Lecture 7: Children's Social Development PDF

SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN CHILDHOOD LEARNING OUTCOMES By the end of this lecture, you will be able to 1. compare different psychosocial theories of development, i.e. psychoanalytic and social learning theories 2. describe Piaget’s and Kohlberg's theories of moral development 3. comp...

SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN CHILDHOOD LEARNING OUTCOMES By the end of this lecture, you will be able to 1. compare different psychosocial theories of development, i.e. psychoanalytic and social learning theories 2. describe Piaget’s and Kohlberg's theories of moral development 3. compare perspectives on how gender-related differences develop  Theories of social development attempt to account for important aspects of development:  Emotion, personality, attachment, self, peer THEORIES OF relationships, morality, & SOCIAL gender DEVELOPMENT Such theories must:  Explain how development is influenced by people and individuals around them  Examine the ways that human beings affect each other THE THEORIES Psychoanalytic theories  Freud and Eriksons’ Psychosocial theory Learning theories  Social learning theory - Bandura THE THEORISTS Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory has had greater impact on Western culture and on thinking about social and personality development than any other psychological theory Erik Erikson’s life-span developmental theory, which was a successor to Freud’s theory, has also been influential CORE CONCEPTS In Freud’s theory, behavior is motivated by the need to satisfy basic biological drives Psychoanalytic theories also stress the continuity of individual differences, maintaining that early experiences shape subsequent development  Freud’s theory is referred to as a theory of psychosexual development because it posits a series of universal developmental stages in which psychic energy becomes focused in different erogenous zones PSYCHOSEXUAL  Psychic energy: The biologically DEVELOPMENT based, instinctual drives that energize behaviour, thoughts, and feelings  Erogenous zones: Areas of the body that become erotically sensitive in successive stages of development FREUD’S PERSONALITY STRUCTURE Id Ego Superego  ID  The biological drives with which the infant is born  The earliest and most primitive personality structure  Unconscious and operates with the goal of seeking pleasure FREUD’S Ego PERSONALITY  Emerges in the first year STRUCTURE  The rational, logical, problem-solving component of personality Superego  Develops during the ages of 3 to 6  Based on the child’s internalization (or adoption as his or her own) of the parents’ attributes, beliefs, and standards FREUD’S PSYCHOSEXUAL STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT Personality Stage Description development is Oral The primary source of satisfaction changes in the organization and (First year) and pleasure is oral activity. During interactions of id, ego, this stage, the mother is established superego throughout 5 as the strongest love-object. stages. Anal The primary source of pleasure (1-3 years) comes from defecation. Phallic Characterized by the localization of If fundamental needs (3-6 years) pleasure in the genitalia. are not met during any stage, children may Latency Characterized by the channeling of become fixated on (6-12 years) sexual energy into socially these needs, acceptable activities. continually attempting Genital Sexual maturation is complete and to satisfy them. (12+ years) sexual intercourse becomes a major goal. SUPEREGO DEVELOPMENT For boys, the path to superego development is through the resolution of the Oedipus complex, a psychosocial conflict in which a boy experiences a form of sexual desire for his mother and wants an exclusive relationship with her  Freud argued that the son’s desire for his mother and hostility toward his father is so threatening that the episode is repressed and infantile amnesia results  The complex is resolved through the boys’ identification with his father Freud thought that girls experience a similar but less intense conflict, the Electra complex, involving erotic feelings toward the father, resulting in their developing a weaker conscience than boys do ERIKSON’S PSYCHOSOCIAL THEORY OF DEVELOPMENT Erik Erikson accepted the basic constructs of Freud’s theory, but enlarged the theory to include other factors such as culture and contemporary issues Eight age-related stages (five during childhood and adolescence)  Each stage is characterized by a specific crisis that the individual must resolve  If the dominant issue of a stage is not successfully resolved before the next stage begins, the person will continue to struggle with it ERIKSON’S STAGES OF PSYCHOSOCIAL DEVELOPMENT Stage Description Trust vs. Mistrust Developing trust in other people is the crucial issue (First year) Autonomy vs. The