Psychology

The Science of Mind and Behaviour

Chapter 13 Lifespan Development II: Social and Emotional Development

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Development of Emotion

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Social-Emotional Development
Newborns are capable of displaying basic emotional states Sense of self emerges at around 18 months of age
Begin to display pride, shame, and guilt at around age 2

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Social-Emotional Development
Emotional Regulation: the processes by which we evaluate and modify our emotional reactions
Emotional competence influences social behaviour and popularity

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Social-Emotional Development
Temperament: a biologically based general style of reacting emotionally and behaviourally to the environment
Classified as easy, difficult, or slowto-warm-up Overall, temperament is only weakly to moderately stable during infancy Strong temperamental traits (e.g. extreme shyness) are more stable throughout childhood
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Social-Emotional Development
Eriksons Psychosocial Theory:
Development occurs in a series of eight Psychosocial Stages
Each stage involves a different crisis, or conflict, over how we view ourselves in relation to other people and the world Four stages occur during infancy and childhood

Basic Trust vs. Basic Mistrust (Infancy) Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt (Age 1-2) Initiative vs. Guilt (Age 3-5) Industry vs. Inferiority (Age 6-puberty)
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Development of Attachment

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Social-Emotional Development
Attachment Theory:
Imprinting: a sudden, biologically primed form of attachment Attachment: the strong emotional bond that develops between children and their primary caregivers
No automatic imprinting or critical period First few years of life seem to be a sensitive period for developing a secure bond
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Social-Emotional Development
The Attachment Process:
Harry Harlow: research on infant rhesus monkeys
Contact comfort with cloth mother chosen over wire mother

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Social-Emotional Development
The Attachment Process:
John Bowlby: three phases
Indiscriminate attachment behaviors in newborns Discriminate attachment behaviors (3 months) Specific attachment behaviors (7-8 months)

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Social-Emotional Development
The Attachment Process (continued):
Stranger Anxiety: distress over contact with unfamiliar people
Emerges around 6-7 months; ends by 18 months

Separation Anxiety: distress over being separated from a primary caregiver

Peaks around 12-16 months; disappears between 2-3 years of age

Goal-Corrected Partnership (age 3-4)

Children and caregivers can maintain their relationships whether together or apart

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Social-Emotional Development
Types of Attachment:
Strange Situation: a standardised procedure for examining infant attachment

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Social-Emotional Development
Types of Attachment:
Secure Attachment:
Explore playroom and react positively to the stranger Distressed when mother leaves Happy when mother returns

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Social-Emotional Development
Types of Attachment (continued):
Anxious-Resistant Attachment:
Fearful when the mother is present Demand mothers attention Distressed when mother leaves Not soothed when mother returns; may angrily resist her attempts at contact

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Social-Emotional Development
Types of Attachment (continued):
Anxious-Avoidant Attachment:
Show few signs of attachment Rarely cry when mother leaves Do not seek contact when mother returns

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Social-Emotional Development
Consequences of Attachment:
Secure infants are better socially adjusted and have an increased capacity for compassion and altruism Insecure infants have more behavioural problems

Infancy is a sensitive but not critical period for attachment

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Social-Emotional Development
Child-Care Controversy: research findings suggest:
High-quality child care does not disrupt childrens attachment to their parents No significant differences in social or cognitive development for daycare versus non-daycare children through age 4 1/2

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Social-Emotional Development
Effects of Divorce:
Short-term:
Anxiety, fear, confusion, depression, behaviour problems

Long-term:
Greater risk for academic problems, troubled relationships, low self-esteem, depression

In adolescence:
Greater risk for dropping out of school, being unemployed, using drugs, and becoming unwed teen parents

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Social-Emotional Development
Effects of Divorce (continued):
In adulthood:
More likely to experience relationship conflict, unemployment, depression, and have a higher divorce rate

