a classroom discipline model for promoting social cognitive development in early childhood

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Page 1: A Classroom Discipline Model for Promoting Social Cognitive Development in Early Childhood

This article was downloaded by: [University of Toronto Libraries]On: 20 December 2014, At: 05:01Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Journal of Moral EducationPublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cjme20

A Classroom Discipline Modelfor Promoting Social CognitiveDevelopment in Early ChildhoodRobert D. EnrightPublished online: 07 Jul 2006.

To cite this article: Robert D. Enright (1981) A Classroom Discipline Model for PromotingSocial Cognitive Development in Early Childhood, Journal of Moral Education, 11:1, 47-60,DOI: 10.1080/0305724810110105

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0305724810110105

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Page 2: A Classroom Discipline Model for Promoting Social Cognitive Development in Early Childhood

Journal of Moral Education Volume 11 Number 1 47

A Classroom Discipline Model forPromoting

Social Cognitive Development inEarly Childhood

Robert D. Enright

AbstractTwo first grade teachers were trained in the use of a social cognitive model de-veloped by the present author. The teachers were instructed to use the model inthe naturalistic context of the classroom whenever interpersonal difficulties arosein order to increase the students' levels of interpersonal conceptions and socialproblem solving abilities. For the first 11 weeks, Class 1 was an experimentalcondition and Class 2 was a control. After the 11 week period, Class 1 was higherthan Class 2 in interpersonal conceptions, social problem solving, and moraljudgment, but not in vocabulary. For the next 11 weeks Class 2 started theeducational programme and Class 1 continued the programme. At the end of thisperiod, Class 2 was equivalent to Class 1's scores after its first 11 weeks in inter-personal conceptions, social problem solving, and moral judgement. Class 1maintained its original social cognitive gains. The findings support the model'seffectiveness in promoting children's social cognitive development.

Social cognitive development has recently become a popular force in both basicand applied developmental psychology. Such domains have been defined as role-taking (Chandler, 1973), moral judgment (Kohlberg, 1969), interpersonalconceptions (Selman, 1976), and social problem solving (Spivack and Shure,1974). Successful applications of social cognition to education have taken placeprimarily at the high school and college levels (Arbuthnot, 1975; Sprinthall,1974) or in remedial programmes in pre-school and elementary school withchildren exhibiting such extremes of behaviour as emotional disturbance orimpulsivity (Spivack and Shure, 1974).

The few studies that have attempted to use social cognition as a basis for earlychildhood social programmes with normal children have failed (Cooney, 1977;Elardo, 1974). In looking at this literature, one can draw two possible con-clusions: (a) it is futile to introduce social cognitive educational programmes into

AcknowledgmentsThis is an expanded version of a paper presented at the International, Inter-disciplinary Conference on Piagetian Theory and the Helping Professions, LosAngeles, CA, USA, February, 1979. Special thanks to Sharon Burke, NancyEnright, Kathy Farmer, Idonis McMullin, Myrtle Murray, Maureen Phillips, ChrisRichardson, Jim Russell, Danny Sansovitch, Charlotte Scioneaux and Sara Sutter-field for their help on various phases of the research.

Dr Robert D. Enright is Associate Professor, Human Development Area, Depart-ment of Educational Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1025 WestJohnson Street, Madison WI 53706, USA.

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48 Social Cognitive Development

school curricula in the primary grades; or (b) we are educating incorrectly in thearea of social cognition. If the latter conclusion is correct, then we should be ableto produce social cognitive growth in young children with the right educationaltools.

Such a goal would seem worthwhile in early childhood education because ofthe recent findings which clearly show a link between social thought andcompetent social behaviour (Chandler, 1973; Spivack and Shure, 1974; Enrightand Sutterfield, 1979). If we can develop workable social cognitive developmentalprogrammes in early childhood, we may be helping to promote social competencewhich could serve the child well in the 'everyday' world of social interaction. Thisis especially pertinent when one considers the multitude of evidence suggestingthat early social experiences profoundly influence later adjustment (see, forexample, Hartup, 1970).

