Infant Social Development
o
What determines
how children learn to interact in a social world
n
Emotion
n
Personality
n
Attachment
n
Self
n
Peer
relationships
n
Personality
n
Gender
o
Will initially
focus on infancy/preschool period and will discuss social development in older
children later in the cousrse
Infant Social Development
o
How much impact do parents have?
o
What is important for parents to do?
Psychoanalytic Theories
o
Sigmund Freud and
Erik Erikson
n
Freud: Behavior is driven by the need to satisfy
drives and motives that are largely unconscious.
n
Erikson: Development is driven by a series of
age-related developmental tasks that individuals must resolve to achieve
healthy development.
Sigmund Freud
o
Freud was a
neurologist and a founder of developmental theory (1856–1939).
Freud’s Theory of Psychosexual Development
o
His lasting
contributions to developmental psychology:
n
Role of early
experience
n
Discovery of the
unconscious
n
Emphasis on the
role of emotional relationships in development
Basic Features of Freud’s Theory
o
There are five
biologically determined stages of development, three of which occur during the
infancy and preschool period
o
Motivation
springs from drives and the reduction of these drives.
o
There are three
basic structures of personality: the id,
ego, and superego.
o
Freud’s theory is
called “psychosexual” because it posits that psychic energy (biological drives)
are focused in different erogenous zones of the body.
Freud’s Parts of Personality
o
Id: The earliest and most primitive of the
personality structures, ruled by the pleasure principle (to obtain maximal
pleasure as quickly as possible). Stands
for “untamed passions.”
o
Superego: The conscience that enables a child to
control behavior and develop morally. The superego develops through
internalization of parents’ standards
o
Ego: The mind’s link to the external world of
reality. Stands for “reason and good sense.”
Freud’s Stages of Development
o
Oral stage, birth
to 1 year: Primary source of
satisfaction is oral pleasure, such as sucking and eating. The id controls.
o
Anal stage, 1 to
3 years: Primary source of pleasure is
defecation.
n
Beginning of
superego and ego
o
Phallic stage, 3
to 6 years: Children become interested
in their own genitalia and curious about parents’ and playmates’.
n
True Development
of superego
Early Theories of Infant Social Development
o
Erikson (1902–1994)
had enormous influence on developmental psychology
Erikson’s Theory of Psychosocial Development
o
Proposed eight
age-related development stages that span infancy to old age.
o
Each stage is
characterized by a crisis, or task, that the individual must resolve.
o
An unresolved
task will impede progress in the next stage.
Erikson’s Stages
o
Basic trust vs.
Mistrust, birth to 1 year: corresponds
to Freud’s oral stage.
n
The task is to
develop an essential trustfulness of others as well as a sense of one’s own
trustworthiness.
n
Development of
basic trust requires warm, consistent, reliable caregiving that leads the
infant to trust the mother or caregiver.
Erikson’s Stages (continued)
o
Autonomy vs.
Shame and Doubt, 1 to 3 years:
corresponds to Freud’s anal stage.
n
Children gain
motor skills, cognitive abilities, and language, which enable them to make
choices and decisions for themselves.
n
Children need a
supportive atmosphere that allows them to gain a sense of self-control that
enhances self-esteem.
n
Severe
punishment, shame, or ridicule will impede achievement of autonomy.
Erikson’s Stages (continued)
o
Initiative vs.
Guilt, 4 to 6 years: Children identify with
and learn from their parents.
n
Corresponds with
Freud’s phallic stage.
n
Children set
goals and learn to achieve them.
n
Children
internalize parents’ rules and standards and develop a conscience.
n
Children need to
achieve a healthy balance between initiative and guilt.
Current Perspectives on Psychoanalytic
Theories
o
Freud’s emphasis
was on the importance of early experiences and emotional relationships.
o
Erikson’s
reinterpreted without emphasis on sexual drives.
o
The weakness of
both theories is that they are not testable and not verifiable. Doesn’t make them invalid
Your Opinion?
Learning Theories
o
Emphasize the
role of external factors in shaping personality and social behavior.
o
Wanted viewable
and testable theories
Watson’s Behaviorism
o
Watson believed
that children’s development is determined by their social environment,
especially their parents.
o
Ignored mental
states and emphasized conditioning.
o
Proved with his
famous “Little Albert” experiment that fear could be conditioned.
Watson and Little Albert
Skinner’s Operant Conditioning
o
Skinner believed
that behavior was under environmental control.
o
A major tenet is
that we tend to repeat behaviors that lead to favorable outcomes
(reinforcement) and suppress those that result in unfavorable outcomes
(punishment).