Most negative effects cluster together 20-25% of children of divorce show this maladjustment cluster Most children of divorce become normally adjusted adults
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Social-Emotional Development
Effects of Divorce (continued):
If marriage is high-conflict, childrens adjustment may be better than if parents had stayed married Cooperative parents can cushion effects of divorce on children Forming stepfamilies can increase childrens short-term problem behaviours
Young adolescents have the most difficulty with the transition
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Social-Emotional Development
Styles of Parenting: two key dimensions
Warmth versus hostility Restrictiveness versus permissiveness

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Social-Emotional Development
Authoritative Parents: controlling but warm
Establish clear, consistently enforced rules Compliance is rewarded with warmth and affection Associated with most positive childhood outcomes

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Social-Emotional Development
Authoritarian Parents: controlling; cold, unresponsive, and rejecting relationship
Children have lower self-esteem, are less popular, and perform more poorly in school

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Social-Emotional Development
Indulgent Parents: warm, caring relationships; no guidance and discipline
Parents fail to teach responsibility and concern for others Children tend to be immature and selfcentered

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Social-Emotional Development
Neglectful Parents: do not provide warmth, rules, or guidance
Children are most likely to be insecurely attached Low achievement motivation, disturbed peer relationships, impulsive, aggressive Associated with the most negative developmental outcomes
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Search for gender

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Social-Emotional Development
Gender Identity and Socialisation:
Gender Identity: a sense of femaleness or maleness that becomes a central aspect of ones personal identity
Develops around age 2-3

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Social-Emotional Development
Gender Identity and Socialisation:
Gender Constancy: the understanding that being male or female is a permanent part of a person
Develops around age 6-7

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Social-Emotional Development
Sex-Role Stereotypes: beliefs about the characteristics and behaviours that are appropriate for boys and girls Sex-Typing: treating others differently based on whether they are female or male

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Moral Reasoning

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Moral Development: Kohlberg

Kohlbergs Moral Reasoning:
Analysed peoples responses to hypothetical moral dilemmas Proposed that people advance through increasingly sophisticated levels of reasoning about moral issues
Identified three main levels, with two substages within each level

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Kohlbergs Theory
Moral dilemmas
Your wife is near death from an unusual kind of cancer. One drug exists that the physicians think might save her a form of radium that a scientist in a nearby city has recently developed. The drug, though, is expensive to manufacture, and the scientist is charging 10 times that the drug costs him to make. He pays $1000 for the radium and charges $ 10000 for a small dose. You have gone to everyone you know to borrow money, but you can get together only $2500 one-quarter of what you need. You have told that scientist that your wife is dying and asked him to sell it more cheaply or let you pay later. But the scientist has said, No, I discovered the drug and Im going to make money from it. In desperation, you consider breaking into the scientists laboratory to steal the drug for your wife. Shouldnt you do it?

Moral Development: Kohlberg

Preconventional Moral Reasoning: based on anticipated punishments or rewards
you should not steal the drug because you will get caught and sent to jail

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Moral Development: Kohlberg

Conventional Moral Reasoning: based on conformity to social expectations, laws, and duties
you will always feel guilty for your dishonesty and law-breaking

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Moral Development: Kohlberg

Postconventional Moral Reasoning: based on well-thought-out, general moral principles
you will condemn yourself because you will not have lived up to your own conscience and standards of honesty

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Moral Development: Kohlberg

Multicultural studies have indicated that:
From childhood through adolescence, moral reasoning changes from preconventional to conventional levels Postconventional reasoning is relatively uncommon in adolescence and even adulthood A persons moral judgments do not always reflect the same level of reasoning

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Moral Development: Kohlberg

Criticisms of Kohlbergs Theory:
Western cultural bias
High moral values in other cultures focus on principles that may not fit into Kohlbergs model

Male bias
Carol Gilligan (1982): women place greater value on caring and the welfare of others

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Moral Development
Moral Behaviour and Conscience:
Moral reasoning does not necessarily equal moral behavior Skinner: good and bad behaviours are learned through reinforcement and punishment Cultural conformity involves:
Understanding that there are moral rules Being able to control impulses Experiencing negative emotions when rules are violated
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Moral Development
Conscience: internal regulatory mechanism that restrains individuals from acting in destructive or antisocial ways when they are not being monitored
Freud: conscience develops through identification with parents Internalising parents values is most likely when:
Children and parents have a good relationship Parents establish clear rules, with explanations Discipline is firm but not harsh
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Adolescence and adulthood

