Childhood Social and Emotional Development

Vocabulary flashcards covering major terms from the lecture on childhood social and emotional development, including Erikson’s stages, motivation types, aggression, play forms, and bullying concepts.

Social and Emotional Development

The growth of a child’s ability to understand, express, and regulate emotions and to form relationships with others.

Emotional Regulation

The capacity to monitor, evaluate, and modify one’s emotional reactions in socially acceptable ways.

Initiative vs. Guilt

Erikson’s third psychosocial stage (ages 3–5) in which children assert power through play and activities; success brings purpose, failure brings guilt.

Industry vs. Inferiority

Erikson’s fourth psychosocial stage (ages 6–11) focused on mastering skills; success leads to competence, failure to feelings of inferiority.

Self-Concept

A person’s perception of themselves—initially based on observable traits like appearance, possessions, and behaviors.

Self-Esteem

An individual’s evaluation of their own worth, often by comparing themselves to others.

Susan Harter’s Domains of Self-Esteem

Five areas children use to judge self-worth: scholastic competence, behavioral conduct, athletic skills, peer likability, physical appearance.

Intrinsic Motivation

A drive to engage in an activity for the inherent satisfaction it brings, not for external rewards.

Extrinsic Motivation

A drive to perform an activity to obtain external reinforcers such as praise, money, or grades.

Overjustification Effect

The reduction of intrinsic motivation when an already enjoyable activity is rewarded extrinsically.

Externalizing Tendencies

Outward behaviors like aggression and disruptive acts resulting from poor emotion regulation.

Internalizing Tendencies

Inward-focused behaviors such as anxiety, sadness, and withdrawal due to poor emotion regulation.

Learned Helplessness

A belief that one has no control over outcomes, leading to passivity and depression.

Prosocial Behavior

Voluntary actions intended to benefit others, ranging from small kindnesses to major sacrifices.

Altruism

Truly selfless prosocial behavior performed without expectation of external rewards.

Empathy

The ability to understand and share another person’s feelings by imagining oneself in their situation.

Sympathy

Feelings of sorrow or concern for another’s distress, often motivating helping behavior.

Parallel Play

Early toddler play in which children play beside, but not with, peers using similar materials.

Fantasy Play

Make-believe activities where children create and act out imaginary scenarios.

Sociodramatic (Collaborative Pretend) Play

Joint fantasy play, typically starting around age 4, where children coordinate roles and narratives together.

Rough-and-Tumble Play

Playful physical activity involving wrestling or chasing with no intent to harm.

Gender-Segregated Play

The tendency for children to associate primarily with same-sex peers during play.

Gender Schema Theory

The idea that once children categorize themselves by gender, they selectively attend to gender-consistent information and activities.

Executive Functions

Higher-order cognitive processes—planning, attention, inhibition, problem solving—linked to prefrontal cortex development.

Instrumental Aggression

Hurtful behavior aimed at obtaining something desirable, common in early childhood.

Reactive Aggression

Impulsive retaliation to perceived hurt or provocation, reflecting poor emotion regulation.

Relational Aggression

Non-physical acts (gossip, exclusion) intended to damage social relationships; peaks in early adolescence.

Hostile Attribution Bias

A tendency to interpret ambiguous actions of others as deliberately hostile.

Bullying

Systematic, repeated harassment or abuse of a weaker individual by someone more powerful.

Bully-Victim

A child who both bullies others and is bullied themselves, creating a cycle of aggression.

Olweus Bullying Prevention Program

Widely implemented, research-based anti-bullying initiative co-led in the U.S. by Clemson University.

Social Learning Theory

The concept that children acquire behaviors by observing and imitating others’ actions and the consequences they receive.