Chapter 6
Socioemotional Development in Early
Childhood
PowerPoints developed by Nicholas Greco IV, College of Lake
County, Grayslake, IL
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Initiative Versus Guilt
 Erikson’s third stage: initiative versus guilt
children use their perceptual, motor, cognitive,
and language skills to make things happen
on their own initiative, children exuberantly
move out into a wider social world
governor of initiative is conscience
initiative leads not only to rewards but also
guilt, which lowers self-esteem
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Self-Understanding
 Self-understanding -- representation of self
-- the substance and content of selfconceptions
 Early self-understanding involves selfrecognition
Young children think that the self can be
described by many material characteristics,
such as size, shape, and color
About 4 to 5 years of age, they begin to
include psychological trait and emotion terms
in their own self-descriptions
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Understanding Others
 Young children’s theory of mind includes
understanding that other people have
emotions and desires
 About 4 to 5 years, they begin to perceive
others in terms of psychological traits
 Some young children are better than
others at understanding what people are
feeling and what they desire
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Emotional Development
 Awareness of self is linked to the ability to
feel an expanding range of emotions
 To experience self-conscious emotions,
children must be able to refer to
themselves and be aware of themselves
as distinct from others
 Important changes in emotional
development: increased ability to talk
about one’s own and others’ emotions
increase the number of terms they use to
describe emotions
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Emotion-Coaching and
Emotion-Dismissing Parents
 Emotion-coaching parents monitor their
children’s emotions, view their children’s
negative emotions as opportunities for
teaching, assist them in labeling emotions,
and coach them in how to deal effectively
with emotions
 Emotion-dismissing parents view their role
as to deny, ignore, or change negative
emotions
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Regulation of Emotion and Peer
Relations
 Emotions play a strong role in determining
the success of a child’s peer relationships
 Ability to modulate one’s emotions is an
important skill that benefits relationships
with peers
moody and emotionally negative children
experience rejection by their peers
positive children are more popular
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Moral Development
 Moral development -- development of
thoughts, feelings, and behaviors
regarding rules and conventions about
what people should do in their interactions
with other people
Freudian theory, superego = the moral
element of personality
 Empathy -- responding to another person’s
feelings with an emotion that echoes the
other’s feelings
(Eisenberg & others, 2009)
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Moral Reasoning
 Piaget (1932) theorized how thinking
about moral issues was stimulated
Ages 4–7: heteronomous morality -- children
think of justice and rules as unchangeable
properties of the world, removed from the
control of people
7–10 years of age, children are in a transition
10 years and older: autonomous morality -aware that rules and laws are created by
people
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Moral Reasoning
 Because young children are
heteronomous moralists, they judge the
rightness or goodness of behavior by
considering its consequences, not the
intentions of the actor
 The heteronomous thinker also believes in
immanent justice -- the concept that if a
rule is broken, punishment will be meted
out immediately
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Moral Behavior
 Behavioral and social cognitive approach -processes of reinforcement, punishment,
and imitation explain the development of
moral behavior
 When rewarded for behavior that is
consistent with laws and social
conventions, they are likely to repeat that
behavior
 Actions of models who behave morally are
likely to be adopted
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Moral Behavior
 Behavioral and social cognitive
researchers emphasize that what children
do in one situation is often only weakly
related to what they do in other situations
 The totally honest child was virtually
nonexistent, as was the totally dishonest
child
 Ability to resist temptation is closely tied to
the development of self-control
(Hartshorne & May, 1928–1930; Mischel, 2004)
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Gender
 Gender -- social and psychological
dimensions of being male or female
 Gender identity -- sense of being male or
female
 Gender roles -- sets of expectations that
prescribe how females or males should
think, act, and feel
preschool children act in ways that match
their culture's gender roles and exhibit a
sense of gender identity
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Social Theories of Gender
 Social role theory -- contrasting roles of
women and men
 Psychoanalytic theory of gender -- Freud’s
view -- preschool child develops a sexual
attraction to the opposite-sex parent
Oedipus (for boys) or Electra (for girls)
complex
 Social cognitive theory of gender -- by
observing and imitating and through being
rewarded and punished
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Parental Influences on Gender
Development
 By action and by example, parents influence
their children’s gender development
cultures around the world give mothers and
fathers different roles
Mothers’ Socialization Strategies -- mothers
socialize their daughters to be more obedient
and responsible than their sons
Fathers’ Socialization Strategies -- fathers
show more attention to sons than daughters,
engage in more activities with sons, and put
forth more effort to promote sons’ intellectual
development
(Grusec & Davidov, 2007)
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Peer Influences
 Peers prompt the process of responding to
and modeling masculine and feminine
behavior
playground has been called “gender school”
 Peers extensively reward and punish
gender behavior
peers often reject children who act in a
manner that is characteristic of the other
gender
 Gender molds important aspects of peer
relations
(Luria & Herzog, 1985; Leaper & Friedman, 2007; Matlin, 2008)
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Theories of Gender Development
