Toddlerhood Social and Emotional Development

Vocabulary flashcards on toddler social-emotional development, covering emotional understanding, self-regulation, aggression types, prosocial behavior, self-evaluation phases, theory of mind, and early gender concept development.

Social Referencing

The use of others' emotional expressions to gain information or infer the meaning of ambiguous situations, typically emerging between 7 and 10 months of age.

Emotional Self-Regulation (ER)

The capacity to adjust emotional arousal to an appropriate level of intensity to achieve one's aims, involving the management of subjective feelings, physiological reactions, cognitions, and behaviors.

Emotional Display Rules

Culturally defined rules that specify which emotions should or should not be expressed under given circumstances.

Wish-and-Desire Language

Parental speech that discusses mental states, wishes, and emotions with infants; exposure at 15 months correlates with better emotion recognition of story characters by age 2.

Hostile Aggression

A form of aggressive behavior in which the primary goal is to harm or injure another individual.

Instrumental (Proactive) Aggression

Aggressive behavior aimed at gaining access to desired objects, space, or privileges, which typically emerges around 1 year of age.

Retaliatory (Reactive) Aggression

Aggressive behavior triggered in response to a real or imagined provocation or hurt.

Relational Aggression

Aggressive behavior with the goal of damaging a victim's friendships, self-esteem, or social status and reputation.

Prosocial Preferences (Infancy)

An early inclination observed in infants aged 6 to 10 months to choose and interact with a partner they have observed helping rather than hurting a companion.

Instrumental Helping

A form of prosocial behavior emerging around 14 months of age where infants assist an actor by handing over an out-of-reach object upon request.

Paternalistic Helping

A sophisticated helping behavior seen by age 3 where children aid others in obtaining what they genuinely need rather than what they merely want.

Present Self

An early level of self-recognition emerging between 18 and 24 months, where toddlers identify themselves in mirrors and current photos but do not yet understand that the self remains stable across time.

Categorical Self

A rudimentary self-definition where children classify themselves along socially significant categories, including age, sex, evaluative dimensions (good–bad), and race/ethnicity.

Joy in Mastery

The initial phase of performance evaluation occurring before age 2, during which children display pleasure when mastering challenges but do not evaluate their outcomes against standards.

Approval Seeking

The second phase of performance evaluation occurring near age 2, marked by the anticipation of evaluation: expecting criticism after failure and seeking praise after success.

Use of Internalized Standards

The third phase of performance evaluation emerging around age 3, in which children react independently to successes and failures using inner criteria and experience self-conscious emotions.

Opacity of Minds

The realization emerging in 2- to 3-year-olds that others cannot directly observe their private thoughts and mental states.

Desire Theorists

A stage of theory of mind characterizing 2- to 3-year-olds who believe human actions are driven exclusively by desires, failing to understand that beliefs also guide behavior.

Gender Invariance

The understanding that gender identity remains permanent over time and across situations, a concept toddlers aged 2.5 to 3 years have not yet achieved despite being able to label their gender.

Gender-Role Stereotypes

Shared cultural beliefs regarding the characteristics, behaviors, and activities deemed appropriate for males versus females, which begin developing around 2.5 to 3.5 years of age.

Gender-Typed Behavior

Actions conforming to cultural gender roles, evident in infants and toddlers through gender-differentiated toy preferences (by 14–22 months) and play gestures (by 13 months).