Adults’ treasuring of children’s honesty: Indeed, in an analysis of twenty years of parents’ responses to a national survey on asking what trait parents wanted most for their children, “honesty” was the clear winner—nothing else came close. Alwin (1989).
Chapter 5, The Search for Intelligent Life in Kindergarten
The model intelligence test: Our version of the intelligence test is based on publicly available training manuals, presentations, and sample questions: the questions we used draw from a variety of both intelligence and achievement tests. The actual tests themselves are held under close guard: the publishers generally sell them only to licensed psychologists and school administrators. (There are a few underground test guides out there, as well.)
The correlation between pre-K testing and third-grade achievement: This is a mathematical determination, based on a 40% correlation—the typical statistical relationship between children’s performance on an IQ test at preschool or kindergarten to their scores on the same test in third grade. Lohman (2006); Lohman and Korb (2006); and Lohman (2003).
Regarding how well WPPSI scores predict later achievement, previous research has shown that WPPSI scores (at ages 4 to 6) account for only 7% to 24% of a child’s SAT scores, 11 or 12 years later. Thus, at least 76% of a child’s SAT score is not determined by their early intelligence. Spinelli (2006) and Baxter (1988).
Intelligence test authors and publishers working to eliminate racial/ethnic bias: Dietz (undated); Rock and Stenner (2005); and Lohman and Lakin (2006).
International efficacy of intelligence tests: See, for example, Barber (2005).
IQs of college graduates and Ph.D.s: Colom (2004).
Rate of progress for California gifted students: “Windows and Classrooms” (2003).
North Carolina study comparing early intelligence tests with later achievement: Kaplan (1996).
Fully one-third of the brightest incoming third graders score below average prior to kindergarten: Lohman (2006).
Use of a single test for gifted placement: In addition to the scholars’ unanimity that a single test should not be the sole determinant for placement in a gifted program, such admonitions come from the publishers of the tests themselves. In a clinical guide edited by the president and CEO of Pearson’s Assessment division, practitioners are warned that “a single test must never be used in isolation to assess a gifted child or to make recommendations regarding a child’s school placement.” Sparrow and Gurland (1998).
Reynolds’ statement on gifted versus special ed. assessment: Reynolds is referring to federal requirements that students who are being considered for placement within special education programs be tested and retested, prior to placement, and their progress in the programs is continually reassessed.
South Carolina’s assessment of gifted students: VanTassel-Baska et al. (2007); VanTassel-Baska et al. (2002); and “Removal of Students” (2004).
Thwarted Florida legislative effort to retest: “Legislative Update” (2008).
New York City gifted programs: “Chancellor Proposes Change” (2008) and “Gifted and Talented Proposal” (2007).
Emotional intelligence / Salovey vs. Goleman: The team that first coined the term “emotional intelligence” included: John D. Mayer, Peter Salovey, and David R. Caruso.
In a packed-to-the-rafters room at the 2008 convention of the American Psychological Association, Salovey called his colleagues’ attention to this line from Goleman’s 1995 book, “… what data exist, suggest [EI] can be as powerful, and at times more powerful, than IQ.” Salovey explained that “what existed” in 1995 was “zero”—there was no data at all when Goleman had written that claim. At the time, Salovey’s team had just come up with the theory that emotional intelligence might exist: they hadn’t even come up with a way to measure it. Goleman’s 1998 claim that “nearly 90% of the difference between star performers at work and average ones is due to EI” was also unsupported at the time. Since then, Salovey and others have found that in some fields, emotional intelligence may be a benefit, but, in others, it’s a liability. Among insurance adjusters, for example, those with higher emotional sensitivity are less efficient and productive, because they get too emotionally involved with their clients.
Obviously, Salovey, Mayer, and Caruso remain firm believers that there is such a thing as emotional intelligence, and that it’s likely an asset. But they are still working out just what it is, and what it means to have it. In the meantime, they are frustrated that they’ve been repeatedly taken to task by other scientists for claims that Goleman and others—not the scholars themselves—have made.
