren recruited from five elementary schools in Sweden. Mixed methods (grounded theory as well as descriptive statistic methods) were used to analyze data. According to the findings, the most prevalent social representation on bullying causes among the children is to view bullying as a reaction to deviance. The second most frequently used explanation type is to view bullying as social positioning. Other social representations on bullying causes are to explain bullying as the work of a disturbed bully, a revengeful action, an amusing game, social contamination, and a thoughtless happening. Social representations of bullying causes appear to be linked to the more general process of social categorization and seem in many bullying cases to promote moral disengagement among the children.

The aim of the current study was to longitudinally investigate the bi-directional relationship between moral disengagement and bullying perpetration in a sample of 1,354 students from 108 elementary classes in 69 public schools. Students participated in the study both at Time 1 (fourth grade) and around one year later at Time 2 (fifth grade). Structural equation model analyses showed that bullying perpetration at Time 1 predicted moral disengagement at Time 2, when controlling for moral disengagement stability over time. In addition, we found that moral disengagement at Time 1 also predicted bully- ing perpetration at Time 2, when controlling for bullying perpetration at Time 1. These findings suggest that teachers, school staff, and professionals should consider interventions that address moral disengagement when working with children involved in bullying.

Dn-uueN, S. 8., and Gnrrxreuu, Crranlrs \\. Altruism or Reciprocity: Sharing Behaaior in lsraeli Kindergarten Children Cnrr-o Dsvnloprmxr, L973, 44, 6I-68. i20 preschool children. grouped by social class, ethnicity, and sex, s'ere asked to share candies with classmates rvho had not received candies, in either a reciprocilv or a nonreciprocifv situation. Middle-class boys, as predicted, responded less generously in a situation in rvhich the recipient would not lororv u,ho gave the gift (nonreciprocitv) than in a situation in rvhich the recipient u,ould knorv (reciprocity), Other groups rvere not affected b1'the reciprocity variation. This rvas attributed to the tendency of middle-class in&viduals, particularly maIes, to relv on reciprocity norms in prosocial transactions. A content analvsis of reasoru for sharing shorved a clear relation betrveen verbal expressions of altruism and actual altruistic behavior. Children giving altruistic answers contributed the largest amount. It is suggested that altruism is a multidimerisional concept and that in the young child its expression may in part reflect differing ler.e1s of cognitive development.

This study investigated 202 elementary school children’s judgements and reasoning about transgressions when school rules regulating these transgressions have been removed in hypothetical school situations. As expected, moral transgressions were judged as more wrong and less accepted than structuring, protecting and etiquette transgressions. In turn, etiquette transgressions were judged as less wrong and more accepted than moral, structuring and protecting transgressions. Structuring transgressions were judged beyond expectations as more wrong and less accepted than protecting transgressions. Judgements and justifications made by the children showed that they discriminated between transgressions as a function of school‐rule category (relational/moral rules, structuring rules, protecting rules and etiquette rules). The findings confirm as well as extend previous social‐cognitive domain theory research on children’s socio‐moral reasoning.

This study investigated the predictors of children's geographical knowledge of other countries and, in particular, whether a child's demographic characteristics, travel experience, and a¡ect towards a country predict the child's level of geographical knowledge about that country. 261 English children aged between 6 and 13 years old were interviewed in order to assess their a¡ect for, and knowledge of, ¢ve speci¢c countries: France, Germany, Ireland, Italy and Spain. The children's travel experience to these countries was also assessed. The children comprising the sample were di¡erentiated in terms of their age, gender, social class and locality (urban versus rural). It was found that the predictors of the children's geographical knowledge varied across the ¢ve target countries. There were demographic di¡erences in children's travel experience, with age and social class being the principal predictors of travel. Travel experience to a particular country did sometimes predict the level of positive a¡ect towards that country, but travel did not usually predict geographical knowledge of that country. A¡ect towards a country also did not predict geographical knowledge of that country. However, there were demographic di¡erences in knowledge: age was found to be the most important predictor of knowledge, with additional independent contributions also being made by social class and gender in the case of some target countries. It is suggested that previous studies which have concluded that there is either a linear or curvilinear relationship between a¡ect and knowledge in this domain might have ignored the covariance of the predictors of geographical knowledge, and that multivariate statistical procedures are required in order to identify relationships between variables in this domain.

