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©2005 McGraw-Hill Ryerson Ltd.
Chapter 10
Socio-emotional Development in Middle and Late Childhood
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Socio-emotional
Development in
Middle and Late Childhood
Emotional and
Personality
Development
Families Peers Schools
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Emotional and
Personality
Development
The Self Emotional
Development
Moral
Development Gender
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The Self
• The Development of Self-Understanding
• Self-Esteem and Self-Concept
• Industry versus Inferiority
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The Development of Self-Understanding
• Self-understanding shifts from defining oneself through external characteristics to defining oneself through internal characteristics.
• Elementary school children are more likely to define themselves in terms of social characteristics.
• Self-understanding now includes increasing reference to social comparison—what they can do in comparison with others.
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Self-Esteem and Self-Concept
• What Are Self-Esteem and Self-Concept?
• Research on Self-Esteem
• Increasing Children’s Self-Esteem
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What Are Self-Esteem and Self-Concept
• Self-esteem – global evaluations of the self
• Also referred to as self-worth or self-image
• Self-concept – domain-specific evaluations of the self
• Children can make evaluations about themselves academically, athletically, based on their appearance, etc.
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Research On Self-Esteem
• Self-esteem found to be stable at least across a month or so of time.
• Self-esteem can change, especially in response to transitions in life.
• Elementary school children engage in social comparison, which can lower their self-esteem.
• Low-self esteem is related to depression.• Much research is correlational, not experimental.
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Increasing Children’s Self-Esteem
• Identification of the causes of low self-esteem and the domains of competence important to the self
• Emotional support and social approval
• Achievement• Coping
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Industry Versus Inferiority
• In Erikson’s fourth stage, industry refers to the fact that children become interested in how things are made and how they work.
• When encouraged in their efforts to make, build, and work, children’s sense of industry increases.
• Parents who see their children’s efforts as “making mischief” or “making a mess” encourage children’s development of a sense of inferiority.
• School plays a very important role in this stage.
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Emotional Development
• Developmental Changes
• Emotional Intelligence
• Coping with Stress
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Developmental Changes
• Increased ability to understand such complex emotions as pride and shame
• Increased understanding that more than one emotion can be experienced in a particular situation
• Increased tendency to take into fuller account the events leading to emotional reactions
• Marked improvements in the ability to suppress or conceal negative emotional reactions
• Use of self-initiated strategies for redirecting feelings
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Emotional Intelligence
• The concept of emotional intelligence initially was proposed as a form of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them, and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and action.
• Goleman’s view of emotional intelligence involves:– Developing Emotional Self-Awareness– Managing Emotions– Reading Emotions– Handling Relationships
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Coping with Stress
• As children get older they become more accurate at appraising a stressful situation and how much control they have over it.
• Children who have a variety of coping techniques are best equipped adapt and function completely during traumatic events.
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Recommendations
• Recommendations for helping children cope with stress:– Reinforce ideas of safety and security.– Listen and tolerate children’s retelling of events.– Encourage children to talk about confusing feelings,
worries, daydreams, and disruptions of concentration.– Help children make sense of what happened. – Provide reassurance to children so that they will be
able to handle stressful feelings over time.– Protect children from re-exposure to frightening
situations and reminders of the trauma.
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Moral Development
• Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development• Kohlberg’s Level 1: Preconventional
Reasoning• Kohlberg’s Level 2: Conventional
Reasoning • Kohlberg’s Level 3: Postconventional
Reasoning• Kohlberg’s Critics• Prosocial Behaviour and Altruism
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Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development
• Lawrence Kohlberg stressed that moral development is based primarily on moral reasoning and unfolds in stages.
• He arrived at his view after 20 years of using a unique interview with children in which they are presented with a series of stories in which characters face moral dilemmas.
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Internalization
• A key concept in understanding is internalization.
• It is the developmental change from behaviour that is externally controlled to behaviour that is controlled by internal standards and principles.
• As children and adolescents develop, their moral thoughts become more internalized.
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Kohlberg’s Level 1: Preconventional Reasoning
• Stage 1: Heteronomous morality – thinking is often tied to punishment.
• Stage 2: Individualism, instrumental purpose, and exchange – individuals pursue their own interests but also let others do the same.
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Kohlberg’s Level 2: Conventional Reasoning
• Stage 3: Mutual interpersonal expectations, relationships, and interpersonal conformity – individuals value trust, caring, and loyalty to others as a basis of moral judgments.
• Stage 4: Social systems morality – moral judgments are based on understanding the social law, justice, and duty.
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Kohlberg’s Level 3: Postconventional Reasoning
• Stage 5: Social contract or utility and individual rights – individuals reason that values, rights, and principles transcend the law.
• Stage 6: Universal ethical principles – the person has developed a moral standard based on universal human rights.
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Kohlberg’s Critics
• Moral Thought and Moral Behaviour
• Culture and Moral Development
• Family Processes and Moral Development
• Gender and the Care Perspective
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Moral Thought and Moral Behaviour
• Kohlberg’s theory has been criticized for placing too much emphasis on moral thought and not enough emphasis on moral behaviour.
