This study examined responses to questions oriented toward revealing the development of perspective taking. The sample comprised 180 three- to nine-year-old children in four traditional communities (in Belize, Kenya, Nepal, and American Samoa). Ten scenarios that asked the children about knowledge of handedness and also what was visible from their own and from another person's perspective were used. In all groups, the proportion of correct answers improved with age. Degree of industrialization-which had predicted better cognitive performance in other testing with these same children-was also a predictor of perspective taking on some of the items. Discussion includes possible interpretation of the results. © 2013 SAGE Publications.

Paraphilias (e.g., pedophilia, fetishism) are said to be virtually ineradicable once established. The authors propose that the motivational state known as the Zeigarnik effect, according to which interrupted tasks are better recalled than completed tasks, may provide understanding of this process, especially its later addictive-compulsive quality. Reasoning from Zeigarnik-type research, the authors predict a relation between early sexual arousal, its frustration, and subsequent events associated with such arousal. The paraphilias are thus seen as an unusual by-product of a normal adaptive process, that is, a tendency to privilege the recollection of unfinished over finished activities. The authors discuss why paraphilias are associated nearly exclusively with males, and why paraphilic tendencies are apparently quite rare in traditional societies. They also propose new research on the processes and outcomes entailed by the Zeigarnik effect, such research including, but not being limited to, sexuality.

This study investigated language data collected in 1978-1979 from ninety-six 3- to 5-year-old children in four different non-Western cultures: Garifuna in Belize, Logoli in Kenya, Newars in Nepal, and Samoans in America Samoa. There were 24 children per culture; half of the children were 3 years of age, and half were 5 years of age. The study examined the use of information-seeking questions in everyday life situations and the proportion of explanation-seeking questions (why-questions) in these communities relative to those reported among Western samples. Results revealed that the number of information-seeking questions does not differ from those of Western samples, but the proportion of explanation-seeking questions was much lower than that reported for Western children. Implications of these findings are discussed. © The Author(s) 2013.