Eighty-five Icelandic children (41 girls and 44 boys) participated in a study on the relations among attachment representations, self-confidence, and cognitive functioning in childhood and adolescence. Attachment representations and self-confidence were assessed at age 7 on the basis of children's responses to a separation story and observations made by independent observers. Cognitive functioning was measured at ages 7, 9, 12, 15, and 17 years based on a battery of Piagetian tasks assessing concrete and formal reasoning. Children with a secure attachment representation were favored in their cognitive performance in childhood and adolescence. Children with an insecuredisorganized attachment representation were particularly disadvantaged on deductive reasoning tasks. Self-confidence played a significant but varying role in mediating the effects of attachment representations on cognitive functioning. The study controlled for IQ and attention difficulties.
The relation of childhood personality to the development of friendship understanding and moral judgment in adolescence was considered in a longitudinal study. Personality at age 7, assessed with the California Child Q-Set, was characterized in terms of ego-resiliency and ego-control. IQ and social class were also measured. Friendship understanding was assessed when the participants were ages 7, 9, 12, 15, and 19, and moral judgment was elicited when the participants were 12, 15, and 19. Ego-resiliency was found to predict social-cognitive development in adolescence, even after the effects of IQ and childhood measures of social-cognitive development were controlled for. Analyses indicate that the effects of ego-resiliency on social-cognitive development are largely unmediated by the ability to focus attention or by social participation.
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