DEVELOPMENT OF FAIRNESS UNDERSTANDING IN PRESCHOOLERS

Humans value fairness in themselves and others, but controversies exist as to how to allocate resources fairly. This dissertation explores ontogenetic roots of fairness by assessing preschoolers’ responses in situations where different principles of distributive justice are put in conflict. Study 1 asked whether 3- and 5-year-old children are able to take others’ subjective needs into account when distributing resources. Children allocated rewards to two recipients, one of whom was needier than the other, in two conditions: with an even and an odd number of resources. Results show that 3-year-olds use the equality principle as a default, but can distribute on the basis of need when resources cannot be divided equally. By 5 years of age, children’s concern about others’ needs is stronger and can trump the equality principle. Study 2 examined how children balance considerations of universal fairness with their own self-serving motives. Three- and 5-year-olds had to choose between two distributors, one of whom had previously been fair to everyone and the other had favored one of the recipients. Children either observed the distributions as a third party or served as favored recipients themselves. Results show that at 3 year of age, children only prefer fair distributors in third-party contexts. By age 5, children choose fair partners even when it conflicts with their own interests. This developmental period thus appears to be the time when norms of fairness grow in importance and can override children’s self-regarding motives

THE EFFECT OF SILENCE IN ENGLISH ART DISCOURSE

The article is connected with problems of complex analysis of the silence effect and its aspects observed in communicative and non-communicative silence and examined on the basis of materials of the English artistic discourse

Toddlers’ understanding of peers’ emotions.

The second year of life sees dramatic developments in infants' ability to understand emotions in adults alongside their growing interest in peers. In this study, a social referencing paradigm was employed to examine whether 12-, 18-, and 24-month-old children can use a peer's positive or negative emotion messages about toys to regulate their own behavior with the toys. Twelve-month-olds decreased their play with toys toward which a peer had expressed either positive or negative emotion compared to play following a peer's neutral attention toward a toy. Eighteenmonth-olds did not respond systematically, but 24-month-old children increased their toy play after watching a peer display negative affect toward the toy. Regardless of their age, children with siblings decreased their play with toys toward which they had seen a peer display fear, the typical social referencing response. Results are discussed in the context of developmental changes in social understanding and peer interaction over the second year of life

Toddlers’ understanding of peers’ emotions.

ABSTRACT. The second year of life sees dramatic developments in infants' ability to understand emotions in adults alongside their growing interest in peers. In this study, the authors used a social-referencing paradigm to examine whether 12-, 18-, and 24-month-old children could use a peer's positive or negative emotion messages about toys to regulate their own behavior with the toys. They found that 12-month-olds decreased their play with toys toward which a peer had expressed either positive or negative emotion compared with play following a peer's neutral attention toward a toy. Also, 18-month-olds did not respond systematically, but 24-month-old children increased their toy play after watching a peer display negative affect toward the toy. Regardless of their age, children with siblings decreased their play with toys toward which they had seen a peer display fear, the typical social-referencing response. The authors discuss results in the context of developmental changes in social understanding and peer interaction over the second year of life

The Head Bone's Connected to the Neck Bone: When do Toddlers Represent Their Own Body Topography?

Developments in very young children's topographic representations of their own bodies were examined. Sixty one 20- and 30-month old children were administered tasks that indexed the ability to locate specific body parts on oneself and knowledge of how one's body parts are spatially organized, as well as body-size knowledge and self-awareness. Age differences in performance emerged for every task. Body-part localization and body spatial configuration knowledge were associated; however, body topography knowledge was not associated with body-size knowledge. Both were related to traditional measures of self-awareness, mediated by their common associations with age. It is concluded that children possess an explicit, if rudimentary, topographic representation of their own body's shape, structure, and size by 30 months of age

Mine or Yours? Development of Sharing in Toddlers in Relation to Ownership Understanding

To examine early developments in other-oriented resource sharing, fifty-one 18-and 24-month-old children were administered 6 tasks with toys or food that could be shared with an adult playmate who had none. On each task the playmate communicated her desire for the items in a series of progressively more explicit cues. Twenty-four-month-olds shared frequently and spontaneously. Eighteen-month-olds shared when given multiple opportunities and when the partner provided enough communicative support. Younger children engaged in self-focused and hypothesis-testing behavior in lieu of sharing more often than did older children. Ownership understanding, separately assessed, was positively associated with sharing and negatively associated with non-sharing behavior, independent of age and language ability

