Parents and Children.: Parenting and Social Class
A family's social class is one of the factors that shapes the relationship between parents and children. In addition, there is frequently a link between social class and the kind of values and behaviors parents teach their children.
Parents and Children.: Parental Influence on Children
Parents usually exert a greater influence on their children than any other single factor. They serve as role models, communicate values, and shape the child's experiences.
The Growing Years: Social Development and Attachment
From the moment of birth, children are social creatures. Infants in all cultures develop an intense bond with their caregivers, a bond researchers call attachment. The experiences children have in the first years of life shape their sense of themsel...
The Growing Years: Do Babies Have a Sense of Numbers?
Karen Wynn and a team of researchers at the Yale Infant Cognition Laboratory are conducting experiments related to young babies and their ability to grasp number and mathematics concepts. Using "looking time" as a measure of a baby's expectations, r...
The Enduring Self: Genetic Links to Personality
There is growing evidence that many personality traits have a genetic basis. Human neuromodulatory systems have set points that regulate such dimensions as how active a person is and whether or not they tend to avoid new experiences. These set point...
The Learning Machine: Use of Reinforcement and Punishment in Shaping a Child's Behavior, The
When a child throws a tantrum, a parent's sympathetic reaction may only serve to increase such outbursts. More appropriate behavior, though, can be strengthened through negative reinforcement, for example a reward for improvement in demeanor after a...
The Magic of the Mind: Introduction of Scientific Tools and Approaches
The introduction of tools like fMRI and PET allows psychologists to determine the contribution of biology to psychology. Further advancements will someday reveal how the brain achieves its understanding of the world, and how we are able to inter...
Codes of Life: Temperament Studies
Temperament, or behavioral style, seems to be genetically influenced, as parents with several children will attest. Jerome Kagan highlights three areas in which researchers find temperamental biases: reaction to things that are new or unfamiliar...
Endless Questions: Scientific Method, The
Research studies require measurements that can be replicated Deciding what to measure often begins with an idea or hunch and the development of an hypothesis. Researchers must create operational definitions, specifying how variables will be mea...