Preliminary evidence for progressions in ownership reasoning over the preschool period.

Defining developmental progressions can be an important step in identifying developmental precursors and mechanisms of change, within and across areas of reasoning. In one exploratory study, we examine whether the development of children's thinking about ownership follows a systematic progression wherein some components emerge reliably before others. We examine this issue in a sample of 72 children: 40 older 2-year-olds, Mage = 2.78 (.14); R = 2.50-3.00, and 32 older 4-year-olds, Mage = 4.77 (.16); R = 4.50-5.00, living in Michigan in the United States. We use a battery of four established ownership tasks that tested different aspects of children's ownership thinking. A Guttman test revealed a reliable sequence that explained 81.9% of children's performance. Namely, we discovered that identifying familiar owned objects emerged first, control of permission as a cue to ownership second, understanding ownership transfers third, and the tracking of sets of identical objects last. This ordering suggests two foundational ownership abilities on which more complex reasoning may be built: the ability to include information about familiar owners in children's mental models of objects and recognizing that control is central to ownership. The observed progression is an important first step toward developing a formal ownership scale. This study paves the way for mapping the conceptual and information-processing demands (e.g., executive functioning, memory) that likely underlie change in ownership thinking across childhood. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Developing Digital Privacy: Children's Moral Judgments Concerning Mobile GPS Devices.

New technology poses new moral problems for children to consider. We examined whether children deem object tracking with a mobile GPS device to be a property right. In three experiments, 329 children (4-10 years) and adults were asked whether it is acceptable to track the location of either one's own or another person's possessions using a mobile GPS device. Young children, like adults, viewed object tracking as relatively more acceptable for owners than nonowners. However, whereas adults expressed negative evaluations of someone tracking another person's possessions, young children expressed positive evaluations of this behavior. These divergent moral judgments of digital tracking at different ages have profound implications for how concepts of digital privacy develop and for the digital security of children.

Young children's preference for unique owned objects.

An important aspect of human thought is the value we place on unique individuals. Adults place higher value on authentic works of art than exact replicas, and young children at times value their original possessions over exact duplicates. What is the scope of this preference in early childhood, and when do children understand its subjective nature? On a series of trials, we asked three-year-olds (N=36) to choose between two toys for either themselves or the researcher: an old (visibly used) toy vs. a new (more attractive) toy matched in type and appearance (e.g., old vs. brand-new blanket). Focal pairs contrasted the child's own toy with a matched new object; Control pairs contrasted toys the child had never seen before. Children preferred the old toys for Focal pairs only, and treated their own preferences as not shared by the researcher. By 3years of age, young children place special value on unique individuals, and understand the subjective nature of that value.

Conceptual influences on category-based induction.

One important function of categories is to permit rich inductive inferences. Prior work shows that children use category labels to guide their inductive inferences. However, there are competing theories to explain this phenomenon, differing in the roles attributed to conceptual information vs. perceptual similarity. Seven experiments with 4- to 5-year-old children and adults (N=344) test these theories by teaching categories for which category membership and perceptual similarity are in conflict, and varying the conceptual basis of the novel categories. Results indicate that for non-natural kind categories that have little conceptual coherence, children make inferences based on perceptual similarity, whereas adults make inferences based on category membership. In contrast, for basic- and ontological-level categories that have a principled conceptual basis, children and adults alike make use of category membership more than perceptual similarity as the basis of their inferences. These findings provide evidence in favor of the role of conceptual information in preschoolers' inferences, and further demonstrate that labeled categories are not all equivalent; they differ in their inductive potential.

Ability to delay gratification at age 4 years and risk of overweight at age 11 years.

OBJECTIVES: To determine if limited ability to delay gratification (ATDG) at age 4 years is independently associated with an increased risk of being overweight at age 11 years and to assess confounding or moderation by child body mass index z score at 4 years, self-reported maternal expectation of child ATDG for food, and maternal weight status. DESIGN: Longitudinal prospective study. SETTING: Ten US sites. PARTICIPANTS: Participants in the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development. Main Exposure Ability to delay gratification at 4 years, measured as pass or fail on a validated task. OUTCOME MEASURES: Overweight at 11 years, defined as a body mass index greater than or equal to the 85th percentile based on measured weight and height. RESULTS: Of 805 children, 47% failed the ATDG task. Using multiple logistic regression, children who failed the ATDG task were more likely to be overweight at 11 years (relative risk, 1.29; 95% confidence interval, 1.06-1.58), independent of income to needs ratio. Body mass index z score at 4 years and maternal expectation of child ATDG for food did not alter the association, but maternal weight status reduced the association significantly. CONCLUSIONS: Children with limited ATDG at age 4 years were more likely to be overweight at age 11 years, but the association was at least partially explained by maternal weight status. Further understanding of the association between the child's ATDG and maternal and child weight status may lead to more effective obesity intervention and prevention programs.

Maternal feeding practices become more controlling after and not before excessive rates of weight gain.

It is unclear whether controlling maternal feeding practices (CMFPs) lead to or are a response to increases in a child's BMI. Our goal was to determine the direction of this relationship. Data were obtained from National Institute of Child Health and Human Development's Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development. Child BMI z-score (zBMI) was calculated from measured weight and height. CMFP was defined by, "Do you let your child eat what he/she feels like eating?". Change in child zBMI was calculated between 4-7 years and 7-9 years, and dichotomized into "increasing" vs. "no change or decreasing". Change in CMFP was calculated over the same time periods, and dichotomized into "more controlling" vs. "no change or less controlling." Multiple logistic regression, stratified by gender and controlling for race, maternal education, maternal weight status, and baseline child weight status, was used for analysis. A total of 789 children were included. From 4 to 9 years, mean zBMI increased (P = 0.02) and mothers became more controlling (P < 0.001). Increasing CMFP between 4 and 7 years was associated with decreased odds of increasing zBMI between 7 and 9 years in boys (odds ratio = 0.52, 95% confidence interval = 0.27-1.00). There was no relationship in girls. Increasing zBMI between 4 and 7 years was associated with increasing CMFPs between 7 and 9 years in girls (odds ratio = 1.72, 95% confidence interval = 1.08-2.74), but not boys. Early increases in CMFP were not associated with later increases in zBMI for boys or girls. However, early increases in zBMI among girls were associated with later increases in CMFP. Clarifying the relationship between maternal feeding practices and child weight will inform future recommendations.

Models of visuospatial and verbal memory across the adult life span.

The authors investigated the distinctiveness and interrelationships among visuospatial and verbal memory processes in short-term, working, and long-term memories in 345 adults. Beginning in the 20s, a continuous, regular decline occurs for processing-intensive tasks (e.g., speed of processing, working memory, and long-term memory), whereas verbal knowledge increases across the life span. There is little differentiation in the cognitive architecture of memory across the life span. Visuospatial and verbal working memory are distinct but highly interrelated systems with domain-specific short-term memory subsystems. In contrast to recent neuroimaging data, there is little evidence for dedifferentiation of function at the behavioral level in old compared with young adults. The authors conclude that efforts to connect behavioral and brain data yield a more complete understanding of the aging mind.