The purpose of the present study was to find a way to make social cognitivedevelopment relevant to the children engaged in such a programme. We, therefore,attempted in this study to incorporate social cognition into the classroomdiscipline procedures of two first grade classes. If the procedure were to work,we would have not only a workable social cognitive educational programme forthe primary grades but also a procedure for making discipline in the classroom agrowth-producing experience for the children.

Current thought in social cognitionAt present the most popular social cognitive model is the stage model. As a

prototype, consider Selman's (1976) stages of interpersonal conceptions whichdescribe understanding of friendship:

Level 0: The child thinks a friend is someone who pleases the child.Level 1: The child now realizes that a friend is someone who not only pleases,

but who must occasionally be pleased.Level 2: The child understands reciprocity in friendship.Level 3: The child understands that reciprocity alone does not lead to a strong

friendship. The two people must take time to build up the friendship.Level 4: The adolescent realizes there are different levels of friendship. Even

though the adolescent has taken time to build up a friendship with thepersons A and B, the relationship with B, for example, may neverdevelop while with person A the friendship can become quite strong.

The above model describes how a child thinks on a given level and how he orshe will think at a later point in time. It does not, however, provide a descriptionof how the child progresses from one level to another. Without such knowledge,educators do not have a blueprint for producing change. The way most educatorshave used this model is to present a hypothetical dilemma to the child, listen tothe child's response, and formulate a statement to the child's conception whichis one stage above the child's current stage. For example, if the child thought astory character should be upset if not given candy by her father (a Level 0conception), the experimenter may say, 'But isn't it important that the child dosomething for dad sometime?' (a Level 1 conception).

An alternative modelThe above educational model has several problems from a Piagetian stand-

point. For one, the child is not thinking about his or her own experiences, butabout a story character's experiences. If Piaget (1960) is correct in assuming thatcognitive growth occurs from reflecting on one's own experiences, then the useof hypothetical dilemmas by themselves would not seem to lead anywhere.

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Second, the relatively passive activity of listening to a story is not providing fornew social experiences for the child which could be a basis for cognitive reflec-tion. Third, even if the child learned something from the group discussion there isno provision for helping the child act upon his or her newly formed ideas. Thewhole point is that the current educational model is totally irrelevant to thechild's own social experiences.

If we are to interpret Piagetian theory correctly, we would have to do thefollowing in social education:

(1) The content of the social curriculum should come from the child's ownsocial behaviour and interactions. Hypothetical dilemmas, then, should be usedonly as a supplement to this 'real world' content.

(2) If the child is encouraged to think about his or her own social experiences,then he or she should be challenged to think more complexly about the newlyformed thought. In other words, once the child reflects on an actual experience,the educator could model a statement one level above the child's own.

(3) Once a child demonstrates understanding of a social concept, he or sheshould be encouraged to try out that concept in social action so that the newexperience could become the basis of new thoughts. For example, if a child hasrecently demonstrated the understanding of sharing, the child should be en-couraged to act on the conception. If the child then shares with someone, thisnew social experience could become the content used in social thinking curricula.

The above three points are illustrated in Figure 1. Dashed line 1 describes theprocess of the child reflecting on his/her own behaviour. Dashed line 2 describesthe process of the thought being reconsidered in a different way. This can bedone, as stated above, by an educator challenging the initial thought. Pathway 3from thought to behaviour shows a link between what is thought and what isdone in the child's environment. The educator, in other words, can encouragesharing once the child understands it. This sets up the possibility of again reflect-ing on the new behaviour and the cycle is repeated. The Needs, defined by Flavell(1974) as an awareness that one must think or act in a given situation, areincluded only to suggest that the educator does not try to control the child'sthought or behaviour, but instead tries, through questioning, to motivate socialthought, behaviour based on the thought, and, again, social thought based on thebehaviour. See Enright (1976) for other details of this model.

