Chapter 9 Socioemotional Development in Early Childhood

Chapter 9

Socioemotional Development in Early Childhood

Black Hawk College Chapter 9 2

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The Self

• Initiative Versus Guilt

• Self-Understanding


Initiative Versus Guilt• Children use their perceptual, motor, cognitive, and

language skills to make things happen.• The governor of initiative is conscience, as children

begin to hear the inner voice of self-observation.• Initiative may bring rewards or punishment.• Widespread disappointment leads to an unleashing

of guilt that lowers self-esteem.• Leaving this stage with a sense of initiative rather

than guilt depends on parental responses to children’s self-initiated activities.


Self-Understanding• The child’s cognitive representation of self,

the substance and content of the child’s self-conceptions.

• Based on the various roles and membership categories that define who they are.

• In early childhood, children usually conceive of the self in physical terms.

• The active dimension is a central component of the self, as children describe themselves in terms of such activities as play.


Emotional Development

• Among the most important changes in emotional development are the increased use of emotion language and the understanding of emotion.

• Between 2 and 3 years, children considerably increase the number of terms they use to describe emotion.

• Children also begin to learn about the causes and consequences of feelings.

• At 4-5 years, children show an increased ability to reflect on emotions.

• They also show a growing awareness about controlling and managing emotions to meet social standards.


Moral Development

• What Is Moral Development?

• Piaget’s View of How Children’s Moral Reasoning Develops

• Moral Behavior

• Moral Feelings


What Is Moral Development?

• Involves thoughts, feelings, and behaviors regarding standards of right and wrong.

• Has an intrapersonal dimension and an interpersonal dimension.

• The former regulates a person’s activities when he or she is not engaged in social interaction.

• The latter regulates people’s social interactions and arbitrates conflict.


Piaget’s View of Moral Development

• Heteronomous Morality

• Autonomous Morality


Heteronomous Morality

• The first stage of Piaget’s theory of moral development occurs from approximately 4-7 years of age.

• Justice and rules are conceived of as unchangeable properties of the world, removed from the control of people.

• This stage involves the belief in imminent justice—the concept that, if a rule is broken, punishment will be meted out immediately.


Autonomous Morality

• Piaget’s second stage of moral development, which begins around age 10 and continues throughout life.

• At this point, the child realizes that rules and laws are created by people and that, in judging an action, one should consider the actor’s intentions as well as the consequences.

• Children between the ages of 7 and 10 are in transition and show features of both stages.


Moral Behavior• The study of moral behavior has been influenced by

behavioral and cognitive theories.• The processes of reinforcement, punishment, and

imitation are used to explain moral behavior.• The social cognitive view believes that moral

behavior is influenced extensively by the situation.• Social cognitive theorists also believe that the ability

to resist temptation is closely tied to the development of self-control.

• They believe cognitive factors are important in the development of self-control.


Moral Feelings

• The Psychoanalytic Approach

• Empathy


The Psychoanalytic Approach

• The superego is the moral branch of personality.• It develops as the child resolves the Oedipus

conflict and identifies with the same-sex parent.• Through identification with the same-sex parent,

children internalize the parents’ standards of right and wrong that reflect societal prohibitions.

• Children conform to societal standards to avoid guilt, brought on by hostility originally directed at the same-sex parent, now internalized and directed toward the self.


Empathy• Reacting to another’s feelings with an emotional

response that is similar to the other’s feelings.• Empathy is experienced as an emotional state,

but it also has a cognitive component.• The cognitive component is the ability to discern

another’s inner psychological states—perspective taking.

• Emotions such as empathy, shame, guilt, and anxiety provide a natural base for the child’s acquisition of moral values.


Gender

• What Is Gender?

• Biological Influences

• Social Influences

• Cognitive Influences


What Is Gender?

• Sex - the biological dimension of being male or female.

• Gender - the social dimensions of being male or female.

• Gender identity - the sense of being male or female.

• Gender role - a set of expectations that prescribe how males or females should think, act, and feel.


Biological Influences

• The 23rd pair of chromosomes in humans either contains two X chromosomes to produce a female, or an X and a Y chromosome to produce a male.

• Estrogens influence the development of female physical sex characteristics.

• Androgens promote the development of male physical sex characteristics.

