Although social scientists have identified diverse behavioral patterns among children from dissimilarly structured families, marketing scholars have progressed little in relating family structure to consumption-related decisions. In particular, the roles played by members of single-mother families—which may include live-in grandparents, mother’s unmarried partner, and step-father with or without step-sibling(s)—may affect children’s influence on consumption-related decisions. For example, to offset a parental authority dynamic introduced by a new stepfather, the work-related constraints imposed on a breadwinning mother, or the imposition of adult-level (...) household responsibilities on children, single-mother families may attend more to their children’s product preferences. -/- Without a profile that includes socio-economic, behavioral, and psychological aspects, efficient and socially responsible marketing to single-mother households is compromised. Relative to dual-parent families, single-mother families tend to have fewer resources and less buying power, children who consume more materialistic and compulsively, and children who more strongly influence decision making for both own-use and family-use products. Timely research would ensure that these and other tendencies now differentiate single-mother from dual-parent families in ways that marketers should address. Hence, our threefold goal is (1) to consolidate and highlight gaps in existing theory applied to studying children’s influence on consumption-related decision making in single-mother families, and (2) to propose a hybrid framework that merges two theories conducive to such research, and (3) to identify promising research propositions for future research. (shrink)

Previous research with adults suggests that a catalog of minimally counterintuitive concepts, which underlies supernatural or religious concepts, may constitute a cognitive optimum and is therefore cognitively encoded and culturally transmitted more successfully than either entirely intuitive concepts or maximally counterintuitive concepts. This study examines whether children's concept recall similarly is sensitive to the degree of conceptual counterintuitiveness (operationalized as a concept's number of ontological domain violations) for items presented in the context of a fictional narrative. Seven- to nine-year-old (...) children who listened to a story including both intuitive and counterintuitive concepts recalled the counterintuitive concepts containing one (Experiment 1) or two (Experiment 2), but not three (Experiment 3), violations of intuitive ontological expectations significantly more and in greater detail than the intuitive concepts, both immediately after hearing the story and 1 week later. We conclude that one or two violations of expectation may be a cognitive optimum for children: They are more inferentially rich and therefore more memorable, whereas three or more violations diminish memorability for target concepts. These results suggest that the cognitive bias for minimally counterintuitive ideas is present and active early in human development, near the start of formal religious instruction. This finding supports a growing literature suggesting that diverse, early-emerging, evolved psychological biases predispose humans to hold and perform religious beliefs and practices whose primary form and content is not derived from arbitrary custom or the social environment alone. (shrink)

Five-year-old children categorized as skilled versus unskilled counters were given verbal estimation and number word comprehension tasks with numerosities 20 – 120. Skilled counters showed a linear relation between number words and nonsymbolic numerosities. Unskilled counters showed the same linear relation for smaller numbers to which they could count, but not for larger number words. Further tasks indicated that unskilled counters failed even to correctly order large number words differing by a 2 : 1 ratio, whereas they performed well on (...) this task with smaller numbers, and performed well on a nonsymbolic ordering task with the same numerosities. These findings provide evidence that large, approximate numerosity representations become linked to number words around the time that children learn to count to those words reliably. (shrink)

This article studies perceptual differences of three social robots by elementary school children of ages 6–13 years at research fairs. The autonomous humanoid robot Pepper, an advanced social robot primarily designed as a personal assistant with movement and mobility, is compared to the teleoperated AV1 robot—designed to help elementary school children who cannot attend school to have a telepresence through the robot—and the flowerpot robot Tessa, used in the eWare system as an avatar for a home sensor system and dedicated (...) to people with dementia living alone. These three robots were shown at the Norwegian national research fair, held in every major Norwegian city annually, where children were able to interact with the robots. Our analysis is based on quantitative survey data of the school children concerning the robots and qualitative discussions with them. By comparing three different types of social robots, we found that presence can be differently understood and conceptualized with different robots, especially relating to their function and “aliveness.” Additionally, we found a strong difference when relating robots to personal relations to one’s own grandparents versus older adults in general. We found children’s perceptions of robots to be relatively positive, curious and exploratory and that they were quite reflective on their own grandparent having a robot. (shrink)

