Study Notes: Self and Moral Development in Middle Childhood and Early Adolescence

Learning Objectives for Self and Moral Development

• Objective 7.1: Explain the differentiated structure of self-concept in middle childhood and early adolescence, identifying influences on development and factors affecting individual differences in self-viewing.

• Objective 7.2: Discuss classic and contemporary views of moral development, factors promoting prosocial and antisocial behavior, and interventions for healthy development in middle childhood and early adolescence.

Case Study: Josie and the Development of Self-Knowledge

• Profile of Josie: A talkative $9$-year-old fourth grader who loves science and outdoor activities but struggles with focus in other subjects.

• Environmental Change: Moved from the northern United States to an affluent Southern suburb. Transition difficulties include peer rejection as the "new kid" and a lack of neighborhood children for activities like basketball.

• Social Challenges: Targeted by fifth-grade bullies for being mixed race/ethnicity (White/Irish and Japanese immigrant). She lacks a friend group to provide social support.

• Self-Perception Shift: Peer rejection is causing her to see herself as less likeable than she previously thought.

• Behavioral Incident: Stole a sparkle-pink lipstick periodically. Her mother utilized a restorative approach by making Josie confess to the store manager, return the item, and apologize.

• Parental Intervention: Josie's mother is exploring ending the bullying, potentially through a move to a private school.

The Historical Context of Moral Education

• Universal Desirable Traits: Honesty, dependability, kindness, fairness, respect, self-control, truthfulness, and diligence.

• Historic Purpose of Schooling: In the $19$th century, public schools expressly aimed to create good citizens by inculcating virtues.

• Charles Davis (1852): Defined education as a training system for physical, intellectual, and moral natures. Solicitude for the pupil’s moral nature was the teacher's primary task.

• Hiram Orcutt (1874): Advised that children must be trained in honesty, benevolence, and industry to avoid being "lost to himself and to society," noting that benevolence does not spring up spontaneously.

• Modern Consensus: Shaffer ($2000$) found that young parents still place morality at the top of the list for important aspects of a child’s social development.

The Development of Self-Concept—An Overview

• Cognitive Construction: Self-concept is a form of knowledge that depends on general cognitive development and progresses unevenly.

• Preschool Years: Self-descriptors are simple, uncoordinated elements (e.g., "big," "girl"). Children cannot integrate opposing states (e.g., being both "nice" and "mean").

• Overly Positive Valuations: Preschoolers lack perspective-taking and social comparison skills, leading to unrealistically positive self-evaluations (e.g., Imani insisting she won golf despite hitting the ball out of bounds).

• Early Elementary Transition: Children begin organizing the "Me-self" into coherent categories (e.g., being good at drawing and coloring means being good at "art"). Thinking remains all-or-nothing.

• Internalization of Standards: Perspective-taking allows children to anticipate others' reactions, leading to the "looking-glass self."

• Middle to Late Childhood (Ages $8$ to $10$): Children integrate opposing characteristics (e.g., "smart" in science but "dumb" in social studies). Improved working memory allows for social comparison with peers.

• Early Adolescence: Emergence of more abstract trait-like concepts (e.g., "intelligent" instead of just "smart at math," or "airhead"). Self-esteem usually declines due to complex cognitive and physical changes.

The Structure and Multidimensionality of Self-Concept

• Composite Nature: Self-concept is not a single dimension but a composite of related elements.

• Shavelson Model (1976/1985): Proposes a hierarchy where general self-concept is divided into Academic and Non-academic domains.

  • Academic Domain: Subdivided into Math, Science, English, and Social Studies.

  • Non-academic Domain: Subdivided into Social, Emotional, and Physical (Ability and Appearance).

• Harter’s Life Span Domains (1985/1988):

  • Early Childhood: Cognitive and physical competence; peer acceptance; behavioral conduct.

  • Middle/Late Childhood: Scholastic, athletic, physical appearance, peer acceptance, and behavioral conduct.

  • Adolescence/Adult: Adds romantic relationships, close friendships, and job competence.

• Importance of Physical Appearance: In Western countries, physical appearance has a correlation as high as $0.80$ with overall self-esteem across various age groups and talent populations.

• Self-Evaluation Outcomes: Believing one is good at a domain tends to improve future performance in that domain (reciprocal process).

Influences and Theoretical Views on Self-Esteem

• William James (1890): Proposed self-esteem depends on the ratio of successes to aspirations ($\\text{Self-Esteem} = \\frac{\\text{Success}}{\\text{Aspirations}}$).