challenge is to achieve a strong sense of Shame and doubt autonomy while adjusting to increased social (1-3 years) demands Initiative vs. Guilt Resolved when the child develops high standards (3-6 years) and the initiative to meet them without being crushed by worry about not being able to measure up Industry vs. The child must master cognitive and social skills, Inferiority learn to work industriously, and play well with others (6-12 years) Identity vs. Role Adolescents must resolve the question of who they Confusion really are or live in confusion about what roles they (Adolescence) should play as adults CONTRIBUTIONS The most significant of Freud’s contributions to developmental psychology were:  His emphasis on the importance of early experience and emotional relationships  His recognition of the role of subjective experience and unconscious mental activity Erikson’s emphasis on the search for identity in adolescence has had lasting impact CRITIQUE The signal weakness of both theories is that their claims are too vague to be testable and many of the specific elements are highly questionable Nonetheless, their historical significance is immense, and in recent years some of their ideas have emerged in modified form  For example, research on autobiographical memory supports Freud’s idea of the existence of infantile amnesia, but not his explanation for it; it also provides evidence for Erikson’s stages SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY Emphasizes observation and imitation, rather than reinforcement, as the primary mechanisms of development In a classic series of studies, Albert Bandura and his colleagues found that preschool children can acquire new behaviours through observing others  Discovered that children’s tendency to reproduce what they learned depended on vicarious reinforcement (i.e., whether the person whose actions they observed was rewarded or punished) BANDURA’S RESEARCH Preschool children initially watched a short film in which an adult model performed highly aggressive actions on an inflatable Bobo doll (weighted at the bottom so it pops up when knocked down)  One group of children observed the model rewarded with candy and soda for the aggressive behaviour  Another group saw the model punished  The remaining children saw the model experience no consequences BANDURA’S RESEARCH Findings:  Observing someone else receive a reward or punishment for the behavior affects the subsequent reproduction of the behavior  Boys were initially more aggressive than girls, but the girls increased their level of imitation when offered rewards  Unlike most learning theorists, Bandura argued SOCIAL that child-environment LEARNING influences operate in both THEORY directions, a concept referred to as reciprocal determinism RECIPROCAL DETERMINISM  In recent years, Bandura has emphasized the importance of perceived self-efficacy  An individual’s beliefs about how SOCIAL effectively he or she can control his LEARNING or her own behavior, thoughts, and emotions in order to achieve a THEORY desired goal  people with high self-efficacy are more likely to view difficult tasks as something to be mastered rather than something to be avoided.  Have to do with children’s ability to think and reason about their own and other people’s thoughts, feelings, SOCIAL motives, and behaviors COGNITIVE Emphasize the process of self- THEORIES socialization  Children’s active shaping of their own development through their activity preferences, friendship choices, and other behaviors  Focuses on role taking – the ability to adopt the perspective of another person, thereby better understanding that person’s behaviour, thoughts, and feelings SELMAN’S  Preschoolers, for example, THEORY cannot take the perspective of another and hence have very (1971) limited social cognition Selman proposed that children go through four increasingly complex and abstract stages in their thinking about other people  SELMAN’S STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT Stage Description Children come to appreciate that another 1 6-8 years person can have a different perspective from their own, but they attribute this to the other person’s not having the same information they do Children become able to think about the 2 8-10 years other person’s point of view Children can systematically compare their 3 10-12 years own and the other’s points of view Adolescents can compare another person’s 4 12+ years perspective to that of a generalized other  Emphasizes the role of self- attributions in academic achievement Children with a mastery orientation attribute success and failure to the amount of effort expended and persist in the face of failure DWECK’S Children with a helpless orientation SOCIAL attribute success and failure to COGNITIVE enduring aspects of the self (such as ability) and tend to give up in the PERSPECTIVE face of failure (1988)  Such “helpless” children