Adult beliefs about pragmatic development

JOURNAL OF APPLIED DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY

10,1-17 (1989)

Adult Beliefs about Pragmatic Development JUDITH A. BECKER MELANIE S. HALL University of South Florida

Little is known about the beliefs adults hold that might help explain the ways they teach pragmatic skills. In Experiment 1,. 55 adults with different experiences with children completed a questionnaire about their beliefs. Them was strong agreement, despite variations in experience, that parents have the greatest degree of influence over pragmatic acquisition and that appropriate pragmatic usage is morn stable than inappropriate usage. Adults who were neither parents nor teachers held views most discrepant from other subjects. In Experiment 2, the beliefs of 50 mothers and 50 fathers were compared as a function of their own and their preschoolers' sex. Mothers believed that they had greater influence over pragmatic skills than did fathers and reported ignoring their children's errors less than did fathers, although both parents tended to prompt the correct behavior most frequently. Both mothers and fathers also believed that they had significant influence over skills rated as important. There were no significant effects of childmn.'s sex. These beliefs am described as being culturally,"pre-packaged," modified by motivational factors such as "developmental optimism' in those responsible for the acquisition of pragmatic skills.

When children are acquiring language they must learn pragmatic skills, or the ability to use language appropriately in social contexts, in order to interact more effectively with others. A number of researchers have demonstrated relationships between pragmatic skills and peer acceptance (Dodge, 1983; Gottman, Gonso, & Rasmussen, 1975; Place, 1987; Putallaz & Gottman, 1981). Insofar as variability in pragmatic abilities seems to have implications for children's social functioning, it is important that the origins of variability be understood. A major source of variability is likely to be found in the home. One approach to studying parental influences is to observe the ways that parents teach their children pragmatic skills. Most of these data are only anecdotal. In only five studies has pragmatic teaching of English-speaking preschoolers been directly and systematically observed. Gleason and Weintraub

Portions of these data were presented by the f'n'stauthor at the 1984 and 1988 Conferenceson Human Development. Experiment2 is based on an Honors Thesis by the second author. Correspondence and requests for reprints should be sent to Judith A. Becker, Departmentof Psychology, Universityof South Florida, Tampa, FL 33620.

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(1976), Greif and Gleason (1980), Eisenberg (1982), Gleason, Perlmann, and Greif (1984), Pellegrini, Brody, and Stoneman (1987), and Becker (1987) all noted that parents frequently correct their children's pragmatic errors and prompt pragmatic behaviors by means of such phrases as "What do you say?" and "Say [behavior]." Becker (1987) also found that parents are more likely to be indirect (i.e., not explicitly mention the error or what the child must do about it) than direct in prompting. Observational work tends to be terribly tedious and time-consuming. An alternative approach to studying parental influences is to study parents' beliefs about pragmatic development and their effect on it. Beliefs are cognitions which include expectations about reality or ways of interpreting reality. To date, no research has been conducted in this area. Parental belief systems have increasingly come to be a legitimate area of study for developmentalists. Note, for example, the 1983 Society for Research in Child Development symposium on "The cognitive experience of parents: The study and implications of parental knowledge, perceptions, reasoning, and beliefs" as well as the publication of the books Parental belief systems (Sigel, 1985) and Thinking about the family (Ashmore & Brodzinsky, 1986). In classic research manuals, Whiting et al. (1966) and Slobin (1967) and his colleagues argued that to understand the acquisition of communicative competence, researchers must look at adults' beliefs about language and language teaching. Recently, in fact, Russell (1983) demonstrated that observers' interpretations and classifications of teaching episodes are often not the same as parents'. Goodnow (1979, 1981, 1984, 1985) argues that the study of parental beliefs provides a broader understanding of cognition, particularly adult cognitive development. Both Goodnow and Sigel (1986) assert that these beliefs can help account for parents' behavior, that is, that beliefs are related to action. For example, if a parent does not believe that 5-year-olds can take turns in a conversation, he or she is not likely to be disturbed when a 4-year-old interrupts, nor will the parent be as likely to try to teach that skill as another which he or she believes is acquirable earlier. Similarly, teaching behaviors should reflect beliefs about sex differences and the genetic contribution to skills. That is, beliefs function for adults as criteria for evaluating children's behaviors and choosing responses to them (Dix & Grusec, 1985; Hess, Price, Dickson, & Conroy, 1981; Holden & West, 1983; McGillicuddy-DeLisi, 1982, 1985; Ochs & Schieffelin, 1984; Schieffelin & Eisenberg, 1984; Sigel, McGillicuddy-DeLisi, Flaugher, & Rock, 1983). The two studies presented in this paper are initial attempts to study adult beliefs about pragmatic development. In Experiment 1, beliefs about the development of and influences on eight pragmatic skills were explored as a function of type of experience with children. In Experiment 2, parental beliefs were studied as a function of sex of parent and sex of child.

