Ch06

Invitation to the Life Span
by Kathleen Stassen Berger

Chapter 6 – Early Childhood:
Psychosocial Development

PowerPoint Slides developed by
Martin Wolfger and Michael James
Ivy Tech Community College-Bloomington

Emotional Development
• Emotional Regulation
– The ability to control when and how emotions are
expressed
– Possible due to connections between limbic system
and prefrontal cortex

• Initiative versus guilt
– Erikson’s third psychosocial crisis, in which
children undertake new skills and activities
and feel guilty when they do not succeed at
them.

Pride in Oneself
• Self-esteem: A person’s evaluation of his or her own
worth, either in specifics (e.g., intelligence,
attractiveness) or in general.
• Self-concept: A person’s understanding of who he or
she is, incorporating self-esteem, physical appearance,
personality, and various personal traits (e.g. gender,
size).
• Protective Optimism: Preschoolers predict that they
can solve impossible puzzles, remember long lists of
words, and control their dreams.
– Helps them try new things

Guilt and Shame
• Guilt: Self-blame that people experience
when they do something wrong

• Shame: People’s feeling that others
blame them, disapprove of them, or are
disappointed in them

Motivation
• Intrinsic motivation: A drive, or reason to
pursue a goal, that comes from inside a person
(e.g. the need to feel smart or competent).
• Extrinsic motivation: A drive, or reason to
pursue a goal, that arises from the need to have
one’s achievements rewarded from outside (e.g.
by receiving material possessions or another
person’s esteem).

Culture and Motives
• Goals for emotional regulation that seem
to be important in certain cultures:
– Overcome fear (United States)
– Modify anger (Puerto Rico)
– Temper pride (China)
– Control aggression (Japan)
– Be patient and cooperative (Native American
Communities)

Seeking Emotional Balance
• Lack of emotional regulation may be an early
sign of psychopathology
• Externalizing problems
– Involves expressing powerful feelings through
uncontrolled physical or verbal outbursts, as by
lashing out at other people or breaking things
• Intenalizing problems
– Involves turning one’s emotional distress inward, as
by feeling excessively guilty, ashamed, or worthless

Sex Differences in Emotional
Regulation
• Neurological and hormonal
effects:
– Boys tend to be aggressive
(externalizing)
– Girls tend to be anxious
(internalizing)
• Psychopathology is not typical!
– Children of both sexes usually
learn to regulate their emotions
as their brains mature and their
parents nurture them

Play
• Play is the most productive and enjoyable
activity that children undertake
• Play is universal
– Archeologists find toys that are many
thousands of years old
– Anthropologists report play in every part of the
world

Play
• Form of play changes with age and culture
– Increasingly complex social play is due to
brain maturation coupled with many hours of
social play
– Children must learn how to make, and keep,
friends

Peers and Parents
• Peers:
– People of about the same age and social
status
– Provide practice in emotional regulation,
empathy, and social understanding
– Children usually prefer to play with each other
rather than with their parents

The Ecological Context
• Physical setting of a culture shapes play
– Some communities provide many toys and
close supervision
– Others leave children to play on their own with
whatever they find
• Child-centered programs in the United
States

Changing Social Circumstances

Types of Play (Midred Parten, 1932)
1. Solitary play: A child plays alone, unaware of any other
children playing nearby.
2. Onlooker play: A child watches other children play.
3. Parallel play: Children play with similar toys in similar
ways, but not together.
4. Associative play: Children interact, observing each
other and sharing material, but their play is not yet
mutual and reciprocal.
5. Cooperative play: Children play together, creating and
elaborating a joint activity or taking turns.

Active Play
• Rough-and-tumble play: Play that mimics
aggression through wrestling, chasing, or hitting,
but in which there is no intent to harm.
– Expressions and gestures (e.g. play face) signifying
that the child is "just pretending”
– Particularly common among young males
– Ample space, distant adults, and presence of friends
increase likelihood
– Advances children’s social understanding but
increases likelihood of injury
– May positively affect prefrontal cortex development

Sociodramatic Play
• Sociodramatic play: Pretend play in which
children act out various roles and themes in
stories that they create.
• Sociodramatic play enables children to:
– Explore and rehearse the social roles enacted around
them
– Test their ability to explain and to convince playmates
of their ideas
– Practice regulating their emotions by pretending to be
afraid, angry, brave, and so on
– Develop a self-concept in a nonthreatening context

Parenting Styles
Diana Baumrind (1967, 1971). Parents differ on
four important dimensions:
1. Expressions of warmth: From very affectionate to cold
and critical
2. Strategies for discipline: Parents vary in whether and
how they explain, criticize, persuade, ignore, and punish.
3. Communication: Some parents listen patiently to their
children; others demand silence.
4. Expectations for maturity: Parents vary in the
standards they set for their children regarding
responsibility and self-control.

