Exam 5 - Child Development

Lee et al.

Experiment where children played a game with a toy animal hidden inside box and they were left alone in room and told not to peek in the box. The experimenter came back and read a story, either about telling the truth and getting punished or rewarded. Found that positive consequences of truth-telling was most effective in promoting honesty

Hamlin and Wynn

Compared 5 month and 9-month year olds reaction to helper kitty trying to help the puppy open the box and hindering kitty that sat on the box. Both ages reacted the same, with about 75% preferring the helper kitty

Warneken and Tomasello

Objects were thrown or dropped by the experimenter. 14 month olds were more likely to help the dropped condition (needs help)

Tomasello’s view on collaboration

Believed children have a sense of “we” and act to pursue a joint goal. They work readily with their partner, switch roles, and enjoy doing tasks together

Tomasello’s view on shift in moral development at 3

3 year olds have a new obligation to one’s partner and a desire to treat others fairly and conform to the rules. In his study, 3 year olds shared the marbles they got with others, and 2 year olds did not

Tomasello’s Morality of Sympathy

Acts of helping others that are altruistic, not self-serving or done out of sense of obligation

Tomasello’s Morality of Fairness

Treating others as they deserve to be treated. Done out of sense of responsibility

Mature moral reasoning

Children develop this when parents explain why misbehavior is wrong by emphasizing how it affects others. Parents also retell events so children learn to grapple with moral issues and self-reflect.

Adrian’s movie vs the hurt girl experiment (Preschoolers)

Some focus on Adrian’s need to go to the movie; others think he should help the girl because she’s crying

Adrian’s movie vs the hurt girl experiment (Elementary schoolers)

More likely to talk about how Adrian should be “good” and act in a socially approved way

Adrian’s movie vs the hurt girl experiment (Adolescence)

Explicit emotional perspective taking; talking about how they would feel if they were in the girl’s situation. They have morally relevant emotions (sympathy/guilt if he didn’t help)

Piaget’s Morality of Constraint (pre-operational, 2-7)

Period where child believes rules cannot be changed; authority sets the rules and whether the action is good or bad depends on the consequences not the motive

Piaget’s Transitional Period (7-10)

Increased peer interactions lead to rules constructed by the group, learning to take one another’s perspective, and just starting to see rules as group constructions

Piaget’s Autonomous Morality (11/12 - )

Moral relativism emerges — rules can be changed if everyone agrees but rule changes must be guided by fairness and equality. Needs to consider intent when judging actions

Moral rules

right and wrong; justice (when moral transgressions occur, parents are likely to focus on the consequences of the acts for the other person’s rights/welfare)

Social rules

Social conventions, rules that allow things to function smoothly (when violations occur like throwing coat on floor, parents are more likely to talk about the disorder the violation caused)

Turiel

Argues that different domains have different rules, and that violating a moral rule is different from violating a social convention.

Smetana

Believes the way parents talk to children about rule violations help them work out the distinction between moral rules and social conventions

Choices children should be able to make

Personal issues (preferences and choices), choice about revealing aspects of self to others (sharing feelings or not), beliefs (even if their different from peers)

Proactive aggression

Used as means of controlling other people and getting one’s way

Physical aggression

hitting, kicking, pushing

Verbal aggression

Name calling, teasing

Relational aggression

Intended to harm someone’s friendships through gossiping or excluding an individual from a group

Boys vs. girls view on relational aggression

 Although boys and girls realize relational aggression hurts, girls consider relational aggression more harmful than boys

Hostile attribution bias

tendency to assume that other people’s ambiguous actions stem from hostile intent

Reactive aggression

Form of aggression that’s usually impulsive and displayed in response to a percieved threat (more likely if child has hostile attribution bias, since they more often assume there’s a threat)

Reason for drop in physical aggression between 2 to 4 yrs

Gains in self-control, gains in emotional regulation, increase in distraction and other coping strategies, learning of non-aggressive ways to achieve goals

Dodge’s Social Information Processing Theory

It helps encode social cues (children w/ hostile attribution bias need help here), decide on goals, develop strategies to achieve the goals, choose and justify actions, and then act. This helps therapists teach aggressive children to think before acting

Bullying statistics

Most bullying is verbal bullying (31%). Then there’s social bullying (19%), cyberbullying (11%), and physical bullying (6%)

Bradshaw et al.

Teachers who went through bullying training were more likely to detect and report incidents, talk to school staff, and intervene with perpetrator and victim. However, there was not a drop in the number of aggressive acts in these classrooms during the study period

Assistant

Type of bystander that reinforces bullying implicitly or explicitly (laughing, encouraging)

Defender

Type of bystander that tries to stop bullying (confronting, intervening, reporting, supporting victim). Often has high social status, so can take risk, and good social skills. High affective empathy

Outsider

Type of bystander that is not involved and does not report

Gillman et al.

Study training grades 3, 6, and 9 in bullying prevention. Found that  intervention worked. Students who received training were more likely to accept responsibility, know what to do, and act to intervene. Led to decrease in incidents of bullying and cruel teasing

Perkins et al.

