ISSN : 1229-0718
The present study was intended to overview research trends in developmental psychology, It surveyed American and European journals in the 1980's as well as other related books published since 1960. There are two research trends in American developmental psychology. One is the domain-specific position and it argues against piagetian perspective. TMs position focuses changes in a specific structure or function in terms of context, domain or task. The other is a macroscopic or wholistic position and it tries to integrate subdomains (cognition, emotion, personality and social development) into one developmental domain, Therefore, the recent literatures in each subdomains are discussed in these two viewpoints. European research in developmental psycology emphasizes theoretical and conceptual formation (e, g, structure of developmental theory, condition's and causes of developmental change, theoretical basis of development, theoretical perspective as well as relation between theories) of underlying mechanisms rather than phenomenal description of development, Research trend in developmental psychology in Europe is reviewed in terms of 5 areas which were mentioned above. Finally, this paper documents the new importace that the development of social cognition has assumed in recent studies in the development of social cognition take a neo-piagetian or nonparallelismic perspective, Three topices (human object vs, physical object; acquisition process of social knowledge: action theory) are reviewed and discussed in terms of research content, methodology and the possibility for integrated research.
The congnitive dictionaries of Korean, German, and North American children and adolescents 4 to 18 years of ago were inferred from their word associations. Enactive transformations were predominant for 4- to 6-year-olds in all 3 cultures. By 8 years of age, Korean and American children showed a marked shift in response patterns; i.e. iconic among Korean and logical among American children. On the other hand, the German children showed a marked shift toward functional and logical responses from 10 years of age. Findings were discussed in terms of (1) the universality of the enactive mode at the early age levels and its relationship to the theories of Piaget (1980) and Bruner (1966) regarding the action related nature of early language development; and (2) the shift in the early elementary school grades when children begin to develop cognitive dictionaries commensurate with their respective cultures.
This study is to analyze Korean American senior citizens' perspectives and attitude toward their living and dying. Their satisfaction and adjustments to the present aging lives would depend on how they internalize their on-coming death. The following facts are suggested through this study. 1. Attitude toward present living About the half of Korean senior citizens residing in Los Angeles area, state of California, the USA responded that they were generally happy, however, approximately 40% said so so, and the rest responded their daily living is dull and unhappy. Therefore, psychological and physiological support should be provided to help spend the remaining lives in a better condition. The biggest problems confronting Korean elderly in America are plus the fact of getting old itself and poor health, cooking to survive and the English language difficulties for communication in a foreign country. About 20% of the older respondents pleaded that there were scarcely anybody to share their problems and accompanying distresses. These responses appear to show how necessary it is to provide means to help language communication for older persons and further to provide human resources to share conversation with them. The activities they said they were doing were some voluntary works, using of leisure time, visiting friends, religious activities and studying English conversation. It seems most of the elderly respondents desired to get involved in some voluntary works for their community. About 80% desired for even simple kinds of jobs to do and that suggests the degree of how high their needs for activities is. It may only sound idealistic to regain a meaning of life by having elderly people participate in constructive activities, however, it is badly needed to seek for some ways to let them take part in such as the service activities depending on ones interest. Looking back on their past living, about one half of the elderly respondents perceived that they spent very worthy life while another half said their past living could not be highly evaluated. Only about 20% perceived themselves as valuable being and the majority believed they were not valuable and useless. This tendency appeared more in the male respondents than in the female counterparts. This sort of negative self evaluation could very well be one of the important elements to make their lives unhappy and unsatisfied. Therefore, it is necessasary to provide reeducational programs which can reactivate the living of the elderly as positive ones. It should be stressed that one of the most important plans for elderly for their remaining lives is the health management develope educational programs for mental and physical health management and provide with facilities in order to fulfill their needs. 