• Some research is exploring possible differences in aspects of male and female brains.


Social Influences

• Psychoanalytic and Social Cognitive Theories

• Parental Influences

• Peer Influences

• School and Teacher Influences


Psychoanalytic and Social Cognitive Theories

• Psychoanalytic theory maintains a preschool attraction to the opposite-sex parent ultimately results in identification with the same-sex parent.

• Social cognitive theory emphasizes gender development occurs through observation and imitation of gender behavior, and through the rewards and punishments for gender appropriate and inappropriate behavior.

• Critics of this approach argue that gender development is not as passive as it indicates.


Parental Influences• Both mothers and fathers are psychologically

important in children’s gender development.• By action and example, they influence their

children’s gender development.• Fathers are more likely to ensure that boys and

girls conform to existing cultural norms.• Fathers are more involved in socializing their sons

than their daughters.• Fathers are more likely than mothers to act

differently toward sons and daughters, thus contributing more to distinctions between genders.


Peer Influences• Children show a clear preference for being with

and liking same-sex peers.• This tendency becomes stronger during the

middle and late childhood years.• Boys teach one another the required masculine

behavior and enforce it strictly.• Girls pass on female culture and congregate

with one another.• Peer demands for conformity to gender roles

become especially intense during adolescence.


School and Teacher Influences• Girls’ learning problems are not identified as often

as boys’ are.• Boys are given the lion’s share of attention in

schools.• Girls start school testing higher in every academic

subject, yet graduate scoring lower on the SAT.• Boys are most often at the top of their classes,

but most often at the bottom as well.• Pressure to achieve is more likely to be

heaped on boys than on girls.


Cognitive Influences

• Cognitive Developmental Theory

• Gender Schema Theory


Cognitive Developmental Theory

• This theory says children’s gender typing occurs after they have developed a concept of gender.

• Once they consistently conceive of themselves as male or female, children often organize their world on the basis of gender.

• Children use physical and behavioral clues to differentiate gender roles and to gender-type themselves in early development.

• They then select same-sex models to imitate.


Gender Schema Theory• States that an individual’s attention and behavior are

guided by an internal motivation to conform to gender-based sociocultural standards and stereotypes.

• “Gender typing” occurs when individuals are ready to encode and organize information along the lines of what is considered appropriate for males and females in society.

• A general readiness to respond to and categorize information on the basis of culturally defined gender roles fuels children’s gender-typing activities.

• This theory acknowledges, like Kohlberg’s cognitive developmental theory, that gender constancy is important along with other cognitive factors.


Gender Constancy

• Gender constancy refers to the understanding that sex remains the same even though activities, clothing, and hair style might change.


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Parenting

• Parenting Styles

• Child Abuse

• Parenting: Nature and Nurture

• Good Parenting Takes Time and Effort


Parenting Styles

• Authoritarian Parenting

• Authoritative Parenting

• Neglectful Parenting

• Indulgent Parenting


Authoritarian Parenting• A restrictive, punitive style in which parents

exhort the child to follow their directions and to respect work and effort.

• These parents place firm limits and controls on the child and allow little verbal exchange.

• Authoritarian parenting is associated with children’s social incompetence.

• Children of authoritarian parents often are unhappy, fearful, anxious, fail to initiate activity, and have weak communication skills.


Authoritative Parenting• This style encourages children to be independent

but still places limits and controls on their actions.• Extensive verbal give-and-take is allowed, and

parents are warm and nurturant toward the child.• Authoritative parenting is associated with children’s

social competence.• Children of authoritative parents are often cheerful,

self-controlled and self-reliant, achievement-oriented, maintain friendships with peers, cooperate with adults, and cope well with stress


Neglectful Parenting• A style in which the parent is very uninvolved in

the child’s life.• It is associated with children’s social

incompetence, especially a lack of self-control.• Children whose parents are neglectful

frequently have low self-esteem, are immature, and may be alienated from the family.

• In adolescence, they may show patterns of truancy and delinquency.


Indulgent Parenting• A style of parenting in which parents are highly

involved with their children, but place few demands or controls on them.

• Indulgent parenting is associated with children’s social incompetence, especially a lack of self-control.

• The result is that children never learn to control their own behavior and always expect to get their way.

• Children of indulgent parents may be aggressive, domineering, and noncompliant.


