DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY|

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Late Childhood: Advances in
Cognitive and Moral
Development
evelopmental Psychology
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An important feature of the elementary school years is a

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marked growth in children’s cognitive sophistication. During
this time, which Piaget calls the period of concrete operations,

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children achieve mastery of conservation problems. They

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become capable of decentering, attending transformations,
and recognizing the reversibility of operations.

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Considering controversy exist about whether the

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development of conservation can be accelerated through

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training procedures.

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Although all children tend to pass through the same

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sequence of cognitive stages outlined by Piaget, they
differ in cognitive style. Some children are impulsive and
respond to problems very rapidly and with minimum

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consideration for accuracy; others are reflective and take

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considerably more time in responding Children differ in

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still another dimension of cognitive style, that of field

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independence and field dependence.

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The greatest increase in children’s ability to

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distinguish people’s characteristics occurs between 7

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and 8 years of age. Thereafter, the rate of change is

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generally much slower.

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Cognitive factors play an important part in influencing

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children’s understanding of emotion. Children increasingly
attribute emotional arousal to internal causes; they come to

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know the social rule governing the display of emotion; they

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learn to “read” facial expression with greater precision; they
better understand that emotional states can be mentally

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redirected; and they realize that people can simultaneously

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experience multiple emotions.

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There are three major psychological approaches to

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moral development: the psychoanalytic, cognitive

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learning, and cognitive developmental theories.

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The psychoanalytic view conceives of the child as a bundle
of sexual and aggressive drives that need to be subordinated
by adults to societal objectives. As a consequence of
internalizing parental standards, children behave morally so
as to avoid self-punishment, anxiety, and guilt.
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DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY|
DEPARTMENT CEBUCEBU
OF PSYCHOLOGY| NORMAL UNIVERSITY
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Research reveals that morality tends to be specific to

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situations and not in others. Little support exists for

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the notion of a unitary conscience or superego. Some

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individuals tend to be more consistently dishonest.
But inconsistency is the more dominant tendency.

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Intelligence, age, and sex differences play a

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small part in moral conduct. Group codes and

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motivational factors have a much larger role.

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Moral development represents more than simply learning

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prohibitions against misbehavior. It also involves acquiring

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prosocial behaviors. Not surprisingly, research reveals that

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adult’s action speak louder than their words and that adult
hypocrisy may boomerang.

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Peer group provide children with situations in which

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they are independent of adult controls, give them

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experience in egalitarian relationships, furnish them

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with status in a realm where their own interest reign
supreme, and transmit informal knowledge.

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Elementary school children arrange themselves in hierarchies

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with regard to various standards, including physical

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attractiveness, body build, and behavioral characteristics.

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Sex cleavage reaches its peak at about the fifth-grade level.
Although same-sex friendships predominate during the
elementary school years, children show a steady and
progressive development of cross- sex interests as they
advance toward puberty.
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Children’s self-conceptions tend to emerge from the feedback that others

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provide regarding their desirability, worth, and status. But children are
not simply passive beings who mirror other people’s attitudes toward

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them. Through their interactions with others and through the effects they

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produce on their material environment, they derive a sense of their
energy, skill, and industry.

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Over the elementary school years conformity tends to increase
with age in situations in which children are confronted with
highly ambiguous tasks. But where the tasks are
unambiguous, conformity tends to decline with age.
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Children develop racial awareness between 3 and 5

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years of age. However, whether children, especially

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younger school children, show coherent, consistent

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prejudice is doubtful.

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Schools teach specific cognitive skills, generally skills associated

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with effective participation in classroom setting, and the society’s
dominant cultural goals and values. They also function as a

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“mobility escalator” for able a students to rise in status, and they

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attempt to overcome gross deficits in individual children that
interfere with the children’s effective social participation

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Although not all schools are effective, capable teachers can make a
difference. Furthermore, effective schools differ from ineffective
ones in important ways. Perhaps the most important elements is the
climate of the school. Successful schools foster expectations that
women will prevail and that learning is a serious matter.
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Motivation influences the rate of student learning the retention of

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the information and performance. Ideally, motivation comes from
within-intrinsic motivation. Peoples perceptions of the factors that

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produce given outcomes are also important: 1) luck, 2) ability, 3)

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effort and the difficulty of task in addition, attributes of causality
are influences by locus of control.

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Overall, the tighter the social class of children’s families, the
highest their academic achievement as likely to be. A number
of hypotheses have been advanced to explain this fact.
Including the middle-class bias of schools, such as cultural
differences and educational self-fulling prophecies.
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A. Education self-fulfilling prophecies or teacher expectation

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effects
⁃ teachers do not believe they will learn

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⁃ do not expect that they can learn

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⁃ Do not act toward them in ways that will help them to learn

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B. The greater will be the no. of formal grades the children complete

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⁃ the greater will be their participations in extra curricular

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activities

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⁃ the higher will be their scores on various academic
achievements tests
⁃ the tower will be their rates of failure, truancy, suspensions and
premature dropping out of school.
⁃ enter school already exposed to and possession a variety of skills