Module 7 - Theories of Social Development Flashcards
What is the big idea in behavioursism?
that all behaviour can be reduced to a simple stimulus-response relationship.
In other words, all behaviours are learned from the environment.
Classical Conditioning
is the learning that occurs when two stimuli are repeatedly paired.
First introduced by Pavlov
John Watson
applied Pavlov’s findings to humans, and was actually the first to coin the term “behaviourism”.
Watson was such a strong proponent of behaviourism that he argued that he could take any child and raise them to be anything, no matter their background or inheritance.
What did Watson’s work in classical conditioning lay a groundwork for?
the treatment of phobias (systematic desensitization).
Through repeated pairing of a fear stimulus (i.e., spiders) with a neutral event (i.e., you aren’t bitten and cope with your fears), this process can successfully reduce anxiety.
Operant conditioning
a learning process whereby behaviour is influenced by its consequences.
a behavioural learning theory that is used to understand how consequences shape behaviour.
B.F Skinner
Largely considered the father of operant conditioning, although his work is based on Thorndike’s Law of Effect.
Thorndike’s Law of Effect
This principle posits that behaviours which are followed by pleasant consequences are likely to be repeated, whereas behaviours that are followed by unpleasant consequences are less likely to be repeated.
According to operant conditioning, behaviours can be either
reinforced or punished.
Reinforcement increases the frequency of desirable behaviour
Punishment decreases the frequency of an undesirable behaviour.
Reinforcement and punishment can result from either
applying a stimulus (“positive”) or removing a stimulus (“negative”).
3 big ideas showcasing operant conditioning in the context of child development:
Spanking
Time out, and
Reinforcement schedules
Spanking Research
While corporal punishment can work momentarily to stop problematic behaviour because children are afraid of being hit, research shows it is ineffective in the long term and can make children more aggressive.
Spanking is associated with negative long term outcomes for children even in cultures where it is normative to use corporal punishment.
United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child recommends all forms of physical punishment should be eliminated. While 59 countries around the world have outlawed all forms of physical punishment, including spanking, this practice is still partially legal in Canada.
Time out - Role of attention
Behaviourists argue that attention itself can serve as a powerful reinforcer, even if the attention itself is not positive.
For example, consider a child who was having a temper tantrum because you asked them to put away their favourite toy. Behaviourists like Skinner would argue that yelling at the child for their bad behaviour could inadvertently reinforce the child’s behaviour.
The adult yelling at the child positively reinforces the child’s screaming for their toy, because the child receives an increase in a desired behaviour (attention from the parent).
Time out draws its name from what? t
he behaviourist idea of “time out from positive reinforcement”.
Reinforcement schedules
how and when reinforcement occurs helps to shape the subsequent learning and behaviour modification.
Reinforcers are typically most effective in shaping behaviour when they immediately follow the behaviour and are consistently delivered.
Reinforcement schedules and spanking
In most cases, spanking does not follow the appropriate conditions for behaviour modification – it is usually not immediately delivered and typically not applied in every instance of the undesirable behaviour
What is thought to be the one of the main reasons why spanking is an ineffective punishment?
Reinforcement schedules
Extinction
Extinction occurs when a reinforcer is continuously withheld, such that the target behaviour no longer occurs. Certain reinforcement schedules, particularly intermittent reinforcement, make behaviours more resistant to extinction.
How are behaviours reinforced?
(either by adding or removing a stimulus), they are likely to increase in frequency
How are behaviours punished?
(either by adding or removing a stimulus), they are likely to decrease in frequency.
Time out follows what principle?
time out follows the principles of operant conditioning. When we remove a stimulus (like attention) to reduce an undesirable behaviour, this is negative punishment.
Bandura’s theory stresses behavioural concepts like…?
Reinforcement
However, Bandura’s theory can be considered a “bridge” between behaviourism and cognitive processing theories, as he also emphasizes the importance of cognition.
What are the five components of Albert Bandura’s social learning theory most relevant to child development?
1) Learning by observation
2) Learning does not equal behaviour
3) Role of cognition in learning
4) The active child
5) Perceived self-efficacy
What is Bandura’s biggest theoretical contribution?