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EXPERIMENT 1

It seems intuitively reasonable that beliefs would vary as a function of experience. However, evidence of such variability is scant. Goodnow, Cashmore, Cotton, and Knight (1984) found ethnic differences between 38 native, Englishspeaking Australian and 43 Lebanese-born mothers' beliefs about a variety of cognitive and socio-emotional behaviors, but failed to find differences related to children's age or sex or mothers' level of education. Knight (1985) also found few differences related to parents' sex or to sex and age of children in her study of 120 Australian parents' beliefs about the same kinds of cognitive and socioemotional behaviors. Similarly, McGillicuddy-DeLisi (1982) looked at 120 families' beliefs about the development of various concepts and abilities. She observed a smaller effect of sex of parent and child than of SES and family constellation (number, ages, and spacing of children). These findings suggest to some researchers that parental beliefs may, to a great extent, be "pre-packaged" and culturally determined (Goodnow, 1985; Knight, 1985), although the origins of belief systems have not been carefully considered. In the present study, the beliefs of adults with different types and degrees of experience with children (parents, teachers, adults who were both parents and teachers, and adults who were neither) were compared. It was predicted that these groups would vary little in beliefs about pragmatic development. However, it was predicted that beliefs would be driven more by motivational than experiential factors per se. That is, beliefs should reflect the degree of responsibility for children's development and the desire for positive behavioral outcomes. These notions are based on a number of interesting findings. First, parents tend to believe that children's desirable, positive behaviors are stable, whereas less desirable, negative behaviors are not likely to persist (Dix & Grusec, 1985; Goodnow, 1984; Goodnow et al., 1984; Knight, 1985). Researchers have termed parents "developmental optimists" who believe both that they can affect their children and that children's behaviors tend to improve. It was predicted that this finding would be supported in the present study. Another reflection of developmental optimism is a relationship between the value placed on behaviors and developmental timetables. Timetables are the ages at which abilities are expected to appear. A negative relationship between the perceived value of skills and ages of acquisition has been posited by Goodnow (1985) and was predicted in the present study. Second, the nature and perhaps even existence of developmental timetables may vary across groups (Ochs & Schieffelin, 1984). Timetables can be viewed as representing adult goals for children as well as a way to evaluate children (Goodnow, 1984; Hess et al., 1981). The more responsibility adults have for children, the more strict their developmental timetables. For example, Goodnow, Knight, and Cashmore (1986) suggested that parents and full-time teachers

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expect earlier development of various skills than do part-time teachers, a pattern alluded to by Hess et al. (1981). In the present study, it was predicted that those subjects who were the least concerned with children's acquisition of pragmatic skills (i.e., the adults who were neither parents nor teachers) would expect later ages for the acquisition of the skills than would the other groups of subjects. Finally, parents tend to believe that they have a great deal of influence over the development of various skills, but the degree of influence varies as a function of the type of skill. Knight (1985) found that parents believed they have more influence than teachers over socio-emotional skills, but the same amount of influence over cognitive abilities. Goodnow et al. (1984) also noted variability in assumed influence across skills. These findings suggest that it is important to assess parents' perceived influence over a range of pragmatic skills, and see how this compares to the influence of other aspects of the environment and of inherited traits. Thus, sources of influence such as parents, teachers, peers, and the children themselves were explored for eight different pragmatic skills. It was predicted that parents would be viewed as the primary source of influence over these skills, which are both cognitive and socio-emotional in nature. Method

Subjects. Fifty-five college undergraduates participated in the study in exchange for extra credit in their introductory psychology classes. There were 42 women and 13 men who averaged 23 years, 8 months in age. Subjects were divided into four groups on the basis of their responses to demographic questions at the end of the questionnaires they completed. The Parents group (10 women; mean age: 30 years, 11 months) was comprised of subjects who reported having their own children or young relatives living with them. The Teachers group (15 women, 3 men; mean age: 19 years, 11 months) was comprised of subjects who reported substantial experience teaching in daycare, preschool, or similar situations. The Parent and Teacher group (10 women, 1 man; mean age: 29 years, 5 months) reported experiences from both of the other two groups, and the Adult group (7 women, 9 men; mean age: 19 years, 7 months) reported none of these experiences. Materials. Each subject completed a questionnaire which assessed beliefs concerning eight pragmatic skills (saying please and thank you appropriately, using the right volume and tone of voice when speaking, taking turns speaking and not interrupting, making requests at the appropriate level of directness, using rifles like Mr. and Mrs. appropriately, explaining and giving reasons for requests, knowing when to speak, and using hello and goodbye appropriately) as well as pragmatic skills generally. Questions were both constrained (semantic differentials or items to rank) and open-ended. For each of the eight abilities, subjects were asked the age at which most

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children have acquired the ability, whether there are sex differences in acquisition, sources of influence in the development of the ability ("children's natural abilities or tendencies," parents, teachers, peers, other), reasons why an older child may not have the ability, whether there is a critical period for acquisition, and the importance or necessity of acquiring the skill (see Appendix A). The questions about pragmatic skills in general asked whether children are naturally polite, impolite, or neither and whether appropriate, polite usage and inappropriate, rude usage tend to be stable with age (see Appendix B).