And as for schools’ training children in emotional intelligence, the first real study on whether it can be taught, and if that would have an academic benefit, is just under way. Author notes on 2008 APA Conference; Mayer, Salovey, and Caruso (2008); and Salovey (2008).
Emotional intelligence in a prison population: Hemmati et al. (2004).
“In one test of emotional knowledge”: Izard et al. (2001).
Academic success and personality traits: Newsome et al. (2000).
Brain cortex and synapses development: To give you a sense of the furious amount of organization that is going on within the brain, as many as 30,000 synapses may be lost every second until a child hits adolescence. For overviews of the brain’s cortical and synaptic development, see Shaw (2007); Giedd (2008); Shaw et al. (2006); Lenroot and Giedd (2006); and Lerch et al. (2006). See also Spear (2000) in Chapter 7 sources.
Brain’s organization: Myelination—the process in which gray matter becomes white matter—affects more specific cognitive processes, such as the development of working memory. Organization of brain fibers, known as axons, dramatically impacts the brain’s speed of processing. Lerch et al. (2006); Nagy et al. (2004); Barnea-Gorlay et al. (2005); Schmithorst and Holland (2007); Schmithorst et al. (2002); and Schmithorst et al. (2006).
Two-thirds of children’s IQ scores will improve, or drop, more than 15 points: The work of Sontag and McCall analyzed data from the Fels Longitudinal Study; the individuals in the Fels study had their IQ measured every half year from age 2.5 to age 6, then every year until age 12, and then again at 14, 15, and 17. McCall found that the IQ of normal middle-class children changed an average of 28.5 points between age 2.5 and age 17. In addition, more than one out of three children displayed performance jumps of more than 30 IQ points during that same age span. Some argue that IQ is stable over childhood, especially after age 6; however, McCall explains that the high stability correlations offered as evidence are somewhat misleading. Those formulas compare the variation in an individual’s scores against the much wider variation in all people’s IQs. Thus, when reported as a correlation, the variance in an individual’s scores looks relatively small—but the raw scores over an individual’s childhood years tell a different story. See Sontag et al. (1958); McCall et al. (1973); and Sternberg et al. (2001).
Another early study of children from infancy to age 16 found that more than half of them saw their IQs change significantly—not once but three times during that period. Schwartz and Elonen (1975).
Gifted kids’ IQs are more variable: Sparrow and Gurland determined, “Of the kids in the standardization sample of the WISC-III, 45.8% of the kids with [Full Scale IQs] greater than 125 had discrepancies between [the two main sections of the test] of 11 or more points.” Sparrow and Gurland (1998). Others reporting variance for gifted children’s performance on intelligence tests include: Robinson and Clinkenbeard (1998) and Robinson and Weimer (1991).
Locating love, religion, and danger in the brain: Danger is most keenly observed in the amygdala, as well as in the hippocampus, insula, prefrontal cortex, premotor cortex, striatum and anterior cingulate. Recitation of biblical passages activates the dorsolateral prefrontal, dorsomedial frontal and medial parietal cortex. Romantic love is present in the medial insula, anterior cingulate cortex, dentate gyrus, hypothamalus, hippocampus, putamen, globus pallidus, and, for women, in the ge
nu. Phelps et al. (2001); Williams et al. (2001); Azari et al. (2001); Bartels and Zeki (2000); and Bartels and Zeki (2004) in the sources for the introduction.
Developmental shifts of brain’s processing: Some of reports on this developmental shift include: Casey et al. (2005); Colom et al. (2006a); Colom et al. (2006b); Haier (1990); Johnson et al. (2008); Paus et al. (2005); Paus et al. (1999); Rubia et al. (2006); Scherf et al. (2006); Schlaggar et al. (2002); and Thomas et al. (2008).
Chapter 6, The Sibling Effect
Increase in one-child families: Interestingly, despite the increase in only-child families, only 3% of Americans believe that a single-child family is ideal. Mancillas (2006).