His notion that people can learn simply by observing someone else’s behaviour
Bandura’s concept of learning by observation was notably different than existing behaviourist ideas, which only considered the child’s own behaviour as a means of learning.
reciprocal determinism
child-environment influences operate in both directions;children are both affected by and influence aspects of their environment
every child has predispositions that lead them to seek out certain kinds of experiences, and these experiences in turn influence the child.
vicarious reinforcement –
observing someone else receive a reward or punishment
-there is a tendency to repeat behaviours that we see others being rewarded for.
Bandura’s theory makes a distinction between what?
Learning (a cognitive process) and the actual performance/imitation (a behaviour) that results from that learning. That is, learning does not equal behaviour.
importance of cognitive functioning
the importance of processes like attention, encoding, memory, information retrieval, and problem solving skills in learning.
Bandura’s theory and the active child
Bandura’s theory emphasizes the role of the active child.
He introduced the idea of RECIPROCAL DETERMINISM, in which child-environment influences operate in both directions.
perceived self-efficacy
An individual’s beliefs about how effectively they can control their own behaviours, thoughts, and emotions in order to achieve a desired goal.
- we choose to demonstrate the behaviours that we believe we are successful with.
-Concept introduced by Bandura
What is an overarching theme in social cognition theories?
the concept of self-socialization - how children think about the world influences their social development.
Social cognition theories
Combine an aspect of cognition in how one develops socially.
-How one sees the world will influence one’s behaviours with the social world.
**These theories are not to be confused with Bandura’s theory, which is sometimes referred to as a social cognitive theory
Self socialization
how children think about the world influences their social development.
Nicki Crick’s and Kenneth Dodge’s social information-processing theory
Focuses on the cognitive processes that play a role in social behaviours.
It focuses on the stages of processing that occur when children are in a social situation, and how thinking at each stage can influence subsequent behaviour.
this theory really tries to break down social thinking into its component parts.
What are the two modern social cognition theories?
- Crick and Dodge’s social information-processing theory and
- Dweck’s self-attribution theory and achievement motivation
Stages of social-information processing (Crick & Dodge, 1994).
- Encoding of cues
- Interpretation of cues
- Clarification of goals
- Response access or construction
- Response Decision
- Behavioural enactment (peer evaluation and response leads back to encoding of cues.
Each stage interacts with data base (memory store, acquired rules, social schemes, social knowledge)
Understand overarching idea: how children perceive and interpret a social situation influences their social behaviour.
What has the social information processing theory been primarily used to study?
Aggression
hostile attribution bias
-aggressive children demonstrate a bias to misperceive neutral stimuli as hostile
-they demonstrate a tendency to assume ambiguous actions are hostile in intent, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.
vignettes can be used to study what?
the neurological correlates of aggression and hostile attributions when used in conjunction with techniques like fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) and ERP (event-related potentials).
Social affective neuroscience is a budding area of research.
Research using social information-processing theory has found that:
- Hostile attribution bias develops early in childhood.
-It is associated with harsh parenting and adverse childhood experiences.
-It has a positive correlation with many types of aggressive behaviour, as well as diagnoses of oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), conduct disorder, and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
-Indicates that aggressive children are unskilled in interpreting and responding to other’s actions. This offers a different lens for developing interventions other than simply punishing the behaviour. That is, aggressive children may need more help developing their social-cognitive skills like emotion recognition and conflict resolution.
Carol Dweck’s theory (1986)
Self-attribution and achievement motivation theory
- posits that how we think about our abilities impacts our motivation and behaviour.
-This theory is often used to study achievement motivation and academics
Theory of Intelligence (individual differences in how we think about our abilities)
Entity Theory - intelligence is fixed
Incremental Theory - intelligence is malleable
Dweck differentiated between the entity/helpless orientation and the incremental/mastery orientation.
-Those who believe that intelligence is an “entity” (that it is fixed and cannot change) tend to develop the entity/helpless orientation.
-Those who believe that intelligence is not fixed (it can change) tend to develop the incremental/mastery orientation.
-People with an incremental/mastery orientation are more likely to keep trying when learning gets tough, and would be described by Angela Duckworth as “gritty”.
Goal Orientation (Dweck)
Performance Goals
Learning Goals
–Dweck posits that differences in entity vs. incremental orientations lead to different goal orientations
–You can think of this distinction a bit like focusing on the journey (learning goals) or the destination (performance goals). Note that these goals aren’t always at odds and can occur together.
