Week 14 Flashcards
Three perspectives that interact to shape development
- Social context in which each child lives, especially the relationships that provide security, guidance and knowledge
- biological maturation that supports developing social and emotional competencies and underlies temperamental individuality
- Children’s developing representations of themselves and the social world
How is social and personality development best understood
The continuous interaction between these social, biological, and representational aspects of psychological development
How the interaction of relationships can be observed in the development of the earliest relationship between infants and their parents
Virtually all infants living in normal circumstances develop strong emotional attachments to those who care for them. The development of these attachments is as biologically natural as learning to walk and not simply by a byproduct of the parents’ provision of food or warmth
Secure attachment
Infants become securely attached when their parents respond sensitively to them, reinforcing the infants’ confidence that their parents will provide support when needed
Insecure attachment
Infants become insecurely attached when care is inconsistent or neglectful; these infants tend to respond avoidantly, resistantly, or in a disorganized manner. Such insecure attachments are not necessarily the result of deliberately bad parenting but are often a byproduct of circumstances
Strange situation
A standard laboratory procedure that involves brief separations from the caregiver. Depending ont he child’s level of attachment, he or she may reject the parent, cling to the parent, or simply welcome the parent- or, in some instances, react with an agitated combination of responses
Security of attachment
An infant’s confidence in the sensitively and responsiveness of a caregiver, especially when he or she is needed. Infants can be securely or insecurely attached
Why is security of attachment important
Infants and young children who are securely attached have been found to develop stronger friendships with peers, more advanced emotional understanding and early conscience development, and more positive self-concepts, compared with insecurely attached children
What happens to parent-child relationships as children mature
they naturally change. Preschool and grade-school children are more capable, have their own preferences, and sometimes refuse to seek or compromise with parental expectations. This can lead to greater parent-child conflict, and how conflict is managed by parents further shapes the quality of parent-child relationships
Authoritative
A parenting style characterized by high (but reasonable) expectations for children’s behaviour, good communication, warmth and nurturance, and the use of reasoning (rather than coercion) as preferred responses to children’s misbehaviour. Supportive and show interest in their kids’ activities but are not overbearing and allow them to make constructive mistakes
Authoritarian
Discipline using threats and punishment. May praise obedience as a virtue and expect their children to follow rues without explanation
Permissive
Believe children learn best on their own. Allow children a great deal of freedom in regulating their own lives and place few demands on them to achieve or to behave appropriately
Rejecting-Neglectful
Do not set limits or monitor the activities of their children. Place own needs above children
Family stress model
Describes how financial difficulties are associated with parents’ depressed moods, which in turn lead to marital problems and poor parenting that contributes to poorer child adjustment.
Importance of social interaction with another child who is similar in age, skills, and knowledge
In peer relationships, children learn how to initiate and maintain social interactions with other children. Learn skills for managing conflict, such as turn taking, compromise, and bargaining
Play
Involves the mutual, sometimes complex, coordination of goals, actions, and understanding. Through these experiences, children develop friendships that provide additional sources of security and support to those provided by their patients
Peer relationships
Being accepted by other children is an important source of affirmation and self-esteem, but peer rejection can foreshadow later behaviour problems. Children confront the challenges of bullying, peer victimization, and managing conformity pressures
Social comparison with peers
An important means by which children evaluate their skills, knowledge, and personal qualities, but it may cause them to feel that they do not measure up well against others. Peer relationships become focused on psychological intimacy, involving personal disclosure, vulnerability, and loyalty-which significantly affects a child’s outlook on the world
how young children begin developing social understanding very early in life
Before the end of first year, infants are aware that other people have perceptions, feelings, and other mental states that affect their behaviour, and which are different from the child’s own mental states
Social referencing
the process by which one individual consults another’s emotional expressions to determine how to evaluate and respond to circumstances that are ambiguous or uncertain
How do infants show awareness
By “reading” the emotion on their moms face, infants can learn about whether the circumstance is safe or dangerous, and how to respond
Temperament
Early emerging differences in reactivity and self-regulation, which constitutes a foundation for personality development. is biologically based, interacts with the influence of experience from the moment of birth to shape personality. Temperamental dispositions are affected by the support level of parental care for example
Personality
Shaped by the goodness of fit between the child’s temperamental qualities and characteristics of the environment
Goodness of fit
The match or synchrony between a child’s temperament and characteristics of parental care that contributes to positive or negative personality development. A good “fit” means that parents have accommodated to the child’s temperamental attributes, and this contributes to positive personality growth and better adjustment.
