[DEV] CH8 Socioemotional Development in Early Childhood

Erikson’s Initiative vs. Guilt

• Convince that they are persons in their own right 

• Governor of initiative: conscience 

  • May bring them not only rewards but also guilt, lowers self-esteem

• Children use their perceptual, motor, cognitive, and language skills to make things happen

• Children at this stage exuberantly move out into a wider social world on their own initiative 

• The child is developing emotional and psychological independence 

• Explore what they are 

  • Increasingly engage in pretend play

  • What they can be

  • What sex role they would adopt

  • What kind of person they want to be

if initiative is allowed

• Children learns to find purpose, which is the seed for direction

• Child learns to regulate the self (to act like the person they want to be), act purposefully

if initiative is not allowed

• Fear and guilt for initiating something that might not be allowed (wrong)

• Learns overcontrolled inhibition

• End up with an identity that is incongruent with the self

self-understanding

• Representation of self, the substance and content of self-conceptions 

• Involves self-recognition 

• Preschool children describe themselves in terms of activities

• Individual variations in young children’s self-conceptions -> vulnerable to negative self-attributions 

[self-understanding] early childhood

• children provide self-descriptions that involve bodily attributes, material possessions, and physical activities 

  • Unrealistically positive 

  • Express optimism because they can’t distinguish between their desired competence and their actual competence 

  • Tend to confuse ability and effort 

  • Overestimation of their attributes helps to protect young children from negative self-evaluations

understanding others

• TOM includes understanding that other people have emotions and desires 

• need to understand that people don’t always give accurate reports of their beliefs

• learning thru observing others

[understanding others] criticism

• Underscore that children aren’t as egocentric as Piaget envisioned 

• Egocentrism has become so ingrained in people’s thinking about young children that too often the current research on social awareness has been overlooked

[understanding others[ Thompson

•  More socially sensitive and perceptive -> parents & teachers can influence development 

[understanding others] Harter

•  children are essentially egocentric

Emotional Development

1. Expressing Emotions 

2. Understanding Emotions

3. Regulating Emotions

Expressing emotions

• 15-18 months of age

• Become more common 

• Influenced by parent’s response to children’s behavior 

[EE] self-conscious emotions

refer to themselves and be aware of themselves as distinct from others

understanding emotions

• Young children increasingly understand that certain situations are likely to evoke particular emotions, facial expressions indicate specific emotions, emotions affect behavior and emotions can be used to influence other’s emotions 

• 2-4 years; increase number of terms used to describe emotions,  learn consequences 

• 4-5 years; increased ability to reflect on emotions, understand that same event can elicit different feelings in different people 

[UE] emotion-based prevention program

• consists of a teacher-conducted emotions course in the classroom

• emotion tutoring and coaching teacher dialogues

• weekly parent messages 

regulating emotions

• Emotion regulation is an important aspect of development 

• Plays a key role in children’s ability to manage the demands and conflicts they face in interacting with others 

• Growth of ER as fundamental to becoming socially competent 

• Various interventions to improve emotion regulation and reduce behavior problems in children growing up in poverty

emotion-coaching parents

• monitor their children’s emotions, view their child’s negative emotions as opportunities for teaching, assist them in labeling emotions, and coach them in how to deal effectively with emotions 

• Less rejecting manner

• More scaffolding and praise

• More nurturant 

• Better at soothing themselves when they get upset

• More effective at regulating their negative affect

• Focus attention better 

emotion-dismissing parents

• deny, ignore, or change negative emotions

types of parents

1. emotion-coaching

2. emotion-dismissing

• Parents can help young children regulate their emotions 

• Differs in the way that parent deals with the child’s negative emotions

• Parent’s knowledge of their children’s emotional world can help them guide their children’s emotional development and teach their children how to cope effectively with problems 

• Challenge: children typically don’t want to talk about difficult emotional topics 

emotion regulation and peer relations

• Emotions play a strong role in determining the success of a child’s peer relationships

• Ability to modulate one’s emotions is an important skill that benefits children in their relationships with peers

moral development

• Involves thoughts, feelings, and behaviors regarding rules and conventions about what people should do in their interactions with other people

moral feelings: Freud

• attempt to reduce anxiety, avoid punishment, and maintain parental affection by identifying with parents and internalizing standards of right and wrong 

  • Forms superego; moral element

  • No evidence but guilt can motivate moral behavior 

[moral feelings] empathy

involves responding to another person’s feelings with an emotion that echoes the other’s feelings