Frequency of sibling arguments: Kramer et al. (1999).
Kramer’s findings on parents’ acceptance of sibling conflict: Kramer and a number of scholars complain that parental acceptance of sibling conflict actually contributes to its prevalence: seeing it as inevitable, parents do less to prevent it from occurring. The scholars also reject the idea that sibling conflict is a certainty, pointing to more congenial sibling relationships in other cultures, where elder siblings are expected to be caregivers to younger children.
Parents’ role in conflict prevention and conflict resolution: Another reason why Kramer’s approach is so innovative is that the research on parents’ attempts at conflict resolution are decidedly mixed. Smith and Ross (2007) had some success in training parents how to mediate sibling disputes. (The program was Smith’s doctoral dissertation—and Kramer was on the review panel.) But without that training, Ross and other scholars have found that parents’ intervention in an argument can actually make things worse. Often, their focus is on forcing children to share a fought-over toy, or to divert one child from the conflict—but then they deprive the kids of an opportunity to learn negotiation or respect for others’ needs. Even worse is when a parent just ends the argument with something like, “That’s enough—I’ve had it with you two.” Because there, the parent is exhibiting the same sort of self-centered, unilateral power play that the children are attempting. See, e.g., Kramer et al. (1999); Perlman et al. (2007); Ross et al. (2006); and Ross (1996).
Causes of sibling disputes: McGuire et al. (2000).
Chapter 7, The Science of Teen Rebellion
Certainties of life statistics: For marriage disruption probabilities, see Bramlett and Mosher (2002). For life expectancy in the United States, see the National Center for Health Statistics’ Fastats. The 2008 New York State bar pass rate for first-time takers was 83%, up from 79.1% the previous year, while Harvard’s record number of applicants in 2008 (27,462), made its 7% acceptance rate the lowest in the school’s history. McAlary (2008) and “A Record Pool” (2008).
Boredom and alcohol / drug use: The National Center for Addiction and Substance Abuse found that adolescents who were bored were 50% more likely to smoke, get drunk, or use illegal drugs. Caldwell and Smith (2006).
Harris poll of the parents of teens: “Wake Up Moms and Dads!” (2008).
A teen saying “none of your business” / the drive for autonomy: An adolescent’s drive for autonomy isn’t universal—kids don’t usually demand across-the-board control of their lives. Instead, scholar Judith Smetana has determined that adolescents divide the world into certain spheres of control: they believe there are things that parents have the right to have control over, but there are also things that are rightly under a kid’s own control. The tension comes in that parents and adolescents don’t always agree what goes in which category.
For example, both father and daughter might agree that he can set rules about driving, because those are safety-related. But the father might also believe that he should have a right of approval over his daughter’s friends, and his daughter adamantly disagrees, believing that who her friends are should be up to her alone. Another example: parents might be furious about a child’s refusal to clean his room or take care of his things, but he sees his sloppiness as something that affects only him, so he doesn’t understand what they are so upset about.
One might assume that early adolescents accept more parental governance, but Darling has actually found it’s the other way around: early adolescents want more control over their lives than late adolescents.
Brain’s reward center: Galvan’s experiment was specifically designed to assess how rewards are processed within the nucleus accumbens and the orbital frontal cortex, because those areas of the brain are particularly sensitive to the amount of rewards. The brain’s ventral striatum and thalamus are also involved in the brain’s perception and response to rewards. See Izuma et al. (2008) in Chapter 1 sources and Galvan et al. (2005).
Arguing with parents: Arguing with parents peaks when kids are in early adolescence—from 11 to 14 years old. However, that’s true for older siblings; for a younger sibling, that peak period of conflict occurs between a second child and his mother at ages 9 to 11, and with a dad, earlier still—at just 7 to 9 years. Shananan et al. (2007).
The myth of the rebellious teen years: Our review of the flawed early research into teen rebellion is based on Steinberg (2001). Current estimates are that real rebellion against parents occurs only about 5–15% of the time. Smetana, Campione-Barr, and Metzger (2006). The myth of teen rebellion isn’t the only lore around teens: there’s no support that teens are driven by “raging hormones,” either. Spear (2000).