Procedure. Subjects completed the questionnaires independently in a group administration. Participation involved approximately 45 minutes. Coding. For all of the open-ended questions, two coders independently coded subjects' responses. The coders were blind to the purposes of the study. Explanations for sex differences in the acquisition of each skill were coded as involving biological factors (e.g., maturation, individual differences) or socialization (e.g., parental teaching) (inter-coder agreement = .91). Reasons why an older child might lack a particular ability were coded as involving parents, the home environment generally (e.g., learning, reinforcement), the child (e.g., natural abilities or tendencies), teachers or schools, people in general, or peers (intercoder agreement = .86). Subjects' explanations of why there is or is not a critical period for the acquisition of each skill were coded as involving the child's personality (e.g., attitude, intelligence) or general human learning potential (inter-coder agreement = .79). Disagreements were resolved by discussion. Results and Discussion Responses to the questionnaire indicated that parents were believed to be the greatest source of influence over pragmatic development, desirable pragmatic behaviors were seen as more stable than undesirable pragmatic behaviors, and there were few differences among the beliefs of the four groups of subjects. In addition, subjects viewed most of the skills as being extremely important for children to acquire. In order to evaluate the prediction that subjects would see desirable pragmatic behaviors as stable and undesirable behaviors as unstable, responses to two questions were compared. Subjects were asked to rate on a five-point scale how likely it is that a child who is usually polite and who uses the eight pragmatic skills appropriately will continue to be polite and appropriate in his or her language. They were also asked the same question about a child who is usually rude and cannot use the eight skills appropriately. Subjects said that it was "extremely likely" that appropriate usage would be stable (M = 1.4) and that it was "somewhat likely" that inappropriate usage would be stable (M = 2.4). A ttest for correlated samples revealed that subjects' tendency to view appropriate

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usage as more stable than inappropriate usage was significant, t(54) = 5.10, p < .001. The minority of subjects, who responded that inappropriate usage would be stable, also tended to note that this would be the result of an unchanging bad environment. These results support the work of Dix and Grusee (1985), Goodnow (1984), Goodnow et al. (1984), and Knight (1985). Interestingly, the Adult group believed that appropriate usage was slightly less stable than did the other groups (Ms = 1.7 vs. 1.3) and nearly half did not view inappropriate usage as less stable than appropriate usage. As a test of the prediction that the Adult group would have looser timetables than Parents, Teachers, or Parents and Teachers, the ages at which each of the four groups expected the eight pragmatic skills to be acquired were compared. A 4 (Group: Adults, Parents, Teachers, Parents and Teachers) × 8 (Pragmatic Skill) tmweighted means analysis of variance with unequal cell frequencies revealed only a significant main effect of skill, F (7,357) = 13.55, p < .01. These findings do not support the idea that those with more responsibility for children are more optimistic and thus set stricter developmental goals than do other adults (Goodnow et al., 1986; Hess et al., 1981). However, given the unequal cell frequencies and relatively small sample size, exploratory descriptive analyses were done despite the absence of a main effect of Group. As Table 1 indicates, Adults expected a later age of acquisition for six of the eight skills, an average of 10 months later than any of the other groups across the six skills. Clearly, these descriptive analyses must be viewed with caution, especially in light of the fact that the Adult group had more men and was younger than the other groups. Timetables for the behaviors did vary to some extent as a function of the perceived importance of the behaviors. Table 2 displays the ratings of imporlance for each skill by each group. The correlation between ratings of age of acquisition and perceived importance was determined for each skill, collapsing TABLE 1 Mean Ages Estimated for the Acquisition of the Eight Pragmatic Skills by Each Group in Experiment 1 Group Skill

Parents

Teachers

Teachers and Parents

Adults

Please/thank you

3.55

3.60

3.27

3.84

Volume/tone

6.30

5.18

5.10

6.81

Turn taking

6.88

6.14

6.18

7.22

Request form Titles Explain requests

6.05 5.85 6.69

7.33 5.86 8.10

7.10 5.25 6.55

8.78 5.91 7.81

When to speak Hello/goodbye

6.94 4.11

7.72 5.49

7,35 4.16

7.56 5.50

ADULT BELIEFS ABOUT PRAGMATIC DEVELOPMENT

TABLE 2 Mean Ratings of the Importance of the Eight Pragmatic Skills by Each Group in Experiment 1 Group Skill

