Chapter 8: Emotional and Social Development in Early Childhood

Introduction

During early childhood, (ages 2 to 6), children develop:

- A confident self-image
- More effective emotion control
- New social skills
- The foundations of morality
- A clear sense of gender identity

Erikson’s Theory: Initiative vs. Guilt

Initiative :

- Eagerness to try new tasks, join activities with peers

- Trying out new skills through play
- Acting out family scenes and highly visible occupations

Guilt

- Overly strict superego, or conscience, leading to too much guilt

- Related to excessive threats, criticism,

Researchers see Some guilt and feeling guilt is actually good

When parents talk to children about what they are doing and using a guilt approach can be really good
for them

Self- Concept

Self concept is based on observable characteristics

- Appearance
- Possessions
- Everyday behaviors

By age 3 1/2, self concept includes typical emotions and attitudes

Warm, sensitive parent child relationship fosters more positive, coherent self concept

Elaborative reminiscing that focuses on childrens internal states is especillay important

Many times children make statements is based on what there parents thoughts are

Cultural Variations in Personal Storytelling

The better parents label emotions, and explain emotions, and socially right ways to express emotions,
the better children can develop emotional things of their own and others.

Self Esteem

Self judgments and associated feelings

Influences

- Emotional experiences
- Future behavior
- Long term psychological adjustment

In early childhood 3,4,5-year-old will have self judgements already but won’t combine it into a global
scene until they are older

High self esteem contributes to high initiative in preschoolers

If parent is praising the child right they feel more comfortable doing things

Children who are told they are smart, and they fail it makes them to feel not smart

Emotional Competence

Improvements in:

- Emotional understanding
- Emotional self-regulation

Increases in

- Self-conscious emotions
- Empathy

Vital for successful peer relationships and overall mental health

Emotional Understanding

Preschoolers correctly judge:

- Causes of emotions
- Consequences of emotions
- Behavioral signs of emotions

Challenged by situations offering conflicting emotional cues from others

Parents can help by discussing child’s emotional experiences and validating feelings

Preschoolers who refer to feelings when interacting with playmates are better liked by peers

Looking at someone’s face is helpful in emotional understanding***

When asked for children to look at scene to get info to remember scene…. They were looking
everywhere but the faces of the people.

Children with autism have difficult time perceiving others emotions

Emotional Self- Regulation

By ages 3 to 4, can verbalize strategies for alleviating negative emotion

Aided by:
 - Language development
- Understanding of emotions’ causes and consequences
- Gains in executive function
- Watching parents express and manage emotions
- Adult-child conversation that prepare child for difficult situations

Inhibitory control good for regulating emotions

Temperament plays a role

Self- Conscious Emotions

Include shame, embarrassment, guilt, pride

Increasingly sensitive to praise and blame as self concept develops:

- Intense shame is linked to maladjustment

- Appropriate, moderate guilt supports good adjustment

Supportive parents focus on improving performance

Vary across cultures

Cog Dev and Emotional Understanding

As preschoolers age, they

- Are able to judge causes and consequences of emotions

- Can infer how others are feeling based on their behavior
- Come up with effective ways to relieve others’ negative emotions

Make believe play really contributes to the development of this

If u give a child a picture and in the picture their a child whose happy and sitting next to something that
is broken. The child will focus on facial expressions in the picture to talk about whats going on in the
picture

Gender Stereotyped Beliefs and Behaviors

From an early age, children view gender in terms of activities and behaviors

Preschoolers associate common objects, occupations, colors, and behaviors with gender

Gender stereotyped beliefs influence paly preferences and personality traits

Gender stereotyped beliefs strengthen in early childhood as a product of

- Gender stereotyping in the environment

- Young children’s cognitive limitations

Infants categorize in first year of life

Influences on gender typing: biological and environmental

Biological:
 - Evolutionary adaptiveness and female traits
- Effects of prenatal hormones

Research on hormones indicate that boys and girls exposed to diff hormones and as a result,that
preschoolers tend to be driven by same sex parents

Environmental:

- Family: expectations of sons vs daughters

- Teachers: actions that extend gender role learning
- Peers: reinforcement for gender typed play
- Broader social environment

For boys they talk about them educationally, and competition wise

For girls parents talk about being polite, being closely watched

Mother- child conversations

Research shows on average mothers often affirm gender stereotypes voiced by children and call
attention to gender unnecessarily

To combat stereotypical thinking parents can

- Refrain from labeling gender unnecessarily

- Substitute references to individuals or qualifies statements for generic expressions
- Monitor their inclination to affirm chi

Boys tend to more gender typed than girls

Parents have children that are less gendered type

When looking at children of gay and lesbian : their kids are led gendered type

On average, Kids in preschools who like both feminine and masculine traits equally they tend to have
higher self esteem

Gelman et.al

School

- Teachers often act in ways that extend gender role learning

- Preschoolers tend to play with same sec partners, the more they do so, the more their behavior
becomes gender typed in toys, activity level, aggression and so forth
- Gender segregated peer groups: communicate differently within group
- Cultural variations exist in the extent of gender typed communications within gender segregated
groups
- Using a gender biased lens can restrict a childs interest in learning opportunities

Transgender Children

Gender dysphoria : dissatisfaction with natal sex and strong identification with natal sex and strong
identification as the other sex, yielding high distress
 - Affects 1.5% of natal boys and 2% of natal girls
- Emerges in early childhood; deepens in adolescence

Usually persists for children who:

- Are severely troubled by this mismatch

- Insist they are the other gender
- Engage in high levels of other gender behavior

Parenting a gender non-conforming child – michel yulo--- ted talk on u tube

Theories of Gender Identity in Early Years

Social Learning Theory- gender typed behavior leads to gender identity

Cognitive- developmental theory= self-perceptions (gender constancy) come before behavior

- Preschoolers acquire gender constancy—gender remains constant—its lifelong—used to guide

gender related behavior
- Attaining idea of gender constancy contributes to more flexible gender role attitudes.