In 2018, the Chinese scientist He Jiankui presented his research at the Second International Summit on Human Genome Editing in Hong Kong. While it was intended that he facilitate a workshop, he was instead called on to present his research in heritable human genome editing, where he made the announcement that he had taken great strides in advancement of his research, to the extent that he had gene-edited human embryos and that this had resulted in the live births of two (...) children. While his research ethic and methodology was interrogated, he insisted that two children, twin girls, had been born healthy and that there was another pregnancy (at the time) where birth of a third gene edited child would be imminent. This announcement generated a ripple effect in the scientific community and exposed the gaps in regulation and absence of law relating to the technology. This resulted in a flurry of activity and conversation around regulation of the technology, which scientists stated was not ready for human trials. This article reviews the Third Summit which was held in London in March 2023 and comments on the latest developments in the regulation of heritable human genome editing. (shrink)

The Archaeology of Semiotics and the social order of things is edited by George Nash and George Children and brings together 15 thought-provoking chapters from contributors around the world. A sequel to an earlier volume published in 1997, it tackles the problem of understanding how complex communities interact with landscape and shows how the rules concerning landscape constitute a recognised and readable grammar. The mechanisms underlying landscape grammar are both physical and mental, being based in part on the mindset of (...) the individual; the same landscape can thus evoke different meanings for different people and at different times. People's perception has greatly influenced the construction of landscapes over millennia but, until recently, the potential of this area has been largely untapped. Apart from chapters focusing solely upon human interaction with landscape, there are several which skilfully integrate artefacts and place with landscape (e.g. Gheorghiu and Sognnes). Other chapters look at the way people have marked the landscape through such mechanisms as rock-art (e.g. Clegg, Devereux, Estévez, Fossati, Kelleher and Skier). Rock-art establishes personal and communal identity in relation to landscape and it is clear that other forms of visual expression were in place which distinctively created special places within the landscape. Landscape constructs can bind cultures together; bringing the old ways of reading the landscape into contemporary life (e.g. Smiseth). Defining early and late prehistoric landscapes and segregating these into, say, mundane domestic and ritualised spaces rely on both clear and subtle archaeologies and in this volume distinct monument clustering and ritualised linearity are considered (e.g. Mason and Nash). A volume such as this cannot escape the influence of New World approaches, such as anthropology, and in many respects chapters by Bender, Muller and Merritt give context to other chapters within the book. Finally, one must consider text as a means of constructing landscape and this is considered by Heyd, who eloquently deconstructs the travel diary of a 17th century Japanese poet. This will be an important volume for archaeologists, landscape scholars and students. The many approaches used are tried and tested, forming an invaluable resource and not just another edited book. (shrink)

Three experiments investigated changes from 15 to 30 months of age in children’s (N = 114) mastery of relations between an object and an aperture, supporting surface, or form. When choosing between objects to insert into an aperture, older children selected objects of an appropriate size and shape, but younger children showed little selectivity. Further experiments probed the sources of younger children’s difficulty by comparing children’s performance placing a target object in a hole, on a 2-dimensional form, or atop another (...) solid object. Together, the findings suggest that some factors limiting adults’ object representations, including the difficulty of comparing the shapes of positive and negative spaces and of representing shapes in 3 dimensions, contribute to young children’s errors in manipulating objects. (shrink)

The goal of this study was to determine whether it is possible to teach children with serious decoding problems four text comprehension strategies in listening contexts. The subjects were 9-11 year old students from special schools for children with learning disabilities. All the students were very poor at decoding; half of the group were also poor listeners, whereas the other half consisted of normal listeners. The experimental children were trained in strategies of clarifying, questioning, summarising and predicting through a combination (...) of reciprocal teaching and direct instruction. The results indicated significant programme effects on a strategic listening comprehension test. A transfer effect on general listening comprehension and general reading comprehension tests was not found. The poor listeners within the experimental group did not perform better than the normal listeners. (shrink)

