Chapter8Lifespan.pdf

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Chapter 8

Socioemotional Development
in Middle and Late Childhood

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Chapter Outline

• 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 1

Development of self-understanding

• During middle and late childhood

• Children 8 to 11 describe themselves in terms of psychological
characteristics and traits.

• Children recognize social characteristics of the self.

• Self-description increasingly involves social comparison.

Understanding others

• Perspective taking: social cognitive process involved in assuming the
perspective of others and understanding their thoughts and feelings

• Children become skeptical of others’ claims.

• Without good perspective taking skills, more likely to be oppositional,
have difficultly with relationships

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The Self 2
Self-esteem and self-concept: foundations start with quality parent-child
interactions

• Self-esteem: global evaluations of the self

• Referred to as self-worth or self-image

• Self-concept: domain-specific evaluations of the self

Children with high self-esteem

• May not do better in school; inflated self-esteem can distort ability

• Have greater initiative

• Can be positive or negative

Children with low self-esteem

• Linked to obesity, anxiety, depression, suicide, and delinquency

• Can be either accurate or distorted self-perception

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The Self 3

Self-efficacy: belief that one can master a situation and
produce favorable outcomes

Self-regulation

• Characterized by deliberate efforts to manage one’s behavior,
emotions, and thoughts

• Leads to increased social competence and achievement

Industry versus inferiority

• Industry: children become interested in how things are made and
work, receive parental encouragement

• Parents who see children’s efforts as mischief or making a mess
encourage inferiority

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Emotional Development 1

Developmental changes

• Improved emotional understanding

• Increased understanding that more than one emotion can be
experienced in a particular situation

• Increased awareness of the events leading to emotional reactions

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Emotional Development 2

• Ability to suppress or conceal
negative emotional reactions

• Use of self-initiated strategies
for redirecting feelings

• Capacity for genuine empathy

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Emotional Development 3

Social-Emotional Education Programs

• Committee for Children and the Collaborative for Academic, Social,
and Emotional Learning (CASEL)

• Developed programs to improve children’s lives

• Second Step: teaches social, cognitive and emotional skills

• Pre-K through 8th grade, specialized for each developmental stage

• CASEL: Targets core social and emotional learning domains

• Self-awareness

• Self-management

• Social awareness

• Relationship skills

• Responsible decision making

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Emotional Development 4

Coping with stress

• Older children generate more coping alternatives to stressful
situations.

• Outcomes for children who experience disasters

• Acute stress reactions

• Depression

• Panic dis

• Post-traumatic stress dis

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Emotional Development 5

Child and adolescent
psychiatrists help youth cope
with stress and trauma, such
as witnessing school
shootings.

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Moral Development 1

Kohlberg’s Level 1: Preconventional Reasoning

• Morality not internalized

• Stage 1: Heteronomous Morality

• Moral decisions are based on fear of punishment.

• Children obey because adults tell them to.

• Stage 2: Individuals, Instrumental Purpose, and Exchange

• Individuals pursue their own interests but let others do the same.
What is right involves equal exchange.

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Moral Development 2

Kohlberg’s Level 2: Conventional Reasoning

• Individuals abide by internal and external standards, for example, parents,
law

• Stage 3: Mutual interpersonal expectations, relationships, and interpersonal
conformity

• Trust, caring, and loyalty to others valued as a basis for moral judgments

• Stage 4: Social System Morality

• Moral judgments based on understanding, social , law, justice, duty

Kohlberg’s Level 3: Postconventional Reasoning

• Morality is more internal

• Stage 5: Social contract or utility and individual rights

• Stage 6: Universal ethical principles

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Moral Development 3

Influences on Kohlberg’s
stages

• Cognitive development

• Experiences dealing with
moral questions and moral
conflicts

• Peer interaction and
perspective taking

Harvard University Archives, UAV 605.295.8, Box 7, Kohlberg

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Moral Development 4

Kohlberg’s critics

• Moral thought and behavior

• Too much emphasis on thought and not enough emphasis on behavior

• Conscious/Deliberate Versus Unconscious/ Automatic

• Moral behavior can be automatic.

