early childhood personality and social development

Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

Early Childhood Personality and Social Development

Chapter 7

7


Early ChildhoodPersonality and Sociocultural Development

• Coping With Feelings and Emotions

• Aggression and Prosocial Behavior

• Developmental Conflicts

• Peers, Play, and the Development of Social Competence

• Understanding Self and Others

• Family Dynamics


Theoretical Perspectives• Three main theoretical perspectives help

explain the emotional and social development of early childhood– Psychoanalytic/psychodynamic

• Freud and Erikson

– Social-learning• Bandura

– Cognitive-developmental• Piaget

• Vygotsky


Brief Review of Three Major Theoretical Perspectives


Coping with Feelings and Emotions

• One of the fundamental tasks of young childhood is learning to regulate emotions

• Learning to cope with fear and anxiety is especially important

• Children's specific fears are influenced in part by their culture

• Fear and anxiety are normal, and can serve a useful purpose

• Children may rely on defense mechanisms to disguise or reduce tensions– Rationalization is commonly used


Selected Defense Mechanisms Used by Children


Selected Defense Mechanisms Used by Children (continued)


Emotional Regulation• Emotional regulation means learning to deal with

emotions in acceptable ways

• Children must learn to deal with guilt, shame, and other negative emotions, such as anger

• Children should feel guilt when their behavior violates social norms and they should feel shame when they fail to live up to reasonable expectations of themselves


Emotional Regulation

• Learning to Restrain Emotions

– Learning to manage anger is especially important

– Children who express negative emotions tend to be unpopular with their peers

– One research study showed that children who had temper tantrums at age 10 tended to have continued problems as adults

– Children also need to learn to restrain their positive emotions and to express them in socially acceptable ways


Sensuality and Sexual Curiosity

• At age 3 or 4, children usually express curiosity about their genitals

• They may engage in sexual play and masturbation

• They quickly learn not to display such behavior in front of adults

• Different cultures respond to children’s developing sensuality in various ways


Aggression and Prosocial Behavior

• Aggression is universal and natural

• Physical aggression increases in early childhood, then declines as children learn to resolve conflict or replace physical with verbal aggression

• Children learn to be aggressive by observing aggressive models

• Children can also learn empathy through observing models with empathy

• Physical punishment tends to increase aggression

– Physical punishment often causes frustration

– The punisher is also modeling physical aggression


Video Clip

Details the concern over the increasing use of electronic media among children (especially with regard to school performance) and how it’s use can be appropriately monitored:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Hl-_5FT1ss


Television and Violence

• Television and other media are pervasive in children’s lives

• Many studies have shown that exposure to media violence is linked to aggressive behavior and desensitization towards violence

• The media also models prejudicial and insensitive behavior, and encourages stereotyping

• Parents can control viewing


Average Amount of Time Spent by U.S. Children Age 0-6 in Various Activities

From, “The Media Family: Electronic Media in the Lives of Infants, Toddlers, Preschoolers and Their Families” (#7500), by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, May 2006. This information was reprinted with permission of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. The Kaiser Family Foundation is a non-profit private operating foundation, based in Menlo Park, California, dedicated to producing and communicating the best possible analysis and information on health issues.


Video Clip

Discusses recent research on the effects of violent media on aggression in children and the controversy surrounding what to do about it:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yx0X61jT5dw


Prosocial Behavior

• Prosocial behaviors are intended to benefit others

• Signs of empathy, understanding another’s feelings, have been linked to prosocial behavior

• Prosocial behavior develops early; its expression depends on cultural and societal norms

• Role playing helps promote prosocial behavior, as does rewarding children for such behaviors


Developmental Conflict: Initiative versus Guilt

• Young children are torn between their desire for independence and their dependence on their parents

• Erikson’s third stage: initiative vs. guilt (ages 3-6)– Initiative: purposeful behavior as they learn and explore

their surroundings

– Guilt is triggered by emerging conscience

• Parents who discourage child’s curiosity and exploration or set unrealistic standards contribute to an unhealthy sense of guilt– Such children may then become passive, anxious, or

aggressive


Peers, Play, and the Development of Social Competence

• Play is the work of children

• By age 4, children begin to engage in social pretend play

• Many children create imaginary companions, and those who do tend to be more creative and to be more sociable

• Cultural and social aspects are embedded in play


The Development of Play


Social Competence

• Social competence is the ability to initiate and maintain satisfying reciprocal peer relationships

• Social competence consists of:– Emotional regulation (especially important)

– Social knowledge

– Social skills

– Social disposition

• Popular children are more cooperative and prosocial

• Unpopular, rejected, children are either more aggressive or more withdrawn


Understanding Self and Others

• Children must put together special behaviors to create overall patterns of behavior that are appropriate for their gender, family, and culture

• Young children internalize social concepts and rules

• They incorporate social concepts into their thinking

• They begin to build a positive self-concept as their socially acceptable behaviors are rewarded