Parents

Teachers

Teachers and Parents

Adults

Please/thank you Volume/tone Turn taking Request form Titles Explain requests When to speak Hello/goodbye

2.90 2.70

2.92 2.75

2.91 2.50

2,65

2.94

2.64

2.61 2.10 2.75 2.20 2.50

2.64 2,41 2.50 2.28 2.22

2.50 2.27 2.54 2.54 2.27

2.72 2.44 2.91 2.53 2.75 2.72 2.41 2.31

Note. 1 = not at all important

3 = extremely important

over group. The average correlation, determined by means of r to z transformations, was - . 168. The correlations for each skill ranged from. 132 to -.598, with six of the correlations being negative, as predicted, indicating that subjects tended to believe that the more important a skill, the earlier it would be acquired. However, only two of the correlations (using the appropriate request form and saying hello and goodbye) were statistically significant. The low correlations may have in part been due to the restricted range (1-3) in ratings of importance. These findings also provide only modest support for the idea of developmental optimism and Goodnow's (1985) hypothesis about the relationship between developmental timetables and the importance of children's behaviors. In order to test the prediction that subjects would consider parents to be the primary source of influence in the acquisition of the eight pragmatic skills, their responses to three questions (sources of influence for each skill, reasons why an older child might lack each skill, and children's natural state with respect to pragmatics) were examined. When asked to rank sources of influence for each skill, most subjects ranked parents the highest. For the eight skills, between 76% and 91% of the subjects placed parental influences ahead of children's natural tendencies, teachers, peers, and institutions such as school and church. On the question in which subjects were asked to explain why an older child might lack each pragmatic skill, most subjects again listed parents and the general learning environment in the home. That is, across skills, between 64% and 89% of the subjects cited poor parenting or a poor learning environment as precluding proper development of the eight skills. As further support for the prediction, it was found that all but one of the subjects viewed children essentially as "blank slates" with respect to pragmatic development generally, that is, as being largely open to their learning experiences rather than being predisposed to either po-

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liteness or rudeness. Again, parents were seen as the providers of such learning experiences. For example, one woman explained, " M y friends who are polite come from parents who stressed this as important and my friends who are rude, their parents have terrible manners also." Another subject said, " I f the child's parents or guardians won't guide their children to be polite and use the right language and i f . . . the parents don't do the same, the kids will end up being rude most of their lives and pass it on." These findings are consistent with those of Goodnow et al. (1984) and Knight (1985). Except for differences in expectations about stability, there was remarkable similarity among the groups' responses. As mentioned already, the great majority of subjects in all four groups viewed parents as the greatest source of influence over all eight skills, said that children are "blank slates" with respect to pragmatic development, and attributed children's problems in acquiring the skills to poor parenting and a poor learning environment. The only exception to the latter was the Adults, who believed that children themselves (e.g., their personalities) were also responsible for their not acquiring the ability to use hello and goodbye appropriately. In addition to these similarities, between 60% and 100% of the subjects in each of the four groups agreed that there is no age after which it is too late to acquire any of the eight pragmatic skills. Also, between 50% and 90% of the subjects in each of the four groups agreed that there are no sex differences in their acquisition. This latter f'mding held for all skills except the use of please and thank you (where half the Teachers groups believed that girls learn faster than boys) and appropriate volume and tone of voice (where 60% of the Parents and Teachers group reported that girls learn faster). Such great similarities in the beliefs of groups with different experiences with children support the work of Goodnow et al. (1984), Knight (1985), and McGillicuddy-DeLisi (1982).

EXPERIMENT 2

Experiment 1 explored the similarities and differences in beliefs about pragmatic development among adults with different experiences with children. Experiment 2 expanded this work by exploring differences in beliefs between the mothers and fathers of girls and boys. Virtually no differences in pragmatic development or behavior have been observed between girls and boys. Exceptions to this generalization, though, include the observation that more boys used thank you spontaneously than did girls when receiving a gift in their preschools (Beeker & Smenner, 1986) and that boys said hi to an experimenter more than did girls (Greif & Gleason, 1980). The possibility of differences in beliefs as a function of sex of child was explored in this study.