Qualities that are influenced by biological dispositions and even more by the child’s experiences with others
Children’s developing self-concept, their motivation to achieve or to socialize, their values and goals, their coping styles, their sense of responsibility and conscientiousness, and many other qualities are encompassed into personality
The influence of social and personality development being built from the social, biological, and representational influences
These influences result in important developmental outcomes that matter to children, parents, and society: a young adult’s capacity to engage in socially constructive actions, to curb hostile or aggressive impulses, to live according to meaningful values, to develop a healthy identify and sense of self, and to develop talents and achieve success in using them
Conscience
Consists of the cognitive, emotional, and social influences that cause young children to create and act consistently with internal standards of conduct. Emerges from young children’s experiences with parents, particularly in the development of a mutually responsive relationship that motivates young children to respond constructively to the parents’ requests and expectations
How conscience development expands as young children begin to represent moral values and think of themselves as moral beings
By the end of the preschool years, young children develop a “moral self” by which they think of themselves as people who want to do the right thing, who feel badly after misbehaving, and who feel uncomfortable when others misbehave. Young children become more socially and emotionally competent in a manner that provides a foundation for later moral conduct
The development of gender and gender identity is an interaction among social, biological, and representational influences
Young children learn about gender from parents, peers, and others in society, and develop their own conceptions of the attributes associated with the maleness or femaleness
Gender schemas
Organized beliefs and expectations about maleness and femaleness that guide children’s thinking about gender
What does the growth of social and emotional competence illustrate
The interaction of social, biological, and representational influences, how children’s development unfolds over an extended period.
Intrapersonal functions of emotions
Refer to the role that emotions play within each of us individually
Interpersonal functions of emotions
Refer to the role emotions play between individuals within a group
Social and cultural functions of emotions
Refer to the role that emotions play in the maintenance of social order within a society
What do emotions do
Inform us of who we are, what our relationships with others are like, how to behave in social interactions, give meanings to events, help coordinate interpersonal relationship, play an important role in the cultural functioning of keeping human societies together, rapid information processing systems that help us act with minimal thinking
What would happen if we didn’t have emotions
We would not make rapid decisions concerning whether to attack, defend, flee, care for others, reject food, or approach something useful, all of which were functionally adaptive in our evolutionary history and helped us to survive
How do emotions prepare us for behaviour
When triggered, emotions orchestrate systems and activate others in order to prevent the chaos of competing systems at the same time, allowing for coordinated responses to environmental stimuli.
What happens when we are afraid
our bodies shut down temporarily unneeded digestive processes, resulting in saliva reduction; blood flows disproportionately to the lower half of the body; the visual field expands; and air is breathed in, all preparing the body to flee
How do emotions prepare the body for actioin
whether people actually engage in action is dependent on many factors, such as the context within which the emotion is dependent on many factors, such as the context within which the emotion has occurred, the target of the emotion, the perceived consequences of one’s actions, previous experiences, and so forth
How are emotions connected to thoughts and memories
Memories are not just facts that are encoded in our brains; they are coloured with emotions felt at those times the facts occurred
Emotions serve as the neural glue that connects those disparate facts in our minds
Emotions serve as the affective basis of many attitudes, values, and beliefs that we have about the world and the people around us; without emotions those attitudes, values, and beliefs would be just be statements without meaning, and emotions give those statements meaning
Emotions influence our thinking processes, sometimes in constructive ways, sometimes not
How can emotions be expressed nonverbally
We are constantly expressing emotions when interacting with others, and others can reliably judge those emotional expressions
Facial expressions of emotions are universal social signals, they contain meaning not only about the expressor’s psychological state but also about that person’s intent and subsequent behaviour
Why is it important that culture provides necessary coordination and organization
Doing so allows individuals and groups to negotiate the social complexity of human social life, thereby maintaining social order and preventing social chaos
Culture does this by providing a meaning and information system to its members, which is shared to a group and transmitted across generations, that allow the group to meet basic needs of survival, pursue happiness and well-being, and derive meaning from life
One of the ways cultural transmission occurs
Through the management of our emotional expressions through cultural display rules
Cultural display rules
These are rules that are learned early in life that specify the management and modification of emotional expressions according to social circumstances. These are rules that are learned early in life that specify the management and modification of our emotional expressions according to social circumstances
Culture
Creates world views, rules, guidelines, and norms concerning emotions because emotions have important intra and interpersonal functions, and are important motivators of behaviour
How do cultural worldwide views and norms help us manage and modify our emotional reactions
By helping us to have certain kinds of emotional experiences in the first place and by managing our reactions and subsequent behaviours once we have them
What would happen if emotions were not regulated in culturally defined ways for the common social good
It would be difficult for groups and societies to function effectively, and even for humans to survive as a species
Attachment theory
Originally developed in the 1940s by John Bowlby, a British psychoanalyst who was attempting to understand the intense distress experienced by infants who had been separated from their parents
What did other attachment theories argue
