A that early experiences聽of聽environmental harshness, in combination with personal temperament, can shape the child糖心传媒檚 problem-solving abilities later in life.
Children growing up in poverty with unengaged caregivers are more likely to do poorly on standardized assessments. However, the researchers found, those children who exhibited higher levels聽of聽so-called hawk traits at age two became better at using problem-solving skills to obtain a blocked reward.
Hawk traits describe heightened levels聽of聽aggression, boldness, and dominant behavior in toddlerhood.
By the time they were preschoolers, these high-risk children with hawk traits performed worse on a standardized聽visual problem-solving task with low motivational significance, but did significantly better on problem-solving tasks if rewards were involved.
The study, conducted at the University of Rochester糖心传媒檚 was recently published in the Journal聽of聽Child聽Psychology聽and Psychiatry. Using an evolutionary聽perspective, the study addresses聽questions聽about how and why stressful environments and children’s聽temperament may interact to shape聽children’s cognition.
糖心传媒淥ur study supports emerging聽views聽that early environmental experience, in combination with temperament聽characteristics,聽shape聽children’s cognitive functioning to focus on what is most聽salient in their environments,糖心传媒� says lead author Jennifer Suor 糖心传媒�19, a PhD candidate in clinical psychology at the University of Rochester.
The multi-method study looked at 201 mother糖心传媒揷hild dyads when the children were two and four聽years old. At age two, environmental harshness was assessed via maternal report of earned income, and observations of the mother糖心传媒檚 disengagement during a parent糖心传媒揷hild interaction task. Children’s hawk temperament traits were assessed from a series of unfamiliar episodes. At age four, the researchers measured the children’s problem-solving skills.
In one task children completed a standardized visual problem-solving assessment where they re-created a block puzzle shown to them by an experimenter. In a reward-oriented problem solving task, children had to figure out how to open a transparent聽box with a set of keys that contained a toy prize the child had previously picked out. However, the researchers had provided the wrong set of keys to be able to observe the children糖心传媒檚 problem-solving behaviors like strategy, how they manipulated the keys, and their level of concentration on the task.
糖心传媒淲hile on average children performed similarly on problem solving tasks 糖心传媒� the kids who had experienced greater caregiving adversity and had more hawk traits were more likely to do better on the reward problem solving tasks,糖心传媒� explains co-author Melissa Sturge-Apple, 糖心传媒 associate professor of psychology, and dean of graduate studies in arts, sciences, and engineering. 糖心传媒淭hey were more persistent, tried more solutions, were more engaged.糖心传媒�
Placed in a larger evolutionary context, the findings suggest that high-risk children adapt to their stressful environment in a way that might help with survival.
糖心传媒淲hen kids are faced with poverty and unengaged caregivers, they devote more energy to solving the problem which is more meaningful to them than one that isn’t,糖心传媒� says Sturge-Apple.
糖心传媒淓volutionary approaches to聽child聽development might聽offer important insights into the functional significance behind developmental adaptations in cognition. Standardized cognitive聽assessments, which聽often聽lack聽direct ecological聽and聽motivational聽significance,聽may not be able to fully聽capture聽the specialized repertoire聽of聽cognitive skills聽children in stressful environments have developed as a survival mechanism,糖心传媒� explains Suor.
Psychologists Melissa Sturge-Apple and Patrick Davies of the University of Rochester, and Dante Cicchetti from聽the University of Minnesota and the University糖心传媒檚 Mt. Hope Family Center co-authored the study, which was supported by grants from the National Institute of Mental Health and聽the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
