Thirty-six 5th graders performed two types of tasks before and after instruction about speed in mathematics classes. In the moving task, participants viewed CRT displays of two cars traveling on two parallel tracks and judged which car had run longer. In the word problem task, they solved arithmetic problems about two children who were traveling. For each problem, three or four kinds of information (distances, speeds, starting times, and arrival times of both traveling children) were presented, and participants judged which child traveled for longer. The main results were as follows: (a) On moving tasks, many participants seemed to judge duration based only on distance, both before and after classes on speed; (b) On word problems, participants sometimes solved problems based only on information about arrival times or distances; and (c) the speed classes had a few effects on performance of both types of tasks. These findings were discussed in relation to partici- pants' knowledge and strategies used in duration judgements.

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Many observers of children's play have been interested in why children hide. This paper illustrated the process of the author's understanding of children's acts of hiding, and also suggested inter-subjective research hypotheses. Five- (n = 29) and six-year old (n = 19) children were studied through participant observation, during a total of 65 play episodes. The KJ method (Analysis 1) classified the 65 episodes into 13 primary categories. These 13 categories were then classified into 4 secondary categories, and finally "dramatic" and "interpersonal" acts were formed as 2 aggregate categories. Analysis 2 suggested the hypothesis that triadic relationships involved the creation of enclosing, covering, and separating, when children hid during play. Triads were characterized by a hiding "subject" (participants), a physical and psychological "place," and "others" (outsiders). Finally, Burke's (1952 / 1982) "dramatism" perspective was introduced to offer two possible motives for why children hide.

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This study examined how two existing models (stage model and chronic sorrow model) applied to chronically ill patients' life stories as told after the appearance of the disease. Participants (N=14, ages 19-34) had chronic kidney disease. Analyses showed that neither the stage nor chronic sorrow model was appropriate overall to predict the process of mourning work. The data also suggested two factors that should be considered in an alternative model. First, for chronic illness the mourning process should be viewed within a longer time span than does the traditional model, shifting in the direction of acceptance/closure. Second, it would be useful to consider cultural factors in understanding the acceptance/closure stage.

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This study examined the relationships between prosocial self-perception (sense of value and efficacy), attention to others' needs, and motivation for prosocial behavior. Seven year-olds (n = 157) and 9-year-olds (n = 185) completed a 10-item Prosocial Self-Perception Scale. Children rated their sense of value and efficacy for each item, I.e., how they thought they should be (prosocial sense of value) and could be (prosocial efficacy). They also responded to five prosocial episodes in which a friend was distressed. Questions about the episodes concerned how the friend would feel and why (attention to the other's need), and what they would do for the friend and why (motivation). In addition, teachers assessed each child's prosocial behavior. Among 9-year-olds, sense of value and efficacy had a direct effect on motivation, and prosocial behavior was predicted by prosocial motivation. But for 7-year-olds, motivation did not depend on children's sense of value and efficacy. These data suggest that, in comparing 7- and 9 year-olds, prosocial self-perception has different effects on prosocial behavior.

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This study investigated teacher practices at an in-hospital school and clarified the implicit meaning system of practices embedded within daily routines. A total of 223 episodes were recorded from fieldwork, consisting of participant observations, informal and formal semi-structured interviews, and document content analysis. Episodes were analyzed qualitatively according to the grounded theory approach. As a result, seven categories of teacher practices were identified and it was hypothesized that teachers not only taught academic subjects but also built formal and informal connections among the ecological systems surrounding the hospitalized children. In other words, they coordinated the support systems of the isolated and exhausted children. The concept of teachers' coordination of support has practical use, and appeared to be a core concept of teaching practices at the in-hospital school.