Socialization of early prosocial behavior: Parents’ talk about emotions is associated with sharing and helping in toddlers

What role does socialization play in the origins of prosocial behavior? We examined one potential socialization mechanism -parents' discourse about others' emotions with very young children in whom prosocial behavior is still nascent. Two studies are reported, one of sharing in 18-and 24-month-olds (n = 29) and one of instrumental and empathy-based helping in 18-and 30-month-olds (n = 62). In both studies, parents read age-appropriate picture books to their children, and the content and structure of their emotion-related and internal state discourse were coded. Results showed that children who helped and shared more quickly and more often, especially in tasks that required more complex emotion understanding, had parents who more often asked them to label and explain the emotions depicted in the books. Moreover, it was parents' elicitation of children's talk about emotions rather than parents' own production of emotion labels and explanations that explained children's prosocial behavior, even after controlling for age. Thus, it is the quality, not the quantity, of parents' talk about emotions with their toddlers that matters for early prosocial behavior. Over an extended apprenticeship from infancy through adolescence, children are socialized into all things human. In the current study, we focus on the socialization of prosocial behavior: what role might parental Correspondence should be sent t

Socialization of early prosocial behavior: Parents’ talk about emotions is associated with sharing and helping in toddlers

What role does socialization play in the origins of prosocial behavior? We examined one potential socialization mechanism -parents' discourse about others' emotions with very young children in whom prosocial behavior is still nascent. Two studies are reported, one of sharing in 18-and 24-month-olds (n = 29) and one of instrumental and empathy-based helping in 18-and 30-month-olds (n = 62). In both studies, parents read age-appropriate picture books to their children, and the content and structure of their emotion-related and internal state discourse were coded. Results showed that children who helped and shared more quickly and more often, especially in tasks that required more complex emotion understanding, had parents who more often asked them to label and explain the emotions depicted in the books. Moreover, it was parents' elicitation of children's talk about emotions rather than parents' own production of emotion labels and explanations that explained children's prosocial behavior, even after controlling for age. Thus, it is the quality, not the quantity, of parents' talk about emotions with their toddlers that matters for early prosocial behavior. Over an extended apprenticeship from infancy through adolescence, children are socialized into all things human. In the current study, we focus on the socialization of prosocial behavior: what role might parental Correspondence should be sent t

Electrical and viscoelastic parameters of erythrocytes as predictors of exacerbation in inflammatory bowel diseases

The aim of this work is to study the electrical and viscoelastic parameters of erythrocytes for patients with inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), examined in dynamics, as possible predictors of exacerbation of the disease. Material and methods. In dynamics, 23 patients with IBD (37.9 ± 4.3 years) were examined. The first examination was carried out in the stage of exacerbation, the second – after 6-12 months - in the stage of remission of IBD. Additionally, 35 patients with IBD in remission were examined to assess the predictive capabilities of erythrocyte parameters with subsequent monitoring of their condition for 6-12 months. The electrical and viscoelastic parameters of erythrocytes were investigated by dielectrophoresis. Statistical processing was carried out using a system of machine learning methods – Random Forest, MATLAB (R2019a, MathWorks). Results and discussion. The parameters of erythrocytes, which are predictors of exacerbation of IBD, were revealed: an increase in the proportion of deformed cells (p = 0.0001); altered nature of the erythrocyte surface (p = 0.011); increased electrical conductivity of membranes (p = 0.0019); reduced dipole moment (p = 0.0015), the rate of directional movement of erythrocytes to the electrodes (p = 0.005) (paired and unpaired Volcano plot methods), reduced deformation amplitude at a frequency of 5×105 Hz (p = 0.009), capacity of erythrocyte membranes (p = 0.029 ) (unpaired Volcano plot method). Indicators associated with changes in the charge of cells, the structure of erythrocyte membranes and the level of energy metabolism of the cell turned out to be significant. A high diagnostic accuracy of these indicators was established as predictors: the proportion of deformed cells (AUC 0.939), a summarized viscosity index (AUC 0.932). Cluster analysis of the values of erythrocyte parameters – predictors of exacerbation made it possible to stratify the risk of exacerbation: at the most altered levels of parameters – the development of exacerbation after 2.5-4.5 months, intermediate levels - after 4-6 months, minimally changed – after 8-12 months (predictive accuracy – 92 %). Conclusions. The revealed electrical and viscoelastic parameters of erythrocytes should be considered as promising predictors of exacerbation in patients with IBD