1985 — 1989 |
Ruble, Diane N |
R01Activity Code Description: To support a discrete, specified, circumscribed project to be performed by the named investigator(s) in an area representing his or her specific interest and competencies. |
Social Comparison: Developmental and Functional Analyse
According to Festinger (1954), social comparison is motivated by a desire for self-evaluation. A review of the literature suggests that children do not use comparison information for self-evaluation until 7-9 years, and yet prior to that time, they evidence considerable interest in social comparison. Thus, we propose a research project that will address two basic questions; 1) What mechanisms contribute to the onset of comparative self-evaluation at 7-9 years?, and 2) What function does social comparison serve for younger children? The first question will be addressed by means of two experimental studies on the acquisition of relevant cognitive capacities: the ability to self-reflect, and the tendancy to make stable trait attributions. Classroom observations of evaluative and comparative activity are proposed in order to validate and extend laboratory findings, and to provide exploratory data on the influence of the social environment on social comparison interest. The second question will be addressed by both classroom observation of non-evaluative comparison activity and by experimental studies exploring age differences in social comparison motivation.
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1985 — 1993 |
Ruble, Diane N |
K02Activity Code Description: Undocumented code - click on the grant title for more information. |
The Development of Orientations Toward Peer Interaction
The long-term aim of this research is to understand how individuals contribute to their own socialization during significant periods of development throughout the lifespan. It is suggested that conditions present prior to a "self-socialization episode" create interpersonal orientations that influence socialization outcomes. An emerging model of self-socialization processes serves as a framework to guide the research. This model builds on previous cognitive-developmental accounts of social development but is unique in directly examining the bi-directional nature of peer interactions, both as sources of information and as significant socialization outcomes. The specific aims of the proposed research are to: (a) describe developmental change in key variables in the model, such as knowledge about gender and peer interaction goals; (b) test specific hypotheses about how pre-existing conditions influence interpersonal orientations; and (c) understand the effects of changes in orientations on interpersonal choices and behaviors, self-knowledge, and mental health. Six sets of studies are proposed, involving both cross-sectional and longitudinal designs, and combining self-reports, observational techniques, and experimental manipulation. The mental health implications of the research include the increased understanding of: (a) what characterizes a child with peer interaction problems; and (b) developmental vulnerabilities to low self-esteem and depression. The focus on active, strategic elements during peer interactions makes the research particularly relevant to issues of intervention. Finally, because the research involves natural settings, the findings may produce direct practical implications for these settings. Study Set 5, for example, examines children's adaptation to a brief stay in a hospital. Because of the present focus on developmental change in information-seeking and level of understanding, the findings will be useful for developing programs to meet the needs of children at different ages, and thereby minimize the negative psychological consequences of hospitalization. Similar though less direct implications are foreseen with respect to the proposed research on performance-related self-esteem in school, and affective disorders and marital problems associated with the birth of a first child. Professional growth involves plans to: (a) supplement statistical training; (b) visit other laboratories to increase sophistication in observational techniques; and (c) discuss with other socialization researcher the further conceptual development of the self- socialization model. Plans include writing theoretical pieces that describe self-socialization and distinguish it from other socialization approaches, and that discuss how it may help resolve longstanding discrepancies in the literature on child rearing.
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1987 — 1988 |
Ruble, Diane N |
P01Activity Code Description: For the support of a broadly based, multidisciplinary, often long-term research program which has a specific major objective or a basic theme. A program project generally involves the organized efforts of relatively large groups, members of which are conducting research projects designed to elucidate the various aspects or components of this objective. Each research project is usually under the leadership of an established investigator. The grant can provide support for certain basic resources used by these groups in the program, including clinical components, the sharing of which facilitates the total research effort. A program project is directed toward a range of problems having a central research focus, in contrast to the usually narrower thrust of the traditional research project. Each project supported through this mechanism should contribute or be directly related to the common theme of the total research effort. These scientifically meritorious projects should demonstrate an essential element of unity and interdependence, i.e., a system of research activities and projects directed toward a well-defined research program goal. |
Interaction in Development Antecedent Process Outcome
This proposal is concerned with the interplay between human interactions and the development of cognition and social-cognition during early phases of the life cycle. The project employs a range of age groupings of children and brings to bear a diversity of strategy, theory, and methodology. Each of four closely related projects shares a common perspective provided by a transactional framework. Together, these projects promise to advance beyond what is now known about interaction in development by extending the age ranges previously investigated, by emphasizing the causal role played by interactions, and by addressing basic psychological questions in terms of more highly specified characterizations of both human interaction and cognitive and social-cognitive development. The six investigators who constitute this Program Project Proposal represent diverse backgrounds in the study of development -- perception and cognition, language and communication, and social and personality psychology. Marc Bornstein proposes to study the origins of cognitive competences in the context of mother-infant dyadic interactions and of early infant information-processing capacities. Martin Braine proposes to study what linguistic information the young child needs from parental speech to acquire language and what features of the social environment promote language acquisition. Jerome Bruner and Henri Zukier propose to study two modes of communication in children, the narrative and the paradigmatic, and to assess the conditions under which one or the other obtains in interaction. Diane Ruble and E. Tory Higgins propose to study the relation between social interaction and the growth of children's understanding of social constructs. Taken together, therefore, the four projects address the significance and functions of interactions as antecedents, as mediating processes, and as consequences of the development of cognition and social cognition.
