Kathleen Stassen Berger

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Part III

Early Childhood: Psychosocial Development

Chapter Ten

Emotional DevelopmentPlayChallenges for ParentsMoral DevelopmentBecoming Boys and Girls

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• Learning when and how to express emotions is the preeminent psychosocial accomplishment between ages 2 and 6.

• emotional regulation: ability to control when and how emotions are expressed

Emotional Development

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Initiative Versus Guilt

• Initiative:– saying something new

– extending a skill

– beginning a project

• Guilt makes child afraid to try new activities.• If parents dismiss child’s emotional

expressions, children may not learn emotional regulation.

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• self-esteem: person’s evaluation of his or her own worth– intelligence– attractiveness – overall

• self-concept: person’s understanding of who he or she is in relation to:– self-esteem – personality– various traits

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• Guilt more mature emotion than shame.– comes from within the person

• Shame can be based on what one is, rather than on something one has done.– comes from outside and depends on others’

awareness

• Both help children develop moral values, a topic discussed later in this chapter.

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Motivation

• intrinsic motivation: drive or reason to pursue a goal that comes from inside a person– the need to feel smart or competent

• extrinsic motivation: drive or reason to pursue a goal that arises from the need to have one’s achievements rewarded from outside– receiving material possessions or another

person’s esteem

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An Experiment in Motivation

• In a classic experiment, preschool children are given markers and paper and assigned to one of three groups: – no award– expected award (told before they had drawn

anything)– unexpected award (after they had drawn)

• The interpretation was that extrinsic motivation (condition 2) undercut intrinsic motivation.

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Externalizing and Internalizing Problems

• externalizing problems: expressing powerful feelings through uncontrolled physical or verbal outbursts

• internalizing problems: turning one’s emotional distress inward– feeling excessively guilty– ashamed– worthless

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• Although inborn brain patterns important, the quality of early caregiving makes a difference in children’s ability to regulate their emotions.

• A parent who comforts them and helps to calm them down is teaching emotion regulation.

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Play• Play:

– most productive and enjoyable activity that children undertake

– universal– changes between ages 2

and 6

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Peers and Parents

• Young children play best with peers– Provide practice in:

• Emotional regulation• Empathy• Social Understanding

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Cultural Differences in Play• Play varies by culture,

gender, and age.• Play is an ideal means

for children to learn whatever social skills are required in the social context. – Chinese children fly kites.– Alaskan natives tell

dreams and stories.– Lapp children pretend to

be reindeer.

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– Solitary play• Child plays alone, unaware of any other children playing

nearby.– Onlooker play

• Child watches other children play.– Parallel play

• Children play with similar toys in similar ways, but not together.

– Associative play• Children interact, observing each other and sharing material,

but not mutual and reciprocal.– Cooperative play

• Children play together, creating and elaborating a joint activity or taking turns.

Five Kinds of Play

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Rough-and-Tumble Play

• rough-and-tumble play: mimics aggression through:– wrestling– chasing– hitting

• no intent to harm

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Drama and Pretending

• Sociodramatic play allows children to:– explore and rehearse social roles enacted

around them.– test their ability to explain and to convince

playmates of their ideas.– practice regulating their emotions by

pretending to be afraid, angry, brave.– develop a self-concept in a nonthreatening

context.

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Challenges for Parents

• Parents differ a great deal in what they believe about children and how they should act toward them.

• Tend to follow the child-rearing patterns of their own parents.

• Need to decide on a parenting style.

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Parenting Styles• Expressions of warmth

– very affectionate or cold and critical

• Strategies for discipline – how they explain, criticize, persuade, ignore, and

punish

• Communication– listen patiently; others demand silence

• Expectations for maturity– parents vary in standards for responsibility and self-

control

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Three Patterns of Parenting

• Authoritarian: Characterized by high behavioral standards, strict punishment of misconduct, and little communication.

• Permissive: Characterized by high nurturance and communication but little discipline, guidance, or control.

• Authoritative: Parents set limits but listen to the child and are flexible.

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Neglectful/Uninvolved Parenting

• Fourth style of parenting• Sometimes mistaken for permissive- but in

contract this type of parenting is very careless.

• These parents are strikingly unaware in what their child is doing.

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Cultural Variations

• Chinese, Caribbean, and African American parents are often stricter.

• Japanese mothers tend to use reasoning, empathy and expressions of disappointment.

• Specific discipline methods and family rules are less important then:– parental warmth– support– concern

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Children, Parents, and the New Media• What do children see?

– Good guys as violent as bad guys• their violence depicted as justified

– Good guys are male and White• except when all characters are Black or

Latino

– Females of all ethnic groups are usually depicted as:

• Victims or girlfriends

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Moral Development

• Children develop increasingly complex moral values, judgments, and behaviors.

• In early childhood, children try to:– please their parents.– avoid punishment.– make friends.– exclude enemies.

• The emotional development and the theory of mind make morality possible.

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Moral Development

• empathy: ability to understand emotions and concerns of another person

• antipathy: feelings of dislike or even hatred for another

• antisocial behavior: feelings and actions that are deliberately hurtful or destructive to another

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Types of Aggression

• instrumental aggression: hurtful behavior intended to get or keep something that another has

• reactive aggression: impulsive retaliation for another person’s intentional or accidental action

• relational aggression: nonphysical acts aimed at harming social connection between victim and others

• bullying aggression: unprovoked, repeated physical or verbal attack, esp. those who are unlikely to defend themselves

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Physical Punishment

• Young children are slapped, spanked, or beaten more often than children over age 6 or under age 2.

• Many parents remember being spanked themselves and think spanking works well. – Some researchers agree;

some do not.

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• psychological control: disciplinary technique involving threatening to withdraw love and support – relies on child’s feelings of guilt and gratitude to

parents

• time-out: disciplinary technique in which a child is separated from other people for a specified time– Social punishment

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Becoming Boys and Girls

• Identity as male or female important feature of a child’s self-concept.– first question asked about a newborn is “Boy or

girl?” – Children become more aware of gender every

year.

• parents select gender-distinct:– clothes – blankets– diapers– pacifiers, etc.

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Sex and Gender

• sex differences: biological differences between males and females– organs– hormones– body type

• gender differences: differences in the roles and behavior of males and females prescribed by the culture

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Psychoanalytic Theory

• phallic stage: Freud’s third stage of development; period from ages 3-6– penis becomes the focus of concern and pleasure

• Oedipus complex: unconscious desire of young boys to replace their father and win mother’s exclusive love

• superego: judgmental part of the personality that internalizes the moral standards of the parents

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Electra complex: unconscious desire of girls to replace their mother and win father’s exclusive love

identification: attempt to defend one’s self-concept by taking on behaviors and attitudes of someone else; specifically the same-sex parent

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Behaviorism• Belief that all roles are

learned and therefore result from nurture, not nature.

• Gender distinctions are the product of ongoing reinforcement and punishment.

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Cognitive Theory• gender schema: cognitive concept or

general belief based on one’s experiences

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Sociocultural Theory

• androgyny: balance within a person of traditionally male and female psychological characteristics

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Gender and Destiny

• Since human behavior is plastic, what gender patterns should children learn?

• Answers vary among developmentalists, mothers, fathers, and cultures.

• If children respond to their own inclinations, some might choose behavior, express emotions, and develop talents that are taboo, even punished in certain cultures.