–Dweck’s theory argues that these orientations predict different responses in the face of failure.
Learning Goals
-Goal is to increase competence
- People with learning goals really engage in and enjoy the process of learning
- are related to mastery and a desire to learn even after a failure. People with this orientation might think “I can’t do it yet”.
Performance Goals
-Goal is to gain positive judgement/avoid negative judgments of competence
- people with performance goals are more interested in the outcome (e.g., results, pay, or grades)
According to Dweck, young children would rank where on learning goals?
High.
Young children show an inherent motivation to learn about the world around them. They ask questions and explore because they want to learn, not because they want to earn grades or praise
What can we do to build the bridge to “yet”
- Praise (NOT intelligence or talent), the process that they engage in. Effort, strategies, focus, perseverance and improvement. This process praise creates kids who are more hardy and resilient.
- Rewarding yet (game that rewards for effort, strategy and progress, rather than right answer)
- Using “yet and “not yet” creates more confidence and persistence and change mindsets
What can transforming the meaning of effort and difficulty create?
Equality among students as the change in meaning allows them to put in more work rather than give up and start building neuron connections and actually become smarter because of the change in definition.
External reinforcement (Dweck)
- Dweck has argued that once children start getting grades, this external reinforcement for their learning gets in the way of their inherent motivation.
-Learning becomes more about getting good grades than mastery or understanding.
To examine children’s use of aggression in dealing with social problems, Dodge and his colleagues:
Presented children with hypothetical stories in which they were the victims of another child’s ambiguous actions
What is the most all-encompassing accounts of how the environment (ecology) contributes to child development?
Bronfenbrenner’s model
aka bioecological systems model or the social-ecological model.
What are the layers of Bronfenbrenner’s Bioecological Systems Model?
1) Microsystem
2) Mesosystem
3) Exosystem
4) Macrosystem
5) Chronosystem
Microsystem
At the center of the model, we have the child and their immediate environment – the people and places that they directly interact with.
Mesosystem
Bronfenbrenner delineated the interconnections between the microsystems.
For example, this would be relationships between a child’s parents and their teachers (e.g., going to parent-teacher meetings).
We can consider two children in the same class who are both struggling to complete their homework. The teacher reaches out to the parents of Child A and Child B to help support them. Child A’s parents are very receptive to this feedback, whereas Child B’s parents are defensive and uninvolved.
According to Bronfenbrenner, these interactions would be influencing the child at the level of the mesosystem.
Exosystem
Bronfenbrenner described how the microsystem and mesosystem are nested with the exosystem – the institutions of society that indirectly affect a child’s development.
He argued that factors at this level impact a child by influencing structures in the microsystem.
Examples of factors within the exosystem include the parent’s workplace, family friends, and community services.
Macrosystem
Bronfenbrenner postulated that the micro, meso, and exosystems are nested within the macrosystem – the societal and cultural contexts that influence development.
This would include things like a culture’s values and customs, as well as governmental laws and policies.
These are more broad societal factors that influence child development.
For example, we can consider two countries where one has laws against child abuse and the other does not.
Chronosystem
Bronfenbrenner’s final system captures the effects of time.
The chronosystem can refer to changes/transitions within a person’s life, OR changes in socio-historical contexts.
For example, a life event like divorce or the effect of adolescence could be considered major changes within the lifespan of a child.
In terms of the larger historical context, we can consider how parenting practices have changed from our great-grandparent’s time to now (e.g., there are a lot more dual-income families now).
What is an example of part of the mesosystem?
Parents contact with child’s soccer coach
the mesosystem focuses on interactions between factors at the microsystem, which are often relationships.
What are examples of factors at the macrosystem?
Cultural Values
Government Policies
Societal Wealth
What theories help us to understand stimulus-response relationships?
Classical conditioning (Watson) and Operant conditioning (Skinner) are behaviourist theories that help us to understand stimulus-response relationships.
In particular, operant conditioning has made a lasting impact on parenting practices.
What does Social learning theory (Bandura) focuses on?
Vicarious learning and differentiates between learning and behaviour.
Social information-processing theory (Dodge) considers what processes? And what are they used to study?
