The goals of the current study were to examine (1) the relation between parents' gender-typed occupational expectations for their children at age 15 and their children's own reports of occupational expectations at age 17; (2) the long-term relations between parents' gender-typed occupational expectations for their children at age 17 and their children's actual occupation at age 28; and (3) the relation between job satisfaction and having a gender-traditional or nontraditional job. The results indicated that parents' gender-typed occupational expectations were significantly related to children's own expectations and to their actual career choices, and job satisfaction was significantly related to having a gender-typed career. These findings suggest that parents' early gender-typed expectations for their children's occupational achievements were highly related to the actual occupational decisions made by the adult children.

Many adolescents, particularly female and minority students, choose not to pursue careers in math, science, and technology.

This study examined: (1) relations between parents' prior stereotypes about adolescence and their later beliefs about their own child during early and middle adolescence, (2) relations between parents' stereotypes and their own child's behaviors during middle and late adolescence, and (3) the role of congruency between mother's and father's beliefs about adolescence in predicting their child's behavior. The results revealed significant relations between parents' prior stereotyped beliefs and their specific beliefs about their own children during the 7th and 10th grades. In addition, the relations between parents' prior stereotypes and their adolescent children's behaviors measured at 3 and 5 years later (10th and 12th grades) were estimated. Parents' stereotypes about adolescence significantly predicted their children's behaviors in both 10th and 12th grades. Finally, the congruency between mothers' and fathers' stereotyped beliefs was significantly related to their children's behaviors in the 10th and 12th grades. Parents who had consistent and strong stereotypes about adolescence had adolescent children with more deviant peers than parents with consistent, but less-stereotyped views.

Past research has indicated an association between parents' beliefs and adolescent children's self-perceptions of ability and has shown the importance of accounting for parents' gender-stereotyped beliefs when examining boys' and girls' self-perceptions of math-science ability. The current study extends these findings by examining the longitudinal relations between mothers' earlier gender stereotypes and perceptions and adolescents' later math-science achievement beliefs and career choices. As predicted, mothers' earlier perceptions of their adolescents' abilities were related to adolescents' math-science self-efficacy 2 years after high school, with adolescents' self-perceptions of math ability during 10th grade mediating the relation with mothers' perceptions. Moreover, mothers' earlier predictions of their children's abilities to succeed in math careers were significantly related to later career choices.

This study investigated the relations between social self-perceptions, time use, and later involvement in prosocial or problem behaviors during early, middle, and later adolescence. The authors used an idiographic approach to identify four different patterns of social self-perceptions (confident, anxious, unconcerned, desperate) and then examined the relations between group membership and time use. As predicted, social self-perceptions were significantly related to the ways in which adolescents spend their time and to later involvement in later prosocial and problem behaviors. Notably, adolescents who were most self-confident about their social skills (Confident group) and those who were most willing to go to great lengths to make and keep friends (Desperate group) spent significantly more time with peers than those in the other two groups. In addition, patterns of social self-perceptions were significantly related to adolescents' own involvement and their perceptions of friends' involvement in prosocial and problem behaviors.

Previous studies (for example, Bregman & Killen, 1999; Eccles, Wigfield, & Schiefele, 1998; Jacobs, 1991;Jacobs & Eccles, 2000) have demonstrated the important role that parents' attitudes play in shaping their children's later self-perceptions and achievement behaviors. Studies indicate that in the math and science arena, parents' perceptions of their children's abilities as well as their own values about math and science are related to their children's later self-perceptions and values for achieving in these domains. The previous work suggests that parents are conveying their attitudes and values about math to their children through their words and actions; however, little research has documented the ways in which parents' beliefs and specific behaviors might promote positive achievement attitudes and behaviors in their children. The goal of the study reported here was to document relations between parents' math and science--promotive behaviors and attitudes and their children's later activity choices, values, and achievement in these subjects.

Two experiments examined 2nd and 5th graders' tendency to perceive illusory correlations between a minority group and infrequent behaviors. Experiment 1 examined perceptions of fictitious majority and minority groups in which 67% of each group's behaviors were positive and 33% were negative. Second and 5th graders formed illusory correlations between the minority group and negative behaviors on group attribution and frequency estimation tasks, and frequency estimations predicted differential evaluations of the majority and minority groups. Experiment 2 replicated findings from Experiment 1 under conditions in which 67% of the target groups' behaviors were negative and 33% were positive. In this case, children perceived an illusory correlation between the minority group and positive behaviors, and frequency estimations again predicted differential group evaluations. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for understanding judgment biases and stereotype formation and for stereotyping and prejudice interventions.

This study extended previous research on changes in children’s self‐beliefs by documenting domain‐specific growth trajectories for 761 children across grades 1 through 12 in a longitudinal study of perceptions of self‐competence and task values. Hierarchical Linear Modeling was used to (1) describe changes in beliefs across childhood and adolescence within the domains of mathematics, language arts, and sports; (2) examine the impact of changes in competence beliefs on changes in values over time in the same domains; and (3) describe gender differences in mean levels and trajectories of change in competence beliefs and values. The most striking finding across all domains was that self‐perceptions of competence and subjective task values declined as children got older, although the extent and rate of decline varied across domains. For example, in language arts, competence beliefs declined rapidly during the elementary school years, but then leveled off or increased to some extent; whereas the decline in self‐competence beliefs in sports accelerated during the high school years. Significant gender differences in beliefs were found in most domains; however, the gender differences in developmental trajectories appeared to be domain specific rather than global. Importantly, the gender differences between boys and girls did not systematically increase with age, as predicted by some socialization perspectives. Adding competence beliefs as an explanatory variable to the model for task values revealed that changes in competence beliefs accounted for much of the age‐related decline in task values. In addition, competence beliefs accounted for most of the gender differences in task values for language arts and sports.

