Module 10 Chapter 14: Social Development PDF

Module 10 Chapter 14: Social Development “Contagious” behaviours: newborns cry when they hear the cry of another newborn ○ 2 years: once empathy is established, the emotional response of another can produce an empathic response in a toddler ○ The child’s sadness over the sadness of another child and...

Module 10 Chapter 14: Social Development “Contagious” behaviours: newborns cry when they hear the cry of another newborn ○ 2 years: once empathy is established, the emotional response of another can produce an empathic response in a toddler ○ The child’s sadness over the sadness of another child and their attempt at comfort is based not on contagion but on the toddler being able to place themself in the role of the other Associated with the emergence of consciousness and the idea of “me” The child becomes embedded in a large network of people and activities that provide the infant with many needs Social Nexus Other conspecifics surround the child: small portion shares the gene pool (family), larger portion who will influence and, in turn, be influenced by the child (friends and lovers), and the largest portion which forms the background where these other interactions will take place (culture) A major task of the newborn is to adapt to the environment of people, so we can assign sociability to humans as one of their features 12 weeks: infants can discriminate between the social sounds /pa/ and /ba/ ○ Appears to be a function of social experience ○ Infants are born with these mechanisms and are more attentive to social than non-social stimuli Hemispheric differentiation for sound is divided into social/speech sounds and nonsocial/all other sounds Biological functions through social interactions ○ The sleep-wake cycle and other organizational processes appear to result from the social interactions between caregivers and infants 9 months: infants have some rudimentary knowledge about themselves 1-3 months: infants have some understanding of the intermodal connection between people’s faces and voices 5 weeks: infants interact differentially with familiar persons vs strangers 7 months: infants demonstrate discrimination of emotional expressions 3-4 months: infants begin to respond differently to children vs adults 6-8 months: infants show differential fear responses to people based on gender and age ○ Infants show surprise at seeing small adults (ex. dwarves) and seem to understand their height-facial-feature integration is unusual 10 months: infants are integrating the facial expressions and tonal qualities of their mothers into their interactions with strangers ○ Theyre more friendly to strangers who are treated positively by their mothers People in the Infant’s Life Children are able to form parallel relationships with their mothers, siblings, and other caregivers at the same time Mothers Freud’s psychoanalysis: the mother-infant relationship is the primary social bond for the infant, while the Oedipus complex (conflict between the mother and father) is also important Mother-infant attachment as an affectional tie that makes a model of the child’s social-affective relation with ppl after the first year of life ○ Bowlby said the mother-infant relationship as unique, without parallel, as established unalterably for a whole lifetime as the first and strongest love object, and as the prototype of all later love relations ○ “Dance-like” interaction: infants and their caregivers are learning how to interact with each other. Involves physical movement, shared gaze, and and affective attunement (behaviour of one leads t the behaviour of the other) ○ 6 months: mother-infant dyads have distinct patterns of interaction, either joint attention and actions or separate attention and behaviours ○ 12 months: early patterns have been maintained or strengthened ○ 10 months: infants exhibit stranger anxiety and can discriminate between their mom, people they know, and others ○ 1 year: the infant wants to be near his mother, is upset by her absence, and can use her as a secure base to explore the world from The Strange Situation: having the mother leave the child alone with a stranger, return, and then observing the child’s reaction to understand their attachment style ○ Secure attachment = secure (seeking contact with mother during reunion) ○ Insecure attachment = ambivalent (mixture of maintaining and resisting contact with mother during reunion), avoidant (ignoring the mother/avoiding contact with her during reunion), disorganized (contradictory behaviours) Attachment styles seem to be associated with infant temperament and sociability and type of mother-infant interaction, as well as genetic and environmental factors ○ Ambivalent = most difficult temperament, least sociable ○ Secure = more joint attention and reciprocal interaction ○ Infants w/ certain gene for anxiety and negative emotionality form diff types of attachments depending on level of maternal responsiveness Highly responsive mothers tend to foster secure attachments in these infants Infants without this gene tend to develop secure attachments whether their mother is highly responsive or not Although the early infant-mother relationship is important, it doesn't mark the child’s social tendencies for life by itself Fathers A father’s care is similar to a mothers care (the interaction patterns between fathers and children) Mother’s behaviours are more likely to center around child care activities, whereas father’s behaviours are more likely to center around physical playful activities As the children get older the father’s role is more likely to increase due to the child’s decreased need for care activities and increased need for play and environment interaction Fathers affect their children indirectly via the support level they give to the mother Children are attached to their fathers and direct equal social behaviour to both parents, with less close-contact behaviours directed at the fathers Siblings Sibling relationships involve competition, rivalry, and even hate, but have positives too Siblings can affect each other’s behaviours, relationships with other family members, and views of themselves Siblings may protect and help one another, esp if one is being punished by a parent even if the punishment concerns a sibling conflict Siblings teach each other to share, cooperate, help, and empathize and share almost everything