The interventionThe intervention to be described here involved two first grade classrooms. The

focus was on growth for the students in both interpersonal conceptions and socialproblem solving (Spivack and Shure, 1974) as a result of both thinking throughtheir actual interpersonal conflicts occurring in the school environment and

(1)_ _ ^u _ __ _ ^A, ^ _ _ ^_ ^ ^_ ^_ A

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. , 2 , J |Need -»• Thought -*• Need -• Behaviour

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Figure 1: Developmental model

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participating in a once-a-week session in which dilemmas were read and discussed.Social problem solving is defined as the number of different alternatives a childcan cognitively generate in thinking about a social situation in which abehavioural decision must be made. For example, suppose child A was on a swingfor a half hour and child B wanted a chance to swing. B would then have tothink of alternatives in solving the problem. Growth occurs in this domain whenthe child can generate more alternatives than previously.

To summarize, our intervention involved the child's thinking through hisor her interpersonal problems as they occurred during the school day. Thisinvolved, first, the child reflecting on the interpersonal qualities of a socialsituation (Selman's domain) followed by reflecting on ways to solve the socialproblem (Spivack and Shure's domain) once the situation was understood. Once-a-week dilemma sessions were also employed.

SubjectsTwo first-grade classrooms from the same Midwestern school took part. In

Classroom 1 there were 19 students participating, ten males and nine females.Throughout the programme several children moved from the school so that bywinter there were eight males and nine females. By spring there were seven malesand eight females. In Classroom 2 there were eight males and 13 females through-out the study.

DesignThe following design was employed:

Class 1 T1 E1 T2 E2 T3Class 2 T1 C T2 E1 T3

T represents a testing period; E represents an experimental period; and Crepresents a control condition. Both Classroom 1 and 2 were tested in the fall.This was followed by an experiment in Classroom 1 and a control in Classroom2. Both classes were re-tested in the winter at which time Classroom 2 began anexperiment similar to the one implemented in Classroom 1 after T 1 . Classroom 1,after T2, continued with the experiment. Both classes were again retested in thespring. The above design was used rather than a conventional pre-test-post-testdesign because of the non-randomized groups. The traditional design does notaccount for teacher effects. With this design, both classes were measured after anexperiment to observe whether the procedure was effective with more than oneteacher.

ProcedureEach experimental and control period was 11 weeks so that the total time in

all conditions was equal. Within any experimental period, the teacher wasinstructed to handle all interpersonal discipline problems between children thatoccurred throughout the day as outlined below in methods 1-3. This did notinclude non-interpersonal difficulties such as not finishing academic work ontime. The teacher also led a 30-minute story dilemma session once a week forthe 11 weeks so that children could think about interpersonal and social problemsolving issues while in a more calm state than when being disciplined. A graduatestudent trained in the social cognitive model assisted the teacher in preparing theonce-a-week dilemma and questions. That same graduate student observed threetimes a week in each class to make sure the teachers were following the methodsoutlined below. Any deviations from the methods were discussed by teacher andgraduate student after class to assure similar interventions in all experimental

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periods. To control for the graduate student's occasional presence, a collegestudent was also placed in the control Classoom 2 for approximately the sameamount of time. The teacher in the control condition was instructed to disciplineher children as usual and also to have a one-a-week group meeting in which astory was read. The graduate student did not assist in selecting stories or questionsfor the once-a-week discussion in the control condition. Each teacher during theexperimental conditions used specific methods to provide the thought patternswithin the students that corresponded to the social cognitive model. Thosemethods are as follows:

1. Whenever an interpersonal problem arose between children, the teacherwould first ask about the interpersonal qualities of the interaction (Selman'sdomain). For instance, if Billy had just argued with Tom, the teacher would askBilly what the act meant to Billy and Tom's friendship. This was done in orderto have the child reflect on his own experience, as shown by dashed line 1 ofFigure 1.

Once the child responded, the teacher would ask another question to challengethe thought. For instance, suppose Billy's previous interpersonal conception was,'We're not friends because he bothered me'. The teacher would have him re-consider the thought by asking, 'Does he have to do something nice for you, then,for you to become friends again, or could you do something nice for him tobecome friends?' Billy's previous response was Level 0 while the teacher'squestion required a Level 1 ability. The procedure is an attempt to operationalizedashed line 2 of Figure 1.

