Self and Moral Development in
Middle Childhood Through Early
Adolescence
The Life Span
Human Development
for Healthcare
Professionals,
Chapter 7
Self-Concept
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The Development of Self-Concept
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By the age of 7, we have the foundation for our selfconcept laid, the next step is to build upon that.
We build upon our self-concept as we develop
cognitively. Cognitive development goes hand-inhand with development of the self-concept.
Development of the ME and all of its
subcomponents.
Structure of the Self-Concept
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Illustration on page 234 in Broderick & Blewitt
shows that our general self-concept is a
hierarchical development built of our other selfconcepts.
Table 7.1 (page 235) shows the domains of
self-concept across the life span. Basically it
shows how each level builds towards the next.
Academic and Nonacademic self-concepts
Influences on the Development of
Self-Concept
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James: Self-esteem is a ratio of our successes to our
aspirations-or-how many times we succeed versus
how many times we’ve tried.
Social comparison: basing your performance against
that of a peer
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Self-enhancing bias: maintaining moderately positive beliefs
about ourselves when compared to others.
Downward social comparison-the type of comparison where a
person compares themselves to someone less competent,
successful when the person’s self-esteem is at stake.
Gender, Racial, and Ethnic
Differences
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Girls tend to “lose voice” when they enter the
school setting (Brown & Gilligan, 1992).
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Cultural roles of girls/women
Teacher/student interactions
Becomes a way of holding connections with others,
even though they lose their ability to form/express
their own opinion.
Self-esteem slide: adults believing girls have lower
self-esteem may lead to that lower self-esteem.
Gender, Racial, and Ethnic
Differences
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Race & Ethnicity
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Doll study findings
Strategies for maintaining self-esteem
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attributing negative feedback to the prejudice maintained
by the advanced majority
Make social comparisons to their ethnic group instead of
the advanced majority
Enhance the self-concepts for their groups at which they
excel.
The Moral Self
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Morality: the ability to make decisions based on what’s
right and wrong and preferring to act in a way that is
best described as being “right”.
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Conscience: an internalized set of standards and principles
that guides our behavior
Knowledge of morals is not a guarantee that they’ll be
followed
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Since 1982, the number of K-12 students that have selfreported cheating in school has risen from approximately 30%
to over 65%.
Some Classic Theories of Moral
Development
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Freud: our morals are based upon fights
between our id and our super-ego: the superego develops to keep the id from becoming too
out of control.
Some Classic Theories of Moral
Development
Approximate Ages
Piaget
Kohlberg
Preschool
Premoral
5 to 8 or 9
Heternonomous
Preconventional 1
8 or 9-11 or 12
Autonomous
Preconventional 2
13 to 16
Conventional 3
Late adolescents/
young adults
Some Adults
Conventional 4
Some Adults
Postconventional 6
Postconventional 5
Some Classic Theories of Moral
Development
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Kohlberg’s Theories
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Preconventional
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Conventional
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Stage 1: Punishment and obedience orientation
Stage 2: Concrete, individualistic orientation
Stage 3: Social-relational perspective
Stage 4: Member of society perspective
Postconventional
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Stage 5: Prior rights and social contract
Stage 6: Universal ethical principles
The Moral Self (revisited)
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Children’s Prosocial Behavior
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Altruism
Emotions as a source of helping behavior
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Empathy
Sympathy
Children’s Antisocial Behavior
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Antisocial behavior is often found in children
that have not achieved very high levels of
moral development. We see different types
and onsets:
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Early-starter: starts before the age of 5
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Can lead to numerous other problems
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Oppositional Defiant Disorder or Conduct Disorder
– Antisocial Personality Disorder
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Adolescent onset: behavior begins in early
adolescence.
Children’s Antisocial Behavior
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Influences on development of antisocial
behavior
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Physiological and Neuropsychological Influences
Environmental Influences
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Coercive Family Interaction
Social Cognitive Influences
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Social Information Processing
Hostile Attributional Bias