middle childhood, social and developmental

Psychological development

Competence 6-12 yo. focus on efforts to meet the challenges presented by parents, peers, school, etc

• success in ivis → feelings of mastery and proficiency and a growing sense of competence

• difficulties in ivis → feelings of failure and inadequacy (children may withdraw from academic pursuits and from interactions with peers

Self-understanding during middle childhood

Shifting focus from external to internal characteristics:

• they start to view themselves more in terms of psychological traits rather than physical → related to cognitive development

• realise they are good at some things and not others

• self-concept (divided into personal and academic spheres) and self-esteem continue to develop

Four areas of self evaluation in children

Self concept

1. physical

2. emotional

3. academic

4. social

Physical self concept

• physical ability

• physical appearance

Emotional self concept

Particular emotional states

Academic self concept

• language

• history

• math

• science

Social self concept

• peers

• significant others

Social comparison

Used to determine levels of accomplishment

• when concrete objective measures of ability are lacking, people turn to social reality to evaluate themselves → children rely on similar others to gauge the correctness of their attitudes , opinions and behaviours

Downward social comparisons

• Comparing ourselves with others who are less competent, talented or successful in the domain under consideration can protect our self-esteem

Self-esteem

An individuals overall and specific positive and negative self-evaluation developing in middle childhood trough:

• comparing oneself to others

• developing their own standards of success

• improves during this time

• becomes increasingly differentiated → global simple view of themselves or progress to be higher for some areas and lower in others

Summary of self-esteem

1. generally is high during middle childhood , but it begins to decline around 12

2. school transition

3. gradually rises again or is chronically low

Cycle of low self-esteem (success)

Cycle of low self-esteem (failure)

Moral development

Changes in sense of justice and of what is right and wrong + moral related issues

• developmentalists: children’s reasoning about morality, their attitudes toward moral lapses and their behaviour when faced with moral issues

Approaches to moral development

• piaget view of moral development

• social learning approaches to morality

• genetic approaches to morality

Piaget stage 1 of mortality development

Heteronomous morality

• 4-7

• rules seen as invariant, unchangeable and beyond child’s control and influence

• may not yet fully grasp game rules: when rules are broken they will be punished instantly

• do not take intention into account

• believe in immanent justice

Piaget stage 2 of mortality development

• 7-10

• games become more social and learn the rules

• children learn the actual formal rules of games, play according to them

• there is a ‘right’ way to play

Piaget stage 3 of mortality development

• begninning at age 10

• become fully aware that rules may and can be modified if people playing agree

Moral development: social learning

Focus: environment produces prosocial behaviour (helping behaviour that benefits others)

• moral conduct learned trough reinforcement and modeling → children imitate models who receive reinforcement for their behaviour and ultimately they learn to perform the behaviour themselves

• not all models are equally effective: preschoolers more apt to model behaviour of warm, responsive, competent, high-prestige adults and peers

By observing moral conduct, children are reminded of

• societiy’s norms about importance of moral behaviour as conveyed by significant others

• connections between particular situations and certain kinds of behaviour

• abstract modeling: the process in which modeling paves the way for the development of more general rules and principles

Genetic approach

• particular genes underline some aspects of moral behaviour

• genetic predisposition to behave generously or selfishly

• environment also plays a role in determining moral behaviour

Empathy and moral behaviour

Some developmentalists believe that empathy lies at the heart of some kinds of moral behaviour

Aggression and violence

Early preschool years aggression:

• often addressed at attaining their goal

• declines trough preschool years and does frequently and average length of episodes

Emotional self-regulation

DEF: the capability to adjust emotions to a desired state and level of intensity

• improve in this aspect (contributes to decline in aggression)

• ± age 2 = start of talking about their feelings and engage in regulation strategies

Preschoolers:

• develop more effective strategies and sophisticated social skills, learn to better cope with negative emotions

• learn to use language to express wishes

• become increasingly able to negotiate with others

Aggression is a relatively stable charactaristic

Instrumental aggression

• motivated by desire to obtain a concrete goal

Relational aggression

• intended to hurt another person’s feelings trough nonphysical means

Explanations for aggressive behaviour

• freud: death drive spurs aggressive actions and behaviour

• lorenz: fighting instinct found in all animals (to preserve territory, maintian supplies, etc.)

• sociobiologists: strenghtening the species drives aggression, strongest survive improving the likelihood of passing one’s genes on to future generations

• social-learning: prior learning shapes aggression, bobodoll

• cognitive: interpretation of others’ actions influences aggression

Moral development Kohlberg

• proposed a series of fixed stages in the development of moral reasoning

• used moral dilemmas to asses moral reasoning

• provided a good account of moral judgement but inadequate at predicting moral behaviour

Pre-conventional morality

• stages 1 and 2

• people follow unvarying rules based on rewards and punishments

Conversational morality

• stages 3 and 4

• people approach problems in terms of their own positions as good, responsible members of society

Post-conventional morality

• stages 5 and 6

• universal moral principles are invoked and considered broader than a particular society

Criticisms of Kohlberg’s approach

• based solely on western observations

• theory initially based largely on data from males

Moral development in girls (Carol Gilligan)

• the way each gender is rased leads to differences in moral reasoning

• suggests Kohlberg’s theory was inadequate as a general description of moral behaviour, placing girls moral reasoning at a lower level than boys

• boys → view morality in terms of broad principles, justice or fairness

• girls → view mortality in terms of responsibility towards individuals and willingness to sacrifice themselves to help specific individuals within the context of particular relationships

Stages of moral development in girls

1. orientation toward individual survival

2. goodness as self-sacrifice

3. morality of nonviolence

Stages of friendship

Stage 1:

• 4-7

• children see friends as like themselves

• children see friends as people to share toys and activities with

• children do not take into account personal traits

Stage 2:

• 8-10

• children now begin to take others personal qualities into consideration

• friends are viewed in terms of kinds of rewards they provide

• friendships are based on mutual trust

Stage 3:

• 11-15

• friendships become based on intimacy and loyalty

• friendships involve mutual disclosure and exlusivity

Status among school age children

• children’s friendships show clear hierarchies in terms of status

• status is the evaluation of a role or person by other relevant members of a group

High status children

• form friendships with other high status children

• more likely to form exclusive and desirable cliques

• tend to play with a greater number of children

• have greater access to resources such as games, toys, books and information

Popular children

• helpful and cooperative

• good sense of humour

• good emotional understanding

• ask for helo when necessary

• not overly reliant on others

• adaptive to social situations

• social problem-solving skill competence

• high in social competence

Social problem solving

• the use of strategies for solving social conflicts in ways that are satisfactory both to oneself and to others

Social problem solving steps

Families, the changing home enviornemnt

In addition to other changes, children experience:

• greater independence

• go-regulation with parents = general guidelines for conduct and control over everyday behaviour

• sibling relationships and rivarly

Family changes which a child can experience

• self-care child

• divorce

• single-parent family

• blended family

• nontraditional family

Siblings

• relationships are likely to endure across lifespan

• early relationships shape how children relate to others and choices made in later life

• only children are as well adjusted as others, and in some way even better, often having higher self-esteem and stronger motivation to achieve

Self-care children

• youngest who let themselves into their homes after school and wait alone until their parents return from work

• consequences of being a self-care child are not all harmful

• some children report being lonely

• some children develop a sense of independence and competence

• some research shows self-care children have higher self-esteem because they are helping family

How children explain academic success and faliure

Attributions:

• whether the cause is intentional (dispositional) or external (situational)

• whether the cause is stable or unstable

• whether the cause is controllable or uncontrollable