• Culture and moral reasoning

• Theory is culturally biased.

• Need to address issues including decline of postconventional moral
reasoning to lowest level, or personal interests

• Some researchers emphasize the need to deal with increasing possible
temptations and wrongdoings in increasingly complex social world

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Moral Development 5

Kohlberg’s critics

• The Role of Emotion

• Emotion strongly influences morality, intuitive feelings of right and wrong

• Families and moral development

• Argued that parents’ moral values and actions influence children’s
development of moral reasoning

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Moral Development 6

Gender and the care perspective

• Justice perspective: focuses on rights of individual and on which
individuals independently make moral decisions

• Care perspective: views people in terms of connectedness with others

• Emphasizes interpersonal communication, relationships with others,
concern for others

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Moral Development 7

Domain theory: moral, social conventional, personal
reasoning

• Domain theory of moral development: different domains of social
knowledge and reasoning

• Moral, social conventional, and personal domains

• Social conventional reasoning: focuses on conventional rules
established by social consensus in to control behavior and
maintain the social system

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Moral Development 8

Prosocial behavior

• Studies behavioral aspects of moral development

Moral personality: components include

• Moral identity

• Moral character

• Moral exemplars

Gender and the Care Perspective

• Moral perspective viewing people in terms connectedness with others

• Emphasis on

• Interpersonal communication

• Relationships, and concern for others

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Gender 1

Gender stereotypes: broad categories that reflect general
impressions and beliefs about males and females

Gender similarities and differences

• Physical development

• Cognitive development

• Socioemotional development

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Gender 2

Cognitive Development

• Gender differences

• Verbal skills – girls better

• No difference in math

• Visuospatial skills – some
girls better

• Writing skills – girls better

• Achievement – girls better,
but complex issue

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Gender 3

Socioemotional Development

• Aggression: boys physically, girls verbally

• Emotion: overall small differences

• Girls can recognize nonverbal emotions.

• Girls show more sympathy, internalize emotions, self-regulate

• Prosocial behavior: girls more prosocial, empathic

Gender in context

• Traits people display may vary with the situation

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Families 1

• Developmental Changes in Parent-Child Relationships

• Parents as Managers

• Attachment in Families

• Stepfamilies

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Families 2

Developmental changes in parent-child relationships

• Parents spend less time with children during middle and late
childhood.

• Parents support and stimulate children’s academic achievement.

• Parents use less physical forms of punishment as children age.

• Coregulation starts as some control is transferred from parent to child.

• Children engage in moment-to-moment self-regulation.

• Children move toward autonomy starting around age 12.

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Families 3

Parents as managers

• Parents manage children’s opportunities, monitor behavior, and
initiate social contact; more mother’s role than father’s

• Important to maintain a structured and organized family environment

• Positively related to students’ grades and self-responsibility, and
negatively to school-related problems

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Families 4

Attachment in families

• Becomes more sophisticated

• Children spend less time with parents.

• Social worlds expand.

• Secure attachment

• Associated with lower levels of

• Internalized symptoms

• Anxiety

• Depression

• Associated with higher levels of

• Emotional regulation

• Recognizing emotions

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Families 5

Stepfamilies

• Remarriages involving
children has grown in recent
years.

• Types of stepfamily structure

• Stepfather

• Stepmother

• Blended or complex

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Peers 1

• Developmental Changes

• Peer Status

• Social Cognition

• Bullying

• Friends

©Design Pics/Don Hammond

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Peers 2

Developmental changes

• Reciprocity becomes important in peer interchanges.

• Size of peer group increases.

• Peer interaction is less closely supervised by adults.

• Children’s preference for same-sex peer groups increases.