• Children also must develop social understanding—learning how others think


Characteristics of Popular Kindergarten Children


Self and Gender

• Gender is a particularly important dimension of self-concept

• By the age of 2 and ½, children can readily identify people as “boy” or “girl”

• They exaggerate and conform to gender-role stereotypes

• They develop gender schemes as a part of cognitive development

• By the age of 5, they develop gender constancy

• Children are intrinsically motivated to engage in gender-consistent behaviors through self-socialization


The Development of Gender Schemes


Video Clip

Interviews with children to demonstrate the development of an understanding of gender identity:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZb2len6f18


Family Dynamics

• Many family dynamics affect development during early childhood. These include:

– Parenting styles

– Number and spacing of children

– Interactions among siblings

– Parental discipline techniques


Four Parenting Styles

• Styles vary according to two dimensions: control and warmth

• According to Diana Baumrind:

– Authoritative

– Authoritarian

– Permissive

– Indifferent


Parenting Styles Based on Warmth and Control


Effects of Different Parenting Styles

• Authoritarian parents tend to produce withdrawn, fearful, dependent, moody, unassertive, and irritable children

• Permissive parents may also be rebellious and aggressive, as well as self-indulgent, impulsive, and socially inept.

• Indifferent parents tend to engender destructive impulses and delinquent behaviors.

• Authoritative parents are most likely to produce children who are self-reliant, self-controlled, and socially competent.


Discipline and Self-Control

• As parents set limits and children assert their independence, conflicts are inevitable

• Productive discipline involves the following characteristics of authoritative parenting:– Setting reasonable rules that are fairly enforced

– Establishing a warm, caring, & consistent environment

– Keeping two-way communication as open as possible

• Parents and children often can reach an agreement on shared goals resulting in a more harmonious family life


Sibling Dynamics

• Sibling relationships vary widely

• Siblings are likely to have different personalities

• Few, if any, consistent personality differences result solely from birth order

– First born children tend to have higher IQs, likely resulting from increased attention from parents

– Only children also tend to be high achievers

– Average differences in IQ based on birth order are small

• Family structure and income can have strong effects on IQ and achievement


Discipline Advice to Parents


Child MaltreatmentAbuse and Neglect

• At any age, an abusing parent destroys the child’s expectations of love, trust, and dependence that are essential to healthy development

• Between 1.2 and 5% of U.S. children experience maltreatment

• Physical abuse most often occurs at the hands of the child’s parents.– Younger children sustain more serious injuries

– Many who survive suffer traumatic brain damage


Abuse and Neglect

• Neglect is often associated with poverty and involves failure to provide for a child’s basic needs– Neglect can have severe, long-term consequences

– Over 60% of child maltreatment cases involve neglect

• Ninety-five percent of sexual abuse is committed by men– Stepfathers are five times more likely to abuse

female children than are biological fathers


Forms of Psychological Child Maltreatment


Effects of Child Abuse

• Abused children may:– self-isolate and express aggressive behaviors

– have more school-related problems

– be at greater risk for depression, alcoholism, drug abuse, and suicidal efforts

– have trouble controlling their emotions

– be less socially competent

– engage in defiance and manipulation in others to escape maltreatment

– learn to expect interpersonal relationships to be painful


Causes of Child Maltreatment

• Multiple forces usually converge to cause child maltreatment

• Parents may: – have been abused themselves

– have unrealistic expectations of children’s behavior

– be socially isolated or experiencing severe stress

– have especially demanding children

• Physical abuse of children is more common in poverty-stricken homes

• Parenting education programs stress social support and learning of non- abusive discipline methods


Ecological Influences in Child Maltreatment


Summary

• From ages 2 to 6, children gain an understanding of themselves and their place in their family and community

• They learn what behavior is expected of them, as boys and girls

• They learn how to handle their feelings in socially acceptable ways

• They learn the norms, rules, and cultural meanings of their society

• They develop a self-concept that may persist their entire life


Summary

• One of the fundamental tasks of young childhood is learning to regulate emotions and cope with fear and anxiety

• They have to learn to cope with their negative emotions in socially acceptable ways

• Children are naturally aggressive, but then can learn to be more aggressive by observing aggressive models. Children need to learn to channel their aggression and develop prosocial behaviors

• These behaviors, which include a sense of empathy, begin to develop at about age 2


Summary

• Parents can model and reward their children’s prosocial behavior

• Beginning at about the age of 3, children show their desire for independence

• Erikson called this stage initiative versus guilt• Children’s play becomes more social at about

the age of 4. By the age of 6, they can initiate and maintain reciprocal relationships with others

• Unpopular children have negative experiences with social adjustment


Summary• At this stage of development, children develop a concept

of themselves and their own behavior

• Gender is a big component of a child’s understanding of the self

• Parents play an especially important role in the development of their children

• Children of authoritative parents seem to have the best outcome

• Sibling relationships are an important factor in development at this stage

• Child abuse and neglect can have long-term negative consequences for child development

early childhood personality and social development

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