Child Abuse

• The Basics of Child Abuse• The Multifaceted Nature of Abuse• Severity of Abuse• The Cultural Context of Abuse• Family Influences• Developmental Consequences of

Abuse


The Basics of Child Abuse• It is estimated that as many as 500,000

children are physically abused every year.• Experts believe that the view that parents

who abuse their children are bad, sick, monstrous, sadistic individuals, who cause their children to suffer is too simple.

• The most common form of abuse is not a raging uncontrolled physical abuser, but an overwhelmed single mother in poverty who neglects the child.


The Multifaceted Nature of Abuse

• Developmentalists are increasingly using the term child maltreatment rather than child abuse.

• The term does not have the same emotional impact of abuse, and acknowledges that maltreatment involves a number of different conditions:– Physical and sexual abuse– The fostering of delinquency– Lack of supervision– Medical, educational, and nutritional neglect– Drug and alcohol abuse


Severity of Abuse• Less than 1% of maltreated children die.• Eleven percent suffer life-threatening,

disabling injuries.• Almost 90% of cases suffer temporary

physical injuries, although they tend to be experienced repeatedly.

• Neglected children, who suffer no physical injuries, often experience extensive, long-term psychological harm.


The Cultural Context of Abuse

• The extensive violence that takes place in American culture is reflected in the occurrence of violence in the family.

• This contrasts with China, where physical punishment is rarely used as discipline and the incidence of child abuse is reported to be very low.

• Many abusive parents report not having sufficient resources or help from others.

• Community support systems are important in alleviating stressful family situations.


Family Influences• To understand abuse in the family, the interactions

of all family members need to be considered, regardless of who actually performs the violence.

• About one-third of parents who were abused when they were young abuse their own children.

• Mothers who break out of the intergenerational transmission of abuse often have at least one warm, caring adult in their background, have a close, positive marital relationship, and have received therapy.


Developmental Consequences of Abuse

• Maltreated children show poor emotion regulation.• They show attachment problems, as they are

typically categorized as disorganized.• They have problems in peer relations due to their

aggressiveness, avoidance, and aberrant responses to distress and positive approaches from peers.

• They have difficulty in adapting to school due to problematic interactions with teachers.

• Other psychological problems: anxiety, depression, conduct disorder, and delinquency.


Parenting: Nature and Nurture

• Two types of recent studies that effectively disentangle children’s heredity and their rearing experiences are:– Studies of the effects of rearing experiences on the

behavior of children who differ in their temperament.– Studies that compare the effects of high- and low-risk

environments on children of different vulnerability.• Another way to examine links between parenting and child

behavior is to study risk and resiliency in children.• As with other areas of life-span development, evidence on

the role of parenting shows that neither heredity alone nor environment alone is responsible for children’s development.


Good Parenting Takes Time and Effort

• Good parenting takes a lot of time and effort.

• There is an unfortunate theme in today’s society which suggests that parenting can be done quickly.

• Compact discs are marketed for parents to simply play Mozart’s music in order to enrich young children’s brains.

• One-minute bedtime stories are also available, so parents can read to their children—but not for long.

• These items are seen as supporting parental neglect and reducing guilt of uninvested parents.


Sibling Relationships

• Children’s sibling relationships include helping, sharing, teaching, fighting, and playing.

• Children can act as emotional supports, rivals, and communication partners.

• Because of the large number of possible sibling combinations, it is difficult to generalize about sibling influences.

• Factors to consider: number, ages, and sex of siblings, birth order, and age spacing.


Birth Order

• When differences in birth order are found, they are usually explained by variations in interactions with parents and siblings associated with the unique experiences of being in a particular position in the family.


Birth Order

• Given the differences in family dynamics involved in birth order, it is not surprising that firstborns and later-borns have different characteristics.

• Birth order alone is often not a good predictor of behavior.


Firstborns Versus Later-Borns

• Parents have higher expectations for firstborns.• They put more pressure on them for achievement

and responsibility.• They also interfere more with their activities.• Firstborn children are more adult-oriented,

helpful, conforming, anxious, and self-controlled than their siblings.

• Parents give more attention to firstborns; this is related to firstborns’ nurturant behavior.

• Due to the pressure placed on them, firstborns have more guilt, anxiety, and difficulty in coping.