tend to base their sense of self-worth on the degree of approval they receive from other people  To be assured of praise, they avoid situations in which they are likely to not be successful DWECK’S SOCIAL COGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE Older children’s cognitions about themselves are more complex Some children have an entity theory of intelligence and tend to think that a person’s level of intelligence is fixed and unchangeable  When they experience failure, they conclude that they are not very smart and that there is nothing they can do about the situation Other children hold an incremental theory of intelligence and believe that intelligence can increase as a function of experience  These children tend to try harder after failure CRITIQUE Social cognitive theories have made important theoretical contributions and have been supported by research However, they provide an incomplete account because they do not address biological factors in development TO SUM UP Freud’s psychosexual theory of development emphasized the importance of early experiences for the development. Erikson’s psychosocial theory of development was insightful in identifying the identity crisis of adolescents. Bandura social learning theory of development emphasized learning through observations and imitation, and vicarious reinforcement. Selman role-taking theory of development identified stages through which children become more capable of perspective-taking. Dweck’s social cognitive theory of development emphasized the role of self-attributions in academic achievement. EARLY CHILDHOOD FRIENDSHIPS Someone “who likes you,” plays with you, shares toys Friendships change frequently. Friends more reinforcing, emotionally expressive than nonfriends  Friendship provides social support.  The ease in acquiring friends predicts later achievement behaviors. PARENTAL INFLUENCES ON EARLY PEER RELATIONS Indirect Direct * secure attachment * arrange informal peer * emotionally expressive, activities sensitive communication * guidance on how to act * parent–child play toward others  o Formed from proximity, similarity o Peer culture o behavior, vocabulary, dress code o can include relational aggression and exclusion PEER GROUPS  Personal qualities, trust become important More selective in choosing friends FRIENDSHIP IN choose friends similar to self MIDDLE Friendships can last several years. CHILDHOOD must learn to resolve disputes Type of friends influences development. Aggressive friends often magnify antisocial acts. MEASUREMENT OF PEER STATUS The most common method used to assess peer status is to ask children to rate how much they like or dislike each of their classmates or to nominate some of those whom they like the most or least, or whom they do or don’t like to play with The information from these procedures is used to calculate children’s sociometric status – a measurement of the degree to which children are liked or disliked by their peers as a group  Category Description COMMON Popular Children who receive many positive nominations and few negative nominations. SOCIOMETRIC Rejected Children who receive many negative nominations and few positive nominations. CATEGORIES Neglected Children who are low in social impact (i.e., they receive few positive or negative nominations). These children are not especially liked or disliked by peers; they simply go unnoticed. Average Children are designated as average if they receive an average number of both positive and negative nominations. Controversial Children who receive many positive and many negative nominations. They are noticed by peers and are liked by a quite a few children and disliked by quite a few others. BULLIES AND VICTIMS Victims Bullies tend to be more passive (although statistically more likely to be boys there are “aggressive victims” – (in the common definition of bullying, reciprocal determinism) although relational bullying is more common with girls) might be more inhibited physically and relationally give in to demands aggressive lack defenders high status, powerful can be physically smaller “popular” sometimes related to parenting can eventually become unliked (considered ‘overprotected’ – although that will differ dependent on neighborhoods) HELPING REJECTED CHILDREN Positive social skills coaching modeling reinforcing Improve academic achievement Intervene with parenting practices  Social skills training is a common approach for assisting rejected children Based on the assumption that rejected children lack social skills that promote positive interaction with peers These deficits are viewed as occurring at three levels: 1. Lack of social knowledge FOSTERING 2. Performance problems CHILDREN’S 3. Lack of appropriate monitoring and PEER self-evaluation ACCEPTANCE Some social skills training programs teach children  To pay attention to what is going on in a group of peers  