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Adolescence and Adulthood

Rites of Passage: ceremonies that mark the transition from childhood into adulthood in some cultures Adolescence: the period of development and gradual transition between childhood and adulthood
Largely an invention of 18th-20th century Western culture Societal changes due to the Industrial Revolution
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Adolescence and Adulthood

Puberty: a period of rapid maturation in which the person becomes capable of sexual reproduction
Puberty is a biologically defined period; adolescence is a broader social construction

Adolescence brings changes in thinking, interests, social circumstances, parental and social expectations
Typically encompasses 12- to 18-year-olds
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Adolescence and Adulthood

Search for Identity:
Erikson: search for identity is the key crisis during adolescence Identity Status Classification (Marcia):
Identity diffusion: not yet gone through an identity crisis; uncommitted to a coherent set of values Foreclosure: not yet gone through an identity crisis; committed to an identity and set of values before experiencing a crisis Moratorium: currently in an identity crisis Identity achievement: resolved identity crisis

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Adolescence and Adulthood

Search for Identity (continued):
Sense of identity has multiple components:
Gender, ethnicity, and other attributes by which we define ourselves as members of social groups How we view our personal characteristics Our goals and values

Culture plays a key role in identity formation

Influences the way we view concepts such as self and identity

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Adolescence and Adulthood

Relationships with Parents and Peers:
Conflict between teens and parents is not as severe as often assumed Parent-teen conflict is correlated with other signs of distress
Causal direction is unclear

Peer relationships increase in importance during adolescence

Friendships become more intimate and involve a greater sharing of problems Peers strongly influence values and behaviours
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Adolescence and Adulthood

Emotional Changes in Adolescence:
Emotionality becomes less positive through early adolescence
Changes level off and become more stable by late adolescence

34% show major downward changes; 16% show major upward changes

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Adolescence and Adulthood

Transition to Adulthood:
Marriage is typically the key in traditional cultures Individualism: becoming a responsible, independent person
Judged the most important criterion for becoming an adult

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Adolescence and Adulthood

Eriksons Psychosocial Theory:
Intimacy versus Isolation (early adulthood) Generativity versus Stagnation (middle adulthood) Integrity versus Despair (late adulthood)

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Adolescence and Adulthood

Marriage and Family
Average family has changed over recent generations Successful marriages are characterised by:
Emotional closeness Positive communication and problem solving Agreement on basic values and expectations A willingness to accept and support changes in the partner

Marital satisfaction declines over the first few years

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Adolescence and Adulthood

Marriage and Family (continued):
Birth of children dramatically changes the way couples spend their time
Marital satisfaction decreases the first few years after the first child is born

Marital satisfaction typically increases after all the children have left home Married people experience greater subjective well-being than unmarried adults
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Adolescence and Adulthood

Establishing a Career:
Careers help define our identity
Provides an outlet for achievement Gives us structure Significant source of social interactions

Growth stage: formation of initial interests about the jobs we like or dislike
Exploration stage: tentative ideas about a preferred career; pursue necessary education or training Growth and exploration occurs from childhood to mid-20s
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Adolescence and Adulthood

Establishing a Career (continued):
Establishment phase: people begin to make their mark in their chosen career
Mid-20s to mid-40s

Maintenance stage: careers become more stable during late adulthood Decline stage: peoples investment in work decreases; eventual retirement

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Adolescence and Adulthood

Establishing a Career (continued):
Career paths vary quite a bit Women today hold higher career aspirations
Family responsibilities are a common cause of womens work gaps

Midlife Crisis:
Happiness and general life satisfaction generally do not decrease throughout adulthood Notion of an inevitable, full-blown midlife crisis appears to be a myth
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Old Age
Retirement and the Golden Years:
Decision to retire and adjustment to retirement depends on many factors
Retirement status of spouse Voluntary or involuntary retirement Feelings about the job Leisure interests Physical health Family relationships Family income

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