III. Theories of
Social Cognition
A. View of Children’s Nature
B. Central Developmental Issues
C. Selman’s Stage Theory of Role Taking
D. Dodge’s Information-Processing
Theory of Social Problem Solving
E. Dweck’s Theory of Self-Attributions
and Achievement Motivation
F. Current Perspectives
A. View of Children’s Nature

Have to do with children’s ability
to think and reason about their own
and other people’s thoughts,
feelings, motives, and behaviors

Emphasize the process of selfsocialization

Children’s active shaping of their own
development through their activity
preferences, friendship choices, and other
behaviors
B. Central Developmental Issues

The active child is a major theme in social
cognitive theories.

Individual differences in thinking and
behavior for males/females, aggressive/nonaggressive children, etc.

Some stage theories emphasize
discontinuity, whereas others stress
continuity.
C. Selman’s Stage Theory
of Role Taking

Focuses on role taking – the ability
to adopt the perspective of another
person, thereby better
understanding that person’s
behavior, thoughts, and feelings


Preschoolers, for example, cannot take the
perspective of another and hence have
very limited social cognition.
Selman proposed that children go
through four increasingly complex
and abstract stages in their thinking
about other people.
Selman’s
Stages of Development
Stage
1
2
3
4
Description
Children come to appreciate that another
6-8 years
person can have a different perspective
from their own, but they attribute this to the
other person’s not having the same
information they do
Children become able to think about the
8-10 years other person’s point of view
Children can systematically compare their
10-12 years own and the other’s points of view
Adolescents can compare another person’s
12+ years
perspective to that of a generalized other
D. Dodge’s Information-Processing
Theory of Social Problem Solving

Emphasizes the crucial role of cognitive
processes in social behavior

Children’s use of aggression as a problemsolving strategy

Found that highly aggressive children seem
to have a hostile attributional bias—an
expectation that others are hostile to them,
which becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy
E. Dweck’s Theory of Self-Attributions and
Achievement Motivation

Emphasizes the role of self-attributions in academic
achievement

Children with a entity/helpless orientation attribute
success and failure to enduring aspects of the self and
tend to give up in the face of failure



Such “helpless” children tend to base their sense of self-worth on
the degree of approval they receive from other people
To be assured of praise, they avoid situations in which they are
likely to not be successful
Children with an incremental/mastery orientation attribute
success and failure to the amount of effort expended and
persist in the face of failure.
E. Dweck’s Theory of Self-Attributions and
Achievement Motivation

Older children’s cognitions about themselves are more
complex

Some children have an entity theory of intelligence and tend to
think that a person’s level of intelligence is fixed and
unchangeable.
 When they experience failure, they conclude that they are not
very smart and that there is nothing they can do about the
situation.

Other children hold an incremental theory of intelligence and
believe that intelligence can increase as a function of
experience.
 These children tend to try harder after failure.
Implications


Praising children for
working hard supports an
incremental model and a
mastery-oriented
motivational pattern.
In contrast, offering
praise and criticism
focused on enduring
traits can lead to an entity
model and a helpless
orientation.
F. Current Perspectives

Social cognitive theories have
made important theoretical
contributions and have been
supported by research.

However, they provide an
incomplete account because they
do not address biological factors
in development.
IV. Ecological Theories
of Development
A. View of Children’s Nature
B. Central Developmental Issues
C. Ethological and Evolutionary
Theories
D. The Bioecological Model
E. Current Perspectives
A. View of Children’s Nature

Ethological and evolutionary theories
view children as inheritors of
genetically based abilities and
predispositions that underlie most
aspects of their behavior.

The bioecological model emphasizes
the effect of context on development,
but it also emphasizes the child’s
active role in selecting and influencing
those contexts.
B. Central Developmental
Issues

The importance of the interaction of
nature and nuture, sociocultural
context, and continuity of development
are emphases in all three ecological
theories.

The active role of children in their own
development is emphasized most in the
bioecological approach.
Ecological Perspectives
Ethological
Evolutionary
Bioecological
C. Ethological and
Evolutionary Theories

Ethological and evolutionary theories
are concerned with aspects of human
development that are presumed to be
based on our evolutionary heritage.

These theories primarily focus on
species-specific behavior.
1. Ethology

Studies the evolutionary
bases of behavior,
attempting to understand
behavior in terms of its
adaptive or survival value

Ethologists argue that a
variety of innate behavior
patterns in animals,
including imprinting, were
shaped by evolution.
 Imprinting is a form of
learning in which the young
of some species of newborn
birds and mammals
become attached to and
follow adult members of the
species.
 Although human newborns
do not imprint, they work to
maintain visual contact with
adult humans.
The Ethological Perspective

Research also examined gender differences
in play patterns

Ethologists argue that gender differences are
affected by evolved predispositions, with
females having an innate preference for
objects that afford opportunities for
nurturance; males, for objects that invite
movement.

Support for the argument comes from research showing
that nonhuman primates exhibit similar patterns of
gender preferences as human children.
2. Evolutionary Psychology

A relatively new approach that applies the Darwinian
concepts of natural selection and adaptation to human
behavior.


A major premise of evolutionary psychology is that organisms,
including humans, are motivated to behave in ways that preserve
their genes in the gene pool of the species.
Evolutionary psychologists argue that the large size of
our brains necessitates a prolonged period of immaturity.

A consequence is humans’ neural plasticity in learning from
experience.

They also see play as an evolved platform for learning.

Prolonged immaturity requires a great deal of nurturance from
parents.
Evolutionary Psychology

Parental-investment theory stresses the
evolutionary basis of many aspects of parental
behavior, including the extensive investment
parents make in their offspring.