The cognitive processes that play a role in social behaviour and is typically used to study aggression.
Self-attribution theory (Dweck) considers what?
How we think about our abilities impacts our motivation and behaviours, and is often used to study academics.
Bioecological systems theory (Bronfenbrenner) is a comprehensive model of?
How all levels of the environment interact with each other to impact child development.
Child maltreatment in Canada
34% Exposure to partner violence
34% Neglect
20% Physical abuse
9% emotional maltreatment
3% Sexual abuse
- Approx 1/3 of Canadians have suffered some form of child maltreatment before they reach age 15
- Children under the age of 1, however, are the most likely to be maltreated, often in the form of neglect.
Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological model to help us understand the risk and protective factors involve in maltreatment
Societal factors
-social norms that support violence
-rapid social change
-systemic oppression
Community Factors
-Chronic poverty
-High crime rate
-Lack of safe housing
-Lack of informal support
Family Factors
-Lack of parenting skills
-Lack of social support
-Substance abuse
-Mental illness
-Domestic violence
Child Factors
-Age
-Gender
-Ethnicity
-Disability Status
From this model, we would hypothesize that different environments have different levels of child maltreatment because of differences in these types of risk factors
Protective Factors for Child Maltreatment:
Societal Factors
-Laws banning corporal punishment
-Beneficial social and economic policies
-economic prosperity
Community Factors
-Safe and affordable housing
-Jobs
-Opportunities for social supports
Family Factors
-Parent training programs
-Healthcare for families
So how do we change these factors to help protect children and youth? One key way is through social policies that benefit children at each level of the environment in which they are embedded.
What is the primary developmental question on which learning theories take a unanimous stand?
whether they demonstrate continuity or discontinuity: they all emphasize continuity.
the same principles control learning and behavior throughout life, there are no qualitatively different stages in development.
Like information-processing theorists, learning theorists focus on the role of specific mechanisms of change—which, in their view, involve learning principles, such as reinforcement and observational learning
The theme of research and children’s welfare are also relevant in learning theories:
approaches based on learning principles have been widely applied to a range of issues in child-rearing.
Watson’s unethical experiment
9 month old little Albert - teaching to fear a white rat
Where did Watson placed the responsibility for guiding children’s development?
On the parents.
One piece of advice was to put infants on a strict feeding schedule. The idea was that the baby would become conditioned to expect a feeding at regular intervals and therefore would not cry in between.
Also advised parents to achieve distance and objectivity in their relations with their children
Treat them as young adults; never hug, kiss or let them sit on lap
What did Skinner believe was the primary matter of children’s development?
A matter of their reinforcement history.
What two discoveries did Skinner’s research on the nature and function of reinforcement lead to?
1) The fact that attention can by itself serve as a powerful reinforcer: children often do things “just to get attention”
–Ex: time-out, or temporary isolation, involves systematically withdrawing attention and thereby removing the reinforcement for inappropriate behavior, with the goal of extinguishing it.
2) The difficulty of extinguishing behavior that has been intermittently reinforced, that is, that has sometimes been followed by reward and sometimes not.
– intermittent reinforcement makes behaviors resistant to extinction.
intermittent reinforcement
inconsistent response to a behavior; for example, sometimes punishing unacceptable behaviors, and other times ignoring it
behavior modification
a form of therapy based on principles of operant conditioning in which reinforcement contingencies are changed to encourage more adaptive behavior
What does social learning theory emphasize? (Bandura)
Observation and imitation
Observational learning clearly depends on what? (Bandura)
Attention. Encoding. Retrieval
basic cognitive processes of attention to others’ behavior
encoding what is observed, storing the information in memory
retrieving it at some later time in order to reproduce the behavior observed earlier.
self-socialization
the idea that children play a very active role in their own socialization through their activity preferences, friendship choices, and so on
Theories of Social Cognition
Selman’s Stage Theory of Role Taking
Dodge’s Information-Processing Theory of Social Problem Solving
Dweck’s Theory of Self-Attributions and Achievement Motivation
Learning Theories
Watson’s Behaviorism
Skinner’s Operant Conditioning
Bandura Social-Learning Theory
Current Perspectives on learning theories
- based on principles derived from experiments
-allow explicit predictions that can be empirically tested.