2. Attitude toward death Differences between male and female respondents are shown in the perspectives about the death. Most of the male respondents regarded death as the end of life or the eternal resting place while female counterparts perceived it as the beginning of the future life or God's provision. Except about 10% of the respondents, most respondents seemed to accept the feeling about death as natural facts and take without much fear. It agrees with study results from Bengtson (1977), Marshall (1975), Templer (1971). Kalish and Reynold (1976) that the older persons show less fear of death, and the psychologically healthier people could better resolve crisis for death. Marshall(1975) attributed this well taken attitude of the elderly toward death to the death expecting socialization as the death come closer to the impending reality. According to Rhudick and Andrew (1961), showing of such responses of older persons were not because the fear of death in the elderly did not exist at all, but because they would not be willing to recognize the fear or they would not be ready to recognize it. Although the death is unavoidable, about 60% of respondents expressed their desires to live longer. For the preparation for the death, about 60% have listed purchase of graveyard, life insurance, declaration of wills, while 34% said they had no preparation of any kind. Most of the respondents tended to avoid the thoughts or the talks about the death. Even though they did not want to share the talk about the death in general, their peer group friends were the main objects to discuss the matter with rather than with their spouses or children. Majority of the respondents illustrated that they wanted to try their best to have their illness cured however their illness seemed incurable. This respons agrees with their desires to put their lives' plans in health management and with the hopes to live longer. 3. Attitude toward death and related varibles The issue whether the older people accept death affirmatively or negatively is considered to give a big impact on the attitude and adjustments to the present living. The study result illustrates that the elderly respondents who accepted death more affirmatively seemed to show tendency to have religion, more satisfacion and less anxiety of their present living, evaluate past living meaningful, showed lighter prospects toward the future living, and evaluated their health condition good and tended to believe in the after-death-world. These results agree with Swenson's (1961) study which illustrated a significant correlation betwen the attitude toward death, religion and health evaluation. It also coinside with Marshall's(1975) study showed corredlation between ones attitude toward death and the evaluation of the past living. In the variables that were correlated to the length of the expected life, the elderly who desired the longer the length of the expected life, the healthier they said they were, evaluated their present living more useful and valuable, had life satisfaction and carried out many activities, and had lighter future prospects and less anxiety. It appears that the older persons who thought more about death had poorer health, more anxiety, much negative attitude toward daily life and evaluated themselves presently useless. The results of this study agree with Rhudick's(1961) work which illustrated that concerns much about death was a reflection of their poor health and anxiety. The present study shows no correlation either between the amount of thoughts about death and the age, or between the length of the expected remaining life and the future perspectives. In the attitude toward the euthenasia, more than 60% of the subjects opposed to it and only about 10% stronly approved. People who were more negative toward euthanasia tended to have religion, have more experiences of separation from death, want to live longer, have more attachment to living and evaluate ones past living valuable. Reviewing these results, we can see the elements like the degree of life satisfaction and anxiety of the present living and the self-evaluation of self play important roles in the perspectives and attitude toward life and death. Therefore, it is necessary to develope and provide multi-demension reeducational programs for older people to help make positive adjustments. It is also necessary to help older people to attain psychological feeling of security by elevating self awareness and self respect through physical and economic provisions as well as psychological supports. Various handedness measures were used to investigate the relationship betwwen hand preference and actual performance by the lift and right hands (bimanual activity, unimanual spped and dexteity, unimanual stmgth). The primary task was the Critical Angle Board, a simultaneous bimanual coying thaske. Subjects with a strong hand preference (either right or left) showed bess intedference from contral ateral activity of the nondominant hand then ambidextrous subjects. Ouerall, speed and dexterity of the nondominant hand relative to the dominant hand was greater in older subjects, while preference for the dominant hand in right handers increased with age.
The Department of Education data on students' physical examination from 1964 through 1986. and data obtained from individual students' high school records were examined in order to identify height growthpatterns of Korean adolescents. The data from 1960s suggested two peak growth periods, while data from 1979 on suggested only one peak growth period. Several hypotheses were considered as possible explanation for the change in growth pattern. The two most plausible factors responsible for the change were : elimination of high cchool entrance examination which was implemented nationuside in 1978, and rapid growth in per capita in come that has occurred since 1978. The shift from two peak growth periods to one was also accompanied by change to younger maximum growth age.
Various handedness measures were used to investigate the relationship between hand preference and actual performance by the left and right hands (bimanual actirity. unimanual speed and dexterity. unimanual strength). The primary task was the Critical Angle Board. a simultaneous bimanual copying task. Subjects with a strong hand preference (either right or left) showed less interference from controlateral activity of the nondominant hand than ambidextrous subjects Overall, speed and dexterity of the nondominant hand relative to the dominant hand was greater in older subjects, while preference for the dominant hand in right handers increased with age.