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The only reports of parental sex differences in the appropriateness of pragmatic behavior include Greif's (1980) finding that fathers interrupted their children during dinner table conversations more than did mothers. The most frequent interruptions were of daughters by fathers and the least frequent were of sons by mothers. Greif and Gleason (1980) also observed that fathers were less likely to say thank you and goodbye to an experimenter than were mothers. In related work, Russell (1983) investigated parental teaching behaviors and found that fathers were more relaxed in their teaching and were more likely to ignore their children's errors. On the basis of these findings and their typically lesser responsibility for children, one might expect fathers to view the acquisition of pragmatic skills as less important than do mothers and that they would tend to ignore their children's pragmatic errors more than mothers would. These two predictions were tested in this study. Although there have been few sex differences found for pragmatic behaviors, Goodnow (1984) has said that it is reasonable to expect differences in beliefs as a function of children's sex. In fact, few such differences were obtained in Experiment 1. A few researchers have observed sex differences in parents' developmental beliefs. McGillicuddy-DeLisi (1982) found differences related to both sex of parent and sex of child, but they were less powerful than differences related to other factors. For example, she found that fathers, relative to mothers, attributed development more to their children's own cognitive abilities, the environment, and "readiness" and referred less to their children's negative affective states. Knight (1985) found that mothers perceived a greater degree of parental and teacher influence than did fathers. On the basis of these findings and the fact that mothers are usually more responsible for child rearing, it was predicted that mothers in this study would report having a greater degree of influence over the acquisition of their children's pragmatic skills than would fathers. Finally, the study also explored parents' reported pragmatic teaching strategies to determine whether, as in the observational literature, prompting and explicit teaching would be most frequently chosen. It was expected (in light of Becker, 1987) that parents would choose the more indirect prompting technique most frequently. Method

Subjects. Fifty intact, white, middle-class families (mean age of parents: 32 years, 4 months) with one preschooler between the ages of 3 and 6 years participated in this study. Only four families had a second child: two had a child under 1 year and two had a child under 2 years. Twenty-five of the families' preschoolers were boys while 25 were girls. Both parents in all 50 families participated, making a total of 100 subjects.

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Mater/a/s. Subjects completed a questionnaire comprised of two sections. The first asked parents to rate on five-point scales how important it is for their children to develop each of nine pragmatic skills (using please and thank you, taking turns and not interrupting, using rifles such as Mr. and Mrs., saying hello and goodbye, making polite requests, responding when spoken to, knowing when to talk, using the appropriate volume and tone, and avoiding taboo words) and how much influence they have over this process. The second section consisted of six scenarios in which the parent and child are interacting and the child's pragmatic behavior is inappropriate. The scenarios involved the child not saying thank you, interrupting, failing to say hello, speaking with an inappropriately high volume, swearing, and omitting please. Parents were asked to choose which of four different strategies they would use in reacting to their child's error: explicit teaching, indirect prompting, modeling, or ignoring. These choices were presented in different random orders for each scenario. (See Appendix C for sample questions.)

Procedure. Subjects completed the questionnaires at their leisure at home. Spouses were asked to fill them out independently from each other. While there was no direct way to ensure that spouses did work independently, no couple's responses were identical or differed in fewer than two responses. Results and Discussion Responses to the questionnaire indicated that mothers believed that they had greater influence over the acquisition of the skills than did fathers. Fathers tended to report ignoring pragmatic errors more than mothers, although in general there were few differences in strategies chosen as a function of sex of parent or sex of child. The most commonly chosen strategy was prompting. Overall, parents viewed eight of the pragnmtic skills as being quite important. Only the ability to use rifles was rated as being just "sort of important." In order to test the prediction that mothers would believe the pragmatic skills to be more important than would fathers, a 2 (sex of parent) × 2 (sex of child) analysis of variance was conducted on the importance ratings summed over the nine skills. Mothers did place greater importance on the development of the skills (rating eight of the nine as being more important than did fathers), although this effect was not statistically significant, F (1, 96) = 2.41, p > .05. These findings do not support those of Greif (1980), Greif and Gleason (1980), and Russell (1983). Sex of child did not have a significant impact on these ratings, nor was there a significant interaction of sex of parent with sex of child. Parents also believed that they had a great deal of influence over the acquisition of the pragmatic skills, with mean ratings ranging between very influential and "the greatest influence." Mothers reported having more influence over acquisition (M = 4.38) than did fathers (M = 3.94), as predicted. This effect was