Contents: Preface. Part I: Cognitive Developmental Approaches to Judgment and Decision Making. J.P. Byrnes, The Development of Self-Regulated Decision Making. P.A. Klaczynski, Metacognition and Cognitive Variability: A Dual-Process Model of Decision Making and Its Development. V.F. Reyna, M.B. Adam, K.M. Poirier, C.W. LeCroy, C.J. Brainerd, Risky Decision Making in Childhood and Adolescence: A Fuzzy-Trace Theory Approach. K.E. Stanovich, Commentary: Development and Decisions. Part II: Contextual Influences on Decision Making. E. Amsel, T. Bowden, J. Cottrell, J. Sullivan, Anticipating and Avoiding Regret as a Model of Adolescent Decision Making. J.E. Jacobs, K.E. Johnston, Everyone Else Is Doing It: Relations Between Bias in Base-Rate Estimates and Involvement in Deviant Behaviors. C.C. Helwig, Culture and the Construction of Concepts of Personal Autonomy and Democratic Decision Making. M. Gauvain, S.M. Perez, Not All Hurried Children Are the Same: Children's Participation in Deciding on and Planning Their After-School Activities. C.A. Berg, Commentary: Lessons From a Life-Span Perspective to Adolescent Decision Making. Part III: Decision Making in the Real World. L.L. Finken, The Role of Consultants in Adolescents' Decision Making: A Focus on Abortion Decisions. E. Cauffman, J. Woolard, Crime, Competence, and Culpability: Adolescent Judgment in the Justice System. K.M. Galotti, Setting Goals and Making Plans: How Children and Adolescents Frame Their Decisions. D. Moshman, Commentary: The Development of Thinking. B. Fischhoff, Afterword: Development of and in Behavioral Decision Research.

Learning to generalize from instances is an important part of the development of inductive reasoning skills. This study examined developmental trends in elementary school children's use of sample size and variability to make inferences about commonly encountered biological and behavioral characteristics. Children in grades 1, 3, and 5, and college students made population estimates based on samples in which both sample size and variability were manipulated. Subjects of all ages used sample size and variability to make their population estimates. Even the youngest children gave significantly lower population estimates for low-variability than for high-variability samples, and for smaller (one or three) than for larger (30) samples. Although the use of sample size depended on variability, this relationship did not change by age group. Variability and domain, however, each independently interacted with age group. Most of the differences in population estimates appeared to be due to sample variability rather than to sample size.

Expectancies for success are defined as children's beliefs about how well they will do on upcoming tasks, either in the immediate or longer-term future. This chapter emphasizes the distinctive contributions made by competence beliefs, expectations for success, and task values to achievement and choice in different domains. The chapter then focuses on the importance of subjective task values and the role parents play in shaping them. Task values can develop only within the contexts of children's lives; thus, as developmentalists, it is believed that it is important to consider the conditions under which children begin to value one set of activities that do not match either their social identities to their personal identities. The chapter also sheds light on a child's access to positive relationships with others. It focuses on the nature of children's emotional relationships with their parents and how these connections may be related to developing values and activity choices. Perceptions of high levels of connectedness and emotional support from parents are related positively to both psychological and behavioral indicators of successful development. This relationship holds in adolescence even when children begin to establish other strong relationships with peers and to gain some independence from parents.

Factors related to risky drinking and driving/riding decisions were explored by presenting vignettes to 135 older adolescents, 17–24 years of age, with vignettes related to drinking and other social behaviors engaged in at a party. Analyses revealed that alcohol-related behaviors, attitudes toward the acceptability of drinking and driving, and previous drinking and driving/riding experiences were all significant predictors of decisions about driving or riding while intoxicated. Indeed, the overall model accounted for 46% of risky drinking and driving/riding decisions. As predicted, older respondents had more previous experiences with driving while intoxicated and riding with intoxicated drivers than did younger respondents, and they reported that drinking and driving was more acceptable among their peers. However, contrary to expectations, there were no differences in the number of risky decisions made by the two age groups or between males and females. The importance of previous experiences is discussed.

Relations between parent attitudes, intrinsic value of science, peer support, available activities, and preference for future science careers were examined for science-talented, rural, adolescent females. Two hundred and twenty 9th-12th-grade girls and their mothers responded to questionnaires about science courses, plans for future courses and college majors, perceptions of the girls’ abilities in science, and numerous supports and deterrents for continued interest in science areas. Current intrinsic interest in science was most strongly related to preferring a science career, but previous experiences with science (measured by grade in school, science GPA, friends’ support for science, and extracurricular science activities) and socializers’ attitudes (measured by mothers’ perceptions of the value of science for women and of their daughters’ abilities) were also related. The discussion highlights the importance of providing activities and other supports to maintain girls’ interests in science in a rural environment.

Differences among four types of decisions (abortion, medical, future oriented, and interpersonal) were explored by presenting vignettes to 169 adolescents 18 through 20 years of age. Participants ranked potential consultants including specific family members, significant others, friends, and various professionals on eight decisions. Analyses of the frequency and order of consultation of each consultee's advice were performed for all decisions. Consultation patterns for each type of decision differed, thus indicating that the choice of consultants was a function of the type of decision. These findings indicate that for late adolescents different consultants were seen as useful for making abortion decisions when compared to making medical, future-oriented or interpersonal decisions. Given that the consultation patterns for these decisions were unique, research on decision making should address the role of context and avoid assumptions of generalizability. Details of the frequency and order of consultation for each type of decision are provided.