1. The Development of Children, Seventh Edition
Cynthia Lightfoot,
Michael Cole,
and Sheila R. Cole
Chapter 9:
Social and Emotional Development in Early Childhood

2. Chapter Overview Identity Development A New Moral World
Developing Self-Regulation
Understanding Aggression
Developing Prosocial Behaviors
Taking One’s Place in the Social Group

3. Social and Emotional Development
Two Paths:
Socialization
Personality Formation

4. Social and Emotional Development
Socialization:
The process by which children acquire the standards, values, and knowledge of their society.
Personality Formation:
The process through which children develop their own unique patterns of feeling, thinking, and behaving in a wide variety of situations.

5. I. Identity Development
Identification:
A psychological process in which children try to look, act, feel, and be like significant people in their social environment.
Includes acquisition of sex-role and ethnic identities

6. Sex-Role Identity Psychodynamic View Social Learning View
Cognitive-Development View
Gender Schema View
Cultural View

7. Psychodynamic View Sigmund Freud
Still influential, even though not always substantiated by evidence
Assumes young children are caught in hidden conflicts between their fears and desires.

8. Psychodynamic View Phallic Stage:
The period around the fourth year when children begin to regard their own genitals as a major source of pleasure.

9. Phallic Stage Mental conflicts with same-sex parent Oedipus complex
Electra complex

10. Social Learning View Emphasizes two processes: Modeling
The process by which children observe and imitate individuals of their own sex.
Differential Reinforcement
The process by which girls and boys are differently rewarded for engaging in gender-appropriate behavior.

11. Cognitive-Development View
Central Idea:
A child’s own conceptions are central to the formation of sex-role identity.
Jean Piaget
Lawrence Kohlberg
Three Stages

12. Kohlberg’s Three Stages
Basic Sex-Role Identity:
- Labeling oneself as a boy or girl
Sex-Role Stability:
- Understanding the stability of sex roles over time
Sex-Role Constancy:
- Understanding their sex remains the same no matter what the situation

13. Gender Schema View
Includes features of both social learning and cognitive-developmental theories.
Gender Schema:
A mental model containing with information about males and females that are used to process gender-relevant information.

14. How Gender Schemas Work

15. Cultural View Cultural gender categories mediate Methods of mediation
Children’s organization of activities
Way children relate to environment
Methods of mediation
Content
Which behaviors specifically male or female
Extent of rigidness of gender categories

16. Ethnic Identity Ethnic identity:
A sense of belonging to an ethnic group, and the feelings and attitudes that accompany the sense of group membership.
Parents can communicate different sorts of ethnicity-related messages

17. Personal Identity Personal identity:
I-self: A person’s subjective sense of being a particular individual who exists over time and who acts and experiences the world in a particular way
Me-self: A person’s sense of his or her objective characteristics such as appearance and abilities that can be objectively known

18. Personal Identity Cognitive limitations in young children:
Focus on the objective self
Disconnected
Unrealistically positive
Fluid and disjointed

19. I. Apply – Connect – Discuss
Visit a major toy store and look for evidence of social categories of gender and ethnicity.
What sorts of toys are marketed for boys, girls, or children of specific ethnic backgrounds?
How might these toys mediate children’s behavior?

20. Apply – Connect – Discuss
Visit the children’s section of a public library and look for similar evidence of social categories in books appropriate for 3- to 5-year-olds (you might enlist the help of the librarian).
What similarities and differences do you note between books and toys?

21. II. A New Moral World Three perspectives Psychodynamic View
Cognitive-Development View
Social Domain View

22. Psychodynamic View Sigmund Freud Source of moral sense:
Internalization of the moral standards of our parents (especially same-sex parent)
Personality Mental Structure Id
Ego
Superego

23. Cognitive-Development View
Jean Piaget
Heteronomous morality
Early childhood
External authority
Objective consequences
In middle childhood:
Autonomous morality
Freely chosen morals

24. Social Domain View Emphasizes different type of right and wrong
Social domain theory
Moral rules
Social conventions
Personal sphere rules
Cultural variations

25. II. Apply – Connect – Discuss
Erikson believed that identity development and moral development are closely related.
Using material presented in this chapter, pull together evidence for his argument.

26. III. Developing Self-Regulation
The ability to control one’s thoughts, behaviors, and emotions.

27. Self-Regulation and Play
Importance of play
Vygotsky
Sociodramatic play

28. Regulating Emotions Controlling feelings
Controlling and understanding emotion expressions
The influence of culture

29. III. Apply – Connect – Discuss
We argued in Chapter 6 that one of the earliest purposes of emotion regulation was to maintain intersubjectivity.
Review pages and discuss the similarities and differences between infancy and early childhood in the purposes and consequences of emotion regulation.

30. IV. Understanding Aggression
Two main categories of aggression:
Hostile aggression:
intended to hurt someone in some way
Instrumental aggression:
intended to achieve a particular goal

31. Forms of Aggression Physical aggression Teasing Relational aggression
By age 2, more likely to tease siblings than hurt them physically
Relational aggression

32. Gender Differences Boys: Girls
More often use direct, physical aggression
Girls
Use more relational aggression:
Indirect aggression aimed at excluding a child or harming their friendships

33. Causes of Aggression Biological contributions
Social and cultural contributions
Emotional and cognitive contributions

34. Biological Contributions
Evolutionary Factors
Competition for resources
Development of dominance hierarchies
Physiological Factors
Testosterone

35. Social and Cultural Contribution
Imitation of others
Rewarded for behaving aggressively
Influence of parents
Cross-cultural studies
The work of Douglas Fry

36. Emotional and Cognitive Contribution
Focus more on how children think and feel
Emotional reactions to events and emotion regulation depend on:
Interpretation of the social context
Ability to understand others’ emotions and intentions

37. IV. Apply – Connect – Discuss
Based on evidence presented in this section, design an activity for preschoolers that might reduce their aggressive behavior.

38. V. Developing Prosocial Behaviors
Voluntary actions intended to benefit others, such as sharing, helping, caregiving, and showing compassion.

39. Empathy Empathy: Relationship to egocentrism
The sharing of another person’s emotions and feelings.
Relationship to egocentrism

40. Sympathy Sympathy: Personal Distress:
Feelings of sorrow or concern for another.
More likely to lead to prosocial behavior
Personal Distress:
A self-focused emotional reaction to another person’s distress.

41. V. Apply – Connect – Discuss
From a Vygotskian perspective, what might account for whether children react to someone’s distress with their own personal distress or with sympathy?

42. VI. Taking One’s Place in the Social Group
Increasing abilities:
understanding others’ mental states
regulating social relations
individual ways of thinking and feeling