The aim of this study was to examine whether individual and classroom collective social-cognitive processes (moral disengagement and self-efficacy) were associated with bullying perpetration among schoolchildren. An additional aim was to examine whether changes in these processes from grade 4 (Time 1) to grade 5 (Time 2) were associated with a change in bullying perpetration. Self-reported survey data were collected from 1,250 Swedish students from 98 classrooms. Results of multilevel analysis indicated that individual and classroom collective moral disengagement (CMD) were positively associated with bullying, and defender self-efficacy (DSE) was negatively associated with bullying. The effect of changes in individual moral disengagement on changes in bullying was positive, and the effects of changes in DSE and classroom collective efficacy on changes in bullying were negative. Thus, the findings demonstrate the changeability of moral disengagement, DSE and collective efficacy over time, and how these changes are linked to changes in bullying perpetration.

Identity fusion is remarkably similar to the extensively validated construct of communal sharing, proposed in 1991. Both posit that notions of oneness/unity/equivalence with others underpin altruism. However, we argue that oneness/equivalence instantiates an evolved, innate relational form, marked and constituted by cultural practices making participants’ bodies substantially the same. It is intuitive from earliest development, often encompasses persons whom one has never met, and results mostly in caring.

This study examined the strength of national identification in a group of 437 11-15-year-old English adolescents. The study also explored the historical people, places and events which were thought by these adolescents to exemplify the English national group, and whether the historical icons which were nominated varied as a function of either the strength of national identification, or the degree of self-esteem, self-efficacy or distinctiveness that was derived from membership of the national group. Age and gender differences were found in the production of national historical icons, but these icons did not vary as a function of either the strength of national identification or the degree of self-esteem, self-efficacy or distinctiveness derived from the national group. It is suggested that the group differences which occurred in the production of national historical icons may be explicable in terms of the roles that sporting interests, educational input and the mass media might play in fostering a sense of national identity amongst adolescents.

The Gestalt psychology movement has contributed to developmental psychology since its beginnings, but its contribution to developmental problems has taken on a decisive progress with the epistemological considerations by Kurt LEWIN (1926, 1927, 1931a, 1931b) and the shift from the study of perception and thought to the study of behavior. In 1926 the series Untersuchungen zur Handlungs-und Affektpsychologie began to appear in the Psychologische Forschung. In this series, behavior is analyzed considering the global situation in which the subject is acting. Within the series, LEWIN and collaborators developed a number of fundamental constructs to describe and interpret the subject's behavior. Most studies were focused on adults, but in 1933 the series published two works by Sara FAJANS on the variations of the valence in relation to the distance of objects in children aged between 0 and 6 years. In the following years, the field-approach developed by LEWIN has provided significant contributions to developmental psychology with the works of the GOTTSCHALDT school in Berlin, of the MEILI school in Bern and of the METZGER school in Münster. Under Wolfgang METZGER's guidance, developmental psychology has found a rather peculiar space in the Münster school; the analysis of child behavior was developed, increasing the understanding of the development of personality, with remarkable educational and didactic repercussions. In this last context the wide range of contributions is documented by a synthesis by METZGER (1971). Here, I will focus on works by Lilly KEMMLER (1957), KLAMMA (1957) and Heinz HECKHAUSEN (et al. 1962, 1963a, 1963b, 1964, et al. 1965)-all METZGER pupils - which have particular relevance as examples of research on the development of the personality based on the field-approach. Their focus is on the articulation of the psychological field in the interval between 1;6 and 6 years, from the appearance of the first negativism conducts and the will of "doing-it-alone", to the achievement motivation, and the appearance of a true level of aspiration. Reintroducing these studies acknowledges the contribution given by their authors to the Gestalt school of developmental psychology; however, the value of these researches is not merely historical, because their contribution to the understanding of the early phases of self-knowledge and of achievement-motivated-behavior is still relevant today. These studies show that the LEWINian approach is an ideal tool to identify the dynamic underlying a behavior, even when an effective inter-subjective exchange is impossible.

