Child Development
Robert S. Feldman
FIFTH EDITION
University of Massachusetts at Amherst
Chapter 10
Social and Personality
Development in the
Preschool Years
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Chapter 10 Key Questions
• How do preschool-age children develop a
concept of themselves?
• How do children develop their sense of racial
identity and gender?
• In what sorts of social relationships do
preschool-age children engage?
• What sorts of disciplinary styles do parents
employ, and what effects do they have?
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Chapter 10 Key Questions
• How do children develop a moral sense?
• How does aggression develop in preschoolage children?
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Forming a Sense of Self
• The question “Who am I?” underlies a
considerable amount of development
during the preschool years.
• During this period, children wonder about
the nature of the self, and the way they
answer the “Who am I?” question may
affect them for the rest of their lives.
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Psychosocial Development:
Resolving the Conflicts
• Psychosocial development According to
Erikson, development that encompasses
changes both in the understandings
individuals have of themselves as members
of society and in their comprehension of the
meaning of others’ behavior
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Psychosocial Development:
Resolving the Conflicts
• Initiative-versus-guilt stage According to
Erikson, the period during which children
aged 3 to 6 years experience conflict
between independence of action and the
sometimes negative results of that action
• “Let me do it!”
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Self-Concept in the Preschool
Years: Thinking About the Self
• Self-concept A person’s identity or set of
beliefs about what one is like as an individual
(This is created by and affected by culture’s
attitudes)
• Collectivistic orientation A philosophy that
promotes the notion of interdependence
versus
• Individualistic orientation A philosophy that
emphasizes personal identity and the
uniqueness of the individual (Western Ideals)
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Self-Concept in the Preschool
Years: Thinking About the Self
• Race dissonance The phenomenon in which
minority children indicate preferences for
majority values or people. (Occurs between
ages 3-4)
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Gender Identity: Developing
Femaleness and Maleness
• Preschool-age children often have very strict
ideas about how boys and girls are supposed
to act. (Rigid at 5, less rigid at 7)
• In fact, their expectations about genderappropriate behavior are even more genderstereotyped than those of adults and may be
less flexible during the preschool years than
at any other point in the life span.
• Sex = anatomy and behavior
• Gender = perception or sense of what is male or female
• DO BOYS AND GIRLS LIVE IN DIFFERENT WORLDS?
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Biological Perspectives
on Gender
• Hormones are one sex-related biological
characteristic that have been found to affect
gender-based behaviors.
• Biological differences exist in the structure of
female and male brains. (Corpus callosum which
connects hemispheres is larger in women due to girls being
spoken to more. Environment produces biological change?
Refer to page 251 )
• However, it is difficult to attribute behavioral
characteristics unambiguously to biological
factors.
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Psychoanalytic Perspectives
• Identification The process in which children
attempt to be similar to their parent of the
same sex, incorporating the parent’s attitudes
and values (Refer to page 251)
• Some aspects of psychoanalytic theory have
been supported.
• Still, many developmentalists have searched
for explanations of gender differences other
than Freud’s.
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Social Learning Approaches
• Social learning approaches see children as
learning gender-related behavior and
expectations by observing others.
• The observation of the rewards that these
others attain for acting in a genderappropriate manner leads the child to
conform to such behavior themselves.
• In some cases, learning of social roles does not involve models,
but occurs more directly, such “Act like a little girl!” “Act like a
little man!”
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Cognitive Approaches
• Gender identity The perception of oneself as
male or female
• Gender schema A cognitive framework that
organizes information relevant to gender that
is rigid
• Gender constancy The fact that people are
permanently males or females, depending on
fixed, unchangeable biological factors
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Four Approaches to
Gender Development-page 253
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Friends and Family:
Preschoolers’ Social Lives
• Preschoolers begin to discover the joys of
friendship with their peers.
• Although they may expand their social circles
considerably, parents and family nevertheless
remain very influential in their lives.
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The Development of Friendships
• Around the age of 3, children begin to
develop real friendships, as peers come to be
seen as individuals who hold some special
qualities and rewards.
• As preschoolers age, their ideas about
friendship gradually evolve.
• The quality and kinds of interactions children
have with friends changes during the
preschool period.
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Playing by the Rules:
The Work of Play
• Play helps preschoolers develop in important
ways.
• The American Academy of Pediatrics states
that play is essential for the cognitive,
physical, social, and emotional wellbeing of
children and youth.
• The U.N. High Commission for Human Rights
maintains that play is a basic right of every
child.
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Categorizing Play
• Functional play Play that involves simple,
repetitive activities typical of 3-year-olds
(Skipping, jumping, rolling)
Something for the sake of being active
• Constructive play Play in which children
manipulate objects to produce or build
something (Legos, puzzles, blocks)
End result is to create something
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The Social Aspects of Play
• Parallel play Action in which children play
with similar toys, in a similar manner, but do
not interact with each other
• Onlooker play Action in which children
simply watch others at play but do not
actually participate themselves
Continue this later as preschoolers. That is why as caregivers we
need to encourage onlookers to become involved.
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The Social Aspects of Play
• Associative play Play in which two or more
children interact by sharing or borrowing toys
or materials, although they do not do the
same thing
• Cooperative play Play in which children
genuinely interact with one another, taking
turns, playing games, or devising contests
Pretend or make believe will start with realistic objects to less
concrete. Vygotsky states “make believe” relates to “practice
activities” and play is cultural and broadens understand of way
world works. - page 256
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Preschoolers’ Play-page 255
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Preschoolers’ Theory of Mind:
Understanding What Others
Are Thinking
• Children increasingly can see the world from
others’ perspectives.
• Even children as young as 2 are able to
understand that others have emotions.
