Lecture 1 - Social Development

Question 1

What is social development?

Answer 1

A description of children’s social behaviour, ideas about themselves and others, their relationships with others as well as their ability to function in social groups. It traces continuities and discontinuities in children’s social behaviour, relationships and ideas as they get older

Question 2

What is the biological vs environmental debate in psychology?

Answer 2

Nature vs Nurture

Question 3

Some evidence from the nature side of the debate comes from twin studies. What did Robinson et al (1992) observe in their twin study?

Answer 3

They observed inhibited-uninhibited behaviour in 160+ MZ and DZ twins at 14, 20 and 24 months

Question 4

What did Robinson et al (1992) find in their twin study?

Answer 4

They found that the heritability of inhibited behaviour was 0.35-0.71 at 14 months, which declined to 0.22-0.62 at 20 months

Question 5

What does Robinson et al’s (1992) study suggest?

Answer 5

It suggests that biological similarities in behaviour between twins declines as the children get older due to environmental influences

Question 6

What does temperament mean?

Answer 6

An individual’s typical mode of response including activity level, emotional intensity and attention span

Question 7

What does heritability mean?

Answer 7

Heritability is a statistical estimate of the genetic portion of observed variation in some specific trait, expressed as a percentage

Question 8

Identify one reason why social development is universal across cultures?

Answer 8

There are culture-free laws of development

Question 9

Identify one reason why social development is not universal across cultures

Answer 9

There is cultural variation in patterns of social behaviour and socialisation

Question 10

What cross-cultural evidence does Chen et al (1998) present that shows social development varies?

Answer 10

Chen found that Chinese toddlers showed more inhibition than age-matched Canadian toddlers

Question 11

Why did Chen find differences between Chinese and Canadian toddlers?

Answer 11

Chinese and Canadian mothers differed in their parenting attitudes towards inhibition. The Chinese sample were controlling and punitive whereas the Canadian sample encouraged and viewed their children as socially competent

Question 12

What is multifinality?

Answer 12

The divergence of developmental paths in which two individuals start out similarly but end at very different points

Question 13

What is equifinality?

Answer 13

The convergence of developmental paths in which children follow very different paths to reach the same developmental end point

Question 14

What is inhibited behaviour?

Answer 14

Socially reserved, fearful and easily upset

Question 15

What can cause changes in the functioning of children’s brains?

Answer 15

Child abuse

Question 16

What does Rothbart (2011) believe is the root of children’s sociability with peers?

Answer 16

Both their early temperamental characteristics (biology) and their early experiences with the family (environment)

Question 17

What role do early scholars suggest children play in their own development?

Answer 17

They believed that children were passive organisms who were shaped by external forces

Question 18

What do current developmental psychologists believe about the role children play in their own development?

Answer 18

They believe that children are active agents who shape, control and direct the course of their own development

Question 19

What does the case of Genie show?

Answer 19

There are critical or sensitive periods in early life which can be severely disrupted if there is a lack of sensory and social stimulation

Question 20

What is the social dyad?

Answer 20

The nature of social interactions and exchanges between pairs of children or between children and their parents and the investigation of these relationships

Question 21

Some children show sleeper effects. What are they?

Answer 21

They seem to cope well initially but exhibit problems later in life

Question 22

Some children exhibit resilience. What does this show?

Answer 22

They have been inoculated by their earlier experiences and have learned from them and adapted

Question 23

What are the two types of development?

Answer 23

Continuous and discontinuous

Question 24

What is continuous development?

Answer 24

Where each change builds on earlier experiences in an orderly way

Question 25

What is discontinuous development?

Answer 25

A series of discrete steps where the organisation of behaviour is qualitatively different from those of every other phase

Question 26

What influences how we judge children’s social behaviour?

Answer 26

The characteristics of the child, the adult, the context and the culture

Question 27

What is Freud’s psychodynamic theory?

Answer 27

Psychological growth is governed by unconscious biologically based drives and instincts and the developing personality consists of the id, the ego and the superego

Question 28

What is the id in Freud’s psychodynamic theory?

Answer 28

The id operates on the principles of pleasure

Question 29

What is the ego in Freud’s psychodynamic theory?

Answer 29

The ego operates on rationale and attempts to gratify needs through socially constructive behaviour

Question 30

What is the superego in Freud’s psychodynamic theory?

Answer 30

The superego appears when the child internalises and accepts parental and societal norms and values and develops a conscience

Question 31

What is Erikson’s psychosocial theory?

Answer 31

He holds a similar view to Freud in that development is discontinuous and proceeds through a series of stages at which specific personal and social tasks must be accomplished

Question 32

What does the classical and operant conditioning approach focus on?

Answer 32

The role of learning in development

Question 33

What is Hull’s drive reduction theory of development?

Answer 33

The association of stimulus and response only results in learning if it is accompanied by drive reduction

Question 34

What is Bandura’s cognitive social learning theory of development?

Answer 34

Children learn social behaviours through observing and imitating those behaviours

Question 35

What is Bandura’s reciprocal determination theory?

Answer 35

Children’s actions produce responses from other people, leading to changes in the social environment and changes in the child

Question 36

What is Brofenbenner’s ecological theory?

Answer 36

It focuses on the multiple systems in which children are embedded and how these systems link and it stresses the importance of both the relations between the child and these systems and the relations among the systems themselves

Question 37

What are the four systems in Brofenbenner’s ecological theory?

Answer 37

Microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem and macrosystem

Question 38

What is the microsystem in Brofenbenner’s ecological theory?

Answer 38

The system in which a child interacts directly with people and institutions

Question 39

What is the mesosystem in Brofenbenner’s ecological theory?

Answer 39

Consists of the interrelations between the components of the microsystem e.g. Parents and teachers, parents and peers and family members and religious institutions

Question 40

What is the exosystem in Brofenbenner’s ecological theory?

Answer 40

Composed of settings that impinge on a child’s development but with which the child has largely indirect contact

Question 41

What is the macrosystem in Brofenbenner’s ecological theory?

Answer 41

It represents the ideological and institutional patterns of a particular culture or subculture

Question 42

What is the information processing theory?

Answer 42

It uses computer processing as a metaphor for the way people input information, change it into a mental representation, store it , make decisions about the most appropriate actions and then act on them

Question 43

According to Piaget’s cognitive development theory, how do children use knowledge?

Answer 43

Children use their current knowledge as a framework for absorption or assimilation of new experiences and they modify their existing knowledge through the process of accommodation of their mental structures

Question 44

What is Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory?

Answer 44

It proposes that cultures vary in the settings and practices they involve which facilitate children’s development and children also learn about their culture from experienced members of the culture. It is a product of social interaction

Question 45

What is Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development?

Answer 45

He defines it at the difference between children’s level of performance working alone and their level of performance working with an experienced other/role model

Question 46

What are the two major biological theories of development?

Answer 46

Ethological theory and evolutionary development theory

Question 47

What is the ethological theory?

Answer 47

It is based on the belief that to understand behaviour, scientists must view it as occurring in a particular setting and as having adaptive or survival value and must study it in relation to the organisms biology and ecosystem

Question 48

What is the the evolutionary developmental theory?

Answer 48

It proposes that there are processes that are instrumental to human functioning and to social development that ensure the survival of our species