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revealed by a 2 (sex of parent) x 2 (sex of child) analysis of variance on the influence ratings summed over the nine skills, F (1, 96) -- 16.38, p < .01. The effect held for each of the nine skills. In addition, 10 mothers rated themselves as the greatest influence on all nine skills, but no fathers did so. The finding that mothers believe they have greater influence than fathers is consistent with the conclusions of Knight (1985) and McGiUicuddy-DeLisi (1982). The correlation between ratings of importance and ratings of perceived influence was determined for both mothers and fathers for each of the nine skills, collapsing over child gender. The average correlation for mothers, determined by means of r to z transformations, was .430. The correlations for the nine skills ranged from -.008 to .619, with all but those for taking turns and saying hello and goodbye achieving statistical significance. The average correlation for fathers was .564 and the correlations for the nine skills ranged from .394 to .699. All nine were statistically significant. These correlations indicate that parents tended to believe that they had influence over skills they deemed important. This provides strong support for the idea of developmental optimism (e.g., Goodnow, Knight, & Cashraore, 1986). Responses to the scenarios were examined to test the prediction that fathers would ignore their children's pragmatic errors more than mothers would. Although there were very few instances in which subjects chose ignoring as a strategy (4% of the total number of responses), fathers chose it more frequently than mothers (5% of fathers' total responses and 2% of mothers'). On all four of the scenarios for which any subject chose this as a response, fathers chose it more than mothers. This finding supports the work of Russell (1983), but must be viewed cautiously because of the few responses on which it is based. In general, though, there were few significant differences between the reported strategies of mothers and fathers. Chi-square tests were performed on reported strategies for each scenario, with cells containing fewer than five responses deleted. In only one scenario was a significant difference between mothers and fathers obtained. Mothers tended to choose the prompting strategy more than fathers and modeling less in the scenario involving the inappropriate use of volume, X2 (1, N -- 97) 4.66, p < .05. It was also predicted that parents would report using prompting and explicit teaching strategies frequently, with prompting being the most frequently chosen strategy. In fact, in agreement with Becker's (1987) findings, prompting was most frequently chosen. It comprised 59% of the responses across the scenarios and was the response most frequently chosen for five of the six skills. Contrary to prediction, the next most frequently chosen response overall was modeling (23% of total responses), while explicit teaching made up 15% of the responses. Interestingly, modeling might be considered a type of indirect prompt in that it involves providing the correct response for the child Without explicitly drawing the child's attention to the error. For exploratory purposes, reported responses to the errors of sons and =

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daughters were also compared. Again, these sex differences were not substantial. Differences were found in only two scenarios. Parents were more likely to respond by modeling when their boys swore and to ignore the behavior when their girls swore, ×2 (3, N = 100) = 10.82, p < .05. For the scenario in which the child omitted please, parents of girls chose the modeling response more frequently than parents of boys and chose prompting less frequently, ×2 (1, N = 91) = 29.64, p < .001. It is difficult to know what to make of these results given that such differences have seldom been assessed in the literature and are typically not obtained and that these data are based on self-report rather than observation. GENERAL DISCUSSION These two studies have explored the beliefs that adults with different types of experiences with children have about pragmatic development. In general, patterns of results found in previous studies of parental beliefs about social and cognitive skills were supported and extended. Three conclusions are particularly striking. First, there were remarkably few differences in beliefs among subjects that related to experience with children. In Experiment 1, adults who were parents, teachers, both, or neither tended to agree about timetables for the acquisition of pragmatic skills, that parents are the greatest source of influence over pragmatic acquisition, that desirable behaviors are more stable than undesirable ones, and that there is no critical period for or sex differences in the acquisition of the pragmatic skills. Similarly, in Experiment 2, parents of girls and parents of boys agreed about the importance of the pragmatic behaviors and their degree of influence over them as well as the positive relationship between importance and influence. They also tended to agree about the strategies they would use in responding to their children's pragmatic errors. It appears that Goodnow's (1985) and Knight's (1985) notions about some beliefs being largely culturally "pre-packaged" may be true. It is certainly the case that parents and teachers and mothers and fathers have different experiences with children, yet these differences are not reflected in significantly different beliefs. As Sigel (1986) and Goodnow have suggested, it would be useful to investigate the origins of such belief systems and the factors (e.g., ethnicity, socioeconomic status) that do relate to variations in beliefs. The impact of experience may depend upon factors such as parental personalities and general belief systems, exposure to information discrepant with beliefs (which may be limited, discounted, or not attended to), and the particular beliefs of interest. As yet, relatively little is known about the mechanisms by which experience does or does not have an impact on beliefs. Exceptions to the great degree of similarity among all groups of subjects can be explained in terms of motivational factors such as relative responsibility for children's development, a second conclusion from this study. That is, those