The primary purpose of the pusont study is to investigate hyperactivity among preschool children and cognitive deficits associated with hyperactivity in the preschool age. In study I, 119 children between the ages of 4-years and 6 years llmonths were assessed for their hyperactive tendency through Conners abbreviated Teacher and Parent Rating Scales. The results indicated significant discrepancies between teacher and parent ratings, particularly around sex differences in hyperactivity. In study II, 14 children with teacher rating higher than 1 SD above the mean (Hyperactive Group) and 20 children with teacher rating lower than 1 SD below the mean (control gruop) were compared on their performance on MFFT and CPT. The results indicated that the hyperactive group made significantly more errors on MFFT and CPT, suggesting their impulsivity and difficulty on attention situation. When group differences in mental age was taken into account through covariate analysis of variance, the group differences were not significant except for the commission error on CPT.
With the inherited temperament, a child affects the responses of others by selecting certain aspects of environment to deal with or avoid and modifying ways of expressing what he choses to accept. The increasing importance of temperament in develpment of children stimulated researchers to develop instruments for assessing the temperament. The present study was designed to explore the possibility that the RITQ developed by Carey and McDevitt (1978) can be used with Korean infants. In addition, temperamental characteristics of Korean children were compared with American a very and Taiwanese children. The result showed a very high level of reliabiltiy and internal consistencey of RITQ. Factor analysis and cluster analysis of RITQ items suggested the following four dimesions : -sociability, expressiveness, stabiltiy, and biological consistency. It was found that these four dimensions were more reasonable and similar to the concepts proposed by other researchers. In cross-cultural analyses, the face validity of RITQ was camparable across different cultures. The differences in temperament between children with oriental backgrounds were smaller than the difference between those with oriental and occidental background.
This study was investigated the developmental change and sex differences in sex-related occupation and activity stereotypes. The sample included 231 males and 231 females at each of five grade levels including the first grade, the fourth grade in elementary school, the first grade in middle school, the first grade in high school and college students. In terms of their attitude about which sex has the abilities to do each job and activity, all subjects were asked to rate each of 24 adult occupations as male, female, or neutral. Forced choice responses inchuded categories ranging from extremely sex typed, moderately sex typed, to neutral. Additionally they also stated their own future occupational goals. The results are as follows : For the male and female dominant occupations and activities, older subjects tended to have less rigid gender stereotypes and females more liberal than males. For the gender neutral occupations, males rated neutral jobs as more male oriented and female rated the same neutral jobs as more female oriented. In considering the future occupational goals, male's response more closely matched adult cultural norms and most of the females made culturally sex-inappropriate choice. This results are discussed in view of a sex-role development model which utilizes cognitive developmental processing changes proposed by Piaget in conjunction with our cultural stereotypes.
According to Hasher and Zacks (1979), spatial location information is involved in the automatic processes which require minimal attention and is assumed to show no developmental change throughout the lifespan. Therefore, spatial location memory should come easily to the old as the young. The present study is based on Hasher and Zacks' developmental prediction and examines whether age differences are in memory for items and their spatial location. Young, middle-aged, and elderly women viewed a model of a city with 16buildings that placed on the display. The buildings were represented with or without an accompanying name label and with only name label. After studying the display, subjects were tested on recognition memory for the items and spatial memory for where the buildings had been located before. The results of this study are as following; (1) spatial locaiton accuracy declined with advancing age and the elderly women performed the least accurate relocation on all condition. But this developmental decline seems to come out in middle-aged; (2) for all age groups, location information was more accurately retained with verbal aspect of the stimuli ; (3) item recognition accuracy except name hit rates was similar for all age groups and overall name recognition performance was high; (4) compared with picture condition, the presence of the name label on each building picture significantly reduced picture recognition accuracy but improved relocation accuracy for all age groups. Especially, picture recogntion accuracy of elderly women was remarkably declined. The results of this study do not support Hasher and Zacks' (1979) developmental prediction.
This study attempted to investigate the trend of sex-role preference among Korean kindergarten children. The subjects were 560 kindergarten childrens (280 boys and 280 girls) selected from 28 public and private schools in two different major cities: Seoul, and Chung-Ju. The age range of the children was from 5. 0 years to 6. 9 years, with mean age of 6. 23yrs. (for boys) and 6.21yrs. (for girls). The sex-role preference of the children was measured by the modified ITSC. The results revealed that : (1) the subjects were likely to stabilize their sex-role preference in their kindergarten age level: (2) great and significant differences, indicating existence of dichotomous sex-role preference patterns, occured among Korean kindergarten children: (3) boys were more rigid than girls in their sex-role preference. The findings of this study were that : (1) the ability to indentify and understand their gender identity attributed considerable factors for their sex-role preference: (2) however, in trying to asses the complex influences of demographic variables on children's sex-role preference, there were many potentially important variables to be examined.