Chapter 8: Influences on cognitive and social development - Role of peers and play HL

Question 1

Infancy (0-2 years)

Answer 1

• First form of peer interaction: contagious crying.
• Children begin interacting with objects and peers, and the first forms of conflict usually have to do with the possession of toys.
• Prosocial behaviors such as sharing, helping, and comforting have been observed in 1-year-olds.
• For infants to interact with peers successfully, they must have developed the ability to coordinate their attention with others (joint attention) and be able to control their actions, preventing conflict with peers (inhibitory control).
• There are individual differences among children in terms of complexity of peer interaction – some are better at interacting as they have more experience with interpersonal interaction with family members.

Question 2

Pre-school age (2-6)

Answer 2

• Children begin to form groups, and rather than simple object manipulation, they start to pretend play.
• Friendships are formed, and group structures emerge. This opens up for peer rejection, which has been shown to be a risk factor in the development of many disorders later in life.
• Play shifts from objects to actions and the non-literal meaning behind actions becomes apparent. The children assign social roles when playing.

Question 3

Middle to late childhoos (6-12 years)

Answer 3

• Cooroporative play with rules emerges (these games require more collaboration), and spontaneous and fantasy playing declines.
• It is no longer join actions, objects, or play that create friendships, but rather mutual emotions.
• Social structures become more complex, and with it, the leader position emerges. This creates even more peer rejection (children are very vulnerable to rejection in this age group).

Question 4

Adolescence (12-18)

Answer 4

• Amount of time spent with peers increases.
• Adolescents recognize an obligation to give friends a degree of independence, which reduces jealousy over friends.
• Cliques (a group of individuals with similar interests who interact with one another) form. Adolescents may be part of multiple cliques, and the number of interactions with strangers increases.

Question 5

Stages of play

Answer 5

1: Play starts as object manipulation, where children do not consider the meaning behind objects.
2: Pretend play starts, and social roles become the focus where the meaning behind objects are important.
3: Play with rules develops. Social roles and object properties are now givens, and so the focus is on rules. Children imitate the real world.

Question 6

Howes and Phillipsen (1998)

Answer 6

Eight-year longitudinal study. Showed that toddlers who engage in more complex play with peers become more prosocial and less aggressive or withdrawn in their behavior.

Question 7

Howes (1992)

Answer 7

Describes the gradual unfolding of pretend play from 16 months to 3 years. First, pretend play are routines with little meaning, where the action is the center of attention. From 16-20 months pretend play increases. 25-30 months old, scripted join play emerges, and the meaning behind actions become important.

Question 8

Csikzentmihalyi and Larson (1984)

Answer 8

Used experience sampling method to establish that high school students usually spend 29% of their time with peers (excluding class time) and only 13% with their parents.

Question 9

Shrum and Cheek (1987)

Answer 9

Used sociomotry to analyze clique structure of a large school. They found a decline in definite clique membership from age 11-18, but also an increase in students who were members of multiple cliques. This suggests that it is just as important to meet new peers and groups.

Question 10

Piaget (1932)

Answer 10

Proposed that in the process of interaction peers develop a perspective-taking approach, and that if perspectives on a certain problem differ, children try to solve the discrepancy. Children may then develop new cognitive strategies as a result of discussion with peers.

Question 11

Vygotsky (1978)

Answer 11

as opposed to Piaget, emphasized the importance of hierarchical interactions where one child assumes a leading role, and that this leads to better decision-making.

Question 12

Damon and Killen (1982)

Answer 12

studies moral development. Structured interview where children were presented a set of ethical dilemmas which they had to solve, having to justify their decisions. Found that children who engaged in peer discussions were more likely to advance in their moral reasoning than children who discussed the same problem with an adult.

Question 13

Nedospasova (1985)

Answer 13

-aim:
+investigate whether play can speed up overcoming cognitive ego-centrism in kids
-procedure:
+kids 5-7
+children who didn’t pass test in Piaget were presented 3 dolls and told they were all brothers
+had to identify with one and name it and was asked how many brothers it had
+another doll was chosen and child had to answer how many brothers; cognitively egocentric children would say 1
+child prompted til chose right answer
-results:
+much more likely to pass Piaget after this study with little to no help
-conclusion:
+results supported Vygotsky’s view that cognitive development in kids driven by interaction

Question 14

Sylva, Bruner and Genova (1976)

Answer 14

demonstrated the role of object manipulation in the process of play. Pre-school children had to solve tasks, e.g. retrieving food that is too far away, where they needed to connect two sticks and a clamp to reach it. Split into 5 groups:
1: watched an adult join two sticks with a clamp.
2: made attempts to attach the clamp to a stick.
3: watched an adult solve the problem.
4: could play with the objects outside of the problem’s context.
5: was presented the problem without preparation.
Results showed that 4 did as well as 3 and much better than the rest. This shows how play with objects can help children learn the objects’ properties and functions.

Question 15

Andersen and Kekelis (1986)

Answer 15

conducted a study on blind children. Found that the children learned more from their siblings as opposed to their parents, as the siblings would describe things from a perspective closer to the blind children’s.

Question 16

Manuilenko (1948)

Answer 16

aimed at studying the role of play on the development of social development, specifically self-regulation. There were 3 conditions. Condition 1 involved the child playing the role of a sentry in a game with other children in the room. Condition 2 involved the child playing the same game in a separate room without children. Condition 3 involved the child directly being told to stand still in the presence of other children. They measured how long each of the children in the 3 conditions stayed still.
The amount of time spent standing still in condition 1 was much higher, especially in 4-6 year old children. It was somewhat lower in condition 2, and was much lower in condition 3. Observations also showed that other children often verbally enforced the child’s role by telling them to not move. Both the aspect of it being a game, as well as the presence of other children strengthened the child’s behavior.

Question 17

Suomi and Harlow (1975)

Answer 17

studied the long-term effects of poor peer interaction during childhood in rhesus monkeys. Found that if monkey is raised with enough adult contact but limited peer interaction, it grows up displaying inappropriate sexual and aggressive behavior.

Question 18

Hollos and Cowan (1973)

Answer 18

concluded from a group of Norwegian farm children (isolated farms, where peer interaction was rare) that their social skills were impaired but not cognitive skills. This would suggest that the lack of peer interaction in childhood has detrimental effects on social development but not cognitive.

Question 19

Roff (1963)

Answer 19

looked at military service records for individuals referred to guidance clinics in their childhood, which were analyzed for signs of peer maladjustment. The sample was divided into two groups: those who had received discharge from service for anti-social conduct and those who had exemplary military service records. Results showed that 54% of servicemen discharged had experienced poor peer adjustment in childhood, as compared to only 24% of exemplary servicemen.