• Moral reasons can sometimes be a shelter for immoral behaviour.
• Cheaters and thieves may know what is right yet still do what is wrong.
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Culture and Moral Development
• Kohlberg’s theory has been criticized for being culturally biased.
• Moral reasoning is more culture-specific than Kohlberg envisioned.
• His scoring system does not recognize higher-level moral reasoning in certain cultural groups.
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Family Processes and Moral Development
• Kohlberg claimed family processes are essentially unimportant in children’s moral development, and that peers are more likely to be an influence.
• Many developmentalists believe that Kohlberg underestimated the contribution of family relationships to moral development.
• They emphasize that inductive discipline positively influences moral development.
• Parents’ moral values are also believed to influence children’s developing moral thoughts.
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Gender and Care Perspective
• Kohlberg’s theory is a justice perspective that focuses on the rights of the individual; individuals stand alone and independently make moral decisions.
• The care perspective is a moral perspective that views people in terms of their connectedness with others and emphasizes interpersonal communication, relationships with others, and concern for others.
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Gender and Care Perspective (cont’d)
• Carol Gilligan believed Kohlberg greatly under-played the care perspective in moral development, due to being male, using primarily males for his research, and basing his theory on male responses.
• Gilligan’s research found that girls consistently interpret moral dilemmas in terms of human relationships.
• Other research has found that the gender differences in moral reasoning are not absolute.
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Prosocial Behaviour and Altruism
• Prosocial Behaviour – the positive aspect of moral development, such as showing empathy to someone or showing altruistic behaviour.
• Altruism – an unselfish interest in helping someone else; has its beginnings in sharing.
• Equality – everyone is treated the same; one of the first principles of morality used by elementary school children.
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Gender
• Gender Stereotypes
• Gender Similarities and Differences
• Physical Similarities and Differences
• Cognitive Similarities and Differences
• Socio-emotional Similarities and Differences
• Gender-Role Classification
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Gender Stereotypes
• Broad categories that reflect our impressions and beliefs about females and males.
• Refer to an image of what the typical member of a particular social category is like.
• Males are widely believed to be dominant, independent, aggressive, achievement-oriented, and enduring.
• Females are widely believed to be nurturant, affiliative, less esteemed, and more helpful.
• Genders were perceived more similar in Christian than in Muslim societies.
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Gender Similarities and Differences
• When examining gender similarities and differences, keep in mind:– The differences are average.– Even when differences are reported, there is
considerable overlap between the genders.– Differences may due primarily to biological
factors, socio-cultural factors, or both.
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Physical Similarities and Differences
• Females have a longer life expectancy.• Females are less likely to develop physical or
mental disorders.
• Males have twice the risk of coronary disease.• Females produce more “good” cholesterol.• Women have about twice the body fat of men.• Fat is concentrated around breasts and hips in
women, the abdomen in men.
• On average, males grow to be 10% taller.
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Cognitive Similarities and Differences
• Controversy exists as to true cognitive differences between males and females.
• Some studies have shown that males perform better on math and visuospatial tasks, while females have better language skills.
• Overall, girls are found to be far superior students, while boys do slightly better at math and science.
• Girls are taking similar math and science courses in high school and use computers in a variety of ways. However, they are still far less likely to go into careers in science and technology.
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Socio-emotional Similarities and Differences
• One of the most consistent gender differences is that boys are more aggressive than girls.
• Boys are more active than girls.• Males usually show less self-regulation than females.• Low self-regulation has been found to be linked with
greater aggression, the teasing of others, overreaction to frustration, low cooperation, and inability to delay gratification.
• Girls are more likely to engage in relational aggression – involves behaviours as trying to make others dislike a certain child by spreading malicious rumours about the child or ignoring them if they are angry with him or her.
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Gender-Role Classification
• What is Gender-Role Classification?
• Androgyny
• Gender in Context
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What is Gender-Role Classification?
• In the past, a well-adjusted boy was supposed to be independent, aggressive, and powerful.
• A well-adjusted girl was supposed to be dependent, nurturant, and uninterested in power.
• Society considered masculine characteristics healthy and good, feminine characteristics undesirable.
• The concept of androgyny was developed in the 1970s in response to dissatisfaction by both males and females with the burdens imposed by their roles.
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Androgyny
• Refers to the presence of desirable masculine and feminine characteristics in the same person.
• The Bem Sex-Role Inventory is used to assess androgyny.
• Sandra Bem argues that androgynous individuals are more flexible, competent, and mentally healthy than their masculine or feminine counterparts.
• To some degree, which gender-role classification is best depends on the context involved.
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Gender in Context
• Gender-role classification involves a personality-traitlike categorization.
• It may be helpful to think of personality in terms of person-situation interaction, rather than personality traits alone.
• Different gender roles might be more appropriate, depending on the context or setting involved.
