Child Development Final

Heteronomy

The idea that children will only distinguish between right and wrong if they are taught by an external authority

Autonomy

The idea that moral judgement ought to be founded in independent reflection on what is right and wrong

Durkheim

Believed that children will only distinguish between right and wrong if they are taught by an external authority

Kant

Believed that moral judgement ought to be founded in independent reflection on what is right and wrong

Consequences; Intentions

Younger kids tend to focus their reasoning based on the
_____ of the event, while older kids/adults judge based on the person’s _____

Premoral Development

Piaget’s first stage of moral reasoning

• 0-5 years

• Little awareness of rules or moral principles 

Heteronomous Stage

Piaget’s second stage of moral reasoning

• 5-10 years

• Rules as unchanging and external

• Judgments based on consequences 

Autonomous Stage

Piaget’s third stage of moral reasoning

• 10+ years

• Rules as the product of group agreement

• Judgements based on intentions

Kohlberg’s Stages

1. Preconventional (age 10)

2. Conventional (adolescent, adulthood)

3. Postconventional (some adults)

Preconventional Stage

Kohlberg’s first stage of moral development

• 10 years

• Moral reasoning is self-centered

• Avoiding punishment (stage 1)

• Getting rewards (stage 2)

Stage 1 (Kohlberg)

Morality based on avoiding punishment

Stage 2 (Kohlberg)

Morality based on gaining rewards

Conventional Stage

Kohlberg’s second stage of moral development

• Adolescent/adulthood

• Moral reasoning is centered on social relationships

• Emphasizing the desire to win approval (stage 3)

• The duty to maintain social order (stage 4)

Stage 3 (Kohlberg)

Morality based on the desire to win approval

Stage 4 (Kohlberg)

Morality based on the duty to maintain social order

Postconventional Stage

Kohlberg’s third stage of moral development

• Some adults

• Moral reasoning is involved with ideals, focusing on moral principles

• Adherence to social contracts (stage 5)

• Adherence to higher-order moral principles (stage 6)

Stage 5 (Kohlberg)

Morality based on adherence to social contracts

Stage 6 (Kohlberg)

Morality based on adherence to higher-order moral principles

Kolhberg’s Limitations

• Problems with the stage model 

  • People use a mix of principles when reasoning about behaviors

• Cross-culturally invalid 

• Gender biases

  • Based on data only from middle-class boys 

Social Domain Theory

Supported by the study by Smetana (1981)

• 3 and 4 yo judged:

  • Moral transgressions as more serious when compared to conventional transgressions 

  • In the absence of rules, moral transgressions as remaining wrong while conventional transgressions as more permissible 

Children’s Trolley Dilemma

Trolley dilemmas adapted for children

• Trolly dilemma (no contact)

  • 87% of children supported acting to save five (utalitarian)

• Footbridge dilemma

  • 27% of children supported pushing the person 

• Made utalitarian judgments only when it doesnt require the agent to have physical contact with the victim

Fairness in Babies

19-months-old: violation of expectancy 

• Infants looked longer at the Unequal event compared to the Equal event, indicating that they were “surprised” at the unequal event and expect resources to be shared equally 

Inequity Aversion

• Disadvantageous (children get less than peer):

  • Starting at age 4, children pay a cost to reject a “bad deal”

• Advantageous (children gets more than peer):

  • Starting at age 7-8, children pay a cost to reject a “good deal”

Erogenous Zone

in Freud’s theory, areas of the body that become erotically sensitive in successive stages of development

Oral Stage

The first stage in Freud’s theory, occurring in the first year, in which the primary source of satisfaction and pleasure is oral activity

Anal Stage

The second stage in Freud’s theory, lasting from the second year through the third year, in which the primary source of pleasure comes from defecation

Phallic Stage

The third stage in Freud’s theory, lasting from age 3 to age 6, in which sexual pleasure is focused on the genitalia

Latency Stage

The fourth stage in Freud’s theory, lasting from age 6 to age 12, in which sexual energy gets channeled into socially acceptable activities

Genital Stage

The final stage in Freud’s theory, beginning in adolescence, in which sexual maturation is complete

Erikson’s Stages

8 age-related stages of psychosocial development

• Basic Trust Versus Mistrust (the 1st year)

• Autonomy Versus Shame and Doubt (ages 1 to 3.5)

• Initiative Versus Guilt (ages 4 to 6)

• Industry Versus Inferiority (age 6 to puberty)

• Identity Versus Role Confusion (adolescence to early adulthood)

Continuity; Change

All learning theories emphasize ____ and mechanisms of ____

Watson

The founder of behaviorism, believed that development is determined by the child’s environment, via learning through conditioning

Behaviorists

Believe that development is determined by the child’s environment, via learning through conditioning

Skinner

Proposed that behavior is under environmental control.