• Infants have the capacity for some purely empathetic response

  • Perspective taking

[moral feelings] perspective taking

• requires ability to discern another’s inner psychological states

[moral feelings] sympathy

• other-oriented emotional response in which an observer experiences emotions that are similar or identical to what the other person is feeling -> motivates prosocial behavior 

moral reasoning: 4-7 years

• Heteronomous morality 

  • Think of justice and rules as unchangeable properties of the world 

  • Judge rightness/goodness of behavior by considering its consequences

  • Rules are unchangeable and handed down by all-powerful authorities

  • Believes in immanent justice: concept that if a rule is broken, punishment will be meted out immediately

moral reasoning: 7-10 years

• in transition showing features of first and second stage

moral reasoning: 10 years and up

• autonomous morality

  • Become aware that rules and laws are created by people

  • Judging an action they consider the actor’s intentions and consequences

what helps advance moral reasoning?

• Piaget says changes in moral reasoning occur through 

  • Mutual give and take of peer relations: power and status are similar to child’s 

    • Plans are negotiated and coordinated 

    • Disagreements are reasoned about and eventually settled 

  • Parent-child relations: power imbalance 

    • Parents have the power 

    • Less likely to advance moral reasoning because rules are handed down in an authoritarian manner

moral behavior

• Processes of reinforcement, punishment, and imitation explain the development

• Moral behavior view: the situation also influences behavior 

• Emphasize that what children do in one situation is often only weakly related to what they do in other situations 

• Social cognitive theorists also stress that the ability to resist temptation is closely tied to the development of self-control

conscience

• Internal regulation of standards of right and wrong that involves an integration of all three components of moral development we have described: moral through, feeling, and behavior 

• Relationship with caregivers 

  • Emergence of young children’s willingness to embrace the values of their parents 

  • Flows from a positive, close relationship

parenting and young children’s moral development

• Contribute: relational quality, parental discipline, proactive strategies, and conservational dialogue 

• Mutual obligations of close relationships 

  • Parent: Positive caregiving and guiding children to become competent 

  • Child: Responding parent’s initiatives and maintaining a positive relationship with parents

• Important parenting strategy: proactively averting potential misbehavior by children before it takes place 

• Conversations benefit children 

  • Past events, shared future events, immediate events 

• Parent’s elicitation of emotional talk rather than parent’s own production of emotion labels and explanations that was linked toddler’s prosocial behavior

[parenting] thompson

• young children are moral apprentices, striving to understand what is moral

gender

Refers to the characteristics of people as males and females

gender identity

• sense of one’s own gender, including knowledge, understanding, and acceptance of being male or female 

gender roles

• set of expectations that prescribe how females or males should think, act, feel 

gender typing

acquisition of a traditional masculine or feminine role

Baumrind’s Parenting Styles

• argues that parents should be neither punitive nor aloof 

• develop rules for their children and be affectionate with them 

1. authoritarian parenting

2. authoritative parenting

3. neglectful parenting

4. indulgent parenting

authoritarian parenting

Restrictive, punitive where parents exhort the child to follow their directions and respect their work and effort

• Firm limits and controls on the child and allows little verbal exchange 

• Urge the child to follow their directions (obey!) and to respect parents work, effort

• May spank child frequently

• Enforce rules rigidly but not explain them

• Show rage toward child

children of authoritarian parenting

• Higher levels of externalizing problems in children (acting out, ↑aggression)

• Obedient children

• Children are often unhappy, fearful, anxious about comparing themselves with others, fail to initiate activity, weak communication skills

factors of authoritarian parenting

Depending on context (i.e. culture)

• Parental control showing concern & involvement in child’s lives is a type of training: ”Training” parents (Asian American)

• Latin Americans: Requiring respect &

• Obedience

  • Part of maintaining a harmonious family

  • Encourage children to develop a self and an identity

  • That are embedded in the family

  • That require respect & obedience too

authoritative parenting

Be independent but still places limits and controls on their actions

• Extensive verbal give and take allowed, parents warm and nurturing toward child 

• Engages in behavioral or psychological control without being coercive or punitive

• Responsive to children & willing to listen to questions.