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1989 |
Ruble, Diane N |
R01Activity Code Description: To support a discrete, specified, circumscribed project to be performed by the named investigator(s) in an area representing his or her specific interest and competencies. |
Cognitive Assessment in High-Risk and Normal Infants
The goals of this research program are to analyze cognitive functions and to develop cognitive assessments that may identify and distinguish normal human infants and infants at-risk for developmental disability, such as mental retardation. Five studies systematically investigate four information-processing capacities in 5--6-month-old infants: habituation, recognition memory, novelty preference, and cross-modal transfer. Study 1, on psychometric characteristics, is designed (1) to assess the short-term reliability of each capacity, (2) to determine individual differences and variability in each, (3) to explore interrelations among the four, and (4) to assay how reliability and individual variability modulate with stimulus variation. Though these four capacities have been studied extensively, and their clinical utility implied, basic psychometric characteristics of the four are underresearched; moreover, they have not previously been examined conjointly in the same sample. Study 2, on origins, is designed to investigate endogenous and exogenous influences on individual differences among 5--6-month-old infants in the four information-processing capacities in terms of (1) infants' perceptual capacities at 1--2 months and (2) maternal didactic interaction styles at 1--2 months. Study 3, on concurrent correlates, is designed to determine associations between infant cognitive capacities at 5--6 months and (1) five dimensions of infant temperament and (2) maternal intelligence, socioeconomic status, and didactic interaction style. Study 4, on predictive validity, is designed to trace relations between cognitive capacities in 5--6-month-olds and their performance between 12 and 48 months (1) on the same cognitive measures, (2) on measures of language proficiency and psychometric intelligence, and (3) on associated cognitive measures like play and classification. Study 5, on clinical assessment, is designed (1) to compare cognitive capacities in infants born at-risk for cognitive disability against normal infants and (2) to establish the relative values of different indices for predicting cognitive deficit in high-risk and normal infants through longitudinal follow-up. This research addresses fundamental questions in perception and cognition, in infancy and human development, and in clinical psychology, psychiatry, and pediatrics. Answers to these questions will be of direct interest to defining the nature of cognitive dysfunction and to promoting remediation in high-risk populations of infants.
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1989 |
Ruble, Diane N |
P01Activity Code Description: For the support of a broadly based, multidisciplinary, often long-term research program which has a specific major objective or a basic theme. A program project generally involves the organized efforts of relatively large groups, members of which are conducting research projects designed to elucidate the various aspects or components of this objective. Each research project is usually under the leadership of an established investigator. The grant can provide support for certain basic resources used by these groups in the program, including clinical components, the sharing of which facilitates the total research effort. A program project is directed toward a range of problems having a central research focus, in contrast to the usually narrower thrust of the traditional research project. Each project supported through this mechanism should contribute or be directly related to the common theme of the total research effort. These scientifically meritorious projects should demonstrate an essential element of unity and interdependence, i.e., a system of research activities and projects directed toward a well-defined research program goal. |
Interaction in Development: Antecedent, Process, Outcome
This proposal is concerned with the interplay between human interactions and the development of cognition and social-cognition during early phases of the life cycle. The project employs a range of age groupings of children and brings to bear a diversity of strategy, theory, and methodology. Each of four closely related projects shares a common perspective provided by a transactional framework. Together, these projects promise to advance beyond what is now known about interaction in development by extending the age ranges previously investigated, by emphasizing the causal role played by interactions, and by addressing basic psychological questions in terms of more highly specified characterizations of both human interaction and cognitive and social-cognitive development. The six investigators who constitute this Program Project Proposal represent diverse backgrounds in the study of development -- perception and cognition, language and communication, and social and personality psychology. Marc Bornstein proposes to study the origins of cognitive competences in the context of mother-infant dyadic interactions and of early infant information-processing capacities. Martin Braine proposes to study what linguistic information the young child needs from parental speech to acquire language and what features of the social environment promote language acquisition. Jerome Bruner and Henri Zukier propose to study two modes of communication in children, the narrative and the paradigmatic, and to assess the conditions under which one or the other obtains in interaction. Diane Ruble and E. Tory Higgins propose to study the relation between social interaction and the growth of children's understanding of social constructs. Taken together, therefore, the four projects address the significance and functions of interactions as antecedents, as mediating processes, and as consequences of the development of cognition and social cognition.