 Social Cognitive Theory
mechanisms by which gender develops
observation
imitation
rewards and punishment
 Gender Schema Theory
gender typing emerges as children gradually
develop gender schemas of what is genderappropriate and gender-inappropriate in their
culture
gender schema -- organizes the world in
terms of female and male
(Martin & Ruble, 2010)
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Baumrind’s Parenting Styles
 Diana Baumrind (1971) has described four types
of parenting styles
 authoritarian parenting -- restrictive, punitive style
demanding obedience and respect
 authoritative parenting -- encourages independence
but still places limits and controls
 neglectful parenting -- parent is very uninvolved in the
child's life
 indulgent parenting -- highly involved with but place
few demands or controls
 There are ethic differences which may be
associated with more positive outcomes than
Baumrind predicts
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Insert Figure 6.2
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Punishment
 Corporal (physical) punishment historically
has been considered a necessary and
even desirable method of discipline
 Use of corporal punishment is legal in
every state in America
 Individuals in the United States and
Canada were among those with the most
favorable attitudes toward corporal
punishment and were the most likely to
remember it being used by their parents
(Curran & others, 2001)
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Consequences of Corporal
Punishment
 Corporal punishment is associated with
Higher levels of immediate compliance, but
also with increased aggression by the children
Lower levels of moral internalization and
mental health
More adjustment problems
Adolescent depression
Juvenile delinquency
(Gershoff, 2002; Bender & others, 2007)
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Reasons to Avoid Physical
Punishment
 Parents who spank present children with
an out-of-control model which the children
may then imitate
 Punishment can instill fear, rage, or
avoidance in children
 Punishment tells the child what not to do
rather than what to do
 Punishment can be abusive
(Durrant, 2008)
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Coparenting and Alternatives to
Corporal Punishment
 Handling misbehavior by reasoning and
especially explaining the consequences of
the child’s actions
 Time out -- the child is briefly removed
from the setting
 Coparenting -- the support that parents
provide one another in jointly raising a
child
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Child Maltreatment
 Eighty-four percent of children, who were
abused according to a 2008 report, were
abused by a parent or parents
 In 2006, approximately 905,000 U.S.
children were victims of child abuse
(U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2008)
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Types of Child Maltreatment
 Physical abuse
the infliction of physical injury
 Child neglect
failure to provide for the child’s basic needs
 Sexual abuse
fondling a child’s genitals, intercourse, incest,
rape, sodomy, etc.
 Emotional abuse
psychological/verbal abuse/mental injury
acts/omissions that have caused, or could
cause, serious behavioral, cognitive, or
emotional problems
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The Context of Abuse
 No single factor causes child maltreatment
 A combination of factors includes:
The culture
Family characteristics
Developmental characteristics of the child
 About one-third of parents who were
abused themselves go on to abuse their
own children
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Developmental Consequences of
Abuse
 Poor emotion regulation, attachment problems,
problems in peer relations, difficulty in adapting
to school, and other psychological problems
such as depression and delinquency
 Difficulty in establishing and maintaining healthy
intimate relationships
 As adolescents and adults, they are at higher
risk for violent romantic relationships, as well as
for substance abuse, sexual risk taking, financial
and employment-related difficulties
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Prevention of Maltreatment
 In a recent study, two treatments were
effective in reducing child maltreatment:
home visitation that emphasized improved
parenting, coping with stress, and increasing
support for the mother
parent-infant psychotherapy that focused on
improving maternal-infant attachment
(Cicchetti, Toth, &Rogosch, 2005)
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Sibling Relationships
 Approximately 80 percent of American
children have one or more siblings
 Interactions with siblings include
aggressive, hostile interchanges
 Conflict is only one of the many
dimensions of sibling relations
sibling relations include helping, sharing,
teaching, fighting, and playing
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Characteristics of Sibling
Relationships
 Emotional quality of the relationship
many children and adolescents have mixed
feelings toward their siblings
 Familiarity and intimacy of the relationship
they can either provide support or tease and
undermine each other, depending on the
situation
 Variation in sibling relationships
some siblings describe their relationships
more positively than others
(Dunn, 2007)
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Birth Order
 First-born children
more adult-oriented
more helpful, conforming, and self-controlled
 Only children often are achievementoriented and display a desirable
personality, especially in comparison with
later-borns and children from large families
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Changing Family in a Changing
Society
 The United States has one of the highest
percentages of single-parent families in
the world
 Among two-parent families, there are
those in which both parents work, or have
divorced parents who have remarried, or
gay or lesbian parents
 Differences in culture and SES also
influence families
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Working Parents
 The nature of parents’ work rather than
whether one parent works outside the
home is significant
Parents who have poor working conditions
are likely to be more irritable at home and
engage in less effective parenting
A consistent finding is that children (especially
girls) of working mothers engage in less
gender stereotyping and have more
egalitarian views of gender
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Children in Divorced Families