• Charles Cooley (1902): Emphasized the looking-glass self, where the experience of approval or disapproval from significant others shapes global self-worth.

• Comparison Processes:

  • External: Comparing performance to objective standards (grades, team placement).

  • Internal: Comparing performance in one domain (math) to another (languages).

  • Social Comparison (Festinger, 1954): Observing others to evaluate oneself. Individuals often choose to compare themselves to those doing better.

• Self-Enhancing Bias: Motivation to use strategies to improve self-evaluations, which increases well-being but can interfere with interpersonal relationships if excessive.

• Protective Strategies: Children with low self-esteem prefer highly encouraging environments, while those with high self-esteem show less variation in response to reinforcement styles.

• U-Shaped Trajectory: A subset of individuals starts with positive self-esteem at $13$, declines to a low point around $18$, and climbs again by the mid-$20$s.

Distinguishing Self-Esteem, Self-Efficacy, and Narcissism

• Self-Esteem: Feeling worthwhile and satisfied with oneself as a person.

• Self-Efficacy (Bandura, 1989): Belief in the ability to control events and overcome challenges. Similar to Erikson’s "sense of industry."

• Narcissism: Feeling superior to others, entitled to privileges, and craving admiration. Approximately $15\\%$ of children with narcissistic tendencies may develop personality disorders.

• Parental Pathways:

  • Warmth and Support: Predicts high self-esteem.

  • Overvaluation: (Believing one's child is more special than others) Predicts narcissism.

Gender, Race, and Ethnicity in Self-Esteem

• Loss of Voice (Gilligan): The theory that girls silence their authentic selves at adolescence to conform to pleasing roles. Research by Harter ($1998$) found "voice" levels actually equal for boys and girls, with girls reporting higher voice with female friends.

• General Self-Esteem Trends: Decline in early adolescence is common to both genders due to school transitions and puberty (body satisfaction changes).

• Racial Identity: Historically, it was assumed marginalized groups would have lower self-esteem. However, Black people in the U.S. often show a slight self-esteem advantage over White people.

• Marginalized Group Protective Processes (Crocker & Major, 1989):

  1. Attributing negative feedback to societal prejudice.

  2. Using in-group social comparisons.

  3. Enhancing importance of domains where the group excels.

Cross-Cultural Differences in the Self

• Individualistic (Western): Values autonomy, self-reliance, personal choice, and standing out. Achievement is self-enhancing.

• Collectivist (Eastern/Social): Values interdependence, group harmony, and perspective-taking. Achievement indicates hard work and social support.

• Neural Evidence (fMRI): In Chinese participants, the same cortical area is activated when judging the self and the mother; in U.S. participants, these areas are distinct (Zhu et al., $2007$).

• Self-Evaluative Values: East Asian cultures value self-criticism and self-effacement for self-improvement over Western-style self-enhancement.

The Moral Self: Foundations and Theories

• Definition: The capacity to judge right versus wrong and the sense of obligation to act on those judgments.

• Primary Guide: Internalized standards or "conscience."

• Religiosity vs. Morality: Morality is part of normative development for all; religious people may prioritize different moral domains (e.g., sexual purity) or favor the in-group.

• Freud's Psychoanalytic View: Morality stems from the superego (ages $3$ to $5$) via identification with the same-sex parent due to fear. Research contradicts this, showing toddlers display early empathy and conscience.

• Piaget’s Stages:

  • Premoral Phase: Unconcerned with rules.

  • Heteronomous Morality (Ages $5$ to $8$): Rules are immutable; focus on consequences over intent; belief in "immanent justice."

  • Autonomous Morality (Ages $9$ to $10$): Rules are social agreements; focus on intentions; emphasis on fairness and cooperation.

• Kohlberg’s Levels:

  • Preconventional: Focus on punishment avoidance (Stage $1$) and fair exchange (Stage $2$).

  • Conventional: Focus on approval (Stage $3$) and social order (Stage $4$).

  • Postconventional: Focus on social contracts (Stage $5$) and universal ethical principles (Stage $6$).

Nuanced Perspectives on Rules and Culture

• Types of Rules (Turiel, 2015):

  • Moral Rules: Principles of justice, welfare, and rights (e.g., no stealing).

  • Conventional Rules: Social agreements and etiquette (e.g., table manners).

  • Personal Rules: Individual choices (e.g., friends, hobbies).

• Age $3$ Distinction: Children identify moral violations as more serious than conventional ones.

• Care vs. Justice (Gilligan): Critiqued Kohlberg for male-centric "morality of justice." Proposed "morality of care," but research shows both genders use both orientations.