Baumrind’s Patterns of
Parenting
• Authoritarian parenting: High behavioral standards,
strict punishment of misconduct, and little
communication
• Permissive parenting: High nurturance and
communication but little discipline, guidance, or control
• Authoritative parenting: Parents set limits and enforce
rules but are flexible and listen to their children
• Neglectful/uninvolved parenting: Parents are
indifferent toward their children and unaware of what is
going on in their children’s lives

Implications of Parenting Style
• Children of authoritarian parents tend to
– become conscientious, obedient, and quiet but not
especially happy
– feel guilty or depressed and blame themselves when
things don’t go well
– rebel as adolescents and leave home before age 20

• Children of permissive parents tend to:
– be unhappy and lack self-control, especially in peer
relationships
– suffer from inadequate emotional regulation
– be immature and lack friendships (main reason for
their unhappiness)
– continue to live at home, still dependent, in early
adulthood

• Children of authoritative parents tend to:
– be successful, articulate, happy with themselves, and
generous with others
– Be well-liked by teachers and peers, especially in
societies in which individual initiative is valued

Critique of Baumrind’s Model
• Her original sample had little economic, ethnic, or
cultural diversity.
• She focused more on attitudes than on daily interactions.
• Some authoritarian parents are very loving toward their
children.
• Some permissive parents guide their children intensely,
but with words, not rules.
• She overlooked the child’s contribution to the parent-
child relationship.

Children, Parents, and the
Media

The Significance of Content
• Violence on TV is often depicted as morally
acceptable.
• Children who watch televised violence become
more violent themselves.
• Racial and gender stereotypes are still evident in
children’s programs.
• Educational television may have positive effects.
• Experts recommend that parents limit their
young children’s television viewing and spend
more time talking and playing with them.

Moral Development
• Empathy: The ability to understand the
emotions and concerns of another person,
especially when they differ from one’s
own.

• Antipathy: Feelings of dislike or even
hatred for another person.

Prosocial and Antisocial
Behavior
• Prosocial behavior: Actions that are
helpful and kind but that are of no obvious
benefit to the person doing them.
– Increases from age 3 to 6
• Antisocial behavior: Actions that are
deliberately hurtful or destructive to
another person.
– Declines beginning at age 2

Types of Aggression
1. Instrumental aggression: Hurtful behavior that is
intended to get something that another person has and
to keep it.
2. Reactive aggression: An impulsive retaliation for
another person’s intentional or accidental action, verbal
or physical.
3. Relational aggression: Nonphysical acts, such as
insults or social rejection, aimed at harming the social
connection between the victim and other people.
4. Bullying aggression: Unprovoked, repeated physical
or verbal attack, especially on victims who are unlikely
to defend themselves.

Discipline and Children’s
Thinking
1. Remember theory of mind. Young children gradually
come to understand things from other viewpoints.
2. Remember emerging self-concept. When the sense of
self is developing, sharing becomes more difficult.
3. Remember fast-mapping. Young children are eager to
talk and think, but they say more than they really
understand. Explanations and discussion before and
after misbehavior help children learn.
4. Remember that young children are not logical. Children
may disconnect a misdeed from the punishment.

Physical Punishment
• Some researchers believe that
physical punishment is harmless;
some don’t.
• Physical punishment increases
obedience temporarily, but
increases the possibility of later
aggression.
• Many children who are spanked do
not become violent adults; other
factors (e.g. poverty, temperament)
are stronger influences.

Other Forms of Punishment
• Psychological control: A disciplinary
technique that involves threatening to
withdraw love and support and that relies
on a child’s feelings of guilt and gratitude
to the parents.
• Time-out: A disciplinary technique in
which a child is separated from other
people and activities for a specified time.

Becoming Boys and Girls
• Age 2: Children know
whether they are boys or
girls and apply gender
labels consistently
• Age 4: Children are
convinced that certain toys
(such as dolls or trucks) are
appropriate for one gender
but not the other

Sex and Gender
• Sex differences: Biological differences between males
and females, in organs, hormones, and body shape.
• Gender differences: Differences in the roles and
behaviors that are prescribed by a culture for males and
females.
– Initial confusion about gender and sex
– Age 5: Increased awareness of sex and gender differences
– Age 8: Belief that their biological sex is a permanent trait
– Increase of awareness of sex differences, preferences for
same-sex playmates and stereotypical gender activities
from age 2 to age 8

Theories of Gender Differences
Psychoanalytical Theory
• Phallic stage: Freud’s third stage of
development, when the penis becomes the
focus of concern and pleasure.
• Oedipus complex: The unconscious desire of
young boys to replace their fathers and win their
mothers’ exclusive love.
• Superego: In psychoanalytic theory, the
judgmental part of the personality that
internalizes the moral standards of the parents.

• Electra complex: The unconscious desire
of girls to replace their mothers and win
their fathers’ exclusive love.

• Identification: An attempt to defend one’s
self-concept by taking on the behaviors
and attitudes of someone else.

Behaviorism
• Gender differences are the product of
ongoing reinforcement and punishment
– "Gender-appropriate" is rewarded more
frequently than "gender-inappropriate"
behavior
• Social learning theory: Children notice
the ways men and women behave and
internalize the standards they observe

Cognitive Theory

• Gender schema: A child’s cognitive
concept or general belief about sex
differences, which is based on his or her
observations and experiences.
– Young children categorize themselves and
everyone else as either male or female, and
then they think and behave accordingly.

Systems Theory

• Offers the most complex and
comprehensive explanations for gender
differences.
– Genes and culture, parents and peers, ideas
and customs all interact, affecting each child.

Androgyny
• Androgyny: A balance within one person
of traditionally masculine and feminine
psychological characteristics.

Ch06

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Editor's Notes