• Show pleasure & support in response to constructive behavior (good behavior)

• Expect mature, independent, age appropriate behavior from children

children of authoritative

Children are more

• Cheerful, self controlled, self reliant, achievement oriented 

• Friendly with peers, corporate with adults, cope well with stress 

when authoritative fails to meet expectations

1. Nurturing & forgiving than punishing.

2. Assertive & supportive than restrictive/punitive

• Expectation & Support combo: help develop independence, self-control, self- regulation

neglectful parenting

Parent is uninvolved in child’s life

• Dismissive, unresponsive, indifferent

• Develop sense that other aspects of parents’ lives are more important than they are 

• Few demands, low responsiveness, very little communication

• Might ensure basic needs but no guidance, structure, rules, or support

• May reject/neglect needs of child

• May be physically/ emotionally abusive

children of neglectful

Children tend to be

• Socially incompetent, poor self control, don't handle independence well, low self-esteem, immature, alienated from family 

• In adolescence, show patterns of truancy and delinquency 

• Associated with children’s social incompetence and poor self-control,

• Child did not learn to control themselves

• Higher level of externalizing behaviors 

indulgent/permissive parenting

Parents are highly involved with children but place few demands or controls on them 

• Lets children do what they want

• Children never learn to control their own behavior and always expect to get their way

• Responsive, but not demanding

• Children rarely learn to control their behavior

• Can make children more self-sufficient & independent OR can contribute to poor self-regulation

• Some parents rear children in this way because they believe the combination of warm involvement and few restraints will produce a confident child 

Children tend to be 

• Domineering

• Egocentric

• Noncompliant

• Have difficulties in peer relations

• Have problems with authority

• Perform poorly in school

• Rank low in happiness & self-regulation

Reciprocal socialization

children also socialize their parents as much as parents socialize their children

Combination of styles

• many parents use a combination of techniques not just one; styles can change depending on the situation, & parents may differ from their styles from each other

• Wise parents sense the importance of being more permissive in certain situations, more authoritarian in others, and more authoritative in others

Parenting styles too broad

Need to unpack components such as warmth & parental monitoring (one can be more influential than the other)

Research involves mothers more than fathers

• Parenting styles focuses on mothers and not fathers 

• Fathers have authoritarian style and mother usually more permissive and indulgent

• Children benefit when mothers use an authoritative style even if fathers are authoritarian

punishment

Spanking considered necessary & desirable method of disciplining children

effects of punishment

1. Yelling, screaming, or spanking: present a children with out-of-control models for handling stressful situations

• Children may imitate this aggressive ,out-of- control behavior

2. Instills fear, rage, or avoidance: children may learn to avoid the parent and/or fear the parent

3. Punishment tells children what not to do instead of what to do

4. Punishment can be abusive emotionally & physically

corporal punishment

linked to lower levels of moral internalization and mental health

• Physical punishment: Higher levels of aggression (later childhood & adulthood)

• Harsh physical punishment: Higher incidence of intimate partner violence in adulthood (1 study)

alternatives to punishment

Reasoning with the child, explaining consequences of their action

Time out: removing the child from a setting that provides positive reinforcement (e.g., taking away TV for misbehavior)

Gershoff

No evidence that spanking produces positive outcomes; negative outcomes are consistently replicated.

Grusec & Davidov

If physical punishment is used, it should be:

• Mild

• Infrequent

• Age-appropriate

• Within a positive parent-child relationship

coparenting

Support that parents provide one another in jointly raising a child 

• Risk for problems stems from poor coordination between parents, undermining of other parent, lack of cooperation and warmth, disconnection by one parent

Biological Influences

1. chromosomes and hormones 

2. the evolutionary psychology view

chromosomes and hormones

• Males start to differ from females when genes on the Y chromosome in the male embryo trigger the development of testes rather than ovaries

• Sex hormones: estrogens and androgens 0> secreted by gonads 

• Estrogens: influence the development of female physical sex characteristics 

• Androgens; promote the development of male physical sex characteristics

the evolutionary psychology views

• Adaptation during human evolution produced psychological differences between males and females 

• Natural selection favored females who devoted effort to parenting and chose successful, ambitious mates who could provide their offspring with resources and protection 

• Criticism: pays little to cultural and individual variations in gender differences 

social influences

1. social theories of genders

2. parental influences

3. peer influences

social theories of gender

1. Eagly’s social role theory

2. psychoanalytic theory of gender

3. social cognitive theory of gender

Eagly’s social role theory

• states that gender differences result from the contrasting roles of women and women 

  • Women adapted to roles with less power and less status in society -> more cooperative 

  • Social hierarchy and division of labor are important causes of gender differences in power, assertiveness, and nurturing

psychoanalytic theory of gender

• preschool child develops a sexual attraction to the opposte-sex parent 

  • Oedipus or Electra

social cognitive theory of gender

• children’s gender development occurs through observing and imitating what other people say and do 