Sociometric status: extent to which children are liked/disliked
by peer group

Peer statuses

• Popular children: frequently nominated as a best friend and rarely
disliked by peers

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Peers 3

• Average children: receive an average number of both positive and
negative peer nominations

• Neglected children: infrequently nominated as a best friend but not
disliked by peers

• Rejected children: infrequently nominated as a best friend and actively
disliked by peers

• Controversial children: frequently nominated both as someone’s best
friend and also disliked by peers

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Peers 4

Social cognition: thoughts about social matters

• Important for understanding peer relationships

• Steps children go through in processing social information

• Attend to social cues

• Attribute intent through interpretation

• Establish social goals

• Access behavioral scripts from memory

• Generate problem-solving strategies

• Evaluate the effectiveness of strategies

• Make decisions and enact behavior

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Peers 5

Bullying

• Verbal or physical behavior intended to disturb someone less powerful

• Most likely to be bullied: boys, anxious, awkward, withdrawn, and
younger middle school students

• Bullied children report loneliness, difficulty making friends

• Cause of concern: peer bullying and cyber bullying

• Outcomes of bullying

• Low-self esteem, depression, suicidal ideation, and attempted suicide

• As adults, anxiety, depression, agoraphobia and mental health services

Social contexts

• Poverty, family support or lack thereof, school, and peer groups

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Peers 6

Friendship: plays important role in emotional well-being and
academic success

Friends

• Typically characterized by similarity

• Functions of Friendships

• Companionship

• Stimulation

• Physical support

• Ego support

• Social comparison

• Affection and intimacy

• Intimacy in friendships: self-disclosure and the sharing of private thoughts

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Bullying Behaviors among U.S. Youth

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Schools 1

• Contemporary Approaches to Student Learning

• Socioeconomic Status, Ethnicity, and Culture

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Schools 2

Contemporary approaches to student learning

• Constructivist and direct instruction approaches

• Constructivist approach: learner-centered approach emphasizes the
importance of individuals actively constructing their own knowledge and
understanding with guidance from a teacher

• Direct-instruction approach: structured, teacher-centered approach
characterized by

• Teacher direction and control

• Mastery of academic skills

• High expectations for students’ progress

• Maximum time spent on learning tasks

• Efforts to keep negative effects to a minimum

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Schools 3

Accountability

• No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation being replaced

• Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) implemented during the 2017 to 2018
school year

• Statewide standardized testing laws changing, as are measurements for
tracking success

• States can opt out of Common Core standards

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Schools 4

Socioeconomic status,
ethnicity, and culture

• Students from low-income,
ethnic minority backgrounds
have more difficulties in
school and are not
overcoming barriers to
achievement.

• U.S. students have lower
achievement in math and
science than a number of
other countries.

©Michael Conroy/AP Images

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Schools 5

Socioeconomic status, ethnicity, and culture

• Education of students from low-income backgrounds

• Face more barriers to learning

• Schools in low-income area tend to have

• More students with low achievement test scores

• Low graduation rates

• Smaller percentages of students going to college

• Young teachers with less experience

• Fewer resources, including decent buildings

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Schools 6

Socioeconomic status, ethnicity, and culture

• Ethnicity in schools

• Strategies for improving relationships among ethnically diverse students

• Turn the class into a jigsaw classroom

• Encourage students to have positive personal contact with diverse other
students

• Reduce bias

• View school and community as a team

• Be a competent cultural mediator

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Schools 7

Cross-cultural comparisons of achievement

• 2015 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMMS)
study found that out of 48 countries, American children placed

• 11th in 4th grade math

• 8th in 4th grade science

• Asian teachers spend more time teaching math than American teachers

• Asian children spend more days/year in school than American children

Mindset: cognitive view individuals develop for themselves

• Fixed mindset

• Growth mindset

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Mothers’ Beliefs About the Factors Responsible
for Children’s Math Achievement in Three

Countries

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