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subjects who had the least personal interest in seeing that children acquire good pragmatic skills tended to have beliefs most discrepant from the other subjects'. In Experiment 1, the Adult group (those who were neither teachers nor parents) made less of a distinction in ideas about the relative stability of desirable and undesirable pragmatic behaviors. In Experiment 2, the mothers (9 of whom were full-time housewives and 25 of whom were housewives part-time) had different beliefs from the fathers (all but one of whom worked or attended school full-time and were thus not their children's primary caregivers). Mothers thought that they had more influence over pragmatic skills and were less likely to ignore pragmatic errors than were fathers. This pattern of observations ties in with the third conclusion from these experiments, that adults tend to be "developmental optimists," as a number of researchers (Goodnow et al., 1986; Knight, 1985) have suggested. It is obviously functional for those responsible for children to believe that their efforts will be fruitful. Such positive expectations are, according to Knight (p. 5), constructed and adhered to "for self-protection to make life with their children more bearable." A number of results in the two present studies are consistent with the idea of developmental optimism. In Experiment 1, parents and teachers reported believing that appropriate pragmatic usage was more stable than inappropriate usage. They also tended to believe that pragmatic skills important to them would be acquired earlier than other pragmatic skills. In both experiments, parents were believed to have the greatest degree of influence over the acquisition of pragmatic behaviors and, in Experiment 2, ratings of degree of influence were highly related to ratings of importance. Further investigation of this and other motivational factors that may help account for beliefs and the ways they mediate between experience and teaching practices is warranted. Results of studies such as the present one could also be used to investigate the implications of parents' and teachers' expectations. For example, a discrepancy between parental expectations and children's behaviors might affect parents' more general approval and affective reaction to children. Similarly, teachers' expectations may contribute to their impression formation processes and thus affect their responses to their students. These relationships also merit further research. REFERENCES Ashmore, R., & Brodzinsky, D. (Eds.). (1986). Thinking about the family: Views of parents and children. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Becker, J.A. (1987, July). How parents teach preschoolers pragmatic skills in the home. Paper presented at the Fourth International Congress for the Study of Child Language, Lund, Sweden. Becket, J.A., & Smenner, P.C. (1986). The spontaneous use of thank you by preschoolers as a function of sex, socioeconomic status, and listener status. Language in Society, 15, 537-545.

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Dix, T.H., & Grusec, J.E. (1985). Parent attribution in the socialization of children. In I. Sigel (Ed.), Parental belief systems (pp. 201-233). HiUsdale, NJ: Erlbanm. Dodge, K. (1983). Behavioral antecedents of peer social status. Child Development, 54, 1386-1399. Eisenberg, A. (1982). Understanding components of a situation: Spontaneous use of politeness routines by Mexicano two-year-olds. Papers and Reports on Child Language Development, 21, 46-54. Gleason, J.B., Perlmann, R., & Greff, E. (1984). What's the magic word: Learning language through politeness routines. Discourse Processes, 7, 493-502. Gleason, J.B., & Weintraub, S. (1976). The acquisition of routines in child language. Language in Society, 5, 129-136. Goodnow, J. (1979). "Conventional wisdom": Everyday models of cognitive development. In L. Eckensberger, W. Lonner, & Y. Poortinga (Eds.), Cross-cultural contributions to psychology (pp. 55-68). Amsterdam, Holland: Swets & Zeitlinger. ~ow, J. (1981). Everyday ideas about cognitive development. In J. Forgas (Ed.), Social cognition: Perspectives on everyday understanding (pp. 85-112). London: Academic. Goodnow, J. (1984). Parents' ideas about parenting and development: A review of issues and recent work. In M. Lamb, A. Brown, & B. Rogoff (Eds.), Advances in developmentalpsychology (Vol. 3, pp. 193-242). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. ~ w , J. (1985). Change and variation in ideas about childhood and parenting. In I. Sigel (Eds.), Parental belief systems (pp. 235-270). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. ~ow, J., Cashmore, J., Cotton, S., & Knight, R. (1984). Mothers' developmental timetables in two cultural groups. International Journal of Psychology, 19, 193-205. Goodnow, J., Knight, R., & Cashmore, J. (1986). Adult social cognition: Implications of parents' ideas for approaches to development. In M. Perlmutter (Ed.), Minnesota Symposia on Child Psychology: Vol. 18. Cognitive perspectives on children's social and behavioral development (pp. 287-324). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbanm. Gottman, J., Gonso, J., & Rasmussen, B. (1975). Social interaction, social competence, and friendship in children. Child Development, 46, 709-718. Greif, E. (1980, September). Parent-child conversations. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Psychological Association, Montreal. Greif, E., & Gleason, J.B. (1980). Hi, thanks, and goodbye: More routine information. Journa/of Child Language, 9, 159-166. Hess, R., Price, G., Dick,son, W.P., & Conroy, M. (1981). Different roles for mothers and teachers: Contrasting styles of child care. In S. Kilmer (Ed.), Advances in early education and day care (Vol. 2, pp. 1-28). Greenwich, CT: Jai Press. Holden, G., & West, M. (1983, April). The parent as naive psychologist: Analyses ofparentul deliberations. Paper presented at the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Detroit. Knight, R. (1985, April). Parents as developmental optimists. Paper presented at the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Toronto, Canada. McGillicuddy-DeLisi, A. (1982). The relationship between parents' befiefs about development and family constellation, socioeconomic status, and parents' teaching strategies. In L.M. Laosa & I. Sigel (Eds.), Families as learning environments for children (pp. 261-299). New York: Plenum. McGiUicuddy-DeLisi, A. (1985). The relation between parental beliefs and children's cognitive level. In I. Sigel (Ed.), Parental belief systems (pp. 7-24). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbanm. Ochs, E., & Schieffelin, B. (1984). Language acquisition and socialiT~tion: Three developmental stories and their implications. In R. Shweder and R. LeVine (Eds.), Culture theory: Essays on mind, self, and emotion (pp. 276-320). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