Researchers are increasingly interested in the impact of philosophical dialogues with children. Studies have shown that this approach helps realise dialogic ideals in learning environments and that Philosophy with Children significantly impacts children’s cognitive and social skills. However, other aspects of this approach have attracted less attention – for example, given the focus on children’s thinking, voices and perspectives in Philosophy with Children, surprisingly few studies have examined how children experience philosophical dialogues. The aim of this study was to help (...) fill this research gap by describing how children perceived a week of online philosophical dialogues. We conducted 58 dialogues in emergency teaching during the COVID-19 lockdown in Denmark and asked the children questions about their experiences of the dialogues – for instance, about their overall impressions, their perceptions of meaning and the facilitators, and their sense of community. We found that the children generally enjoyed the dialogues and understood their rationale even though the rationale had not been explicitly discussed with them. We also found that the children’s opinions were diverse and complex, that some of their descriptions were surprising and that their experiences, in general, matched influential descriptions of dialogic teaching ideals. Our findings confirm that it is important to examine children’s perspectives; therefore, we emphasise the need for further attention to the experiences of children participating in philosophical dialogues. (shrink)

Intensive professional testing of children with disabilities is becoming increasingly prominent within the field of children’s rehabilitation. In this paper we question the high quality ascribed to standardized assessment procedures. We explore testing practices using a hermeneutic-phenomenological approach analyzing data from interviews and participant observations among 20 children with disabilities and their parents. All the participating children have extensive experience from being tested. This study reveals that the practices of testing have certain limitations when confronted with the lived experience of (...) those who are being tested. Testing seems to transmit the experts’ view of what is important, correct and admirable, and the way in which an individual child fulfills such requirements and fits in with the predetermined standard. Regular testing may result in insecurity on the part of the tested individual, and possibly to a lack of confidence in their body and the way it functions. For the individual being tested the meaning of testing is primarily related to passing or not passing the test requirements. Given the meaning of testing, children with disabilities may experience repeated testing as an ordeal that they are expected to put up with. By illuminating the experiences of the ones exposed to testing, this paper offers new insight for professionals to gauge more accurately the quality of contemporary testing practice. (shrink)

Abstract. In this paper, which was among Don Browning's last writings before he died, we review and evaluate the main arguments against the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (the “CRC”) that conservative American Christians in particular have opposed. While we take their objections seriously, we think that, on balance, the CRC is worthy of ratification, especially if it is read in light of the profamily ethic that informs the CRC and many earlier human rights instruments. More (...) fundamentally, we think that the CRC captures some of the very best traditional Western legal and theological teachings on marriage, family, and children, which we retrieve and reconstruct for our day. (shrink)

A number of international organizations have claimed that children have a right to be loved, but there is a worry that this claim may just be an empty rhetoric. In this paper, I seek to show that there could be such a right by providing a justification for this right in terms of human rights, by demonstrating that love can be an appropriate object of a duty, and by proposing that biological parents should normally be made the primary bearers of (...) this duty, while all other able persons in appropriate circumstances have the associate duties to help biological parents discharge their duties. I also consider some policy implications of this right. (shrink)

A series of experiments investigated the effect of speakers’ language, accent, and race on children’s social preferences. When presented with photographs and voice recordings of novel children, 5-year-old children chose to be friends with native speakers of their native language rather than foreign-language or foreign-accented speakers. These preferences were not exclusively due to the intelligibility of the speech, as children found the accented speech to be comprehensible, and did not make social distinctions between foreign-accented and foreign-language speakers. Finally, children chose (...) same-race children as friends when the target children were silent, but they chose other-race children with a native accent when accent was pitted against race. A control experiment provided evidence that children’s privileging of accent over race was not due to the relative familiarity of each dimension. The results, discussed in an evolutionary framework, suggest that children preferentially evaluate others along dimensions that distinguished social groups in prehistoric human societies. (shrink)

In this paper, I offer a solution to the Capacity/Equality Puzzle. The puzzle holds that an account of the franchise may adequately capture at most two of the following: (1) a political equality-based account of the franchise, (2) a capacity-based account of disenfranchising children, and (3) universal adult enfranchisement. To resolve the puzzle, I provide a complex liberal egalitarian justification of a moral requirement to disenfranchise children. I show that disenfranchising children is permitted by both the proper political (...) liberal and the proper political egalitarian understandings of the relationship between cognitive capacity and the franchise. Further, I argue, disenfranchising children is required by a minimalistic, procedural principle of collective competence in political decision-making. At the same time, I show that political equality requires the enfranchisement of all adults, regardless of cognitive capacities, and that the collective competence principle does not ground adult disenfranchisement. This justifies the progressive legal trend that holds the capacity-based disenfranchisement of adults to be incompatible with liberal democratic principles. (shrink)