To rehearse skills related to participating with peers  To cooperate  To communicate in positive ways For aggressive-rejected children, some training programs focus on changing faulty social perception MORAL DEVELOPMENT  FROM THEORY OF MIND TO MORAL JUDGMENT (FROM LAST LECTURE..) For young children, integrating information about mental states and action outcomes is challenging. When moral scenarios present conflicting information about the outcome of an action and the intention of the actor, young children's moral judgments and justifications are determined by the action's outcome rather than the actor's intention. For example, children younger than 5 y think that the pirate who took the wrong sandwich because his own was moved by the wind should get in trouble (look back at R. Saxe’s video).  Moral Judgment Development Theories MORALITY -  Piaget OVERVIEW  Kohlberg Prosocial Behaviours CONTRIBUTORS TO CURRENT UNDERSTANDING Jean Piaget Lawrence Kohlberg Both took a cognitive developmental approach to studying the development of morality PIAGET’S THEORY OF MORAL JUDGMENT In his book, The Moral Judgment of the Child, Piaget described how children’s moral reasoning changes from a rigid acceptance of the dictates and rules of authorities to an appreciation that moral rules are a product of social interaction and hence are modifiable  Piaget’s method initially involved observing children’s games  He also conducted open-ended interviews with children in which they were presented with stories involving children’s behavior and asked to make judgments as to which child was naughtier  PIAGET’S THEORY OF MORAL JUDGMENT Premoral stage until the 5th year of life: little concern or awareness of rules Morality of Constraint Transition Period Autonomous Morality MORALITY OF CONSTRAINT (MORAL REALISM STAGE) From about age 5 to age 7 Characterizes the moral reasoning of children who have not yet reached the cognitive stage of concrete operations  See rules and duties as unchangeable “givens” established by adult  Believe that what determines whether an action is good or bad is the consequence of the action, not the motive behind it  From about age 7 or 8 to age 10  Because of increased peer THE interaction, children learn that rules TRANSITION can be constructed by the group and increasingly learn to take one PERIOD another’s perspective, thereby becoming more autonomous in their thinking about moral issues  By about age 11 or 12, moral relativism emerges, with all typically developing children reaching this stage  Understand that rules can be AUTONOMOUS changed if a group agrees to do MORALITY so (two-way reciprocal process)  Consider fairness and equality among people as important factors in constructing rules  Consider individuals’ motives when evaluating their crimes  Although Piaget’s general view of moral development has been CRITIQUE OF supported by empirical PIAGET’S research, some aspects have THEORY OF not held up well to scrutiny MORAL  For example, young children can sometimes consider intentions and DEVELOPMENT disregard adults’ views when judging the morality of some actions, such as hurting others  Strongly influenced by Piaget but extended the age period KOHLBERG’S covered THEORY OF Assessed moral judgment by MORAL presenting children with JUDGMENT hypothetical moral dilemmas (1981) and then questioning them about the issues involved in their moral judgments KOHLBERG’S THEORY OF MORAL JUDGMENT Proposed three levels of moral judgment:  Preconventional: Moral reasoning is self-centered, focusing on getting rewards and avoiding punishment  Conventional: Moral reasoning is centered on social relationships  Postconventional: Moral reasoning is involved with ideals, focusing on moral principles Each level involves two stages of moral judgment. There is no specific level of response at any particular age but the general sequence of stages was followed in most children. Once reached the next level, there are no regressions. MORAL DILEMMA an agent regards herself as having moral reasons to do each of two actions, but doing both actions is not possible Ethicists have called situations like these moral dilemmas. The crucial features of a moral dilemma are these:  the agent is required to do each of two (or more) actions; the agent can do each of the actions; but the agent cannot do both (or all) of the actions.  The agent thus seems condemned to moral failure; no matter what she does, she will do something wrong (or fail to do something that she ought to do). THE HEINZ DILEMMA A woman was near death from a special kind of cancer. There was one drug that the doctors thought might save her. It was a form of radium that a druggist in the same town had recently discovered. The drug was expensive to make, but the druggist was charging ten times what the drug cost him to produce. He paid $200 for the radium and charged $2,000 for a small dose of the drug. The sick woman's husband, Heinz, went to everyone he knew to borrow the money, but he could only get together about $1,000 which is half of what it cost. He told the druggist that his wife was dying and asked him to sell it cheaper or let him pay later. But the druggist said: “No, I discovered the drug and I'm going to make money from it.” So Heinz got desperate and broke into the man's laboratory to steal the drug for his wife. Should Heinz have broken into the laboratory to steal the drug for his wife? Why or why not?  