 Children in divorced families are more likely to
 have academic problems
 show externalized problems (such as acting out and
delinquency) and internalized problems (such as
anxiety and depression)
 have less competent intimate relationships
 drop out of school
 become sexually active at an early age
 take drugs
 to become sexually active at an early age
 have low self-esteem
 A majority of children in divorced families do not
have significant adjustment problems
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Divorce Adjustment
 When a divorced parents’ relationship with
each other is harmonious and when they
use authoritative parenting, the adjustment
of children improves
 Children who are socially mature and
responsible, who show few behavioral
problems, and who have an easy
temperament are better able to cope
 Children with a difficult temperament often
have problems in coping with their parents’
divorce
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Socioeconomic Issues of Divorce
 Custodial mothers experience the loss of
about one-fourth to one-half of their predivorce income
 This income loss for divorced mothers is
accompanied by increased workloads,
high rates of job instability, and residential
moves to less desirable neighborhoods
with inferior schools
 Custodial fathers have a loss of only onetenth of their pre-divorce income
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Gay Male and Lesbian Parents
 Approximately 20 percent of lesbians and
10 percent of gay men are parents
 Many lesbian mothers and gay fathers are
non-custodial parents because they lost
custody of their children to heterosexual
spouses after a divorce
 Most children of gay and lesbian parents
were born in a heterosexual relationship
that ended in a divorce
 Parenthood among lesbians and gay men
is controversial
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Cultural, Ethnic, and
Socioeconomic Variations
 Families in many countries are
experiencing cultural change because of
 frequent international travel
 the Internet and electronic communications
 economic globalization
 greater family mobility
 migration to urban areas
 separation as some family members work in cities or
other countries
 smaller families and fewer extended-family
households
 increases in maternal employment
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Cultural, Ethnic, and
Socioeconomic Variations
 Families within different ethnic groups
differ in their size, structure, composition,
reliance on kinships networks, and levels
of income and education
 When children spend time in a child-care
center, school, church, or other community
setting, they are likely to learn the values
and behaviors of the dominant culture
they may be expected to adapt to that
culture’s norms -- acculturation
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Cultural, Ethnic, and
Socioeconomic Variations
 Lower-SES parents
more concerned that children conform to
society’s expectations
create a home atmosphere where parents
have authority
use physical punishment more
are more directive and less conversational
with their children
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Cultural, Ethnic, and
Socioeconomic Variations
 Higher-SES parents
are more concerned with developing
children's initiative and delay of gratification
create an atmosphere in which children are
more nearly equal participants
rules are discussed
are less likely to use physical punishment
are less directive and more conversational
with their children
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Peer Relations
 Peers -- children of about the same age or
maturity level
 Functions of a child’s peer group
receive feedback about their abilities
can be necessary for normal socioemotional
development
negotiating roles and rules in play, arguing,
and agreeing
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Play
 Extensive amount of peer interaction
during childhood involves play
 Play -- pleasurable activity that is engaged
in for its own sake
 Its functions and forms vary
 Therapists use play therapy both to allow
the child to work off frustrations and to
analyze the child’s conflicts and ways of
coping with them
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Parten’s Classic Study of Play
 Parten’s proposed the following types
of play:
Unoccupied play
Solitary play
Onlooker play
Parallel play
Associative play
Cooperative play
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Types of Play
 Most widely studied types of
children’s play
sensorimotor and practice play
pretense/symbolic play
social play
constructive play
games
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Types of Play
 Sensorimotor play is behavior by
infants intended to derive pleasure
from exercising their sensorimotor
schemes
 Practice play involves the repetition of
behavior when new skills are being
learned or when physical or mental
mastery and coordination of skills are
required for games or sports
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Types of Play
 Pretense/symbolic play occurs when the
child transforms the physical environment
into a symbol
 Social play involves interaction with peers
 Constructive play combines
sensorimotor/practice play with symbolic
representation
 Games are activities that are engaged in
for pleasure and have rules
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Television
 Television is the most influential of the
many types of mass media that affect
children’s behavior
 Many spend more time in front of the
television set than they do with their
parents
average of 2 to 4 hours a day
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Television
 Negative influence on children by
making them passive learners
distracting them from doing homework
teaching them stereotypes
providing them with violent models of
aggression
presenting them with unrealistic views of the
world
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Television
 Positive influence on children’s
development by
presenting motivating educational programs
increasing their information about the world
beyond their immediate environment
providing models of prosocial behavior
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Effects of Television on
Children’s Aggression
 Saturday morning cartoon shows average
more than 25 violent acts per hour
 Increased concern about children who
play violent video games, especially those
that are highly realistic
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