The Only Child

• Only children are often achievement-oriented and display a desirable personality, especially in comparison with later-borns and children from large families.


The Changing Family in a Changing Society

• Working Parents

• Effects of Divorce on Children

• Cultural, Ethnic, and Socioeconomic Variations in Families


Working Parents• Because household operations have become

more efficient and family size has decreased in America, it is not certain that when both parents work outside the home that children actually receive less attention.

• Mothering does not always have a positive effect on the child.

• The rigid gender stereotyping perpetuated by the divisions of labor in the traditional family is not appropriate for the demands that will be made on children of either sex as adults.


Effects of Divorce on Children

• Children’s Adjustment in Divorced Families• Should Parents Stay Together for the Sake of

Their Children?• How Much Do Family Processes Matter in

Divorced Families?• What Factors Are Involved in the Child’s

Individual Risk and Vulnerability in a Divorced Family?

• What Role Does Socioeconomic Status Play in the Lives of Children in Divorced Families?


Children’s Adjustment in Divorced Families

• Most researchers agree that children from divorced families show poorer adjustment than their counterparts in nondivorced families.

• Children in divorced families are more likely to have academic problems, to act out and be delinquent, and to experience depression and anxiety.


Children’s Adjustment in Divorced Families

• They are likely to be less socially responsible, and to have less competent intimate relationships, as well as become sexually active earlier.

• They are more likely to take drugs and have low self-esteem.


Other Findings

• The majority of children in divorced families do not have these problems.

• The weight of research underscores that most children competently cope with their parents’ divorce, but that significantly more children from divorced families have adjustment problems (20- 25%) than children from nondivorced families (10%).


Should Parents Stay Together for the Sake of Their

Children?• If the stresses and disruptions in family

relationships associated with an unhappy , conflictual marriage that erode the well-being of children are reduced by the move to a divorced, single-parent family, divorce may be advantageous.


Should Parents Stay Together for the Sake of Their

Children?• If the diminished resources and

increased risks associated with divorce also are accompanied by inept parenting and sustained or increased conflict, the best choice for the children would be for an unhappy marriage to be retained.


How Much Do Family Processes Matter in Divorced

Families?• Family processes matter a great deal in

divorce.• In the year following divorce, a

disequilibrium, based partly on diminished parenting skills, occurs.

• By 2 years after the divorce, restabilization has occurred and parenting skills have improved.


How Much Do Family Processes Matter in Divorced

Families?• About 25% of children from divorced

families become disengaged from their families.

• This disengagement is higher for boys than girls.

• If there is a caring adult outside the home, the disengagement might be a positive experience.


What Factors Are Involved in the Child’s Individual Risk and Vulnerability in a Divorced

Family?• The child’s adjustment prior to the

divorce

• The child’s personality

• The child’s temperament

• The child’s gender

• The custody situation


What Role Does Socioeconomic Status Play in the Lives of

Children in Divorced Families?• Custodial mothers experience the loss of

about one-quarter to one-half of their pre-divorce income, compared to a loss of only one-tenth by custodial fathers.

• The income loss for mothers is accompanied by increased workloads, high rates of job instability, and residential moves to less desirable neighborhoods with inferior schools.


Cultural Variations in Families

• The role of the father in the family

• The extent to which support systems are available to families

• The ways in which children should be disciplined


Ethnic Variations in Families

• Size

• Structure

• Composition

• Reliance on kinship networks

• Levels of income and education


Socioeconomic Variations in Families

• Value placements– Internal characteristics vs. external

characteristics• Discipline styles

– Praise and reasoning vs. criticism and physical punishment

• Views on education– Encouraged by both teachers and parents

vs. teacher’s responsibility


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Peer Relations

• Peers - children of about the same age or maturity.

• The peer group provides a source of information and comparison about the world outside the family.

• Children receive feedback on their abilities from peers.


Peer Relations

• Good peer relations appear to be necessary for normal social development.

• Children who are rejected by peers are at risk for depression.

• Aggressive children are at risk for many problems.


Play

• Play’s Functions

• Parten’s Classic Study of Play

• Types of Play


What Is Play?

• Play is a pleasurable activity that is engaged in for its own sake.

• It is exciting and pleasurable in itself because it satisfies our exploratory drive.


