This research concerned ego-experience in the form of children's questions toward themselves. "Why am I 'I'?, "Why do I exist?," "Where did I come from?," "Why was I born at this particular time rather than at a different point in time?," and feelings that one's appearance is strange, all reflected ego-experiences. Three aspects of ego-experience were assumed in this research : "questions toward one's existence," "questions toward one's origin or situation," and "sense of incongruity with oneself." Junior high school students (N=60) participated in individual semi-structured interviews. The results were as follows : (1) 38 subjects reported a total of 51 ego-experiences, and ego-experiences were a common phenomenon for children. (2) The 51 ego-experiences involved the assumed three aspects of ego-experience. (3) The ego-experiences appeared between upper elementary and middle school.

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To explain biological and physical phenomena, we activate complex psychological constructs. In this research, two experiments were conducted to examine the relations between domain knowledge acquisition and reasoning schemata in explanations. In the first Experiment, 3-, 4-, 5-year-olds, and adults (total N=120), performed "explanation tasks" consisting of 4 reasoning problems translated from conditional reasoning tasks, and justifications of yes-no judgments involving familiar phenomena. These problems were embedded in familiar and realistic contexts. In Experiment 2, children of ages 5 : 0 years and 5 : 6 years, and adults (total N=90), solved same types of problems as in Experiment 1. These tasks were embedded in both familiar and unfamiliar contexts and participants also explained their judgments in detail in response to wh-questions. The results were as follows : (1) On the tasks, young children's ability to make inferences was comparable to that of the adults ; (2) Even 3-year-olds make both deductive and inductive inferences ; (3) Children's explanations were flexible and appropriate depending on differentiated domain knowledge, because young children already have domain knowledge of theories of mind, biology and physics, and the level of this knowledge improved with age ; and (4) Children's domain-specific knowledge acquisition promoted inductive and deductive inferences, based on domain-general reasoning schemata. There were two styles of adult explanations : highly elaborated through reasoning and a simple style through rote learning. Results (1) and (2) imply that reasoning schemata are domain-general, while results (3) and (4) suggest that increasing scientific knowledge has a powerful effect on the activation of both inductive and deductive reasoning.

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"Inhibition of return" refers to increased response latency when the target in a location discrimination task appears in the same location on consecutive trials. Participants in this study were 20 four-year olds and 24 five-year olds. In the experiment, the children's task was to press a left or right button in response to a stimulus displayed on a computer screen. Inhibition of return was observed at least among 4 year-olds on an intentional manual response task. In addition, inhibition of return was stronger when the task was more difficult. The data suggest that inhibition of return begins to function early during the development of behavioral regulation, and that implicit processes are important for the development of human systems of self-regulation.

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The main purposes of the present study were to classify aggressive behaviors of preschool children according to the context in which they occur, and to examine subtypes of aggressive behavior in relation to gender, peer group status, and numbers of aggressive children. Four-and 5-years-old preschoolers (16 boys and 18 girls) were observed in a natural setting for one year. A total of 160 aggressive behaviors were observed and classified into 3 categories : proactive overt aggression, instrumental bullying, and relational aggression. The results showed that boys showed more proactive overt aggression and instrumental bullying aggression than girls, while girls showed more relational aggressive behaviors than boys. In addition, children were aggressive according to their peer group status. Children who were classified as "nuclear" in their peer group had higher frequencies of relational aggressive behavior than children who were otherwise classified. Children who were classified as "isolated" suffered more than others from relational aggression.

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A mother-male toddler dyad was videotaped at home in natural settings when the boy was from 15 to 27 months of age. Analysis of his emotional reactions to maternal reproofs indicated that there were 3 phases in the development of conflict interactions. In Phase 1, the mother communicated the inappropriateness of an action and the need to apologize and change his own behavior. He reacted mainly with positive emotion or tension. In Phase 2, the boy more often showed negative emotions in response to reproofs. However, he was also compliant relatively often and occasionally apologized in a voluntary way. The mother referred to his intention and responsibility for his behavior in this phase. Finally, in Phase 3, the boy's reactions to reproofs reflected feelings of both anger and guilt, as the mother negotiated, threatened, or pushed him away when he was noncompliant. These trends suggest that changes in maternal responses to children's misbehavior parallel children's differentiation of emotional responses and intellectual advance. Such changes contribute to a reorganization of mother-child interaction in the period of toddlerhood.

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As children develop autobiographical memories and narrative skills, parents encourage them to talk about past events. This study examined the interaction of two phenomena : (1) adaptation according to the child's age by mothers and fathers in their elicitation of children's narratives, and (2) differences between mothers and fathers in their communication with children. Conversations about past events were tape-recorded between 46 Chinese children (ages 3 to 5 years-old) and their mothers and fathers. The main findings were as follows. (1) There was less volume of parental speech with older children. (2) Parents of younger children asked more yes-no, what, and repetitive question. (3) Parent of 3- and 4-year-olds asked for more information and clarifications than did parents of 5 year-olds. (4) Fathers, especially those of 4 year-olds, spoke more than did mothers, and used more yes-no and repetitive questions. The parents of 3 year-olds apparently provided scaffolding to support children's narratives, and fathers and mothers used different styles to support children's communication.

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The present study examined men's perceptions of infant crying and their recognition of the causes of infant crying. Four groups participated in the research : (A) 45 unmarried men, (B) 10 newlywed men, (C) 15 men whose wives were expecting their first child, and (D) 27 fathers. Participants rated the cries of infants who had been evaluated as low and high for risk complications, and offered their reasons for infants' crying. The results included : (1) Group D (fathers) perceptions were not as negative as those of Group A (unmarried men), (2) Group D perceptions correlated with frequency of child rearing activity, and Group C (husbands of expecting wives) correlated with participants' gender role concept and experience of child rearing, (3) Groups C and D discriminated between infant cries, recognizing pain as one cause of crying. These results demonstrated that a cognitive framework for understanding infant crying forms early in men's experience of fatherhood, and that fathers were competent in child rearing.

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This study established the concurrent validity of Cattell's ego strength scale with Coddington's life change scale. This was shown in that Cattell's scale correlated strongly with Barron's ego strength scale, while Coddington's scale correlated positively with academic stress scales administered to Japanese junior and senior high school students. Junior and senior high school students (N=202) completed these 2 scales and an ego developmental crisis state scale (ECS-Nagao, 1989). Path analysis revealed 2 psychological processes. First, the ECS proceeded to maladjustment, as demonstrated on the basis of system theory (Lazarus, 1999). For junior high school students who did not meet life events, the process was that ego strength influenced ego developmental conflicts, and those conflicts increased the self-blame and consequently maladjustment. The process among high school students was that degree of ego strength interacted with the shock of life events. This influenced ego developmental conflicts, and then through self-blame resulted in maladjustment.

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