- led to important practical applications, including behavior modification.
Primary weakness of the learning approach?
because it is focused on behavior, not brains or minds, it lacks attention to biological influences and largely minimizes the impact of perceptual, motor, cognitive, and language development.
The central theme of most relevance to social cognitive theories is?
the active child.
Another prominent theme is individual differences, particularly in the comparisons that are often drawn between the thinking and behavior of males and females, aggressive and non aggressive children, and so on
According to Selman, young children’s social cognition is limited by their
inability to engage in role-taking behavior
Selman, like Piaget, suggested that before the age of 6 years, children are virtually unaware that there is any perspective other than their own.
What are the 4 stages that Selman proposed that children go through in their thinking about other people
Stage 1 (roughly ages 6 to 8), children learn that someone else can have a perspective different from their own, but they assume that the different perspective is merely due to that person’s not possessing the same information they do.
Stage 2 (ages 8 to 10), children not only realize that someone else can have a different view, but they also are able to think about the other person’s point of view.
Stage 3 (ages 10 to 12) that children can systematically compare their own point of view with another person’s.
Stage 4 (age 12 and older), adolescents attempt to understand another’s perspective by comparing it with that of a “generalized other,” assessing whether the person’s view is the same as that of most people in their social group.
Why might children begin to attribute hostile intent to those around them?
Early harsh parenting predicts social information-processing biases that persist into early adulthood
incremental view of intelligence
the belief that intelligence can be developed through effort.
entity view of intelligence
the belief that her intelligence is fixed.
entity/helpless orientation
a tendency to attribute success and failure to enduring aspects of the self and to give up in the face of failure
is reinforced by both praise and criticism focused on children’s enduring traits (“You’re very smart at these problems,” “You just can’t do math”).
incremental/mastery orientation
a general tendency to attribute success and failure to the amount of effort expended and to persist in the face of failure
is reinforced by focusing on children’s effort, praising them for a good effort (“I like the way you kept at it”) and criticizing them for an inadequate one (“I think you can do better if you try harder”).
Current Perspectives on social cognition theories
-emphasis on children as active seekers of information about the social world
-insight that the effect of children’s social experience depends on their interpretation of those experiences.
Ex:children who make different attributions about a given social event (such as someone’s causing them harm) or an academic event (such as doing poorly on a test) will respond differently to that event.
-have very little to say about biological factors in social development (beginning to change)
Ecological Theories
Ethological and Evolutionary Theories
The Bioecological Model
Current Perspectives on Ecological Theories
Ethology and evolutionary psychology:
-emphasis on children’s biological nature, including genetic tendencies grounded in evolution.
-many of the claims are impossible to test.
-tend to overlook our capacity to transform our environments and ourselves.
Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological model:
-emphasis on the broad context of development and the many different interactions among factors at various levels has highlighted how complex the development of every child is
-main criticism of this model is its lack of emphasis on biological factors
ethology
the study of the evolutionary bases of behavior
imprinting
a form of learning in which the newborns of some species become attached to and follow adult members of the species
What is the best-known example of an ethological approach to a developmental topic?
the study of imprinting made famous by Konrad Lorenz
One of the most important adaptive features of the human species
the large size of our brains (relative to body size).
The trade-off is that humans experience a prolonged period of immaturity and dependence. We are “a slow- developing, big-brained species”
parental-investment theory
a theory that stresses the evolutionary basis of many aspects of parental behavior that benefit their offspring
Cinderella effect
Parental-investment theory also points to a potential dark side of the evolutionary picture
Refers to the fact that rates of child maltreatment are considerably higher for stepparents than for biological parents.
The Bioecological Model
This perspective treats the child’s environment as “a set of nested structures, each inside the next, like a set of Russian dolls”
Each structure represents a different level of influence on development. The child is at the center, with a particular constellation of characteristics (genes, gender, age, temperament, health, intelligence, and so on).
microsystem (the immediate environment)
the mesosystem (interconnections among microsystems)
the exosystem (social settings that the child is not a part of but that nevertheless affect the child’s development)
macrosystem (the general cultural context in which all the other systems are embedded).
