In response to scenario-based questions about moral and conventional transgressions, 8- to 10-year old children consistently made inferences about protagonists' pro-social behaviors following both guilt-inducing and shame-inducing situations. In addition, adults made the inference that when transgressions in response to shame-inducing situations were less serious, protagonists would display asocial behavior that mediated feelings of shame. Twelve-year olds sometimes made adult-like inferences and sometimes behaved like younger children. The finding that 12-year olds' inferences were adult-like yet not entirely the same indicated that the developmental transition to adult understanding may continue during adolescence. This study also indicated that a functionalist approach to socio-emotional development, without use of the terms "guilty" or "ashamed", will be useful in future investigation.

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This study examined how women raising young children talk about and make sense of their child care and everyday life. Narratives about life perspectives and meaning of child care were obtained through in-depth interviews with 11 women who were engaged at home in full-time caregiving for their first-born children (under the age of 3). Through a qualitative analysis using a narrative approach, five meaning patterns were identified: Child Care as Positively Self-Evident Experience, Child Care as Their Own Developmental Task, Present Life as a Rest Period, Child Care as Personal Growth, and Grasping for Meaning of Child-Care. Each meaning pattern seemed to reflect each mother's narratives about her own life, particularly her present life circumstance and past, and future possible life courses. The patterns were also related to each mother's distress, conflict, and uncertainty about her own life. The results support a meaning-making model as a unique coping strategy by which mothers can accept and adapt to their lives

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In this study, fifth grade children (n = 67) solved word problems using the knowledge structure "duration = temporal stopping point minus temporal starting point" to compare the time two different objects moved. Before and after learning this knowledge structure, participants viewed an image on a screen that depicted two cars traveling in the same direction. The children were asked to judge which car had started earlier and stopped earlier, and which car had run for a longer time. A second sample of fifth graders (n = 70) made spatial judgments in the same way. The results showed that it was very difficult to judge durations of the two moving cars, even after learning the knowledge structure. For fifth graders it seemed to be a little easier to judge distances of the two moving cars by using the knowledge structure "distance = spatial stopping point minus starting point."

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Six-year olds (N = 64), 5-year olds (N = 60) and 4-year olds (N = 29) were videotaped in daily activities at their preschool, and were interviewed about their understanding of the "animal mind." The videos showed that the most frequent activities of children at the rabbit hutch were watching and feeding the animals. There were age differences in children's interactions with animals. For example, the four-year olds, more frequently than the five- and six-year olds, went after the animals and threw food to them. Six-year olds were most likely to clean the hutch and speak to the animals. The results of the interviews indicated that many children said they recognized rabbits' primary emotions, desires, and beliefs. However, there was also a limit on attributions of animal's mental states. The findings suggest that children gradually accord animals a social existence.

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This study examined the identity development of mothers (ages 41-60) during the transition to an empty nest. The result indicated that recognition of children's psychological departure from home, especially in the case of the first daughter, was an opportunity for the mother to develop her identity. However, objective state of independence (measured according to the child's lifestyle) was not related to mothers' identity. This suggested that identity development was facilitated by recognition of her own changing role rather than by observation of her children's growth. It was implied that the mother's identity development began at the realization that the first child's departure was coming soon. The data also showed that the mother who did not have friends to talk with suffered from more diffusion of identity in the beginning of the empty nest transition, compared with the mother who had such friendships.

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The purpose of this paper was to examine features of attitudes toward death in early and middle adolescence. The Scale of Attitude toward Death was administered to junior and senior high school students. This scale consisted of six subscales: "fear of death," "intention to live out own life," "meaning of death for life," "underrating of death," "belief in existence of afterlife," and "choice of death-of-body / death-of-mind." The surveys were conducted five times at one-year intervals (total N = 1742). The results suggested that positive attitudes toward life and negative attitudes toward death decrease during the years of junior high school. Belief in existence of an afterlife weakened with increasing grade level. Scores on the subscale of "meaning of death for life" did not change with grade level. The data showed that the structure of attitudes toward death was invariant in early and middle adolescence. Finally, experiences of bereavement for family members or close friends did not affect adolescents' attitudes toward death.

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In his developmental stage model, Baron-Cohen (1995) suggested that the formation of "SAM" precedes the development of "ToMM". Given the observation among normal children of a 3-year age disparity between the formation of SAM and ToMM, the present study addressed the question of whether there are intermediate stages between the development of SAM and ToMM. We examined the nature of two stages by putting them together in terms of triadic relations, while looking into their structural differences with respect to spatial, temporal, and personal relations. This analysis led to the hypothesis that there are two intermediate stages between the formation of SAM and the early development of ToMM. This paper presents a four-stage model, with of ToMM as the final stage, to explain the nature of developmental phenomena typically observed in children with normal and autistic children.

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This study investigated the communication patterns of middle-aged married couples, and analyzed the association between their occupational statuses and marital ideals. Participants were 277 post-parental married couples in nuclear families. The main results of the study were as follows. First, cluster analysis of communication attitudes extracted three types of communication patterns among couples: a "sympathetic friendly type" (36.5%), "average neutral type" (35.7%), and "oppressive and withdrawing type" (27.8% of couples). Secondly, among the "average neutral" and "oppressive and withdrawing" types, especially the latter, wives' marital satisfaction scores were significantly lower than their husbands' scores. Third, couples' occupational status had a significant relationship with their communication patterns. Single-income couples were more likely to be classified as "average neutral" in communication, whereas dual-income couples (wives' annual income greater than one million yen-about US$9,000) were most often classified as "sympathetic friendly" in communication. Finally, concerning marital ideals, husbands in "sympathetic friendly" couples emphasized "love and mutual respect" and "understanding and support of my wife" more than did husbands in the other two clusters of communication types.

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