Chapter 8 – Emotional and Social Development in Early Childhood

Erikson’s Theory: Initiative versus Guilt

• Initiative
  • New sense of purposefulness
  • Eagerness to try new tasks, join activities
  • Play permits trying out new skills
  • Strides in conscience development
• Guilt
  • Overly strict superego, or conscience, causing too much guilt
  • Related to parental
    • threats
    • criticism
    • punishment

Self-Understanding

• Emerging language skills enable children to discuss inner mental states
• Self-awareness supports development of self-concept

Self-Concept

• Consists largely of
  • observable characteristics (appearance, possessions, behavior)
  • typical emotions and attitudes (“I like/ don’t like …”)
• Does not yet reference personality traits (“I’m shy”)

Self-Esteem

• Self-judgments and associated feelings
• Influences:
  • Emotional experiences
  • Future behavior
  • Long-term psychological adjustment

Gains in Emotional Competence

• Improvements in
  • emotional understanding
  • emotional self-regulation
• Increase in self-conscious emotions (shame, guilt) and empathy

Emotional Understanding

• Preschoolers correctly judge
  • causes of emotions
  • consequences of emotions
  • behavioral signs of emotions
• Parents, siblings, peers, and make-believe play contribute to understanding

Emotional Self-Regulation

• By age 3–4, aware of strategies for adjusting emotional arousal
• Affected by
  • temperament: effortful control
  • warm parents who use verbal guidance

Self-Conscious Emotions

• Examples:
  • Shame
  • Embarrassment
  • Guilt
  • Pride
• Depend on adult feedback
• Vary across cultures

Empathy and Sympathy

• Empathy
  • Feeling same or similar emotions as another person
• Sympathy
  • Feeling concern or sorrow for another’s plight

Individual Differences in Empathy

• Factors that encourage empathy, sympathy, and prosocial behavior:
  • Temperament:
    • sociable
    • assertive
    • good at emotional self-regulation
  • Parenting: warm, sensitive parents who
    • show empathic concern
    • encourage emotional expressiveness

Peer Sociability in Play

• Nonsocial activity
  • Unoccupied, onlooker behavior
  • Solitary play
• Parallel play
  • Plays near other children with similar materials
  • Does not try to influence them
• Associative play
  • Engages in separate activities
  • Exchanges toys and comments
• Cooperative play
  • Orients with peers toward a common play goal

Cultural Variations in Play

• Collectivist cultures
  • stress group harmony
  • encourage group cooperation
• Cultures vary in beliefs about the importance of play

Early Childhood Friendships

• Someone who “likes you,” plays with you, shares toys
• Friendships change frequently
• Benefits of friendships:
  • social support: cooperation and emotional expressiveness
  • favorable school adjustment

Parental Influences on Early Peer Relations

• Direct
  • Arranging informal peer activities
  • Guidance on how to act toward others
• Indirect
  • Secure attachment
  • Emotionally expressive, sensitive communication

Perspectives on Moral Development

• Psychoanalytic
  • Freud: superego and guilt
  • New evidence: induction, empathy-based guilt
• Social learning
  • Modeling moral behavior
  • Punishment
• Cognitive-developmental
  • Children as active thinkers about social rules

Punishment in Early Childhood

• Frequent harsh punishment has negative side effects.
• Alternatives to harsh punishment
  • Time out
  • Withdrawing privileges
  • Positive discipline
• Parents can increase effectiveness of punishment
  • Consistency
  • Warm parent–child relationship
  • Explanations

Positive Discipline

• Use transgressions as opportunities to teach.
• Reduce opportunities for misbehavior.
• Provide reasons for rules.
• Have children participate in family duties and routines.
• Try compromising and problem solving.
• Encourage mature behavior.

Moral Imperatives, Social Conventions, and Personal Choice

• Moral imperatives
  • Actions that protect people’s rights and welfare
• Social conventions
  • Customs determined solely by social consensus
• Matters of personal choice
  • Do not violate rights
  • Up to the individual

Types of Aggression

• Proactive (instrumental):
  • meant to help the child get something he or she wants
  • self-initiated
• Reactive (hostile):
  • meant to hurt someone
  • defensive response to provocation

Types of Hostile Aggression

• Physical
  • Physical injury
• Verbal
  • Threats of physical aggression
  • Name-calling
• Relational
  • Social exclusion
  • Malicious gossip
  • Friendship manipulation

Sources of Aggression

• Individual differences:
  • gender
  • temperament
• Family:
  • harsh, inconsistent discipline
  • cycles of such discipline, whining/giving in
• Media violence

Risks of Media Violence

• Increases
  • hostile thoughts
    and emotions
  • aggressive behavior
• Creates short-term and long-term behavior problems

Helping Children Control Aggression

• Improving parenting: Incredible Years approach
• Encouraging children to attend to non-hostile social cues
• Promoting perspective taking
• Teaching conflict-resolution skills
• Limiting exposure to media violence and home stressors

Gender Stereotypes

• Strengthen and operate as blanket rules in early childhood
• Preschoolers associate toys, clothing, household items, occupations, behavior, and more with gender
• Young children’s rigid gender stereotypes are a joint product of
  • gender stereotyping in the environment
  • cognitive limitations

Influences on Gender Typing

• Genetic:
  • evolutionary adaptiveness
  • hormones
• Environmental:
  • family
  • teachers
  • peers
  • broader social environment

Theories of Gender Identity

• Social learning
  • Gender-typed behavior leads to gender identity
• Cognitive-developmental
  • Self-perceptions (gender constancy) precede gender-typed behavior
• Gender schema
  • Combines social learning and cognitive-developmental features

Reducing Gender Stereotyping

• Delay exposure to stereotyped messages.
• Limit traditional gender roles.
• Provide nontraditional models.
• Encourage flexible beliefs.

Outcomes of Child-Rearing Styles

• Authoritative
  • self-control, moral maturity, high self-esteem
• Authoritarian
  • anxiety, unhappiness, low self-esteem, anger, defiance
• Permissive
  • impulsivity, poor school achievement
• Uninvolved
  • depression, anger, poor school achievement

Cultural Variations in Child-Rearing

• Chinese
  • Shame, withholding praise in context of reasoning and affection
• Hispanic/Asian Pacific Islander/Caribbean
  • Firm respect for parental authority
  • High parental warmth
• Low-SES African-American
  • Strictness; immediate obedience
  • Warmth and reasoning

Child Maltreatment

• Physical abuse
  • Assaults resulting in physical injury
• Sexual abuse
  • Fondling, intercourse, pornography, and other forms
• Neglect
  • Failing to meet children’s basic needs
• Emotional abuse
  • Social isolation, unreasonable demands, humiliation, intimidation, and other forms

Factors Related to Child Maltreatment

• Parent characteristics
• Child characteristics
• Family characteristics
• Community
• Culture

Consequences of  Child Maltreatment

• Emotional:
  • poor emotional self-regulation
  • impaired empathy/sympathy
  • depression
• Adjustment:
  • substance abuse
  • violent crime
• Learning:
  • impaired working memory and executive function
  • low academic motivation

Preventing Child Maltreatment

• Intervening with high-risk parents
• Social supports for families:
  • Parents Anonymous
  • home visitation—Healthy Families America
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