The present study clarified the structure of cognitive processes among parents (N=259) of 3- to 5-year old children. Reflection, a new concept addressed by this study, appeared to be closely related to the concepts of metacognition and self-reflective observation. A "parental reflection model" consisted of three types of reflection: Reflection on One's Self (PR); Reflection on Children by Parents (CR); and parents' Reflection on Themselves Through Other People (OR). Specifically, OR refers to parents' reflections based on talking to other parents or observing other people's children. A questionnaire, which included the Parental Reflection Scale (PRS), was constructed to include the three types of reflection and other scales including self-consciousness/self-reflection, parent-child relationship, maternal awareness, and child care attitudes. Factors analysis of the PRS revealed a two-factor structure for PR and OR, and a three-factor structure for CR. Based on these findings, a new hierarchical three-level model was devised to explain the influence of lower level reflections on higher level reflections; validity was confirmed by Structural Equation Modeling. Reliability was high for the sub-scales (PR, CR, and OR) of the PRS. The reliability and the validity of this scale were confirmed by the relations between the PRS and other scales.

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Using video clips collected for a video encyclopedia of infancy (Sasaki, 2008), a case study was conducted on the changing processes of a toddler's behavior. Naturalistic observations were conducted of the child gathering toy blocks in a container, between the ages of 14-24 months. This investigation of the environment surrounding the toddler's behavior revealed that properties of the surface layout affected his postural variations that made possible goal-directed action of gathering blocks in a container. In addition, the boy's behavior was regulated in such a way to maintain an invariant affordance relationship between detached objects and the child. Analysis of changes in his activities indicated that that awareness of meaningful properties of the environment allowed actions to be selected among those that are afforded to flexibly deal with context-conditioned variation.

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This study focused on two dimensions of friendship styles: conformity with friends and psychological distance. Junior high school girls (n=96) and high school girls (n=122) completed a questionnaire about conformity, psychological distance, psychological adjustment, and school adjustment. The results were as follows. For both junior high and high school students, surface friendships with a high level of conformity and wide psychological distance were associated with lower psychological adjustment and school adjustment. For both junior high and high school students, respectful friendship with a low level of conformity and close psychological distance were associated with better psychological adjustment and school adjustment. In junior high school, close friendships with a high level of conformity and close psychological distance were associated with better psychological and school adjustment. In contrast, high school students with close friendships had poorer psychological adjustment.

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The present study examined how to use spatial information for reorientation during two disorientation tasks, involving either viewer or space rotation, within a small rectangular space (45.0cm×67.5cm) on a table. Thirty-two adults participated in Experiment 1, and searched for the correct corner by combining geometric configuration with a local cue, on an object retrieval task. In Experiment 2, 3- to 6-year old children (N=60) used a salient landmark rather than the geometry of the apparatus, and did not combine information to find a hidden object. Regarding the two disorientation tasks, adults more frequently made use of geometric cues in the space-rotated situation than in the viewer-rotated situation, but children' performance did not differ between the two disorientation tasks. These results suggested that 3- to 6 year-old children may construct a spatial representation based on landmark information for reorientation, whether or not they have been moved themselves, when they use a table-top model. This finding was contrasted with that of preschoolers' use of locomotor space in previous studies.

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The present study investigated preschoolers' external source monitoring abilities in identifying two source persons. Three- to 6-year old children listened to a set of target words read by two speakers (a male and a female) under two conditions (self-introduction condition in which the speaker read sentences of his/her self-introduction including the target words; word condition in which the speaker read only the target words). Some target words were common to both sources, whereas others were unique to each source. Following the acquisition phase, participants were given a recognition test and a source monitoring test in which they identified the source of each sentence or word by means of four alternatives (i.e., male voice only, female voice only, both, neither). Results showed that 3-4 year olds made more source monitoring errors than did 4-5 and 5-6 year olds. In addition, 4-5 and 5-6 year olds were more accurate under the self-introduction condition than in the word condition.

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The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of settings on first graders' emotional reactions to being praised by teachers. In study 1, the children (N=30) were interviewed regarding emotional reactions when they were praised by a teacher in a one-on-one setting vs. in the presence of their classmates. The reported emotional reaction in those two settings demonstrated four patterns: positive emotions in both settings, positive emotions in both settings and negative emotions only in the presence of friends, positive emotions in the one-on-one setting and negative emotions in the presence of friends, and stronger positive emotions in the presence of friends than in the one-on-one setting. In study 2, a different sample of 23 children were asked whether they preferred being praised one-on-one vs. in the presence of their classmates, and the reasons for their preference. Students who chose a one-on-one setting preferred quiet environments, while students who chose the setting with classmates mentioned the possibility of being praised by friends.

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Previous research (Nada & Maruno, 2007) demonstrated an internalization process by which children reconstruct their own ideas through (1) awareness, noticing different ideas of others, and (2) self-reflection, comparing and examining the differences. Repetition of this sequential process leads children to realize the utility value of other people's different ideas, and necessity of knowledge reconstruction. Eventually, children can independently execute an optimal strategy. In the present study, third graders performed an "errand task" in a pre-test, collaborative session, and post-test sequence (Radziszewska & Rogoff, 1991). Children interacted with an experimenter eight times during the collaborative session; it was assumed that internalization required children to realize the effectiveness of their changed ideas by testing and utilizing them in the task. Two factors (awareness and self-reflection) were manipulated, resulting in four task conditions. The results showed that in the condition where others' different ideas were presented and there was self-reflection, children effectively internalized an optimal strategy to solve the task through repeated interaction.

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In Study 1 and Study 2 consisted of interviews with preschoolers about two representations of Santa Claus: "Santa as an adult in costume" and "Santa who brings us presents at night." Four year-olds tended to judge the Santa-in-costume to be real, while six year-olds tended to judge this representation as not real. In Study 3, in addition to the representations from Studies 1 and 2, we asked children about "Santa whom we meet at the department store," "Santa who visits children's homes in the daytime," "Santa who flies through the sky at night," and "Santa who invites children to Santa Land at night." The five year-olds tended to judge Santa to be real based on his facial appearance. On the other hand, six year-olds tended to judge the Santa that appears in children's homes at night, in the sky, and in Santa Land to be real, and judged the Santa who visits department stores, day nurseries, and children's homes in the daytime to not be real, based on the appropriateness of the context of his appearance.

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Participants in this survey were 242 mothers of three and four month olds. The results indicated that stress about childrearing was directly related to depressive symptoms, and that depressive symptoms indirectly mediated controllability of childrearing-related stress. However, support from husbands was not related to depressive symptoms. Based on the interactions between support from husbands and controllability, it appeared that controllability was negatively related to depressive symptoms, and that this association depended on the level of support from husbands. Specifically, if controllability was low, depressive symptoms were lower when support from husbands was stronger. These results indicated that to prevent depressive symptoms it is necessary to recognize the controllability of childrearing-related stress, and when it is difficult to control such stress support from the husband is beneficial.

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In Experiment 1, 3 year-old children tried to determine pitch sequences by matching them with pictures and musical sounds. The results showed that 3 year-olds had difficulty associating sounds with pictures and making choices between two stimuli. In Experiment 2, 97 children ages 2-6 were participants These children identified four musical sounds produced by Montessori bells. The children in Experiment 2 were more successful at identifying the sounds than the children in Experiment 1. Although it may not prove effective for 2-and 3-year old children, the results of Experiment 2 suggested a possible new method to evaluate the pitch discrimination abilities of young children.

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