• By the age of 3 or 4, preschoolers can
distinguish between something in their minds
and physical actuality.
• By the end of the preschool years, most
children easily solve false belief problems.
(Page 257 and placing chocolate bar in new location)
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The Emergence of Theory of Mind
• Brain maturation is an important factor.
• As myelination within the frontal lobes
becomes more pronounced, preschoolers
develop more emotional capacity involving
self awareness.
• Developing language skills are also related to
the increasing sophistication of children’s
theory of mind.
• Cultural factors also play an important role.
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Preschoolers’ Family Lives
• Many preschoolers face the realities of an
increasingly complicated world.
• For most, however, the period encompasses
growing interaction with the world at large.
• Preschoolers begin to develop genuine
friendships with other children, in which close
ties emerge.
“A good deal of research finds that strong, positive relationships
between parents and children encourage children’s relationships
with others.”
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Effective Parenting: Teaching
Children Desired Behavior
• Authoritarian parents Parents who are
controlling, punitive, rigid, and cold and
whose word is law; they value strict,
unquestioning obedience from their children
and do not tolerate expressions of
disagreement
• Permissive parents Parents who provide lax
and inconsistent feedback and require little of
their children
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Effective Parenting: Teaching
Children Desired Behavior
• Authoritative parents Parents who are firm,
setting clear and consistent limits, but try to
reason with their children, explaining why
they should behave in a particular way
• Uninvolved parents Parents who show
virtually no interest in their children,
displaying indifferent, rejecting behavior
• PAGE 277 – Excellent chart
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Parenting Styles
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Cultural Differences in
Child-Rearing Practices
• The style of parenting that is most successful
may depend quite heavily on the norms of a
particular culture—and what parents in a
particular culture are taught regarding
appropriate child-rearing practices.
• Chinese concept of chiao shun (STRICT and
FIRM)
• U.S. authoritative methods
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Moral Development
and Aggression
• Changes in children’s views of what is
ethically right and what is the right way to
behave are an important element of growth
during the preschool years.
• The kind of aggression displayed by
preschoolers is also changing.
• Both morality and aggression involve a
growing awareness of others.
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Developing Morality: Following
Society’s Rights and Wrongs
• Moral development The maturation of
people’s sense of justice, of what is right and
wrong, and their behavior in connection with
such issues
• Developmentalists have considered moral
development in terms of children’s reasoning
about morality, their attitudes toward moral
lapses, and their behavior when faced with
moral issues.
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Piaget’s View of
Moral Development
• Piaget suggested that moral development
proceeds in stages:
– Heteronomous morality - rules are invariant and
unchangeable (ages 4-7)
– Incipient cooperation stage - formal rules are
applied in social games. “Right way” to play
(ages 7-10)
– Autonomous cooperation stage-become aware
that formal game rules can be modified
Intentional behavior - review page 280
• Immanent Justice = rules broken should earn
immediate punishment
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Evaluating Piaget’s Approach
to Moral Development
• Recent research suggests that although
Piaget was on the right track in his description
of how moral development proceeds, he also
underestimated the age at which children’s
moral skills are honed.
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Social Learning Approaches
to Morality
• Prosocial behavior Helping behavior that
benefits others Warm and responsive
modeling
• Abstract modeling The process in which
modeling paves the way for the development
of more general rules and principles
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Empathy and Moral Behavior
• Empathy The understanding of what another
individual feels
• During the preschool years, empathy continues
to grow.
• Some theorists believe that increasing empathy
leads children to behave in a more moral fashion.
• In addition, some negative emotions, such as
anger at an unfair situation or shame over
previous transgressions, also may promote moral
behavior.
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Aggression and Violence in
Preschoolers: Sources and
Consequences
• Aggression Intentional injury or harm to
another person
• During the early preschool years, some of the
aggression is addressed at attaining a
desired goal.
• On the other hand, extreme and sustained
aggression is a cause of concern.
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Aggression and Violence in
Preschoolers: Sources and
Consequences
• The child’s personality and social
development contribute to this decline in
aggression.
• Emotional self-regulation The capability to
adjust one’s emotions to a desired state and
level of intensity
• Starting at age 2, children are able to talk
about their feelings, and they engage in
strategies to regulate them.
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Aggression and Violence in
Preschoolers: Sources and
Consequences
• Instrumental aggression Aggression
motivated by a desire to obtain a concrete
goal
• Relational aggression Nonphysical
aggression that is intended to hurt another
person’s psychological well-being
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The Roots of Aggression
Social Learning Approaches to Aggression
• Although instinctual explanations of
aggression are logical, most
developmentalists believe they are not the
whole story.
• Consequently, developmentalists have turned
to other approaches to explain aggression
and violence.
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Social Learning Approaches
to Aggression
• Social learning approaches to aggression
contend that aggression is based on
observation and prior learning.
• They emphasize how social and
environmental conditions teach individuals to
be aggressive.
• But social learning approaches suggest that
reinforcement also comes in less direct ways.
• Albert Bandura’s classic Bobo doll experiment
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Viewing Violence on TV:
Does It Matter?
• Although it is clear that laboratory observation
of aggression on television leads to higher
levels of aggression, evidence showing that
real-world viewing of aggression is
associated with subsequent aggressive
behavior is correlational.
• Just as exposure to aggressive models leads
to aggression, observation of non-aggressive
models can reduce aggression.
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Cognitive Approaches to Aggression:
The Thoughts Behind Violence
• The cognitive approach to aggression
suggests that the key to understanding moral
development is to examine preschoolers’
interpretations of others’ behavior and of the
environmental context in which a behavior
occurs.
• The cognitive approach is less successful in
explaining how certain children come to be
inaccurate perceivers of situations in the first
place.
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