Gender schema theory= combines social learning and cognitive developmental features

- More widely used theory bc its combining social learning and cognitive development theory
- How kids are picking up on gender type behaviors from others
- From categories their building their able to interpret their world
- Gender asemantic- not thinking about gender

Ideas for reducing gender stereotyping

- Delay preschoolers’ exposure to gender stereotyped messages

- Model nontraditional gender roles and provide nontraditional alternatives
- Ensure that kids spend time in mixed gender activities
- Point out expectations to gender stereotypes
- But does this work? What about race?
- Modeling is important in gender stereotyping ex. she gave fixing things in front of her sons, that
not only men fixes things

Moving On

Empathy:

- Feeling same or similar emotions as another person

- Motivates prosocial, or altruistic, behavior
- For some children, prompts self focused distress
- Empathizing doesn’t always lead to sympathy
- Kids who are better who good at regulating emotions, sociability, they more likely to
help/comfort other kids.
- Kids parent child relationship that’s anger, mad… can hurt the way the child reacts to things

Sympathy

- Feeling concern or sorrow for another’s plight

Common fears:

- Monsters
- Ghosts
- Darkness
- Preschool/ child care
- Animals
- Phobias (intense fears) in a few kids

Peer Sociability during play

Nonsocial activity= unoccupied, onlooker behavior or solitary play

- Tends to decline in early childhood

- 3-4 most frequent type of play

Parallel play= playing near other kids with similar toys, w/out trying to influence them

Associative play= engaging in separate activities, but exchanging toys and comments

Cooperative play= working toward a common goal (as in make believe play)

These types of plays coexist in early childhood

Kids can learn from independent engagements without working with their plays

If kids engaging in nonsocial repetitive play- indicating something going on like autism or a
developmental disorder

Preschoolers who are not showing they are engaged in cooperative play but engage in nonsocial play---
that’s indicating that something might be going on

Follow up research on play

Nonsocial activity that leads to ostracism by peers:

- Hovering, aimless wandering, and repetitive motor actions

- Signs of poor temperament and emotion regulation

Sociodramatic play helps children:

- Understand others feelings and regulate their own

- Negotiate roles and rules; compromise

Gender preferences in cooperative play

- Girls: sociodramatic play

Punishment in Early Childhood

Discipline heavy in threats and punishment:

- Does not produce lasting changes in behavior

- When harsh, causes many neg. side effects
Alternatives to harsh punishment:

- Time out
- Withdrawal of privileges

Effective mild punishment involves:

- Consistency
- Warm parent child relationship
- Explanations

Figure 8.1 Prevalence of corporal punishment in early and middle childhood by year of survey

- Not a big difference

- As kids get older spanking tends to decline
- Intergenerational transmission of

Ethnic Differences in the consequences of physical punishment

If youre going to use corporal punishment an open hand on the bottom aka butt (no belts, tools) and
followed immediately about an explanation on why it was used and used sparingly

Children view physical discipline as in their best interests when:

- Form of discipline is culturally approved

- Mild and delivered in context of parental warmth
- Accompanied by verbal teaching

Worst outcome= where using corporal punishment is disapproved this is where kids

- If that form of discipline is normally approved and approved with parental support u don’t see
that many detrimental outcome
- Cant say all spanking is bad

Linked to rise in behavior problems when parents:

- Consider

Positive Parenting

- Use transgressions as teaching opportunities

- Reduce opportunities for misbehavior
- Provide reasons for rules
- Encourage participation in family duties and routines
- Try compromising and problem solving
- Praise mature behavior

Doll experiment (bandure)—u tube video

Follow up studies – and undergrads were asked to rate the kids behaviors and how undergrads rated the
children as non aggressive and said they were just playing

Types of Aggression
Proactive (instrumental)

- To fulfill a need or desire

- Self- initiated

Reactive (hostile)

- Meant to hurt someone

- Defensive response to provocation
- Becomes a prob when its not met with explanation

Forms of Aggression

Physical (direct or indirect)

- Physical injury
- Property damage

Verbal ( always direct)

- Threats of physical aggression

- Name calling
- Hostile teasing

Relational (direct or indirect)

- Social exclusion

Researchers find less stability in physical aggression across preschooler years, instead of relational
aggression

Relational aggression was increasing when children went to kindergarten

And physical aggression was decreasing

Kindergarten was centered around activities therefore more time to spend with relational aggression

Kids who were physical aggressive predicted conflict for kids and their teachers in kindergarten.. it
disrupted teacher-child relationship which makes academic achievement worse

Sources influencing aggression

Individual differences:

Sex and gender: hormones and gender role conformity

Temperament and self-related self regulating skills

Family

Media violence

Media Violence

TV violence increases:
 - Hostile thoughts and emotions
- Aggressive behavior that can last into adulthood

Young kids especially likely to imitate TV violence

Violent video and computer games have similar effects

Figure 8.2 relationshop of TV viewing in childhood and early adolescence to aggressive acts in
adolescence and early adulthood

- Children learning about violence and video games from books as well

Prosocial books and tv

Researchers found the more ppl watch Arthur the more physically and aggressively behaved

Helping Children control aggression

Treatment best begun early

Promoting effective ways of relating to other

- Perspective taking
- Conflict resolution

Parent/family supports:

- Training in positive parenting techniques

- Relieving family stressors
- Social supports for families

James garbarino discusses causes of aggression in boys and girls—utube video