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Pellegrini, A., Brody, G., & Stoneman, Z. (1987). Children's conversational competence with theft parents. Discourse Processes, 10, 93-106. Place, K,S. (1987, April). The influence of pragmatic ability on popularity in childluTod. Paper presented at the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Baltimore. Putallaz, M., & Gottman, J. (1981). Social skills and group acceptance. In S. Asher & J. Gottman (Eds.), The development of children's friendships (pp. 116-149). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Russell, G. (1983, August). A cognitire mediational approach to observing and understanding social interactions. Paper presented at the meeting of the International Society for the Study of Behavioural Development, Munich. Schieffelin, B., & Eisenberg, A. (1984). Cultural variation in children's conversations. In R. Schiefelbusch & J. Pickar (Eds.), The acquisition of communicative competence (pp. 377420). Baltimore: University Park Press. Sigel, I. (1986). Reflections on the belief-behavior connection: Lessons learned from a research program on parental belief systems and teaching strategies. In R. Ashmore & D. Brodzinsky (Eds.), Thinking about the family (pp. 35-65). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlhaum. Sigel, I. (Ed.). (1985). Parental belief systems: The psychological consequences for children. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlhaum. Sigel, I., McGillicuddy-DeLisi, A., Flangher, J., & Rock, D. (1983). Parents as teachers of their own learning disabled children (Errs RR-83-21). Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service. Slobin, D. (Ed.). (1967). A field manual for cross-cultural study of the acquisition of communicative competence. Berkeley, CA: University of California. Whiting, J., Child, I., LambeR, W., Fischer, A., Fischer, J., Nydegger, C., Nydegger, W., Maretzki, H., Maretzki, T., Mintum, L., Roruney, A.K., & Romney, R. (1966). Fieldguide for a study of socialization (Vol. 1). New York: Wiley.

APPENDIX A

Questions A s k e d 1. 2.

3.

4. 5. 6.

a b o u t E a c h P r a g m a t i c Skill i n E x p e r i m e n t 1 At what age would you expect most children to have this ability? With some skills, boys and girls develop at different rates, while with others they develop at the same rates. Do boys and girls develop this skill at the same or different rates? If different, explain how and why. Pleaserankthepossible sources of influence accordingtotheir importance in the development of this ability. (1 = most important) children's natural abilities or tendencies parents teachers other children other (please specify) Suppose that an older child does not have this ability. What is the most likely reason that this happened? Is there an age after which it is too late for a child to acquire this ability? If no, why not? If yes, what age and why? Please indicate how important or necessary it is that children acquire this skill:

BECKER AND HALL

16 not at all important /

somewhat important /

extremely important /

APPENDIX B Q u e s t i o n s A s k e d a b o u t P r a g m a t i c Skills ill G e n e r a l in E x p e r i m e n t 1 1. Some people believe one of the following three statements: A. Children are naturally polite and people who influence them should help them maintain their politeness. B. Children are naturally rude and people who influence them need to teach them to be polite. C. Children are naturally neither polite nor rude and so they become whatever they have been taught. Which of these views is closest to your own? Why do you believe this? 2. Some abilities change as children get older whereas other abilities stay the same. Also, some aspects of children's personalities change with age and other aspects stay the same. A. If a young child is usually polite and uses the different language skills described above appropriately, how likely is it that this child will continue to be polite and appropriate in his or her language? Mark your answer with an X. extremely likely

somewhat likely

uncertain

somewhat unlikely

/

/

/

/

extremely unlikely /

B. If a young child is usually rude and cannot use the different language skills described above appropriately, how likely is it that this child will continue to be rude and inappropriate in his or her language? Mark your answer with an X. extremely likely I

somewhat likely /

uncertain /

somewhat unlikely /

APPENDIX C Sample Questions Asked in Experiment 2 1.

Using please and thank you appropriately a. How important is it that your child learn this skill?

extremely unlikely /

ADULT BELIEFSABOUT PRAGMATIC DEVELOPMENT not at all important /

/

sort of important /

/

17

extremely important /

b. How much influence do you feel you have over how your child learns this skill? no influence /

2.

/

some influence /

/

The greatest influence /

A friend of yours comes to your house and brings a gift for your child. When she gives your child the gift, your child does not respond. Would you: a. Do nothing. b. Thank your friend yourself. c. Say, "Say thank you." d. Say, "What do you say?"