These systems all exist within the chronosystem, which describes the changes to the elements of the system, including the individual, that occur over time.
microsystem
the immediate environment that an individual child personally experiences and participates in
the activities and relationships in which the child directly participates.
What is The outer level of Bronfenbrenner’s model?
Macrosystem - which consists of the general beliefs, values, customs, and laws of the larger society in which all the other levels are embedded.
Cultural and class differences permeate almost every aspect of a child’s life, including differences in beliefs about what qualities should be fostered in children and how best to foster them.
mesosystem
the interconnections among immediate, or microsystem, settings
encompasses the interconnections among microsystems, such as family, peers, and schools.
Supportive relations among these contexts can benefit the child.
exosystem
environmental settings that a child does not directly experience but that can affect the child indirectly
comprises settings that the child may not directly be a part of but that can still influence development. Parental workplaces, for example, can affect the child in many ways, including policies about parental leave, flexible work hours, and on-site childcare.
Chronosystem
Beliefs, values, customs, family structure and dynamics, and technologies change over time, with consequences for the child’s development.
Cause of ADHD
Causes are quite varied.
Genetic factors clearly play a role. Heritability estimates from twin studies fall in the 70% to 90% range
heritability for ADHD is greater than any other developmental disorder, with the possible exception of autism spectrum disorder.
Complicating the picture is the likelihood of vicious cycles between genes and environment
For example, a child’s behavioral challenges may frustrate parents, who react harshly rather than providing the extra support the child needs. In such a case, the child’s genes (a predisposition for ADHD) may elicit an environment (hostile parenting) that is particularly conducive to the development of the disorder.
Environmental factors in the microsystem also influence the development of ADHD.
ex:
-prenatal exposure to alcohol and tobacco smoke affects brain development, and both have been linked to the development of ADHD.
-Synthetic food additives, including artificial colors, have also been implicated as a potential cause, and restriction diets that avoid these elements may benefit some children with ADHD
-low SES
-high levels of parent–child conflict
-severe early deprivation
Why did Freud’s psychoanalytic theory have an enormous impact on developmental psychology?
primarily through Freud’s emphasis on the importance of early experience for personality and social development,
his depiction of unconscious motivation and processes,
and his emphasis on the importance of close relationships.
What are the 4 major types of social development theories
1) Psychoanalytic
2) Learning
3) Social Cognition
4 ) Ecological
Erikson extended Freud’s theory by identifying eight stages of psychosocial development extending across the entire life span. Each stage is characterized by what?
a developmental crisis that, if not successfully resolved, will continue to trouble the individual.
Watson believed strongly in the power of?
environmental factors, especially reinforcement, to influence children’s development.
Skinner held that all behavior can be explained in terms of?
operant conditioning.
He discovered the importance of intermittent reinforcement and the powerful reinforcing value of attention.
Bandura’s social-learning theory and his empirical research stresses the importance of ?
observational learning and cognition in social learning
What do Social cognitive theories assume?
that children’s knowledge and beliefs are vitally important in social development.
What does Selman’s theory propose?
That children go through four stages in the development of the ability to take the role or perspective of another person.
They progress from the simple appreciation that someone can have a view different from their own to being able to think about the view of a “generalized other.”
The social information-processing approach emphasizes the importance of children’s attributions regarding…?
Their own and others’ behavior.
The role of such attribution is clearly reflected in the hostile attributional bias, described by Dodge, which leads children to assume hostile intent on the part of others and to respond aggressively in situations in which the intention of others is ambiguous.
Dweck’s theory of self-attribution focuses on what?
how children’s achievement motivation is influenced by their attributions about the reasons for their successes and failures.
Ethological theories examine behavior within what context?
The evolutionary context, trying to understand its adaptive or survival value.
Lorenz’s research on imprinting has been particularly relevant to certain theories of social development in children.
Evolutionary psychologists apply Darwinian concepts of natural selection to ?
Human Behaviour.
Characteristic of their approach are parental-investment theory and the idea that the long period of immaturity and dependence in human infancy enables young children to learn and practice many of the skills needed later in life.
Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological model conceptualizes the environment as a set of what?
nested contexts, with the child at the center.
These contexts range from the microsystem, which includes the activities, roles, and relationships—the environment—in which a child directly participates on a regular basis, to the chronosystem, the historical context that affects all the other systems.