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This study investigated individual differences in two-year olds' emotional regulation as a process, by studying the change pattern of children's distress during mother-child conflicts. Participants were 41 mother-child pairs. The other purpose of the research was to analyze each individual difference from the standpoint of the mother-child relationship (emotional availability, or "EA") and their behaviors. Three patterns of distress processes were found: "continuance," "soothing," and "non-expression." Children of the "continuance" type actively tried to remove the source of their distress. The "non-expression" children independently contained their own distress and shifted to other activities as mothers followed along with them. Mothers were active partners in relieving the distress of the child, in the "soothing" type, and their EA in conflict situations was greater than during pre-conflict situations. These results indicated that maternal emotional support is necessary for children's emotional regulation, and that autonomous emotional regulation emerges in two-year olds.

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This study examined the relationship between present interpersonal frameworks and quality of past interpersonal relations, by analyzing the free responses of 97 female college students. Interpersonal frameworks were assessed by a questionnaire about students' Internal Working Models, and the quality of relationships with their mothers and friends was assessed based on students' descriptions of their life histories from the viewpoint of security/insecurity of attachment. It was first notable that current secure and avoidant frameworks were related to descriptions of past relationships with mothers and friends, whereas ambivalent frameworks were not. In addition, descriptions of the past showed both commonalities and differences in comparing students' relationships with mothers vs. friends. Finally, the link between present framework and past descriptions was stronger in the insecure group, and the avoidant group revealed many serious problems in descriptions of the past. These findings were discussed in relation to theories of attachment and autobiographical memory.

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The present study focused on the developmental process by which children come to understand their own facial expressions. It used children's own facial photographs and traditional facial expression stimuli (schematic drawings, illustrations, and photographs of other people) to examine recognition of facial expressions by young children. Fifty-eight young children (3-6 years old) were participants in the study. Photographs were taken of each participant after they were instructed to show facial expressions for happiness, sadness, and anger. One week later, the children were asked to judge the emotions expressed in these photographs and the other facial expression stimuli. The results showed that recognition of self-facial expressions was significant weaker than recognition of other facial expression stimuli. In addition, younger children most easily identified the emotion of anger among the self-facial expressions. These results showed that understanding one's own facial expressions contributes to the development of complex emotional comprehension.

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This research examined the effectiveness of teaching strategies that induced conceptual change in undergraduates' preconceptions about forces, to clarify how conceptual change is achieved. Two experimental tasks, a balance task (plain task) and a falling motion task (difficult task), were performed by 82 undergraduates identified by a pretest as having three types of preconceptions about forces: designated forces, motive forces, and operative forces. Measurement of conceptual conflicts and cognitive motivation, and analysis of participants' protocols, revealed the following. First, for many participants who gave correct answers to the plain task, incongruity-arousing information produced optimal conceptual conflicts, which led to perplexity among participants. For many who answered the difficult task correctly, incongruity-arousing information caused maximum conceptual conflict, leading to confusion. In addition, to resolve conceptual conflicts participants faced when engaged in the difficult task, an effective teaching strategy was to explicitly show students how to properly relate preconceptions and scientific conceptions. Lastly, among many of the students who gave correct answers to the plain task, incongruity-reducing information produced cognitive curiosity, facilitating recall and memory transfer. In contrast, for many who answered the difficult task correctly, cognitive curiosity caused by incongruity-reducing information led instead to surprise.

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This study examined the connection between judgments about imaginary objects and the fantasy-reality distinction in preschoolers. Preschoolers were first classified into four groups: an integration group, a confusion group, a denial group, and an affirmation group, based on their performance on a fantasy-reality distinction task. The integration group distinguished correctly between fantasy and reality. The confusion group mistook the fantasy for reality. The denial group denied both fantasy and reality, and the affirmation group affirmed them both. Next, actual behavior and verbal responses on an empty box task were compared between the four types. The main results were as follows. (1) Most of the denial group opened the box but said they thought the box was empty. (2) Most of the affirmation group did not open the box but said they visualized the imagined object as in the box. (3) In response to a question about the possibility of wishing and magic, most of the integration group did mention anything about the condition, or reserved their comments.

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