Chapter 10.2 Flashcards
Morality Development
Young children shows morally relevant inclinations and behaviors very early —> potential innate moral sense, others require more evidence, social experiences and cognitive factors strongly influence moral development
Conscience begins to take shape in the early childhood –> at first, externally controlled by adults, gradually comes to be regulated by inner standards
The Morality Development Theories
Psychoanalytic, Social Learning Theory, Cognitive Developmental Perspective
Psychoanalytic
NOT SUPPORTED BY RESEARCH
Inductive discipline: adults help children become aware of feelings by pointing out the effects of child’s misbehavior on others
Empathy-based guilt does motivate moral action
Fear of punishment and loss of parental love motivate conscience formation and moral behavior
Social Learning Theory
Parental modeling of moral behavior + reinforcement and praise for child’s moral behavior —-> warmth, competence and power, consistency
Frequent harsh punishment promotes immediate compliance
not lasting changes in behavior
Repeated harsh punishment has undesirable side effects:
The punishment itself models aggression
Children react with anger, resentment, and a chronic sense of being personally threatened
Children develop a conflict-ridden, defiant relationship with the punitive parent
Adults are likely to punish more frequently and harshly over time
Use of corporal punishment may transfer to the next generation
European American
More often used in reaction to challenging behaviors
Parents are highly agitated and rejecting of the child
Cultural view of their harshness as wrong
African-American families
More culturally approved, generally mild
Delivered in context of parental warmth
Verbal teaching
Aimed at helping children become responsible adults
Punishment
Time out and Withdrawal
Time out
removing children from the immediate setting
Parents can increase the effectiveness of punishment in three ways
Consistency
Warm parent-child relationship
Explanations
Positive Parenting Strategies
Use transgressions as opportunities to teach
Reduce opportunities for misbehavior
Provide reasons for rules
Arrange for children to participate in family routines and duties
When children are obstinate, try compromising and problem solving
Encourage mature behavior
Be sensitive to children’s physical and emotional resources
Cognitive Developmental Perspective
Children as active thinkers about social rules
Preschoolers moral reasoning tends to be rigid
Morally relevant social experiences are vital for moral progress in early childhood
Moral imperatives
rules that protect people’s rights and welfare where violations are more wrong and deserving of punishment than other transgressions
Social conventions
customs determined soley by consensus
Matters of personal choice
do not violate rights and are up to the individual
By age 2, aggressive acts have two purposes
Proactive aggression: children act to fulfill a need or desire and unemotionally attack a person to achieve their goal
Reactive aggression: angry, defensive response to provocation or a blocked goal and is meant to hurt another person
Aggression comes in 3 forms
Physical
Verbal
Relational
Physical and relational aggression can be
DIRECT AND INDIRECT
By age 17 months, boys are more physically aggressive than girls
Biology: male sex hormones
Temperament: activity level, irritability, impulsivity
Parental gender-role attitudes
Kids who are emotionally negative, impulsive, defiant and score low in language and executive function skills
–> high rates of physical or relational aggression –> poor outcomes in middle childhood and adolescence
preschool and young school-age children may be especially likely
to imitate screen media violence
Even in nonaggressive children,
media violence sparks hosting thoughts and behavior
Viewers quickly habituate, responding with reduced arousal to the pain and suffering of victims and with greater acceptance of violence when exposed to real-world instances.
Parental behaviors linked to child aggression
Love withdrawal
Power assertion
Physical punishment
Negative comments and emotions
Inconsistency
Relieving stressors that stem from poverty and providing families with social supports helps
prevent childhood aggression
Gender typing
any association of objects, activities, roles, or traits with one sex or the other in ways that conform to cultural stereotypes
Biological influences
Evolutionary adaptiveness of male and female traits
Effects of prenatal hormones
Environmental influences
Family
Teachers
Peers
Broader social environment
Gender identity
an internal and individual experience of gender on a continuum of masculine and feminine
Gender Schema Theory
Explains how environmental pressures and children’s cognitions work together to shape gender-role development
Young children pick up gender-stereotyped preferences and behaviors from others
Gender schemas
masculine and feminine categories used to interpret the world
For a gender schematic child
gender is highly salient in making decisions
Delay
Delay preschoolers’ exposure to gender-stereotyped messages
Model
Model nontraditional gender roles
Provide
Provide children with counterstereotypic behavior alternatives
Ensure
Ensure that children spend time in mixed-gender activities
Point Out
Point out exceptions to gender stereotypes