• Distributive Justice: Toddlers prefer fair distributions. By age $4$, children feel an obligation to share even when acting in self-interest.

Prosocial Behavior and Altruism

• Empathy vs. Sympathy: Empathy is "feeling with" (sharing the emotion); Sympathy is "feeling for" (having concern).

• Biological Predisposition: Hoffman ($1982$) notes "contagious crying" in infants as an early sign.

• Needs-Based Reasoning (Eisenberg):

  • Hedonistic: Concern for self-needs.

  • Needs Oriented: Recognition of others' needs.

  • Socially Approved: Recognition of helping as a requirement.

• Self-Regulation: High effortful control allows children to manage self-focused distress and focus effectively on helping others.

• Parenting Influence: Authoritative style (warmth + induction) promotes prosociality. "Psychological control" (guilt-tripping) reduces it.

• "Foot in the Door" Effect: Practice in donating or helping in middle childhood fosters a stable prosocial self-concept and future consistency.

Antisocial Behavior: Lying and Aggression

• Lying Trends: Increases with perspective-taking skill until age $6$. By age $10$, antisocial lying (covering misdeeds) declines as moral identity stabilizes. Prosocial lying (protecting feelings) continues to increase.

• Aggression Categories:

  • Instrumental: Using force to get an object.

  • Hostile: Directed at hurting another person.

  • Relational: Aimed at damaging social statuses or relationships (spreading rumors, exclusion).

• Social Information Processing (SIP) Model (Dodge):

  1. Encoding of Cues (selective focus on threats).

  2. Interpretation (Hostile Attributional Bias).

  3. Clarification of Goals (e.g., getting even).

  4. Response Access (aggressive schemas).

  5. Response Decision (impulsive evaluation).

  6. Behavioral Enactment.

Bullying and Peer Victimization

• Prevalence: Estimates range from $10\\%$ to over $50\\%$ depending on the country/study. Victimization usually declines with age.

• Typologies:

  • Pure Bullies: Low empathy but socially competent; status seekers.

  • Pure Victims: Withdrawn, socially awkward, often with internalizing problems.

  • Bully-Victims: Aggressive children who are targetted and also target others.

• Coping Strategies: "Effortful engagement" (problem-solving) is adaptive; high-frequency victims often slide into less effective "involuntary engagement" (rumination).

• Teacher Role: Reducing bullying requires identifying victimisation as unacceptable and creating cohesive, respected classroom climates.

Applications: Building a Healthy Self and Moral Compass

• Praise Controversy: Person/Ability praise ("You are smart") creates an "ability mindset" where intelligence is fixed. Process praise ("You worked hard") fosters mastery orientation and self-efficacy.

• Instructional Strategies for Adults:

  1. Provide realistic feedback rather than over-inflated praise.

  2. Focus on self-improvement instead of competition.

  3. Keep warmth and affection unconditional, not tied to achievement.

• Character Education (CE): Ideally involves $11$ principles, including promoting core values, modeling by staff, and providing moral action opportunities (e.g., service learning).

• Reducing Hostile Attributional Bias (HAB): Interventions include anger management (breathing), practicing alternative interpretations, and using peer group real-conflict situations (hot cognitions).

Focus on Developmental Psychopathology: Conduct Problems

• Classifications: Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) and Conduct Disorder (CD).

• Social and Economic Cost: LCP individuals account for disproportionate percentages of insurance claims ($36\\%$), convictions ($81\\%$), and welfare receipts ($66\\%$) by age $40$.

• Pathways:

  • Life-Course Persistent (LCP): Early start, persists/diversifies over time.

  • Adolescence-Limited (AL): Starts at puberty, less likely to result in adult criminality.

• Physiological Risks:

  • Cardiac Vagal Tone: Low Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia (RSA) is associated with aggression.

  • Callous-Unemotional Traits: Lack of remorse; found in $25\\%$–$30\\%$ of early-starting conduct problem cases.

  • Cortisol: Abnormal ratios (lower baseline/morning levels) are sometimes implicated.

• Patterson’s Coercive Family Interaction: A negative reinforcement cycle where a child escalates behaviors until a parent withdraws a demand, training the child in aggressive non-compliance.

• Interventions:

  • The Incredible Years (IY): Targets parents (skills, discipline), teachers, and children (social skills puppets).

  • Multisystemic Therapy (MST): Established for high-risk adolescents to reduce recidivism.

  • Fast Track: Universal curriculum (PATHS) combined with targeted at-risk groups.