Culture & Developmental Processes Flashcards
Temperament
biological based cycle of interacting with world that exists from birth.
Thomas & Chess temperaments
Easy temperament - adaptable, mild, positive, responsive.
Difficult temperament - intense, irregular, withdrawing style, negative mood.
Slow-to-warm-up - needs time to make transitions
temperament affects the way…
children response to their environment
Dimensions of temperament
Activity level
Smiling and laughter
Fear (Behavioural Inhibition)
Distress to limitations
Soothability
Duration of orienting
Behavioural inhibition
the consistent tendency of some children to demonstrate fear and withdrawal in novel situations.
Attachment
special bond developed between infant and primary caregiver.
Attachment provides child with emotional security.
Once attached, babies are distressed by separation from caregiver – evident 7-9 months of age.
Quality of attachment has lifelong effects on relationships with loved ones.
Bowlby and Ainsworth’s Classification system of attachment
Tripartite Classification System
Secure: infant distressed when mother leaves but easily comforted when she returns.
Ambivalent: infant is distressed when mother leaves but sends mixed signals upon return.
Avoidant: not distressed when mother leaves and upon return, avoid sreuniting with mother.
Bowlby’s Theory of Attachment
Infants must have a preprogrammed, biological basis for becoming attached to their caregivers.
Smiling and cooing elicits physical attachment behaviours on part of caregiver.
Attachment relationship between caregiver and child is survival strategy.
Cross-Cultural Studies on Attachment
Meaning of separation may differ across cultures.
Researchers have questioned appropriateness of different categories of attachment.
Attachment outcomes.
Maternal sensitivity hasn’t been consistently linked to secure attachment.
Is Secure Attachment a Universal Ideal?
Attachment between infant and caregivers is universal phenomenon.
Attachment relationships in childhood may have long-term consequences into adolescence and adulthood.
Early attachment relationships affect quality of peer relationships, ability to develop intimate adult relationships and how one parents.
Cultures may differ in notion of “ideal” attachment.
Adaptive vs maladaptive instead of secure and insecure
Piaget’s Theory
Sensorimotor stage (birth-2yrs) - Children understand by perceiving and doing.
Preoperational stage (2-6 or 7 yrs) - Conservation, centration, irreversibility, egocentrism, and animism.
Concrete operations stage (6 or 7 to 11 yrs) - Thinking skills to work with actual objects and events.
Formal operations stage (11 yrs through adulthood) - Think logically about abstract concepts.
Piaget’s Theory in Cross-Cultural Perspective
Piaget’s stages occur in same fixed order in other cultures.
Variations in ages at which children in different societies reach third and fourth Piagetian stages.
Considerable variation in order in which children acquire specific skills within Piaget’s stages.
Different societies value and reward different skills and behaviours.
Moral Reasoning
Moral principles and ethics provide guidelines for people’s behaviours with regard to what is appropriate and what is not.
Morality is heavily influenced by underlying, subject, and implicit culture.
Morality serves as basis of laws, and thus culture also affects laws of society.
Types of rules children as young as three can differentiate:
Moral: applies to everyone; cannot be chaged; based on values.
Conventional: applies to certain groups; changeable; based on agreed-upon norms.
Personal: applies to individuals; changeable; based on preferences of specific person.
Kohlberg’s Theory of Morality
Preconventional morality: compliance with rules to avoid punishment and gain rewards.
Conventional morality: conformity to rules defined by others’ approval or society’s rules.
Postconventional morality: moral reasoning on basis of individual principles and conscience.