2. After the interpersonal qualities were explored, the teacher asked for analternative to the child's behaviour (Spivack and Shure's domain). In Billy's case,the teacher would ask, 'What did you do (this operationalized dashed line 1 ofFigure 1) and what could you have done differently?' An answer would befollowed by another attempt to challenge the child's thought such as, 'OK,that's an idea. What else might you do?' The thought, then, could be recon-sidered, as shown in dashed line 2 of Figure 1.

3. Whenever the teacher saw a discrepancy between the child's thought andbehaviour, this was pointed out to the child. Dashed line 3 of Figure 1 describesthis procedure. This attempt to link thought and action closer together was doneso that new behaviours could then be recycled to thoughts via method 1 above.

Consider the following interaction which is an attempt by one of the teachersto operationalize the above method:

John has just teased Kevin.

Teacher: John, do you and I get along well? (The teacher is attempting to havethe child reflect on an actual relationship. This is Selman's domain ofinterpersonal conceptions.)

John: Yeah.Teacher: How come?John: I don't know.Teacher: Why do you think?John: Because you help me and I help you. (This could be either a Level 1

or Level 2 interpersonal conceptions statement. More information isneeded about the reciprocity.)

Teacher: We do help each other sometimes, don't we? Remember yesterday howI helped you when Kevin hit you? (The teacher is getting John toreconsider his thought to a more specific thought about their re-lationship. The conversation is on Level 2 in interpersonal conceptions.)

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John: Yeah.Teacher: What did you do just now?John: Hit Kevin. (This is an attempt to consider the actual alternative the

child chose. This is Spivack and Shure's domain.)Teacher: How do you think you could help me now? (The teacher is having John

consider a different alternative.)John: (Pauses) . . . not fight with Kevin.Teacher: How else? (This is another reconsideration of thoughts about alterna-

tives.)John: I could listen more.Teacher: That might help. What happens next when you tease Kevin?John: He gets mad.Teacher: And then you seem to get mad, too. Can you help me now?John: Yeah.Teacher: You say you can; let's give it a try. (The teacher is pointing out a

discrepancy between what John says and what he has just been doing.)

The entire interaction lasted a little over 30 seconds. It should be noted that theoperationalized methods were also used with two children together.

The methods described below, while somewhat similar to those above, occurredonly within the once-a-week dilemma sessions:

4. The child was asked to reflect on the interpersonal qualities of the dilemmastory and, once a thought was generated, the teacher asked higher level questions.

5. Once interpersonal qualities were considered, the children consideredalternative solutions. The teacher encouraged other alternatives once an initialidea was generated.

MeasuresThe following four measures were administered to the first graders: Selman's

(1976) interpersonal conceptions measure, Damon's (1975) moral judgmentmeasure, Shure and Spivack's (1974) Preschool Interpersonal Problem Solvingmeasure (PIPS), and the vocabulary section of the Stanford-Binet IQ test.

In the Selman measure, the child watches a filmstrip about Mike who has losthis dog. Mike's friends must decide whether to buy him a new dog or not. Thechild is then questioned with a standard set of questions about the interpersonalqualities of the filmstrip characters. Clinical probing and follow-up questions arealso used. In the present study, each response that was scorable was assigned astage number. The final score was derived by taking a mean. This test was chosento measure the main effect of the educational programme.

Damon's moral judgment measure is similar to Kohlberg's (1969) measure,with the difference being that Damon's is appropriate for much younger children.Three moral dilemmas are presented orally to the child. This is followed by a setof standardized and follow-up questions. Stages assessed are Level 0-A or apredominant focus on the self to Level 2-B or a focus on compromise. The totalscore of each subject represented the mean of scorable responses. Level 0-A wasgiven a score of 0.0, Level 0-B was given 0.5, Level 1-A was given 1.0, and soforth. This was to measure the indirect effect of the programme.

