,Developmental Psychology

Professor Spikes
TOPIC: Early Childhood (Socioemotional Development)
I.

Initiative Versus Guilt (Eriksons Psychosocial Development)

Refer to Table 1

Conscience: The governor of moral goodness and blame worthiness

Initiative may bring to them reward or punishment if theyre
attached to reward, healthy socioemotional development. Attached to
punishment, child will feel unnecessary guilt
Whether a child leaves this stage with initiative or guilt depends in
large part on how parents respond to his/her initiated activities 1)
give the child freedom and opportunity to initiate, 2) support their
initiatives by answering their questions, 3) do not make them feel as if
their initiatives are bad/annoying/stupid
If you do this on a consistent basis, they will feel guilt that
will linger into adulthood
Summary: allow children to make choices and give them frequent
opportunities to
II.

III.

Self-Understanding: The childs Self-Perception

Based on various roles and membership categories based on

appearance, involvement etc in early stages and then turns into
stereotypes as the age

Begins with self-recognition at around 18 months old

Research on self-understanding in childhood is not limited to visual

self-recognition as it was during toddlerhood and preschool Very
verbal, can conceive of themselves in physical and mental terms, can
distinguish themselves from others

Emotional Development

Young childrens Emotional Language and Understanding

-

They move beyond just terms and to causes and consequences of

feelings. Also, learn to control and manage feelings to meet social
standards. Can reflect on emotions, can understand that the same
event can elicit different feelings in different people

Self-Conscious Emotion
-

Examples Shame, guilt, embarrassment, pride

Appears to develop in the last half of the second year of life.

IV.

Especially influenced by parents responses to childrens behavior

Do not make a child feel negative emotions unnecessarily

Moral Development/Reasoning (Perspective Taking)

Referenced to behavior that is consistent with laws and social conventions
Piaget proposed that moral reasoning develops in two stages:
Majorly impacted by parents, caregivers, role models but also the
childs degree of self control which refers to the childs ability to delay
gratification
- First: Heteronomous Moralitybased on obedience to authority, as
well as centered around egocentrism 1) Rules are handed down
by authority and are unchangeable (moral reasoning), 2) focus on
consequences of behavior and not intentions of the actors, 3) abide
by imminent justice, if rules are broken punishment is inevitable
occurs at 4-7 years of age
- Second: Autonomous Moralitycharacterized by more flexibility
and autonomy, as well as centered around equal treatment for
all 1) punishment is socially mediated and therefore not
inevitable 2) focus more on intentions of the acters and not
primarily of consequences of act-ers behavior 3)rules are
changeable10 years old or older, thinking is not as rigid
- Children between 7-10 are in a transition stage and show features
of both

V.

Lawrence Kohlbergs Stages of Moral Understanding

VI.

Moral Behavior

VII.

Influenced by the process of reinforcement, punishment, and

imitation. Also influenced by the situationweak relationship between
what children do in different situations

Moral Feelings

VIII.

See Reflection 1

Positive feelings contribute to the childs moral development

empathy, passion; positive feelings contribute to a childs moral
developmentrequires child be able to identify a wide range of
emotional state

Gender: socially constructed behavior that is deemed appropriate

for being male or female

Gender Identity sense of being male or female, children know by age

3

IX.

Parenting Styles (Diane Baumrind, 1971)

X.

Gender Role activities and expectations that imply how females and
males should think/act/feel
Social Influence school, culture, media, parents most important
Parental Influences important because they have control over impact
of other influences, provide earliest discrimination of gender
roles/development, fathers are more likely than mothers to act
differently to sons and daughters
Peer Influence: children have preference for sex appropriate activities,
cross sex activities tend to be criticized by peers (stronger in middlelate childhood)

See Table 2
Neglectful: things/other people are more important than them,
will act in immature manner and feel alone, have significant
problems in adolescence (social ineptness, poor self control
Indulgent parenting: children can do whatever they want,
never learn to control behavior, lack of respect, non-compliant
lac of self control
Authoritarian: many rules/little control and little verbal
exchange, children social incompetence, unhappy, fearful of
others, fail to initiate activities
Authoritative: best outcome, encourage constructive behavior,
expect them to show age appropriate
behaviors/maturity/independent, achievement oriented

Punishment

Use of corporal punishment

72-90% of parents have spanked their children

Few studies unethical to do experiments, can only do correlations

with information presented

When parents show strong emotional support of the child, the link
between spanking and child problems are reduced. Want child to know
why and not go overboard
Reasons why spanking and other forms of intense punishment with
children should be avoided child may comply and not aggress, but
may not learn any improved morality revolving around why they were
spanked, may instill fear/rage/avoidance, tell child what to do as
opposed what not to do, can become unintentional abuse (never spank
when angry)

The best way to handle childrens misbehavior [as per the

recommendation of psychologists] reasoning with the child,
explaining consequences

XI.

Child Abuse

Reporting cases doctors and teachers are mandated reporters

How do most people respond to parents who abuse their child? Also,
what do the experts say about the response? They respond with
outrage and anger, abuser is seen as bad/monstrous because they
caused a child to suffer,
Experts say they do not want us to think and feel in such a manner
because it deters us from being cognoscente of different levels of
abuse (low, moderate, severe) 2) deters from awareness that it occurs
across different SES, many people think its low class people who
abuse/neglect 3) deters us from realization that it is partially caused by
individual personality characteristics of the parents

The most common kind of abuser? Overwhelmed, single mother in

poverty who neglects her child

The use of the terms child maltreatment as opposed to (or in place

of) the terms child abuse child maltreatment doesnt have same
emotional impact as child abuse but maltreatment acknowledge how
maltreatment includes several different conditions
o
o
o
o

Fostering delinquency
Lack of supervision
Medical/educational neglect
PSEM abuse

Cultural context media, televisionhow might it be encouraged?

Many abusing parents report they do not have sufficient resources/help
from others

Family influences many abusers come from families where physical

punishment was used (not necessarily abuse) but many of them were
abused themselves as children

Developmental Consequences poor emotion regulation, long term

relationship problems/peer relations, difficulty adapting to school,
many will be depressed, anxiety, show violence toward others
(consistent maltreatment)