THE HEINZ DILEMMA it is not important what children respond (Heinz should or should not steal the drug) but the justification of their decision AGE TRENDS IN MORAL REASONING IN KOHLBERG’S LONGITUDINAL SAMPLE KOHLBERG’S THEORY OF MORAL JUDGMENT Argued that people all over the world go through these stages in the same order, although they differ with regard to the final stage they attain Also contended that levels of cognitive development, especially individuals’ skills in perspective taking determined their progress through the stages CRITICISMS Criticized as reflecting a biased, intellectualized Western conception of morality that is not applicable to non-Western cultures The view that moral reasoning development is discontinuous has also been criticized The main criticism is that Kohlberg tested only males PROSOCIAL MORAL JUDGMENT Voluntary behavior intended to benefit another, such as helping, sharing, and providing comfort To study the development of prosocial moral development, Eisenberg presented children with stories in which the characters must choose between helping someone and meeting their own needs  Identified five stages of prosocial moral reasoning similar to Kohlberg’s stages PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOURS AND ALTRUISM Prosocial behaviours might be motivated by self- interest, i.e. I help my classmate so that I my teacher rewards me. Altruistic behaviours are not motivated by self-interest, but from internalised values, goal and self-rewards. Researchers found prosocial behaviours in young children and toddlers, but real altruistic acts are expressed only later in childhood. DEVELOPMENT OF PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOR All children are capable of prosocial behaviors, but children differ in how often they engage in these behaviors and their reasons for doing so  There is some developmental consistency in children’s readiness to engage in prosocial behaviors, such as sharing, helping, and comforting DEVELOPMENT OF PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOUR Warneken & Tomasello (2006) Science DEVELOPMENT OF PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOUR An important factor contributing to empathy or sympathy is the ability to take another’s perspective (theory of mind)  Infants respond to others’ distress, but may not differentiate between others’ emotional reactions and their own  At about age 2, children start to more clearly differentiate between another’s emotional distress and their own, although their responses may still be egocentric  In the 2nd and 3rd years of life, the frequency and variety of young children’s prosocial behaviors increase, although they do not regularly act in prosocial ways  Children’s prosocial behaviors increase from the preschool years to adolescence GENDER DEVELOPMENT GENDER AND SEX The term GENDER refers to cognitive and social differences between males and females The term SEX refers to biological and physiological differences between males and females Nowadays there is more fluidity in using these terms. Gender-related stereotypes are culturally specific. EARLY LIFE Infants appear to be able to tell the difference between the sexes using multiple perceptual cues, although the capacity to make this distinction does not mean that they understand anything about what it means to be male or female Shortly after entering toddlerhood, children begin showing distinct patterns of gender development GENDER DEVELOPMENT By the latter half of their second year, children begin forming gender- related expectations about the kinds of objects and activities that are typically associated with males and females  Between their second and third birthdays, most children come to know which gender group they belong to and by age 3, to use gender terms (e. g., “boy”) in their speech  Their behavior also becomes gender-differentiated, particularly in sex-typed play  GENDER DEVELOPMENT During the preschool period, children come to show increases in sex-typed play and to spend more of their playtime with same-sex peers  They also begin avoiding peers who violate gender-typical patterns of behavior  Gender segregation appears to be virtually universal across cultures  Across the world, children choose same-sex playmates and spend more of their playtime interacting with other children of the same sex GENDER DEVELOPMENT By