• focused on operant conditioning through reinforcement/punishment

Intermittent Reinforcement

Makes behaviors resistant to extinction

• behavior is only occasionally rewarded, leading to persistence of the behavior even in the absence of reward

Behavior Modification

A form of therapy based on principles of operant conditioning in which reinforcement contingencies are changed to encourage more adaptive behavior

Social Learning Theory

Emphasizes observation and imitation

Reciprocal Determinism

Child–environment influences operate in both directions; children are both affected by and influence aspects of their environment

Social Cognitive Theories

Emphasize the process of self-socialization — children’s active shaping of their own social development

Self-socialization

Children’s active shaping of their own social development

Role taking

The ability to think about something from another’s point of view.

Selman’s Theory

Focused on the development of role taking. He proposed that adopting the perspective of another person is essential to understanding others’ thoughts, feelings, and motives.

Hostile Attributional Bias

in Dodge’s theory, the tendency to assume that other people’s ambiguous actions stem from hostile intent

• predicted by early harsh parenting

Achievement Motivation

Refers to whether children are motivated by competence (learning goals) or by others’ views of their success (performance goals)

Entity/Helpless View

A tendency to attribute success and failure to enduring aspects of the self and to give up in the face of failure

Incremental/Mastery View

A general tendency to attribute success and failure to the amount of effort expended and to persist in the face of failure

Entity Theory (of intelligence)

A theory that a person’s level of intelligence is fixed and unchangeable

Incremental Theory (of intelligence)

(or growth mindset) A theory that a person’s intelligence can grow as a function of experience

Ethology

The study of the evolutionary bases of behavior

Imprinting

A form of learning in which the newborns of some species become attached to and follow adult members of the species

Parental Investment Theory

A theory that stresses the evolutionary basis of many aspects of parental behavior that benefit their offspring

• Parents are motivated by the drive to perpetuate their genes, which can happen only if their offspring survive long enough to pass those genes to the next generation.

Bioecological Model

Treats the child’s environment as “a set of nested structures.” Each structure represents a different level of influence on development. The child is at the center, with a particular constellation of characteristics (genes, gender, age, temperament, health, intelligence, and so on).

• Over the course of development, the child’s characteristics interact with the environmental forces present at each level

Microsystem

In the bioecological model, the immediate environment that an individual child experiences and participates in

Mesosystem

In the bioecological model, the interconnections among immediate, or microsystem, settings

• family, schools, peers

Ecosystem

In the bioecological model, environmental settings that a child does not directly experience but that can affect the child indirectly

• parental workplaces, etc

Macrosystem

In the bioecological model, the larger cultural and social context within which the other systems are embedded

• beliefs, values, customs, laws

Chronosystem

In the bioecological model, historical changes that influence the other systems

• technological development, COVID pandemic, etc

Phallic

The first signs of superego development appear in the ____ stage of psychosexual development

Crisis

Each of Erikson’s stage of development is characterized by a ____ that the individual must solve

Rigid/Strict

Parenting styles influenced by Watson’s theories would be ____

Vicarious Reinforcement

Bandura’s Bobo Doll experiment demonstrated _________

Aggression

Dodge’s approach to social cognition centers on the use of ____ as a problem-solving strategy

Parallel Play

 Play by each other but not WITH each other

Social Play

Children play TOGETHER

• about 2-3 years

Conflict

Children experience more ____ with friends than other peers because of more time spent together

Pretend Play

• at about 18 months

• Discover world risk-free

• Object substitution 

  • Ex: banana phone, box car

• Culturally conditioned 

  • What adults do 

  • Vygotsky - guided participattion in activities that are culturally valued 

Vygotsky

Believed in children’s guided participation in activities that are culturally valued

