Chapter 13: Emotional & Social Development in Middle Childhood

13.3 Moral Development

• Young children learn morally relevant behaviors through modeling and reinforcement within their families.
• Elementary-age children continue moral development through direct experiences and actively considering right and wrong.
• Middle school children begin to see shades of gray in moral behavior, displaying simplistic or sophisticated thinking based on circumstances.

Lawrence Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development (1958)

• Development progresses from avoiding punishment to concern for group functioning and universal ethical principles.
• Level 1 – Preconventional
  • Stage 1 – Punishment/Obedience Orientation
  • Stage 2 – Instrumental Orientation
• Level 2 – Conventional
  • Stage 3 – Good Boy/Nice Girl Orientation
  • Stage 4 – Law and Order Orientation
• Level 3 – Post-Conventional or Principled Orientation
  • Stage 5 – Social Contract Orientation
  • Stage 6 – Universal Ethical Principle Orientation

13.3.1 Moral and Social-Conventional Understanding

• Middle childhood involves considering intentions and context, not just actions and their impact.
• Children see truthfulness as both positive and potentially harmful.
• Recursive thinking: Critically considering viewpoints of two or more people simultaneously
• Children understand social conventions with respect for clear purpose for accepted rules.
• Older children realize that people whose knowledge differs many not be equally responsible for moral transgressions.

13.3.2 Understanding Individual Rights

• Personal choice enhances moral understanding in middle childhood.
• Children justify behaviors by appealing to personal privileges and later to individual rights for maintaining a fair society.
• Older school-age children place limits on individual choice.
• Cooperativeness, responsiveness, and empathy promote concerns for others’ rights and welfare, as well as the capacity for forgiveness.

13.3.3 Culture and Moral Understanding

• Children and adolescents in diverse cultures use similar criteria to reason about moral, social-conventional, and personal concerns.
• Children realize that higher principles, independent of rule and authority, must prevail when people’s personal rights and welfare are at stake.

13.3.4 Understanding Diversity and Inequality

• Children are influenced by societal attitudes, including biases and bigotry.
• Sources of societal attitudes include online, streaming, and broadcast media, communities, institutions, and organizations.
• Oversimplified views sort people into “us” versus “them.”

In-Group and Out-Group Biases

• In-group favoritism & Out-group prejudice
• Children view individuals as having multiple traits and abandon stereotypes with diverse experiences.
• Factors influencing racial and ethnic bias:
  • A fixed view of personality traits
  • Overly high and unjustified self-esteem
  • A social world in which people are sorted into groups.

Reducing Prejudice

• Effective strategies for reducing prejudice and bias:
  • Cooperative learning groups comprised of racially and ethnically different children working toward a common goal.
  • Diverse languages are taught and used, promoting communication skills
  • Flexible and task-oriented group seating arrangements.
  • Children’s literature from racially and ethnically diverse authors, representing diverse geographic areas and countries.
  • Classroom stability with committed educators and low levels of transient students.

13.4 Peer Relations

• Peer groups in neighborhoods, communities, and classrooms promote healthier development.
• Children grow more comfortable with interactions and friendships through recursive thinking.
• Self-interest decreases, and prosocial behaviors increase among children.

13.4.1 Peer Groups

• Children form peer groups due to a strong desire for group belonging.
• Peer groups form due to proximity and align with gender, ethnicity, academic achievement, popularity, and aggression.
• Peer culture includes acceptable social practices, appearance, codes of dress, vocabulary, and activities.
• Children develop developmental skills in all domains based on peer group affiliation.

13.4.2 Friendships

• Friendships are mutually agreed-on relationships based on liking each other’s qualities and responding to each other’s needs and desires.
• Friendships contribute to the development of trust and sensitivity.
• During school years, friendships become more complex and psychologically based.
• Good friendships are based on kindness and supportiveness.
• Friendships among school-age children are based on kindness as well as aggression.

13.4.3 Peer Acceptance

• Peer acceptance refers to likability – peers viewing a child as a worthy social partner.
• Five categories of peer acceptance:
  • Popular children – many positive votes, well-liked
  • Rejected children – many negative votes, disliked
  • Controversial children – many positive and negative votes
  • Neglected children – few, if any votes, rarely mentioned
  • Average children – one-third of all children, with mixed votes.
• Perceived popularity versus peer preferences.
• Peer acceptance is a powerful predictor of both current and later psychological adjustment.

Determinants of Peer Acceptance

• Popular – prosocial children
  • Socially accepted and admired; they have skill!
• Popular – antisocial children
  • “Tough” children, aggressive boys and girls. Not academically engaged.
• Rejected – aggressive children
  • High rates of conflict, physical and relational aggression, hyperactive, impulsive
• Rejected – withdrawn children
  • Passive and socially awkward, social anxiety, negative social expectations
• Controversial and Neglected Children
  • Marked by mixed peer opinion, display a blend of positive and negative social behaviors. Sometimes bully others, engage in calculated relational aggression.

Helping Rejected Children

• Coaching, modeling, and reinforcing positive social skills
  • How to initiate interaction with a peer
  • Cooperation during play/recess
  • Responding to others with positive emotion and approval
• Rejected children tend to be poor students with low academic self-esteem that magnifies negative social interactions with peers.
• Rejected children are often suffer from stereotype expectations.
• Rejected-aggressive children are unaware of their poor social skills and do not take responsibility for their social miscues.
• Elementary school children have “memories like elephants” concerning anti-social or aggressive behavior. The rarely forget and cannot put past experiences aside, despite prosocial behavior or acts of kindness.