Journal of Language and Social Psychology

 

Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

Free Access - Register Here

Click here for more information

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow References
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Thompson, R. B.
Right arrow Articles by Williams, D.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati  
What's this?
Journal of Language and Social Psychology, Vol. 25, No. 2, 146-166 (2006)
DOI: 10.1177/0261927X06286381

The Effects of Preschool Girls’ and Boys’ Help Seeking on Adult Evaluations of Dyadic Problem Solving

R. Bruce Thompson

University of Southern Maine, Portland, bthompso{at}usm.maine.edu

Stacie Arsenault

University of Southern Maine, Portland

Deanna Williams

University of Southern Maine, Portland

Children’s help seeking is ubiquitous in dyadic problem solving and fundamental to theories of scaffolded intellectual development. However, little is known about possible effects of variation in help seeking on adult perceptions. This was investigated by having adults evaluate preschoolers’ ability, achievement expectation, and motivation during a challenging task, unaware that the children were matched in performance, strategy, and language ability, but differed only by gender and help seeking. Girls and high-help-seeking children were judged as less capable and less confident. Child gender and help seeking interacted, whereby girls high in help seeking were rated as less capable and confident than all other children. Although girls were rated as more motivated, gender and help-seeking level interacted. High-help-seeking girls were rated as lower in motivation than low-help-seeking girls, whereas the reverse was found for boys. Gender differences in pragmatic development important to adult-child problem-solving discourse are discussed.

Key Words: children • problem solving • gender • help seeking • language


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati    What's this?