This chapter lays a theoretical foundation for the development of an emerging model of studying intercultural communication through problem-based study abroad pedagogy. At the center of this model is a new computer tool called the Connect-Exchange App, which is meant to facilitate transactional learning between users with varying cultural backgrounds. To research how different audiences might use the app, the authors draw upon activity theory to guide their iterative design process to facilitate users' deepening glocal, intercultural competence. Developing intercultural competence is a process of iterative experiences connecting, exchanging, and filtering information.

This chapter lays a theoretical foundation for the development of an emerging model of studying intercultural communication through problem-based study abroad pedagogy. At the center of this model is a new computer tool called the Connect-Exchange App, which is meant to facilitate transactional learning between users with varying cultural backgrounds. To research how different audiences might use the app, the authors draw upon activity theory to guide their iterative design process to facilitate users' deepening glocal, intercultural competence. Developing intercultural competence is a process of iterative experiences connecting, exchanging, and filtering information.

"Although the symptoms of perimenstrual distress may have a physiological basis, there are strong indications that the involvement of psychological factors in precipitating these symptoms cannot be ruled out. The present study is an attempt to identify the important dimensions of perimenstrual distress as well as its psycho-social correlates. The sample consisted of 320
women in the age range of 18-50 drawn from various sub-stratas of the general population in Kerala. An assortment of psycho-social variables were subjected to study, which included
age, socio-economic status, life stress, maladjustment, and personality. Factor analysis of the different variables of perimenstrual distress resulted in the extraction of 4 meaningful orthogonal factors, with premenstrual distress emerging as the most important dimension. Correlational analysis of the data led to the conclusion that there is a strong psycho-social basis for the various symptoms of perimenstrual distress."

School rules are usually associated with classroom management and school discipline. However, rules also define ways of thinking about oneself and the world. Rules are guidelines for actions and for the evaluation of actions in terms of good and bad, or right and wrong, and therefore a part of moral or values education in school. This study is a part of a larger ethnographic study on values education in the everyday life of school. Here the focus is on school rules and students’ reasoning about these rules. Five categories of school rules have been constructed during the analysis: (a) relational rules; (b) structuring rules; (c) protecting rules; (d) personal rules; and (e) etiquette rules. The findings show that the students’ reasoning about rules varies across the rule categories. The perception of reasonable meaning behind a rule seems to be – not surprisingly – significant to students’ acceptance of the rule. According to the students, relational rules are the most important in school. Students also value protecting and structuring rules as important because of the meaning giving to them. Etiquette rules are valued as the least important or even unnecessary by the students.

Given the nature and the extent of the problem, the psychological and developmental implications of the street child phenomenon in South Africa needs to be more closely examined. Current research on street children presents us with a paradox-with evidence of developmental risk and vulnerability on the one hand and of resourcefulness, adaptability and coping on the other. This paradoxical evidence is reviewed from the perspective of physical, emotional, social and cognitive/educational development. Implications for intervention are explored. In particular, the issue of what defines developmental vulnerability or resilience in more specific terms is identified as a research necessity if more focused intervention priorities are to be determined. In die lig van die aard en omvang van die probleem, behoort die sielkundige en ontwikkelingsimplikasies van die straatkindfenomeen in Suid-Afrika nouer ondersoek te word. Huidige navorsing wat die straatkind bet ref laat ons met 'n paradoks-met bewyse van ontwikkelingsrisiko en weerloosheid enersyds, en ondernemingsgees, aan-pasbaarheid en beheersing, andersyds. Die paradoksale bewys word in oenskou geneem vanuit die fisieke, emosionele, sosiale en kognitiewe/opvoedkundige ontwikkelingsperspektiewe. Die implikasies vir intrede word ondersoek. In die besonder word die kwessie van wat onwikkelings weerloosheid en weerbaarheid in meer spesifieke terme behels as 'n navorsingsnoodsaaklikheid qeidentifiseer indien meer spesifieke ingrypings-prioriteite bepaal behoort te word.