Module 7: Social and Emotional Development in Middle Childhood

Content

1. Erikson’s developmental crisis during this period

2. Self-concept and self-esteem during this stage

3. Different mastery attributions

4. Moral development during middle childhood

5. Development of peer acceptance and friendships

6. Sociometric status

7. Family influences of socioemotional development

8. Risk and protective factors tied to “good” divorce for children

Industry vs Inferiority Crisis

Self-Concept Development

Self-Concept: sense of self; Who am I?

• Becomes increasingly detailed and evaluative

• Is often based on social comparisons

• Related to cognitive development - perspective taking

• Form and “ideal” self: discrepancy-based processing in relation to actual self; size of discrepancy influences self-esteem

Self-Esteem: evaluations based on the self-concept

• Has 4 (5) domains:

  • Academic competence

  • Social competence

  • Physical/athletic competence

  • Physical appearance

  • Behavioural competence (being well-behaved and not getting in trouble; Harter, 2012)

• Is unrealistically high in early childhood, but by around 8 y/o decreases to a more realistic level due to social comparisons

What influences self-concept and self-esteem?

• Cultural influences: gender stereotyping and cultural emphasis on appearance

• Parenting influences: authoritative parenting related to higher self esteem; indulgent to artificially inflated self-esteem

• Achievement related attributions:

  • Mastery-oriented attributions: credit success to ability, failures to external sources, lack of effort, ability is dynamic

  • Learned helplessness: success due to luck/external forces; ability is static

Achievement Attributions

Learned Helplessness

• Associated with inferiority, passivity, lack of initiative and perseverance, self-defeating attitudes

• Focus on obtaining positive evaluations and avoiding negative ones, poor self-regulation and metacognition, poor learning strategies, higher likelihood of dropping out, especially women

Parent and teacher messages have a big influence on attributions. Dweck (2006) in “The perils and promise of praise” has suggested that praising students’ intelligence (person praise) gives them a short burst of pride, followed by a long string of negative consequences. Such praise influences the child’s “mindset”, and forces them to seek this validation later on, which might result in avoidance of challenging problems and tasks so as not to lose that “title”.

Mindsets

Fixed Mindsets: focus on how other judge them (smart/dumb)

• Effort makes them feel dumb - “If you have the ability, you should not have to exert effort”

• With age, increasing tendency to cheat

• Person praise fosters fixed mindset

Growth Mindsets: focus on learning/development

• Correct mistakes

• See effort as positive, opportunity for growth

• See ability as malleable

• Process praise fosters growth mindset

Friendships: Emotional and Moral Development

Emotional Development

• Self-conscious emotions: pride and guilt internalised

• Appreciation of mixed emotions and contradictory cues

• Understanding/ ability to disguise negative emotions

• Influenced by parents emotional communication

Emotional Regulation:

By 10 y/o 2 strategies emerge:

1. Problem-focused coping: take action directly to change address the issue

2. Emotion-focused coping: internal, aimed at managing feelings about a problem

Emotional self-efficacy: confidence in ability to manage own emotions; is influenced by how parents have responded to emotions earlier

Moral Development

• Have now internalised moral rules

• Due to cognitive development, can process moral dilemmas, think through situations

• Increased appreciation for context and intention; less rigid application of morality

Friendships

• By 8 y/o, friendships are increasingly characterised by mutuality, loyalty, sharing, and intimacy; its built on trust, shared interests and demographic, smaller circle; more stability in high quality friendships

• Gender differences:

  • 9-10: 1 bff, esp. girls; strong sex segregation

  • 11-12: girls interested in boys

  • 13-15: boys interested in girls

Peer Relationships

• Increasingly important context for development

• Peer groups: collectives of children that generate standards of behaviour, form a social structure, and group identity

• Rejection can lead to isolation, anxiety; opportunity to acquire social skills declines

Sociometric Status

A measure of peer acceptance or rejection based on how individuals are viewed by their peer group.

Measured by:

• Peer nominations or ratings (e.g., "Who do you like most/least?").

Main Categories:

1. Popular:

   • Pro-Social:Liked by many peers; Often socially skilled, and cooperative, plus academic competence; leaders, confident, good emotional development, advanced TOM, moral development, sensitive, friendly, cooperative communication

   • Anti-Social: athletic competence, no academic competence (boys); defy authority; relationally aggressive; likability decreases with age

2. Rejected:

   • Disliked by many peers

   • Rejected-aggressive: conflict, physical and relational aggression, hyperactive, inattentive and impulsive; immature, poorly developed social cognition, social skills; high risk to become bullies

   • Rejected-withdrawn: passive, socially awkward; aware of rejection; loneliness and low self-esteem; risk of being victimised

3. Neglected:

   • Rarely nominated as liked or disliked

   • Often shy or introverted, not necessarily socially rejected

4. Controversial:

   • Liked by some, disliked by others

   • Often socially active, may be both aggressive and prosocial

5. Average:

   • Receive a moderate number of positive and negative nominations

   • Not strongly liked or disliked

Developmental Implications:

• Strongly linked to social, emotional, and academic outcomes

• Rejected children are at greater risk for externalizing/internalizing problems

• Popular status can support positive development and peer influence

Influencing Factors:

• Social skills, aggression, temperament

• Parenting style, cultural norms, classroom environment

Divorce

• Crude divorce rate: number of divorces per 100 people

  • Australia: 1950 = 0.9; 1976 = 4.6; 1980 = 2.7; 1995 = 2.8; 2012 = 2.2

• Marriages that end in divorce take 8.7 yrs to separate, 12.2 yrs to divorce; Approximately 50% involve children

• 10% of Australian families are single parent, 84% of which is single mothers

• Divorce rates are higher for each subsequent marriage

• Effects of marital discord presents years before divorce

Immediate consequences of divorce:

• Financial stress, moving house, high maternal stress/depression

• Contact with non-custodial father may decrease

• Punishment may become harsh and inconsistent

• Fathers with infrequent contact likely to be permissive/indulgent

• 20-25% of children display severe problems (vs 10% of non-divorced)

  • Mainly externalising: aggression, non-compliance, poor school performance, anti-social behaviour

  • Some internalising: depression, anxiety, social problems

Mediating and Moderating factors:

• Children’s age: younger children more likely to blame themselves; older children have greater cognitive understanding; can result in behaviour problems and delinquent peers esp if high parental conflict and low supervision

• High quality parenting, strong parental relationship

• Low interparental conflict

• Father involvement is safe/ adequate parenting and non-violent

Long-Term Consequences

• Most adjust within 2 years

  • Slight differences in academic achievement, self-esteem, social competence, emotional/behaviour problems

  • Increased risk of early sexualised behaviour and parenthood

• Effective parenting has major positive influence on long-term adjustment

• Remaining in intact but high-conflict family is worse