Sociodramatic play

More complicated pretend play, usually involving roleplaying

• Ex: playing house

Organized Play

• Games need rules

  • Arguing/rigidity over rules

  • Attempt to keep playing 

Sociometric Status Types

• Popular: most positives

• Rejected: most negatives 

• Neglected: liked or disliked by few

• Controversial: liked or disliked by many 

• Changes with time

  • least change for rejected

• Rejected kids most at risk

  • More academic, mental health problems

Rejected Status

Receive most negatives

• Aggressive or Withdrawn

• Least likely to change

• Most at risk

Popular Status

Receive the most positives; can be very influential

Neglected Status

Liked or disliked by few

• Not noticed/registered by peers

Controversial Status

Liked or disliked by many 

• Social but disruptive

• Ex: class clown

Social Network Intervention 

• Pauluck (2017)

• Kids randomly chosen to design anti-bullying campaign in middle schools

  • Social networks measured 

• Peer conflict fell 30%

  • BIGGEST effects in schools where designers were most well-connected (“influencers”)

Shutts (Social Kids Lab)

• Gender Trials and Race Trials

  • Who would you want as your friend?

• Same gender pref around age 3 but not before

• Same race pref not until 4-5 years

  • White kids show more same race preferences than Black kids

    • → Race is confounded with group size and status 

3; 4-5

Children show gender preference around age ___ but race preference not until ___

South Africa study

• Whites are minority, but have higher status 

• Own-race preference for White kids

• White preference for Black kids 

• No gender differences

 Status-preference

Hypothesis that status matters more than race

• Kids in South Africa who knew more about social structure showed more White preference

• Other studies: By age 4, kids prefer wealthier people

Functional; Biological

____ use of different labels contributes to in-group attitudes, but ____ vs. random doesn’t matter

Direct Aggression

Overt acts intended to cause harm

• Decreases over preschool years 

Instrumental Aggression

Aggression motivated by concrete goal

Relational (Indirect) Aggression

Social bullying (exclusions, harming others’ relationships)

Social Learning Theory

The idea that children learn aggression from observation 

• Bandura (1965): “Bobo doll”

  • Aggressive adult model 

• Conditions 

  • Model-rewarded; Model-punishment; No-consequences 

• Results

  • More aggression if adult not punished 

  • Fewer aggressive acts when adult is punished 

Hostile Attributional Bias

• Expect hostility from others 

• Retaliate (reactive aggression)

  •  → Self-fulfilling prophecy 

• More common in physically-abused kids

  • More likely to assume anger is present even when it’s not 

Dodge Study

• Children shown ambiguous images

• Interpret as aggressive, accidental, etc

• Harsh parenting -> child’s hostile interpretation of ambiguous events

Self-Concept

A conceptual system made up of one’s thoughts and attitudes about oneself

• physical, social, and internal characteristics

2-4

by ___ months of age, infants have a sense of their ability to control objects outside themselves

8; Attachment

Self-concept becomes much more distinct at about ___ months of age. According to _____ theory, this is the age when infants react with separation distress if kept apart from a parent, suggesting that they recognize that they and their parent are separate entities

1

Infants begin to show joint attention with respect to objects in the environment around age ___

18-20

An emerging recognition of the self becomes more directly apparent by _____ months of age, when many children can look into a mirror and recognize themselves, which requires that they have memories of their appearance that they can match to the image in the mirror

2

By age ___, many children can recognize themselves in photographs.

Social Comparison

The process of comparing aspects of one’s own psychological, behavioral, or physical functioning to that of others in order to evaluate oneself

Elementary; Comparison

Children begin to refine their conceptions of self in ____ school, in part because they increasingly engage in social _____, comparing themselves with others in terms of their characteristics, behaviors, and possessions

Abstract Thinking

The ability to use this kind of thinking allows adolescents to conceive of themselves in terms of abstract characteristics that encompass a variety of concrete traits and behaviors

Personal Fable

A form of adolescent egocentrism that involves beliefs in the uniqueness of one’s own feelings and thoughts

Imaginary Audience

The belief, stemming from adolescent egocentrism, that everyone else is focused on the adolescent’s appearance and behavior

Self-esteem

An individual’s overall subjective evaluation of their own worth and the feelings they have about that evaluation

• doesn’t emerge until age 8 or so

• tends to be higher in boys than girls

• often reflects what others think of them

Peer

Over the course of childhood, children’s self-esteem is increasingly affected by ____ acceptance

Intellectual Disability

1. Below average intellectual functioning

   • Less than 70 IQ (2 SD below mean of 100)

2. Challenges in adaptive functioning 

   • Feeding themselves, toileting themselves, getting dressed, etc.

3. Onset less than 18 years 

   • Distinguish developmental disability from something that is acquired