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1990 — 1993 |
Ruble, Diane N |
R37Activity Code Description: To provide long-term grant support to investigators whose research competence and productivity are distinctly superior and who are highly likely to continue to perform in an outstanding manner. Investigators may not apply for a MERIT award. Program staff and/or members of the cognizant National Advisory Council/Board will identify candidates for the MERIT award during the course of review of competing research grant applications prepared and submitted in accordance with regular PHS requirements. |
Social Comparison: Development and Functional Analyses
This research analyzes changes in individuals' social orientations during periods of transition across the lifespan. It is suggested that changes in knowledge during the course of a transition influence how an individual approaches and responds to relevant social information. Because the focus is on transitions relevant to social, rather than cognitive outcomes, they are referred to here as "socializing transitions." A common conceptualization is applied to three major instigators of socializing transitions: changes in social understanding (about gender and stable, personal traits), social experiences (the first few years of school and hospitalization), and biologically based role changes (becoming a parent for the first time). The changes in social orientations predicted during these transitions are conceptualized in terms of three explanatory constructs: motivation to acquire information; information processing; and the meaning or significance of the information. It is hypothesized that individuals are maximally motivated to acquire certain kinds of information during early stages of a transition but that once conclusions are drawn, changes in motivation and information processing make them difficult to modify. Such changes are important because of the implication that the information available during relatively circumscribed periods of a transition control significant socialization outcomes of that experience. Six sets of studies are proposed, involving both cross-sectional and longitudinal designs, and combining self-reports, observational techniques, and experimental manipulation. The theoretical significance of the research involves an increased understanding of intervening processes contributing to transformations in personal and interpersonal perceptions and behaviors often resulting from a period of transition. These processes are expected to have general applicability to any transition. Moreover, because the research involves natural settings, the findings have practical, mental health applications for these settings. Study Set 5, for example, examines children's adaptation to a brief stay in a hospital. The present focus on developmental change in information-seeking and level of understanding will be useful for developing programs to meet the needs of children at different ages, and thereby minimize the negative psychological consequences of hospitalization. Similar though less direct implications are foreseen with respect to the proposed research on performance-related self esteem in school, and affective disorders after the birth of a first child.
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1994 — 1998 |
Ruble, Diane N |
K05Activity Code Description: For the support of a research scientist qualified to pursue independent research which would extend the research program of the sponsoring institution, or to direct an essential part of this research program. |
Consequences of Social/Cognitive Transitions
The major aim of the present program of research has been to examine how changes in forms and levels of knowledge across phases of a transition influence individuals' cognitive-motivational orientations in that domain -- i.e., how they approach and respond to relevant social information. The research proposed for the next five years focuses on the construction of social knowledge and its consequences for the social functioning and adaptation of children and adolescents. There are dramatic changes during the early school years and during adolescence in children's understanding of important social and personal categories. During the current period of RSDA funding, the research has focused on gender and trait concepts. During the requested period of RSA funding, the focus will be expanded to include concepts about race. Examining the processes by which these concepts are acquired is significant because conclusions about gender, race, and personal characteristics have a widespread impact on mental health, including self-esteem, self-efficacy, and interpersonal acceptance. Three major projects are planned for the next five years. First, we will analyze the data collected from a large, longitudinal test of the phase model with respect to the acquisition of gender and trait concepts, and changes in those concepts during the adolescent transitions. Questions to be addressed include: (1) What are the cognitive and motivational consequences of phase-related changes in gender knowledge?; and (2) When and why is there a drop in children's perceived competence?. The second major project involves a short-term longitudinal study of gender transitions at adolescence. We will test hypotheses emerging from initial analyses of the current study that changes in gender constructions, consistent with the phase model, occur in response to the transition to junior high school. The design will allow a comparison of alternative explanations and implications of these changes. The third major project involves a set of studies extending the phase model to an analysis of the construction of race in children. The design and predictions are derived directly from the current research on the construction of gender. It is predicted that phase-related shifts in knowledge about race are associated with changes in orientations toward information about race and in racial attitudes. Professional growth involves plans to: (a) supplement statistical training; (b) meet with experts in the areas of gender, race, and socialization and transition processes, as part of further development of the theoretical model.