  • Being rewarded and punished for gender appropriate and gender-inappropriate behavior 

  • Parents use rewards and punishments to teach their daughters how to be feminine 

parental influences

• Parents influence their children’s gender development 

• Mother’s socialization strategies; mothers socialize their daughters to be more obedient and response than their sons

• Father’s socialization strategies; show more attention to sons than to daughters

peer influences

• Peers soon join the process of responding to and modeling masculine and feminine behavior 

• Peers extensively reward and punish gender behavior 

• Gender molds important aspects of peer relations 

• Influences the composition of children’s groups, the size of groups, and interactions within a group

cognitive influences

1. gender schema theory

2. schema 

3. gender schema

gender schema theory

• states that gender typing emerges as children gradually develop gender schemes of what is gender-appropriate and gender-inappropriate in their culture

schema

• cognitive structure, a network of associations that guides an individual’s perceptions 

gender schema

•  organizes the world in terms of female and male 

peer group functions

• Provide a source of information and comparison about the world outside the family 

• Children receive feedback about their abilities from their peer group

• Good peer relations promote normal socioemotional development

the connected worlds of parent-child and peer relations

• Through their interactions with their children, how they manage their children’s lives, and the opportunities they provide to their children

• Basic lifestyle decisions determine the pool from which children select their friends 

• Affect which children their children meet, purpose 

• Early attachment provide a connection to children’s peer relations not only by creating a secure base from which children can explore social relationships beyond the family but also by conveying a working model of relationships 

• Learn other modes of relating through their peers

functions of play

• Freud & Erikson: play helps children master anxieties and conflicts 

  • Permits children to work off excess physical energy 

  • to release pent-up tensions

  • Play therapy both allow children to work off frustrations and to analyze children’s conflicts and ways of coping with them 

  • Permits children to practice their competencies and acquired skills in a relaxed, pleasurable way (Piaget and Vygotsky) 

  
  

Piaget & Vygotsky’s View on Play

• Piaget & Vygotsky: play is a child’s work 

  • Play advances children’s cognitive development 

  • Constrains the way they play 

  • Practice competencies 

  • Vygotsky: play to be an excellent setting for cognitive development 

    • Symbolic and make-believe aspects of play advances creative thought

Berlyne Play

• play as exciting and pleasurable in itself because it satisfies our exploratory drive 

  • Involves curiosity and a desire for information about something new 

types of play

1. sensorimotor 

2. practice play

3. pretense/symbolic play

4. social play

5. constructive play

6. games

sensorimotor play

• Engaging senses 

• behavior by infants that lets them derive pleasure from exercising their sensorimotor schemes 

• Ex pressing, poking, dumping toys, practice jumping, stirring sand, patting playdough, pouring water

practice play

• Throughout life

• repetition of behavior when new skills are being learned or when physical or mental mastery and coordination of skills are required for games or sports

pretense/symbolic play

• Occurs when the child transforms the physical environment into a symbol 

• Increase their use of objects in symbolic play 

• Learn to transform objects -> substituting them for other objects and acting toward them as if they were other objects

• Golden age 

• Ex. stuff toys

social play

• Involves interaction with peers 

• Preschool years 

• Ex. solitary play, parallel play, cooperative play 

constructive play

• Combines sensorimotor/practice play with symbolic representation 

• Occurs when children engage in the self-regulated creation of a product or a solution

games

• Activities that children engage in for pleasure and that have rules 

• Involve competition

trends in play

• Free play in recent years -> declined 

• Cognitive benefits: creativity, abstract thinking, imagination, attention, concentration, and persistence, problem-solving, social cognition, empathy, and perspective taking, language, mastery of new concepts

media/screen time

• Television continues to have a strong influence on children’s development 

• Screen time: amount of time individuals spend with TV 

• 2-5: not more than 1 hr of TV  a day 

• Too much screentime: too much screen time can have negative influence on children by making them passive learners, distracting them from doing homework, teaching them stereotypes, providing them with violent models of aggression, and presenting them with unrealistic views of the world 

• Decreased time spent in play, less time interacting with peers, higher rates of aggression, 

effects of TV on child’s aggression

• The extent to which children are exposed to violence and aggression on TV raises special concerns 

• Violent TV shows -> pushed playmates more 

• Exposure to TV violence caused the increased aggression in the children

Effects of TV on Children’s Prosocial Behavior

• Can have positive influence by presenting educational programs, providing information about the world beyond their immediate environment and displaying models of prosocial behavior