College students in remedial programs: California isn’t the only state with college students in remedial programs. Pennsylvania estimates that one-third of its state college students were also in remedial classes. “Analysis of the 2003–04 Budget” (2003), “Early Assessment Program” (2008), and Barnes (2007).
But there’s a hidden story in those remediation numbers: nationally, fewer students are in remedial programs now than since the 1980s. 42% of the Class of 1982 needed remedial courses in college—including 29% of the students in the nation’s top quintile. By 1992, the remediation rate was down to 26% overall, and just 9% of the nation’s best needed remediation. The rate’s been hovering around 28% ever since. There are actually fewer colleges and universities offering remedial courses now than there were in the 1980s. Adelman (2004) and Pasard and Lewis (2003).
Increase in students taking advanced math and science / increase in college applications: The 20% increase in students’ participation in math and science occurred from 1990 to 2004. That isn’t the only indicator that students are taking more advanced courses: from 1996 to 2007, the number of students taking Advanced Placement exams (trying to obtain college credit while still in high school) tripled—to 1.5 million. More students are also meeting or exceeding the recommended years of high school study in key subjects. Morisi (2008) and “The American Freshman: Forty-Year Trends” (2007).
Of course, there is room for improvement—the nation’s failure and dropout rates are unacceptable. But, on average, millions more kids are better academically prepared than ever before.
Enrollment data for colleges: “Percentage of High School Completers” (2008).
Surveys of college freshmen: We drew our data from the Higher Education Research Institute’s annual survey, “The American Freshman,” for the years 2007 and 2009.
Chapter 8, Can Self-Control Be Taught?
Inefficacy of Driver’s Ed: Mayhew et al. (1998); Vernick et al. (1999); and Williams (2006).
Failure of drug-prevention and dropout programs: The General Accounting Office reported on the ineffectiveness of D.A.R.E. and a review of other drug-prevention programs in a report presented to Senator Richard J. Durbin (D-Illinois). Kanof (2003). Similar assessments were included in a Report to Congress from National Institute of Justice. Sherman et al. (1998). Scholarly analyses include Lynam et al. (1999) and Shepard (2001).
Interventions and effect sizes: For a perspective on how effect sizes play out in specific interventions, see Ammerman et al. (2002); Snyder et al. (2004); Welsh and Farrington (2003); Stice et al. (2006); and Wilfley et al. (2007).
Learning t
hrough use of private speech: A study at Vanderbilt University recently demonstrated the power of teaching private speech. Four- and five-year-olds had to pick up a color and shape pattern, then predict what the next object in the pattern would be. The control group was taught how to see a pattern, but the experimental groups were taught to talk themselves out loud through the pattern. The kids taught the private speech were 300% better at the task than the control kids. Rittle-Johnson et al. (2008).
The malleability of self-control: Masicampo and Baumeister (2008) and Baumeister et al. (2007).
Study finding a correction between high IQ and glucose-related fatigue: Shamosh and Gray (2007).
Chapter 9, Plays Well With Others
Scholars’ responses to Dodge’s findings: Based on author notes of remarks by Dodge, Lansford, and members of the audience during Dodge et al.’s presentation at the Society for Research in Child Development Biennial meeting in Boston, 2007.
Ethnic/cross-cultural differences in use of corporal punishment: It’s important to note that, even for most families who use corporal punishment, it’s usually a rare occurrence, and that we are talking about spanking only as a reprimand. We aren’t talking about abuse. And, to restate one more time what’s in the text, Dodge and his colleagues do not believe that their work should encourage anyone to use corporal punishment. Instead, they believe that the parents’ and cultural meanings attached to punishment (whatever form it takes) must be considered when understanding its effects on a child.
Conservative Protestants’ and other religious denominations’ use of corporal punishment: Gershoff et al. (1999); Gershoff (2002); and Regnerus et al. (2003).
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