Each person should have their pride – a proper sense of their worth and dignity. Improper pride is arrogance; proper pride, one might say, is necessary for self‐respect. As an emotion, pride may take the form of a momentary emotional occurrence, as when, for example, one is complimented by people whose approval one appreciates on some achievement of one's own, of one's spouse, or of one's children. Pride may also take the form of a persistent, enduring, emotion, as when one (...) feels proud of one's beauty and figure, or of the good looks of one's spouse or children; of one's achievements; of some admirable possession one owns; of one's dog or horse; and of one's high rank and office. Christian theologians have taken certain forms of pride to be contraries, the former a deadly vice and the latter a virtue. Hume too took pride and humility to be contraries. (shrink)

The purpose of this research is to proving empirically correlation between self management with double role conflict at educational institution of Primagama Yogyakarta. Hypothesis of this research is there any negative correlation between self management with double role at woman career in educational institution of Primagama Yogyakarta. Participants in this research are woman career in educational institution of Primagama Yogyakarta with characteristic are married, have children, with sample accumulated was 32, from 35 person woman employee in Primagama. This research using (...) two scale methods to collecting data, there are self management schale and double role conflict schale likert model. Hypothesis was tested with product moment correlation analysis technique. The research result showing there any significant negative correlation between self management with intensity of double role conflict at woman employee in educational institution of Primagama Yogyakarta.  . (shrink)

It is well-established that toddlers can correctly select a novel referent from an ambiguous array in response to a novel label. There is also a growing consensus that robust word learning requires repeated label-object encounters. However, the effect of the context in which a novel object is encountered is less well-understood. We present two embodied neural network replications of recent empirical tasks, which demonstrated that the context in which a target object is encountered is fundamental to referent selection and word (...) learning. Our model offers an explicit account of the bottom-up associative and embodied mechanisms which could support children’s early word learning and emphasises the importance of viewing behaviour as the interaction of learning at multiple timescales. (shrink)

S. Matthew Liao argues here that children have a right to be loved. To do so he investigates questions such as whether children are rightholders; what grounds a child's right to beloved; whether love is an appropriate object of a right; and other philosophical and practical issues. His proposal is that all human beings have rights to the fundamental conditions for pursuing a good life; therefore, as human beings, children have human rights to the fundamental conditions for pursuing a good (...) life. Since being loved is one of those fundamental conditions, children thus have a right to be loved. Liao shows that this claim need not be merely empty rhetoric, and that the arguments for this right can hang together as a coherent whole. This is the first book to make a sustained philosophical case for the right of children to be loved. It makes a unique contribution to the fast-growing literature on family ethics, in particular, on children's rights and parental rights and responsibilities, and to the emerging field of the philosophy of human rights. (shrink)

When faced with transgressions in their peer groups, children must navigate a series of situational cues (e.g., type of transgression, transgressor gender, transgressor intentionality) to evaluate the moral status of transgressions and to inform their subsequent behavior toward the transgressors. There is little research on which cues children prioritize when presented together, how reliance on these cues may be affected by certain biases (e.g., gender norms), or how the prioritization of these cues may change with age. To explore these questions, (...) 138 5- to 7-year-olds (younger children) and 8- to 10-year-olds (older children) evaluated a series of boy and girl characters who partook in physical or relational aggression with ambiguous or purposeful intent. Children were asked to provide sociomoral evaluations (i.e., acceptability, punishment, and intention attribution judgments) and social preferences. Transgressor gender only impacted children’s social preferences. Conversely, aggression form and transgressor intent shifted children’s sociomoral judgments: they were harsher toward physical transgressors with purposeful intent over those with ambiguous intent but made similar evaluations for relational transgressors regardless of intentionality. The present results suggest that gender is perhaps not uniformly relevant to children across all contexts, as other cues were prioritized for children’s sociomoral judgments. Since children likely have less familiarity with relational aggression compared to physical aggression, it follows that intent would only shift judgments about physical transgressors. This research provides insight about how children simultaneously navigate multiple cues in aggression contexts, which is likely reflective of their real-world experiences. (shrink)