Shure and Spivack's PIPS was the measure of social problem solving. There aretwo different tasks. In one, the child is presented with drawings of two childrenand a toy and the tester's questioning is similar to the following: 'Child A hasbeen playing with X all morning. Child B would like to use it. What can B do inorder to use X?' If a child could not think of an alternative, the tester gave up to

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three probes similar to What else can you think of?' Each time an alternative wasgenerated, the tester went on to two new drawings of children and a new toy.The test was stopped after severj presentations if the child failed to generate sevenalternatives within those presentations. If seven different alternatives weregenerated, the tester continued presenting drawings of two new children and anew toy until the child failed to generate an alternative that was not previouslygiven. For this study, the number of alternatives was divided by the number of.alternatives plus probes used by the tester. This ratio score represented the extentto which alternatives were readily available to the child without adult prodding.The rationale for this score is that the more readily available are various alterna-tives to a child the more likely it is that the child may be able to solve his or herproblems without adult intervention.

The second aspect of the PIPS is similar to the first. The child is presentedwith a drawing of a mother and a child in which the child must solve a problemsuch as atoning for breaking a vase. The scoring consisted of the number ofdifferent alternatives generated by the subject and the ratio score. The mother-child questions were given at pretest only in order to assess internal consistencyreliability of the PIPS.

The Binet vocabulary test served as the estimate of general ability. Vocabularywords are presented in the order of increasing difficulty until the child missessix in a row.

Test administrationAll measures were individually administered. The Selman assessment dilemma

and the PIPS questions were given during testing periods only. All protocols forall measures were scored blind to the testing period and to the subject's treatmentcondition.

Hypotheses(1) Class 1 will be higher than Class 2 at T2 in interpersonal conceptions,

social problem solving and moral judgment, but not in vocabulary. This shouldoccur because Class 1 will have been the experimental condition while Class 2 willhave been the control for the first 11 weeks.

(2) Once Class 2 has had the experimental programme and is tested at T3, thereshould be no differences on any measure between Class 1 at T2 and Class 2 atT3. This should be the case if Class 1 does show the expected improvement atT2 because both Classes 1 and 2 will have had the same programme for 11 weeks.

(3) At T3, Class 1 should be higher than Class 2 in all measures but vocabularysince Class 1 will have had the experiment twice as long as Class 2.

ResultsThe reliabilities of the measures are in Table 1. Figures 2 to 5 summarize the

experimental results. At T1 the only significant difference via two-way ANOVAby experimental condition and sex was in vocabulary, F(1 , 36) = 13.20, p < 0.001.Class 2 was higher initially on this dimension. At T2, Class 1 was significantlyhigher than Class 2 in interpersonal conceptions, F (1 , 36) = 145.47, p < 0.0001; inmoral judgment, F(1, 36) = 7.55, p < 0 . 0 1 , and in social problem solving,F (1 , 36) = 4.85, p<0.04. Analysis of covariance on vocabulary partialing out T1vocabulary scores showed no difference between groups. No sex differences orinteraction effects were found for any of the measures. The results, then, supporthypothesis 1. After the initial 11 week programme, Class 1 was higher than Class2 in interpersonal conceptions, moral judgment and social problem solving, butnot in vocabulary.

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Table 1: Reliability information for dependent measures

Instrument

Interpersonal conceptionsMoral judgmentSocial problem solvingVocabulary

Internalconsistency

0.64u0.81b

0.66°

Temporalstability

0.580.710.550.78

of social cognition

Inter-raterreliability

0.923

0.91

Inter-rateragreement

91%90%93%98%

a All inter-rater reliabilities and agreements for all measures were based on tenrandomly selected protocols scored blind.

b Each of three stories was treated as an item.c The value represents a correlation between two parallel forms.

Hypothesis 2 was tested via two-way ANOVAs performed on the interpersonal,moral, and social problem solving scores comparing Class 1 at T2 and Class 2 atT3. This could be tested since Class 1 did show improvements from T1 to T2on all these measures. All ANOVAs showed that Class 1 at T2 was comparableto Class 2 at T3 for all measures. In other words, after an 11 week programmein both classes, the students showed equivalent scores. Analysis of covariance wasused on vocabulary to control Class 2's initial vocabulary advantage. No signifi-cant differences were found between Class 1 at T2 and Class 2 at T3 invocabulary. No significant sex or interaction effects were found for any measure.Hypothesis 2, then, is supported.