mid-elementary school, children have developed a conscious awareness of the biological basis of gender  At this point, children also have an understanding of gender as a social category  They start to recognize that some children may not want to do things that are typical for their sex Gender segregation persists through the end of elementary school, when boys and girls begin to make tentative overtures toward each other DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES Gendered behaviour has been explained on the basis of biological differences, gender socialization, and cognitive processes (including attention to same-sex models) It is likely that gender development results from the complex interaction of biological, social, and cognitive processes. BIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES Include explanations based on  Evolution  The influence of hormones  Sex differences in the organization of the brain THE EVOLUTIONARY PERSPECTIVE Maintains that sex differences in behaviour emerged because they offer reproductive advantages  For example, evolutionary psychologists argue that good spatial reasoning might have been selected for males because males who had the ability to track animals over distances could better insure the survival of themselves and their offspring  Similarly, females’ tendency to build strong alliances with other females could have insured assistance with childcare, benefiting their offspring  THE EVOLUTIONARY PERSPECTIVE Studies of play behavior in boys and girls show sex differences consistent with the evolutionally perspective, with more rough-and-tumble play in boys and more play parenting in girls  Gender differences in behaviour might reflect different ratios of male and female sex hormones (testosterone vs. estrogen/progesterone)  Of particular importance from this perspective are the effects of androgens, a class of hormones that normally occur at higher levels in THE SEX males than females and that affect physical development and functioning HORMONE from the prenatal period onward  Girls with congenital adrenal PERSPECTIVE hyperplasia (CAH), a condition in which the adrenal glands produce high levels of hormones that have androgen-like effects, show higher levels of rough-and-tumble play and more interest in boy-typical activities than do other girls  Evidence from animal studies (monkeys injected with other-sex hormones) THE BRAIN STRUCTURE PERSPECTIVE There is also growing evidence of small but consistent differences in the physical structure of male and female brains  Some studies suggest that there may be a higher proportion of cortical gray matter (associated with information processing) in the female brain, whereas the male brain has a higher proportion of white matter (associated with the speed of information transmission)  Some gender differences in brain structure, such as the density of connections in areas of the brain associated with language and spatial processing, may be associated with gender-typical patterns of performance  Some research suggest that males’ brain is more lateralised and functionally specialised than females’ – in non-sense words recognition, males activate only the left hemisphere, females both. GENDER SOCIALIZATION Social learning theory emphasizes that simply by observing other people, children gather information about gender and what is considered appropriate behavior for their own sex Research has shown that children observe and imitate same-sex models more often than they do opposite sex models GENDER SOCIALIZATION In general, children are influenced by the degree of gender typing they experience, particularly in the home  Children learn about gender-typed behaviors through parents’ expectations and emphasis on gender-related behaviors and preferences  In addition to more overt influences such as providing gender-typical toys and assigning different chores to their sons and daughters, parents convey subtle messages through the use of gender-essentialist statements GENDER SOCIALIZATION Parents’ conversations with their sons and daughters also convey gender socialization In one study, parents were three times more likely to convey explanations about science exhibits to their sons than they were to their daughters  BACK TO THE LAB! INVESTIGATING SOCIAL PREFERENCES IN TODDLERS USING VIRTUAL-REALITY session 1 preferred avatar 3 minutes session 2 assigned avatar 3 minutes  fNIRS hat LCD shutter glasses golden wand motion tracking markers N=37 3-to-5-year-olds A Avatar’s age B Avatar’s gender 33% 38% 67% 62% same opposite same opposite C Avatar's features matched D Preferred Avatar 6% 19% 5% 43% 16% 60% 41% both age and gender either age or gender Girl Boy Woman Man neither age nor gender Bulgarelli, C., et al., Oxford Open Neuroscience, 2023  Female Participants (N=12) preferred>assigned avatar assigned>preferred avatar HbO2, ppreferred avatar HbO2, p