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1994 — 2003 |
Ruble, Diane N |
R01Activity Code Description: To support a discrete, specified, circumscribed project to be performed by the named investigator(s) in an area representing his or her specific interest and competencies. R37Activity Code Description: To provide long-term grant support to investigators whose research competence and productivity are distinctly superior and who are highly likely to continue to perform in an outstanding manner. Investigators may not apply for a MERIT award. Program staff and/or members of the cognizant National Advisory Council/Board will identify candidates for the MERIT award during the course of review of competing research grant applications prepared and submitted in accordance with regular PHS requirements. |
Social Comparison--Development and Functional Analyses
This research analyzes changes in individuals' social orientations during periods of transition across the lifespan. It is suggested that changes in knowledge during the course of a transition influence how an individual approaches and responds to relevant social information. Because the focus is on transitions relevant to social, rather than cognitive outcomes, they are referred to here as "socializing transitions." A common conceptualization is applied to three major instigators of socializing transitions: changes in social understanding (about gender and stable, personal traits), social experiences (the first few years of school and hospitalization), and biologically based role changes (becoming a parent for the first time). The changes in social orientations predicted during these transitions are conceptualized in terms of three explanatory constructs: motivation to acquire information; information processing; and the meaning or significance of the information. It is hypothesized that individuals are maximally motivated to acquire certain kinds of information during early stages of a transition but that once conclusions are drawn, changes in motivation and information processing make them difficult to modify. Such changes are important because of the implication that the information available during relatively circumscribed periods of a transition control significant socialization outcomes of that experience. Six sets of studies are proposed, involving both cross-sectional and longitudinal designs, and combining self-reports, observational techniques, and experimental manipulation. The theoretical significance of the research involves an increased understanding of intervening processes contributing to transformations in personal and interpersonal perceptions and behaviors often resulting from a period of transition. These processes are expected to have general applicability to any transition. Moreover, because the research involves natural settings, the findings have practical, mental health applications for these settings. Study Set 5, for example, examines children's adaptation to a brief stay in a hospital. The present focus on developmental change in information-seeking and level of understanding will be useful for developing programs to meet the needs of children at different ages, and thereby minimize the negative psychological consequences of hospitalization. Similar though less direct implications are foreseen with respect to the proposed research on performance-related self esteem in school, and affective disorders after the birth of a first child.
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2005 — 2009 |
Ruble, Diane N |
R01Activity Code Description: To support a discrete, specified, circumscribed project to be performed by the named investigator(s) in an area representing his or her specific interest and competencies. |
Gender Identity: Development Course and Consequences
DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This application requests continued funding for an ongoing project examining the development of children's knowledge about and identification with social categories. My previous research has been guided by a conceptualization of changes in social knowledge as periods of transitions that may occur at any point in the lifespan. In this Phase Model of Transitions, changes in how individuals respond to new personally relevant social categories are predicted to occur in relation to changes in knowledge across 3 phases. Phase 1, Construction, is marked by open information-seeking about this new category. Phase 2, Consolidation, occurs when the individual attempts to consolidate this information into a clear set of identity-relevant conclusions. Phase 3, Integration, refers to processes that allow the individual to integrate these new identities and function more flexibly. The proposed research combines this normative developmental focus with an examination of individual differences at each phase and their consequences. Because of the complexity of this new direction, the research focuses on a single social category: gender. The proposed research is organized into 3 study sets each addressing 1 or more of the following questions: (1) What are the connections between social identity and other elements of gender development?;(2) How do individual differences in the components of gender identity, behavior, and beliefs relate to well-being?;(3) When and how do children first begin to construct their gender identities?;and (4) What role do variations in socialization/socio-cultural context play with respect to the preceding 3 research questions? The proposed studies move beyond prior research on gender identity by examining the developmental course of different components of identity and their effects on psycho-social adjustment. Although the proposed studies focus on gender, the issues being examined and the methods used will allow general principles to emerge.
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