Parents’ genes are perpetuated only if their
offspring survive and reproduce.

A dark side of the evolutionary picture is the fact
that the rate of murders committed by
stepfathers against children residing with them
is hundreds of times higher than the rate for
fathers and their biological children.
Evolutionary Psychology

Further, an implication
of the evolutionary
view of development is
that radical departures
from the speciestypical environment
(for example, in
neonatal intensive
care) could have
negative consequences
on development.
D. The Bioecological Model
Urie Brofenbrenner presents the child’s environment as
composed of a series of nested structures, with every level
having an impact on development.
 The microsystem is the immediate, bi-directional
environment that a person experiences.
 The mesosystem encompasses the connections among
various microsystems.
 The exosystem consists of environmental settings that the
person does not experience directly but that can affect the
person indirectly.
 The macrosystem is the larger cultural context within
which the other systems are embedded.
 The chronosystem consists of historical changes that
influence the other systems.
Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity
Disorder (ADHD)

Children with ADHD tend to be of normal
intelligence, but have difficulty sticking to
plans, following rules and regulations, and
persevering on tasks that require sustained
attention.
 All the symptoms seem to reflect an underlying
difficulty in inhibiting impulses to act, especially
when distractions are present.

ADHD affects 3-5% of the children in the US,
with the majority of the children diagnosed
being boys.
ADHD

ADHD, like many other debilitating syndromes,
can be examined with the different levels of the
bioecological model in mind.

Biology clearly plays a role in causing ADHD.

Environment influences, including parental
behavior and how these children are treated by
others, are also important.
 There is no evidence, however, that food
additives, sugar, and fast-paced television are
causes.
ADHD

Small doses of stimulants like Ritalin help 70-90% of
the children for whom it is prescribed.
 Longer-lasting gains require behavioral treatments, such
as teaching children strategies for screening out
disruptions.

The availability of medications depends on factors far
outside the influence of the family.

At the level of the chronosystem, many have
suggested that ADHD is a serious problem in modern
times because of the advent of compulsory schooling,
which prohibits children with attentional problems from
finding niches outside the classroom.
1. Child Maltreatment

Child maltreatment (i.e., intentional abuse
or neglect that endangers the well-being
of anyone under the age of 18) is one of
the most serious threats to child
development in the United States.


In comparison to other youngsters, maltreated
children have less secure relationships with
parents, show less empathy and less self-esteem,
and more conflicts with peers and difficulties with
academic work in elementary school.
In adolescence and adulthood, individuals with a
history of maltreatment are at risk for developing
serious psychopathologies.
1. Child Maltreatment

Consistent with the bioecological model, a variety of
factors are involved in the causes and consequences
of child abuse.

At the level of the microsystem, certain characteristics
of children make them more likely to suffer abuse at
the hands of their parents.
 Maltreating parents often have low self esteem, poor
impulse control, and other problems.

At the levels of the mesosystem and the exosystem,
factors related to low family income and increased
stress on parents are associated with abuse.
 A particularly important exosystem contributor is a
family’s social isolation and lack of social support.
1. Child Maltreatment

Daphne Bugental and her colleagues have
developed a promising approach to preventing
child maltreatment based on the social cognitive
perspective.


The researchers found that many abusive parents
misinterpret child behavior (such as prolonged crying)
and view themselves as victims.
The program attempted to help parents at risk of
abuse to achieve more realistic interpretations
of their difficulties in caring for their children and
to develop strategies for solving their problems.

With reference to comparison groups receiving other
types of interventions, the program was remarkably
successful in reducing the incidence of abuse.
2. Children and the Media


The daily environment of children in the
United States is media saturated.
Children spend more time involved with media
entertainment than they do in any other activity
besides school and sleep.


There is some evidence
that some positive benefits
can be derived from
educational television,
internet chat rooms, and
some kinds of video games.
However, there are also
many concerns about the
effects of media…
2. Children and the Media


More than 60% of television
programs, for example, contain
episodes of violence.
Exposure to media violence:
 Teaches new behaviors and
inspires imitation
 Increases the accessibility of the
viewer’s own aggressive thoughts
and feelings
 Creates heightened physiological
arousal that makes viewers more
likely to react violently to
provocations after watching violent
material
 May lead to emotional
densensitization
2. Children and the Media

Media viewing can also lead to
decreased physical activity.



Although there have been
concerns about social isolation
resulting from computer and
video game use, recent
evidence suggest that these
activities are often
interpersonally focused.
An additional concern is the
possibility that socioeconomic
inequities will be exacerbated
by unequal access to
computers.
Finally, a serious concern for
many parents is children’s
possible exposure to
pornography via television and
the internet.
3. SES and Development

The effects of poverty
on child development
operate at all levels.

Affluence can also
have negative effects
on development,
including higher
levels of anxiety and
depression.
3. SES and Development

These effects may arise
because more affluent
families tend to pressure
their children to excel and
often provide their children
with little support.

Further, the demands of
dual careers may leave
young adolescents
unsupervised for several
hours each week.

In one assessment of
well-being, the most
affluent youth reported
the lowest level of
happiness whereas those
from the poorest families
reported the highest.
The Environment
of Childhood Poverty
F. Current Perspectives

Ecological theories are important because they
place individual development in a much broader
context than do other theories of social
development.

Evolutionary psychology has been criticized
because many of its tenets cannot be tested and
because it overlooks the human capacity to
transform our environments and ourselves.

The bioecological model has made important
contributions to thinking about development, but
can be criticized for its general omission of
specific biological factors.