Hypothesis 3 was tested in a similar way to the above hypotheses. Classes 1and 2 were compared at T3 for all measures. The results indicated there were nodifferences on any of the measures. Rather than an expected increase for Class 1at T3, the data in Figures 2-5 show that Class 1 continued to maintain the newlyacquired interpersonal, moral, and social problem solving developments.

DiscussionThis study shows that after an 11 week intervention which incorporated the

children's actual, interpersonal experiences into the programme both Class 1 andClass 2 demonstrated social cognitive change. On the measures of interpersonalconceptions and social problem solving, both constructs directly involved in theprogramme, there was significant upward development. In interpersonalconceptions, both classes went from Level 0 or an exclusive focus on the selfto Level 1 and occasionally to Level 2 where there is more of a focus on self andothers in a relationship. In social problem solving the increase was in the readyavailability of alternatives without adult probes. Moral development or a measureof indirect effect is also influenced by such a programme. The moral judgmentresults suggest that the programme in both classes advanced the students fromLevel 1 to approximately Level 1.5. This is an increase from treating everyone thesame despite some trying harder or being more competent to being aware thatthose who do work harder should be given more rewards. The covariance analysesshowed that the programme does not seem to influence verbal development in ageneral way.

The design further shows that social cognitive gains are realized after theinitial 11 weeks in both classes, but that improvement afterwards is not likely. Asone possible explanation for this, it could be the case that further growth did notoccur for Class 1 because child-child conflicts lessened in Class 1 as a result of theintervention and, therefore, the teacher did not have the chance to use the social

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56 Social Cognitive Development

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cognitive methods as often as before. This hypothesis, however, does not seemlikely. A graduate student recorded instances of teacher-child interactions via thesocial cognitive methods for seven randomly selected days between T1 and T2and again between T2 and T3 in Class 1. The same was done between T2 and T3in Class 2. The average number of times throughout a school day in which theteacher used even one of the social cognitive methods was approximately 25 in allthree of the seven-day observation periods. As one explanation why further im-provement did not occur in Class 1 after T2, it might be the case that biologicalconstraints inhibited further growth. Piaget's (1960) theory clearly states that theenvironment and maturation both interact to promote and slow cognitive growth.Another explanation may be teacher expectation for growth. For instance, if ateacher did not expect much growth beyond Level 2 in interpersonal conceptionsin first grade, she may not have formulated more complex arguments that mayhave led to growth. :

Two competing hypotheses concerning the social cognitive improvement needattention. First, it could be that memorization of 'right' answers by the childrenrather than an actual cognitive restructuring led to the high scores. This seemsunlikely when the moral judgment scores are examined. Both classes improvedon this measure despite morality not being part of the intervention programme.The second competing hypothesis is that social learning is responsible for theresults. If all the children modelled a higher level peer or the instructor, most orall of the children would have clustered around a given response. This was notfound. There was a large range of scores on all social cognitive measures suggestingthat the children did not gravitate toward one modelled or reinforced response.

Because the study was an educational rather than a laboratory effort, it is notpossible to specify the necessary conditions for growth. The sufficient conditionsseem to be: (1) interaction with others; (2) reflection on the interaction; (3)reflection on the thought; (4) considering discrepancies between thought andaction; (5) thinking on one's level and slightly higher; and (6) considering actualand hypothetical dilemmas. All of these conditions relate to a different aspectof the developmental model discussed previously. It is still possible that severalof the above conditions may be extraneous to the growth process and a moresimplified series of conditions could work. Yet, previous research has shown thatthe simplified models rarely work.

The importance of these findings appears to be five-fold. First, the resultsdemonstrate that it is possible to promote social cognitive growth in primarygrade children despite earlier failures in the area. Apparently, it is not that wecannot promote such growth, but rather that we have been trying the wrongprocedures. Filmstrips and stories by themselves just do not seem to be powerfulenough techniques. Given young children's short attention spans and lack ofability to carry on long discussions, this seems to make sense.