Play’s Functions• Increases affiliation with peers and increases

the opportunity for interaction• Releases tension• Advances cognitive development due to its

symbolic and make-believe components• Provides an opportunity to practice roles

children will assume later in life• Offers the possibilities of novelty, uncertainty,

surprise, and incongruity


Parten’s Classic Study of Play

• Unoccupied play - the child is not engaging in play as it is commonly understood.

• Solitary play - the child plays alone and independently of others. More frequent in 2- to 3-year-olds than older children.

• Onlooker play - the child watches other children play, but may still talk and ask questions.

• Parallel play - the child plays separately from others, but with similar toys or in a manner that mimics their play.

• Associative play - involves social interaction with little or no organization.

• Cooperative play - involves social interaction in a group with a sense of group identity and organized activity.


Types of Play

• Sensorimotor and Practice Play

• Pretense/Symbolic Play

• Social Play

• Constructive Play

• Games


Sensorimotor and Practice Play

• Sensorimotor play - behavior engaged in by infants to derive pleasure from exercising their existing sensorimotor schemas.

• Practice play - the repetition of behavior when new skills are being learned or when physical or mental mastery and coordination of skills are required for games or sports.

• Sensorimotor play, which often involves practice play, is primarily confined to infancy, while practice play can be engaged in throughout life.


Pretense/Symbolic Play• Pretense/symbolic play - occurs when the child

transforms the physical environment into a symbol.

• Between 9 and 30 months of age, children increase their use of objects in symbolic play.

• Experts consider the preschool years the “golden age” of pretense/symbolic play.

• In the early elementary school years, children’s interest often shift to games.


Social Play• Social play - involves social interaction with

peers.• Parten’s categories are oriented toward social

play.• Social play with peers increases dramatically

during the preschool years.• Rough-and-tumble play appears at this time.


Constructive Play• Combines sensorimotor and practice

repetitive activity with symbolic representation of ideas.

• Occurs when children engage in self-regulated creation or construction of a product or a problem solution.

• Increases in the preschool years.• A frequent form of play in the elementary

school years.


Games

• Games - activities engaged in for pleasure.• They include rules and often competition with

one or more individuals.• Games play a big part in the lives of elementary

school children, with one study finding the highest incidence of game playing occurred between 10 and 12 years of age.


Television

• Television’s Many Roles

• Amount of Television Watching by Children

• Effects of Television on Children’s Aggression and Prosocial Behavior

• Television and Cognitive Development


Television’s Many Roles• Negative influences: taking children away from

homework, making them passive learners, teaching them stereotypes, providing them with violent models of aggression, and presenting them with unrealistic views of the world.

• Positive influences: presenting motivating educational programs, increasing information about the world beyond children’s immediate environment, and providing models of prosocial behavior.


Amount of Television Watching by Children

• In the 1990s, children averaged 11-28 hours of television per week, which is more than for any other activity except sleep.

• Considerably more children in the U.S. than their counterparts in other developed countries watch television for long periods.

• A special concern is the extent to which children are exposed to violence and aggression on television, even in cartoons.


Effects of Television on Children’s Aggression

• Several studies have demonstrated the relationships between the amount of violence viewed on television and subsequent aggressive and violent behavior.

• These studies are correlational, thus the only conclusion can be that television violence is associated with aggressive behavior, not that it causes aggressive behavior.

• Many experts argue that TV violence can induce aggressive or antisocial behavior in children.


Effects of Television on Children’s Prosocial Behavior

• Television can teach children that it is better to behave in positive, prosocial ways than in negative, antisocial ways.

• Children who watched episodes of “Sesame Street” that reflected positive social interchanges copied the behaviors and, in later social situations, applied the prosocial lessons they had learned.


Television and Cognitive Development

• Children’s greater attention to television and their less complete and more distorted understanding of what they view suggest that they may miss some of the positive aspects of television and be more vulnerable to its negative aspects.

• Regular television is negatively related to children’s creativity, however, educational programming may promote creativity and imagination due to its slower pace and coordination of video and audio input.


Television and Cognitive Development

• Television is primarily a visual modality, thus verbal skills are enhanced more by aural or print exposure.

• This is the end of Chapter 9

• Test #2

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Chapter 9 Socioemotional Development in Early Childhood