Bullying posters were put around middle school. Posters made students aware that bullying was not as common or accepted as they may think, which is part of the social norms theory. Found that social norms intervention may be a promising strategy to reduce bullying in secondary school populations

Piaget’s view on peers promoting development

Emphasizes that peers promote equal status, perspective taking, important context for expressing ideas/beliefs, opportunities to see shortcomings in thinking, and can lead to more advanced thinking

Vygotsky’s view on peers promoting development

Emphasizes that peers promote new learned skills, expansion of zone of proximal development by playing with more advanced peers, and knowledge and skills valued by culture are transmitted

Friend similarities

Tend to be similar in terms of academic motivation, levels of negative emotions, and tendency to attribute hostile intent to others

Where adolescents hang out with friends

School (83%), someone’s house (58%), online (55%), sports/extracurriculars (45%), neighborhood (42%), stores/coffee shops/etc…(22%), religious institutions (21%), job (5%), other (5%)

Preschooler interactions with friends

Preschool friends tend to have more advanced play, greater cooperation, more positive interactions, more conflicts, and resolve conflicts by talking or thinking about what to do

Themes of friendship (school children)

Define friendship as validating and caring, making up after a fighting, helping each other, sitting together, and telling/keep secrets

Fighting and friend vs nonfriends

Friends fight more that nonfriends, providing an opportunity to learn how resolve conflicts and how to repair relationships

Emotional scripts

Working out which emotions go along with different events. Preschoolers are building this. (ex. Happy – party, scared – lost)

Children’s improving understanding of emotion

From 7 years and on children understand that emotions are the result of an inner psychological state. They understand that beliefs play a role in emotions, and can display an emotion different from what one feels

Preschoolers regulating emotion

Focusing attention on or away from situation, approaching/retreating from situation, complaining rather than crying, exaggerating or minimizing emotional display

Attention refocusing

Focusing child’s attention on something else (works for 4-7 year olds and works better if child is engaged)

Cognitive reframing

Putting a positive spin on a prize, like making socks into a hand puppet (works if child goes along with new idea)

Advanced cognitive processes and emotional regulation

Advanced cognitive processes help transform rudimentary anger into irritation or annoyance

Parental support and emotional intelligence

Caregivers can help children regulate their emotions by providing needed comfort and distraction to help a child reduce their stress

Girl peer group play

Quiet games, small groups, near school buildings, closer to adults, more time in unstructured activities, walking and talking

Boy peer group play

high energy, run/chase games over large area, structured play with rules

Clique

Friendship group that voluntarily form or join themselves. Friends tend to be member of same clique but many members of clique don’t view one another as close friends

Crowd

Groups of adolescents who have stereotyped reputations. Individual may not spend much time with other members of designated group (ex. Goth, punk, nerd)

Survival

A universal parenting goal that ensures a child’s safety

Economic

A universal parenting goal that ensures children develop skills they will need to be productive

Cultural

A universal parenting goal that ensures a child acquires cultural values of the group

Immigrant and Hispanic family values

High value on education and devotion to family

No nonsense parenting

High parental control (including punishment) and high in warmth (common in urban environments with Black families and Mexican American families)

Authoritative parenting

Sets reasonable standards and expect children to behave within them. Recognize that children have needs, rights, and want independence. Tend to be warm and responsive and use reasoning to control behavior. (Associated with better outcomes)

Authoritarian parenting

Enforces obedience and conformity to traditional standards, uses punishments, lack of verbal give and take, low in warmth, demanding and controlling (associated with greater dependency and low self-esteem)

Permissive parenting

Believe children learn through their own experiences, emotionally warm, does not stress independence or obedience, undemanding/low in control (associated with more immaturity and difficulty controlling impulses)

Neglectful parenting

Emotionally distant, can’t be bothered with setting demand/trying to control (associated with strong susceptibility to peer influences)

2.5

Age children label themselves as boy or girl

Gender stability

See self as remaining the same gender over time, like a boy grows into a man (emerges by 3 or 4)

Gender consistency

See gender as unchanging aspect of self, despite changes external factors like appearance or activities (emerges by 6)

Gender schema theory

Children are more likely to pay attention and remember messages that apply to their gender groups. Preschoolers tend to misremember gender inconsistent pictures as gender consistent, enforcing stereotypes (ex. If they saw a boy playing with dolls, they’ll likely remember a girl playing with them)

Preschoolers view of themselves

Tends to have a favorable view of themselves, conflating what they want with their actual skill, not thinking about how other’s views of themselves could be different from their own, not realizing others assisting them in their efforts

Middle childhood view of themselves

Uses comparative assessments to assess how good they are at skills compared to their peers. They are better at distinguishing who they are and who they want to be

Adolescents view of themselves

There is a strong link between physical appearance and self-esteem, relationships become central, comparisons are overt, and beliefs and values are central to how they think of themselves

Satisfaction and happiness

Benefits of high self-esteem

Identity diffusion

Is not currently experiencing identity crisis but may or may not have in the past, lack of commitment, no decision made but not concerned about it and not actively working on it

Identity moratorium

Currently in the identity crisis, commitments are vague, actively struggling to make commitment

Identity achievement

Has experienced identity crisis, is committed, decisions made on own terms

Identity foreclosure

Very little crisis experienced, express strong commitment, goals come from parents and others