Second, the developmental model provides specific guidelines as to thestructure of a social cognitive educational programme. The teacher attemptingsuch a programme must know two things: (a) the developmental stages of interestand (b) that he/she is to have the student reflect on that social cognitive domainusing actual behaviours. This, then, is followed by challenges of the existingthought and the pointing out of discrepancies between thought and action.

Third, the programme's results replicate a similar study done with sixth graders(Enright, 1976; Enright, Colby and McMullin, 1977). In the latter study, sixthgraders led social discussion groups with first graders. The adults, then, had thesixth graders reflect on the interpersonal conflicts they were having with theirfirst-grade students. Both studies, therefore, show the generality of the socialcognitive model in promoting social cognitive growth in the elementary grades.

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60 Social Cognitive Development

Fourth, the results support Piaget's long-held claim that individuals growcognitively when they reflect on their own experiences. Interest and motivationwould seem to be high if the child's answers to social questions were to havedirect relevance on the child's own life. The implication is that future socialcognitive programmes may do well to incorporate the children's actual socialexperiences into the programme rather than focusing on hypothetical dilemmasexclusively.

Fifth, this study implies that working through conflicts in an elementaryclassroom need not be a punishing experience for the children. The guidelinesoutlined here not only helped maintain order within the classroom, but alsoseemed to help the children think more complexly and generate more socialalternatives than otherwise would have been the case as judged by the controlgroup results. Such growth-producing discipline need no disrupt the regular classpattern as the teacher questions children about misdeeds or conflicts. The teacherwould traditionally do this anyway. The only difference is that with this pro-gramme the teacher seeks understanding and alternatives from the child ratherthan simply telling the child what to do.

ReferencesARBUTHNOT, J. (1975). 'Modification of moral judgment through role playing', Devel. Psychol., 11,

319-24.CHANDLER, M. (1973). 'Egocentrism and antisocial behaviour: the assessment and training of social

perspective-taking skills', Devel. Psychol., 9, 326-32.COONEY, E. (1977). 'Social cognitive development: applications to intervention and evaluation in the

elementary grades', The Counseling Psychologist, 6, 6-9.DAMON, W. (1975). 'Early conceptions of positive justice as related to the development of logical opera-

tions', Child Devel., 46, 301-12.ELARDO, P. (1974). Project AWARE. Paper presented at the fourth annual H. Blumberg Symposium,

Chapel Hill, North Carolina.ENRIGHT, R. (1976). 'Social cognition in children: a model for intervention', The Counseling Psychologist,

6, 65-70.ENRIGHT, R., COLBY, S. and McMULLIN, D. (1977). 'A social cognitive developmental intervention with

sixth and first graders', The Counseling Psychologist, 4, 10-12.ENRIGHT, R. and SUTTERFIELD, S. (1979). An ecological validation of social cognitive development.

Paper presented at the meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, San Francisco.FLAVELL, J. (1974). 'The development of inferences about others.' In: MISCHEL, T. (Ed) Understanding

Other Persons. Totowa, NJ: Rowan & Littlefield.HARTUP, W. (1970). 'Peer interaction and social organization'. In: MUSSEN, P. (Ed) Carmichael's Manual

of Child Psychology. New York: John Wiley.KOHLBERG, L. (1969). 'Stage and sequence: the cognitive-developmental approach to socialization.' In:

GOSLIN, D. A. (Ed), Handbook of Socialization Theory and Research. Chicago: Rand McNally.PIAGET, J. (1960). 'The general problems of the psychological development of the child.' In: TANNER,

J. M. and INHELDER, B. (Eds) Discussions on Child Development. Vol. IV. New York: InternationalUniversities Press.

SELMAN, R. (1976). 'A structural approach to the study of developing interpersonal relationship concepts:research with normal and disturbed preadolescent boys.' In: PICK, A. (Ed) X Annual MinnesotaSymposia on Child Psychology. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

SPIVACK, G. and SHURE, N. (1974). Social Adjustment of Young Children: A Cognitive Approach toSolving Real-Life Problems. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

SPRINTHALL, N. (1974). A high school curriculum in the psychology of counseling. Report 1, MinneapolisPublic Schools (available from the author, School of Education, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis,MN 55455).

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