That young infants feel emotionally connected to their mothers because mothers satisfy more basic needs, such as the need for food
Harry Harlow
Placed young monkeys in cages that contained two artificial, surrogate “mothers”. One of the surrogates was a simple wire contraption; the other was a wire contraption covered in cloth and both were equipped with a feeding tube. He found that the young macaques spent a disproportionate amount of time with the cloth surrogate as opposed to the wire surrogate. The strong emotional bond that infants form with their primary caregivers is rooted in something more than whether the caregiver provides food per se
John Bowlby
Argued that these behaviours are adaptive responses to separation from a primary attachment figure
Attachment figure
Someone who functions as the primary safe haven and secure base for an individual. In childhood, an individual’s attachment figure is often a parent. In adulthood, an individual’s attachment figure is often a romantic partner
The attachment system
A motivational system selected over the course of evolution to maintain proximity between a young child and his or her primary attachment figure. Functions much like a thermostat that continuously monitors the ambient temperature of a room, comparing that temperature against a desired state and adjusting behaviour accordingly
What happens if the child perceives the attachment figure to be nearby, accessible, and attentive
Then the child feels loved, secure, and confident, and behaviourally, is likely to explore his or her environment play with others, and be sociable
what happens if the child perceives the attachment figure to be inaccessible
The child experiences anxiety and behaviourally, is likely to exhibit attachment behaviours ranging from simple visual searching on the low extreme to active searching, following, and vocal signalling on the other
Attachment behaviours
Behaviours and signals that attract the attention of a primary attachment figure and function to prevent separation from that individual or to reestablish proximity to that individual
Secure children
most children (60%) behave in the way implied by Bowlby’s normative theory. they become upset when the parents leave the room but when he or she return, they actively seek the parent and are easily comforted by him or her
Anxious-resistant children
20% or less are at ease initially, and upon separation, become extremely distressed. When reunited with their parents, these children have a difficult time being soothed and ofthen exhibit conflicting behaviours that suggest they want to be comforted, but that they also want to “punish” the parent for leaving
Avoidant children
20% or less. do not consistently behave as if they are stressed by the separation, but, upon reunion, actively avoid seeking contact with their parent, sometimes turning their attention to play objects on the laboratory floor
Why was Ainsworth’s work important
- Provided one of the first empirical demonstrations of how attachment behaviour is organized in unfamiliar contexts
- Provided the first empirical taxonomy of individual differences in attachment patterns
- Concluded that three types of children exist
- Demonstrated that individual differences were correlated with infant-parent interaction in the home during the first year of life
Attachment patterns
Also called “attachment styles” or “attachment orientation”. Individual differences in how securely (vs insecurely) people think, feel, and behave in attachment relationships
One of the key determinants of attachment patterns
The history of sensitive and responsive interactions between the caregiver and the child. When the child is uncertain or stressed, the ability of the caregiver to provide support to the child is critical for his or her psychological development
How do supportive interactions help the child
Help the child learn to regulate his or her emotions, give the child the confidence to explore the environment, and provide the child with a safe haven during stressful circumstances
What did Grossman and her colleagues find
That children who were more likely than children classified as insecure to have mothers who provided care to their children in the home environment
Van den Boom’s intervention
Designed to enhance maternal sensitive responsiveness. When the infants were 9 months old, the mothers in the intervention group were rated as more responsible and attentive in their interaction with their infants compared to mothers in the control group. Their infants were rated as more sociable, self-soothing, and more likely to explore the environment. At 12 months of age, children in the intervention group were more likely to be classified as secure than insecure in the strange situation
Association between children’s attachment patterns and their adaption over time
Researchers have learned that children who are classified as secure in the strange situation are more likely to have high functioning relationships with peers, to be evaluated favourably by teachers, and to persist with more diligence in challenging tools
Insecure avoidant children are more likely to be constructed as “bullies” or to have a difficult time building and maintaining friendships
The emotional bond that develops between adult romantic partners vs the bond between infants and their caregivers
In both kinds of relationships, people fel safe and secure when the other person is present, turn to the other person during times of sickness, distress, or fear, use the other person as a “secure base” from which to explore the world, and speak to one another in a unique language, often called “motherese” or “baby talk”
Technology from an attachment perspective
These innovations in communications technology are important because they allow people to stay connected virtually to their attachment figures-regardless of the physical distance that might exist between them
Oldmeadow and the facebook study
People were more likely to report using Facebook to connect with others when they were experiencing negative emotions. Researchers found that people who were more anxious in their attachment orientation were more likely to use Facebook frequently, but people who were more avoidant used Facebook less and were less open on the site
The transfer of attachment from caregiver to romantic partner
Individuals gradually transfer attachment-related functions from parents to peers as they develop. although young children tend to use their parents as their primary attachment figures, as they reach adolescence and young adulthood, they come to rely more upon close friends and/or romantic partners for basic attachment-related functions
Attachment patterns and dating
In a research study with more than 83 heterosexual couples, it was found that if a man is relatively secure, the woman was also likely to be secure. When people have the opportunity to interact with individuals who vary in security in speed-dating context, they express a greater interest in those who are higher in security than those who are more insecure
