The recent COVID-19 pandemic has been disrupting the daily lives of people across the world, causing a major concern for psychological well-being in children. This study aimed to examine (1) how life satisfaction and its potential predictors have been affected by the pandemic among school-aged children in Korea, and (2) which factors would predict their life satisfaction during the pandemic. We surveyed 166 fourth-graders in the Seoul metropolitan area to assess their psychological well-being and potentially related variables during the pandemic. The data were compared with those available from two pre-COVID-19 surveys, the 2018 Korean Children and Youth Panel Survey (n = 1236) and the 2019 Korean Children and Youth Well-being Index Survey (n = 334). Higher levels of stress were observed in children during the COVID-19 pandemic; however, the level of their life satisfaction remained unchanged when compared with data from the pre-COVID-19 surveys. The pandemic also affected peer relationship quality and susceptibility to smartphone addiction, but not perceived parenting style nor academic engagement. Interestingly, peer relationship quality no longer predicted life satisfaction during the pandemic; perceived parenting styles and parent-child conversation time predicted life satisfaction. The results suggest a central role of parent-child relationship in supporting the psychological well-being of school-aged children during the pandemic.

Two experiments examined infants' ability to form a spatial category when habituated to few (only 2) or many (6) exemplars of a spatial relation. Sixty-four infants of 10 months and 64 infants of 14 months were habituated to dynamic events in which a toy was placed in a consistent spatial relation (in or on) to a referent object. At 10 months, infants formed a spatial category (looking longer at an unfamiliar than familiarized spatial relation) only when habituated to 6 exemplars. At 14 months, infants formed the spatial category regardless of the number of habituation exemplars. The results highlight developmental changes in infant spatial categorization and show that increasing exemplar number facilitates this ability in infants of 10 months.

The current study investigated infant spatial categorization of a support relation across differences in the perceptual features of the objects. Infants of 8 and 14 months (N = 67) were habituated to dynamic support events with objects that were plain and monochromatic or those that were embellished with decorations (e.g., polka dots, feathers). Infants were then tested with events that presented a novel pair of objects, a novel spatial relation (i.e., containment), or both. Infants, particularly those of 8 months, formed an abstract categorical representation of a support relation when habituated with the decorated objects but not the plain objects. The results suggest that the perceptual features of objects can facilitate infants' categorization of spatial relations, at least in some learning settings and especially with younger infants.

This study investigated five-year-olds’ priority between shared preference and group membership in resource allocation, social preference, and social evaluation. Using a forced-choice resource allocation task and a friend choice task, we first demonstrate that five-year-old children distribute more resources to and prefer a character who shares a preference with them when compared to a character who has a different preference. Then, we pitted the shared preference against group membership to investigate children’s priority. Children prioritized group membership over shared preference, allotting more resources to and showing more preference toward characters in the same group who did not share their preferences than those from a different group who shared their preferences. Lastly, children evaluated resource allocation and social preference in others that prioritized group membership or shared preference. Children regarded prioritization of group membership more positively than prioritization of shared preference from the perspective of a third person. The results suggest that children by five years of age consider group membership as of greater importance than shared preference not only in their own resource allocation and social preference, but also in their evaluation of others’ resource allocation and liking.

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