with each other Siblings seem to form important long-lasting relationships, with the younger ones tending to be more attached to the older ones ○ Infants appear upset by the absence of siblings Siblings are more likely to fight in the presence of their parents, and have to compete for the attention of their parents Grandparents Lack of research on influence of grandparents on infants due to a culture that is highly age segregated in which intergenerational learning is not encouraged Grandparents are usually present at the births of their grandchildren Maternal grandparents are seen more frequently than paternal grandparents ○ Mothers are generally the “kin-keepers” ○ Grandmothers are more directly involved in their grandchildren’s activities Children indirectly observe how adult children should act with their parents The grandmother-mother relationship is special for children Aunts, Uncles, and Cousins If aunts and uncles are close, their children will be close with each other, facilitating an important and potentially first peer social contact for the children Peers Cultural differences in peer contact affect the degree and amount of socio-emotional involvement Peers show interest, enjoyment, and emotional involvement from as early as the first year of life Peers protect each other, model behaviour for each other, play with each other, and form attachments to each other Peers may be more aggressive with each other and play power politics; there is a lack of adult perspective within the relationships Teachers, Daycare Personnel, and Babysitters Young children are capable of forming important relationships with daycare personnel and the relation does not affect the child’s social or emotional development ○ These relationships might mitigate some of the difficulties created by abusive or neglectful mothers There was a bias of single-adult attachment, when really an infant has multiple-attachment capabilities, so the research is limited Cross cultural research shows that in the first few weeks of life infants interact with many adults to whom they can become attached to Types of Relationships 2 years: the infants possesses most most types of relationships (except sexual) The social space of the child is made up of inanimate and animate objects ○ With people, there are different types of social relationships Love Relationships Attachment relationships (with a secure base) and relationships without that attachment and secure base ○ Parents love their children, but children dont provide a secure base for their parents ○ Sexual or non sexual ○ Could be friends, acquaintances, strangers, lovers, or platonic love Older infants probably have strong love relationships that have both an attachment and non attachment dimension (parents vs siblings) Friendship Relationships Can be sexual or non sexual, and can merge with a love relationship Can be enduring and exist without extended interactions Acquaintance Relationships Least enduring and most specific to particular interactions Vary in familiarity, such as someone you see often and know their name or someone you see often and don’t know their name Usually the result of highly socially structured interactions (grocery store, going to the bank) Strangers of the same sex and race of an infant are likely to elicit a diff response than strangers of a diff sex and race than the infant The Development of Relationships Infants smile early on when their mothers or fathers appear, follow their siblings around the house when they can move, and become wary of strangers at 8-9 months Relationships require elaborate cognitions which require a sense of elf and knowledge of others’ selves ○ These cognitions likely arent present until the 2nd year ○ 0-4 months: social interactions, mother-infant, infant-object, infant-other ○ 15/18-24 months: self-recognition, personal pronouns, pretend play ○ 15/18 months on: relationships such a attachment and friendships, and social behaviours like empathy and sharing ○ Theory of mind develops when a child can decenter; Piaget believed this emerged at 5 years, but we now see it occurring as early as 3 years ○ We see the beginning of the rise of adult-like relationships with this The mediating structure between interactions and relationships is the development of self The Social Network Important alternative to the attachment theory model Social networks system model: the causes of social behaviour and development are to be found in the structure of the social system itself and in past experiences ○ In a social system where the infant only really has the mother, her absence is an enormous blow to the infant that they might not recover from. However, if the infant has other close adults and others in their circle, they are likely to recover after the initial upset over her absence Later relationships may be dependent on the one with their mother if they are initially isolated with only their mother Description and Measurement of the Social Network Middle class couples dont live in isolation but rather tend to have a social kinship with other middle class couples There are quantitative techniques for describing and specifying the characteristics of social networks ○ Info about the needs satisfied by which members of the social network has been obtained and informs us about the relations between people in the child’s network and the roles they serve The Social Matrix as a Measure of the Social Network: The Relationship between People and Needs Infants have lots of diff needs, and we need a model to describe how these multiple people and needs interact It intersects caregiving, play, protection, nurturance/love, education, etc (needs) with mother, father, grandparents, siblings, younger, older, aunts, uncles, cousins, peers, siblings’ friends, parents’ friends, etc (people) ○ This can tell us who plays what kind of role, and what kind of environment a child has been raised in with what needs being met Is the satisfaction of a need by one person more important than the satisfaction of a need met by another person? ○ In one study children 3-5 years preferred: adults for helping, older children for being taught how to use a toy, no preference for sharing, and peers and older children for playing first ○ The people-by-needs matrices exist by 1 year old Infants play more with peers and seek nurturance more from mothers and other female adults at this age