The purpose of the two investigations reported here was to develop a measure of executive capacity, denned as the difference between infants' most sophisticated level of functioning displayed first in free and then in elicited play, and to test several hypotheses regarding the relationship between these performance and competence measures of child functioning and home environment and security of attachment to mother and father. Belsky and 12-step scale of play development was used to assess play; the Caldwell inventory of home stimulation was used to measure home environment; and the Strange Situation was used to assess quality of attachment to mother and father. In Study 1, it was predicted that home environment would relate more systematically to highest level of exploration displayed in free play (called performance) than to executive capacity, and that the home-environment/executive-capacity association would exceed the home-environment/highest-level-of-free-play association. These predictions were confirmed in three distinct samples (12-, 15-, and 18-month-olds). In Study 2 it was predicted that infants evaluated as securely attached to their parents would be more free to attend to the environment beyond the attachment figure in play and thus would display a smaller gap between the most sophisticated play exhibited in free and in elicited play. Data gathered on a large sample of infants at 12 and 13 months provided support for this hypothesis. Discussion focuses on the utility of the executive capacity construct as a measure for studying the effects of early experience and the stability of individual differences between infancy and subsequent developmental periods.Most standardized assessments of infant are designed to assess. We might refer to such functioning involve denning the task for the tests as competency assessments that evaluate child, repeatedly focussing his or her attention the skills that exist in the child's repertoire, on it, and praising and/or encouraging perStudents of language make an important formance. In this way, it is possible that stan-distinction between competence and perfordardized procedures minimize variation in mance, with performance denning the child's children's ability and/or motivation to spon-routine or typical behavior and competence taneously deploy the very skills that such tests denning what the child is theoretically capable of (Chomsky, 1975). The major assumption underlying the two studies to be presented in The work reported in Study 2 was supported by the this article is that, rather than representing a National Science Foundation under Gram SES-810886 methodological problem to be overcome, the and by the March of Dimes Foundation, Behavioral and competence-performance gap may be an exS^Sciences Branch (12-64), Jay Belsky, Principal In-^^ important psychol^g i cal construct o f We would like to thank May Naifeh and Laura Beizer ^ own -We Proposed, more specifically, that for their assistance in data collection in Study i; Rachel the difference between performan...

This report presents the results of a short-term, longitudinal study of 176 high school students that extends and clarifies earlier cross-sectional studies of the likely costs and benefits of part-time employment to adolescent development. The earlier studies of employment concomitant with full-time school attendance indicated three general issues warranting longitudinal investigation: the impact of working on the development of responsibility, the impact of working on involvement with and commitment to nonwork activities and relationships, and the impact of working on the socialization of several less-than-desirable attitudes and behaviors. In general, the longitudinal and cross-sectional findings converge in all three areas. Specifically, (a) working facilitates the development of personal responsibility (i.e., self-management) but not social responsibility (i.e., concern for others); (b) the benefits of working to the development of autonomy are substantially greater for girls than for boys; (c) working diminishes involvement in school, family, and peer commitments; (d) working leads to the development of cynical attitudes toward work and the acceptance of unethical work practices; and (e) working leads to the increased use of cigarettes and marijuana. On , balance, it appears that proponents of the earlier and more deliberate integration of adolescents into the work place have overestimated its benefits and underestimated its costs.

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One of the most important lessons a young person may learn from working is how to interact effectively with others. This potential outcome of work experience has received virtually no attention from proponents of the early integration of adolescents into the workplace. In this paper we suggest that working may contribute to the development of more advanced social understanding (i.e., social sensitivity, social insight, and effective social communication and manipulation) by requiring youngsters to (a) shift back and forth between diverse roles and (b) interact frequently with strangers. Illustrative material is presented from interviews with 100 working adolescents and their parents.

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