Chapter 8: Middle Childhood Psychosocial Development

Vocabulary flashcards defining key psychological terms, theories, and concepts regarding psychosocial development, resilience, family dynamics, and peer interaction in middle childhood.

Middle Childhood

The developmental stage roughly spanning ages 6 to 11, characterized by two major advances: greater independence and greater social awareness.

Industry versus Inferiority

The fourth of Erikson's psychosocial crises, during which children attempt to master various skills, developing a sense of themselves as either industrious or inferior, competent or incompetent.

Supervisory Neglect

A legal and social judgment in modern Western culture applied when a school-age child is left to care for a younger sibling without a nearby adult present.

Self-Concept

A person's ideas about themselves, encompassing intelligence, personality, abilities, gender, race, and ethnic heritage.

Social Comparison

The practice of comparing oneself to others, which helps middle-childhood children abandon early childhood fantasy selves and ground self-concept in realistic peer evaluations.

Narcissism

A state of grandiosity that downplays appreciation of other people, devaluing peers and reducing one's willingness to take on new challenges.

Lake Wobegon Effect

A cultural tendency to believe that all children are above average, named after Garrison Keillor's fictional town in A Prairie Home Companion.

Transitory Object Attachment

A form of materialism occurring at the transition between middle childhood and adolescence, where children strongly desire visible branded items as symbols of achievement, only to abandon interest shortly thereafter.

Resilience

A dynamic process encompassing positive adaptation within the context of significant adversity, and the capacity of a dynamic system to adapt successfully to disturbances threatening function, viability, and development.

Toxic Stress

Persistent, unbuffered stress early in life resulting from factors like abuse, domestic violence, or neighborhood violence, which can damage young brains and increase the risk of adult chronic illnesses like diabetes and heart disease.

Daily Hassles

Ongoing, minor disturbances that accumulate over time, taking a greater cumulative toll on a child's development than a single, isolated major traumatic event.

Fictive Kin

Steady, protective adults outside the nuclear family—such as neighbors, teachers, or extended relatives—who act as social fathers or second mothers to help buffer children against home adversity.

Family Structure

The legal and genetic relationships connecting individuals who live together in a household.

Family Function

How a family works to care for its members, which in middle childhood involves providing physical necessities, encouraging learning, fostering pride, nurturing peer relationships, and maintaining harmony and stability.

Extended Family

A family structure in which grandparents or other relatives reside in the household alongside one or both parents, or care for children without parents present.

Family Stress Model

A theoretical model proposing that any external risk factor harms a child if and only if it increases stress on the parents, making them less patient and responsive caregivers.

Culture of Children

The distinct set of customs, rules, superstitions, games, and jump-rope rhymes passed down from older children to younger children and from established peers to newcomers, often independent of adults.

Neglected Children

A category of unpopular children who are ignored rather than actively rejected; they are typically quiet, shy, and lonely, but not actively victimized by peers.

Aggressive-Rejected Children

Children who are actively disliked and shunned by peers because of their confrontational and antagonistic demeanor; they often strike back ineffectively and become bully-victims.

Withdrawn-Rejected Children

Children who are actively disliked and avoided by peers due to their anxious, fearful, and timid behavior, making them prime targets for bullying.

Pride and Prejudice

Pride and Prejudice refers to the positive feelings associated with group identity and self-worth, contrasted with the biases that arise from unfamiliarity with different social groups. This tension between valuing one's identity and the challenge of overcoming prejudice influences interpersonal relationships and self-acceptance.

Family Structure

Legal and genetic relationships connecting individuals who live together in a household

Traditional Nuclear Family (59%)

The “Standard North American Family.” It consists of a man and women with a biological offspring under 18.

Two sex parents (2%)

Same sex parents that may be married, cohabiting, step- or adoptive

Adoptive family (2%)

The two most common reasons are infertile or a stepparent is adopting their step kid

Stepparent (8%)

Divorced parent remarries

2 grandparents (no parent) (1%)

The two grandparents take over the parenting role

Single parent families (28%)

one parent families could be caused from death or divorce, but this has become less common since 2010.