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Families
Parent-Child
Issues
Societal
Changes in
Families
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Parent-Child Issues
• Introducing chores and payment• Helping children learn to entertain themselves• Monitoring children’s lives outside the family in
school and peer settings• Discipline is easier than during early childhood
and often easier than in adolescence• Coregulation of control• Life changes for parents
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Societal Changes in Families
• Stepfamilies • Latchkey Children
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Stepfamilies
• These children have more adjustment problems.• Problems mimic those of children of divorce:
– academic problems– externalizing and internalizing problems– lower self-esteem– early sexual activity– delinquency
• There is an increase in adjustment problems of children in newly remarried families.
• Restabilization may take up to 5 years longer than in divorced families.
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Boundary Ambiguity
• The uncertainty in stepfamilies about who is in or out of the family and who is performing or responsible for certain tasks in the family system.
• In early remarriage, stepfathers tend to behave like polite strangers to win over stepchildren.
• In longer established stepfamilies, a distant, disengaged parenting style predominates for stepfathers, although conflict can remain high.
• Stepmothers have a more difficult time integrating themselves into stepfamilies.
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Latchkey Children
• These children typically do not see their parents from the time they leave for school in the morning until about 6 or 7 P.M.
• Latchkey children are largely unsupervised for 2 to 4 hours a day during the week.
• During the summer they may be unsupervised for entire days, 5 days a week.
• The experiences of latchkey children vary enormously.
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Findings on Latchkey Children
• Some grow up too fast, due to responsibilities.• Without limits and parental supervision, many more
easily find their way into trouble, possibly stealing, vandalizing, or abusing a sibling.
• Parental monitoring and authoritative parenting help the child cope more effectively with latchkey experiences, especially in resisting peer pressure.
• The Canadian Safety Council recommends that parents prepare their children for household emergencies.
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Peers
Peer
Statuses Bullying
Social
Cognition Friends
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Peer Status
• Popular children – frequently nominated as a best friend, rarely disliked by peers.
• Neglected children – infrequently nominated as a best friend, not disliked by peers.
• Rejected children – infrequently nominated as a best friend, actively disliked by peers.
• Controversial children – frequently nominated both as someone’s best friend and as being disliked.
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Rejected Children
• Often have more serious adjustment problems later in life than do neglected children.
• The key factor in predicting whether rejected children would engage in delinquent behaviour or drop out of school during adolescence was aggression towards peers in elementary school.
• Not all are aggressive; 10%–20% are shy.• The goal of training programs for rejected
children is to help them listen to peers, instead of trying to dominate peer interactions.
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Bullying
• Criteria for bullying include:– Intention to hurt– Repetition of the
action– Lack of clear
provocation– Imbalance of power– Impact on the victim
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Reducing Bullying
• Teachers can do the following to reduce bullying:– Get older peers to serve as monitors and intervene
when they see bullying taking place.– Develop schoolwide rules and sanctions against
bullying and post them throughout the school.– Form friendship groups for adolescents who are
regularly bullied by peers.– Incorporate the message of the antibullying program
into church, school, and other community activities in which adolescents are involved.
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Social Cognition
• Involves thoughts about social matters.• Social knowledge is involved in children’s ability
to get along with peers.• An important part of children’s social life involves
knowing what goals to pursue in poorly defined or ambiguous situations.
• Social relationship goals, such as how to initiate and maintain a social bond are also important.
• Children need to know what scripts to follow to get other children to be their friends.
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Friends
• Friends are companions.• Friends are stimulating.• Friends provide physical support.• Friends provide ego support.• Friends are a source of social comparison.• Friends are a source of intimacy and affection.• Intimacy in friendships is self-disclosure and the
sharing of private thoughts.• Similarity is very common among friends.
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Schools
The Transition
To Elementary
School
Socio-economic
Status and
Ethnicity in
Schools
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The Transition to Elementary School
• Children entering first grade take up a new role, interact and develop relationships with new significant others, adopt new reference groups, and develop new standards for judging themselves.
• School provides children with a rich source of new ideas to shape their sense of self.
• There is emerging concern about new evidence showing that early schooling proceeds mainly on the basis of negative feedback.
• In school, children’s learning is still integrated.
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Socio-economic Status and Ethnicity in Schools
• The Education of Students from Low Socio-economic Backgrounds
• Ethnicity in Schools
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The Education of Students from Low Socio-economic Backgrounds • Many children in poverty face problems at home and at
school that present barriers to their learning.• Many schools of children from impoverished
backgrounds attend have fewer resources than do the schools in higher-income neighbourhoods.
• Schools in low-income areas are more likely to encourage rote learning rather than thinking skills.
• Many of these schools provide students with sub-standard learning environments.
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Ethnicity in Schools
• Children from minority or immigrant backgrounds have to deal with extra burdens associated with school other than schoolwork.
• Strategies for improving relationships among ethnically diverse students in Canadian classrooms include:– Turn the class into a jigsaw classroom.– Use technology to foster communication with students
around the world.– Encourage students to have positive personal contact
with other students.
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Aboriginal Students in Canada
• Historically Aboriginal students in Canada:– Efforts were made to “Christianize” children in
residential schools.– Then attempts were made integrate children
into mainstream schools off-reserve.– Finally local Native bands were given
authority to run elementary, secondary and post-secondary schools on the reserves (1980s).