Skinner’s Contributions to Child-Rearing
o
Skinner showed
that attention is a powerful reinforcer.
o
The
behavior-management strategy of “time-out” focuses on the withdrawal of
attention.
o
Skinner showed
the difficulty of extinguishing behavior that has been intermittently
reinforced (that is, sometimes rewarded and sometimes not).
o
Skinner’s work
led to behavior-modification therapy, which is useful for changing undesirable
behaviors.
Problems with Traditional Social Learning
Theories
o
Ignored role of the child
o
Children play an active role in their
development
o
Not everything is reinforced, some things are
just observed
o
A Learning theorist who took this into account
was Albert Bandura
Your Opinion?
Bandura’s Social/Cognitive Learning Theory
o
Places the
emphasis on the observation and imitation of others, as well as on the
cognitive processes of attention, encoding, storing, and retrieval of
information to reproduce the behavior observed.
o
Bandura
emphasized “reciprocal determinism” between children and their social
environment, which emphasizes the active role children have in their own development.
Reciprocal Determinism
Bandura and Observational Learning
Problems with both Psychoanalytic and Social
Learning Theories
o
Social development is actively and dynamically evolving over development– Transactional
View
Summary of Social Development Theories
o
Psychodynamic Theories (Freud & Erikson)
n
Too much emphasis on just infancy
n
Ignored individual differences among children
with respect to personality issues
o
Bandura
n
Emphasized importance of the role of the child
n
Not limited to just infancy
n
Ignored the ongoing dynamic nature of social
development
What do children bring to social
development? Individual Differences in Emotions and Regulation
o
Temperament: Individual differences in emotional
reactivity that are seen shortly after birth.
o
Temperament is
biologically based: Heredity, neural,
and hormonal factors affect response to the environment.
o
Stella Chess and
Alexander Thomas developed three categories of temperament.
Thomas and Chess’s Temperament Types
o
Easy babies: 40% of infants; adjust easily to new
situations, quickly establish routines, are generally cheerful and easy to
calm.
o
Difficult
babies: 10% of infants; slow to adjust
to new experiences, likely to react negatively and intensely to stimuli and
events.
o
Slow-to-warm-up
babies: 15% of infants; somewhat difficult at first but become easier
over time.
Examples of Thomas and Chess’s Temperament
Dimensions
Temperament Dimensions (continued)
Six Dimensions of Infant Temperament
(Rothbart & Bates)
o
Fearful distress
o
Irritable
distress
o
Attention span
and persistence
o
Activity level
o
Positive affect
o
Rhythmicity
Temperament and Social and Psychological
Adjustment: Nature and Nurture
o
“Goodness of fit”
refers to the compatibility between temperament and the demands and
expectations of the social environment.
o
Parents can
modulate children’s temperament by their influences on the environment. If parents are supportive and consistent
with difficult children, negative
behaviors may moderate. If parents are
harsh and punitive, undesirable behaviors can worsen.
Temperament and Social and Psychological
Adjustment: Nature and Nurture (continued)
o
The role of
temperament in social and psychological adjustment is complex and interdependent
on parents and the environment.
o
These dynamics
can change over time
Jerome Kagan: Innate Temperament and Stability
Attachment
o
Attachment: The
close and enduring bond between children and their parents or other primary
caregivers.
o
Early research on
attachment was done with children separated from their parents early in life
(Spitz).
o
Freud– attachment
the result of mother’s being the source of food and drive reduction
Harry Harlow (50’s and 60’s)
o
Importance of mother as a “social stimulus”
o
Monkeys raised without social interaction of
mother never developed normal social behaviors and had limited interactions
with “peers”
Theories of Infant Attachment
o
John Bowlby: Ecological Theory
n
Infants have innate characteristics that
promotes attachments
o Looks
o Sounds
o Behaviors
Mary Ainsworth’s Research
Devised the Strange Situation test to assess
attachment: Research is conducted in an unfamiliar context (a laboratory
playroom) likely to heighten the child’s need for a parent.
o Objective: To
observe mother infant relationship under moderately stressful situations
The Strange Situation
Ainsworth’s Three Attachment Categories
o
Securely
attached: 65% of infants
n
Use the mother as
a secure base, but leave her side to explore the room.
n
Happy to see the
mother return.
Secure Attachment
Ainsworth’s Three Attachment Categories (continued)
o
Insecurely
attached - Avoidant
Insecure/avoidant (20% of infants): Avoid the mother in the Strange
Situation, ignore her when she is in the room.
Often don’t greet mother when she returns
Insecure Avoidant Attachment
Ainsworth’s Three Attachment Categories (continued)
o
Insecurely attached-
resistant or abivalent
n
Insecure/resistant
or ambivalent (15% of infants): Clingy often staying close to mom and ignoring
toys
n
upset when the
mother leaves
n
When mother
returns, they greet but then often resist the mother’s attempts at offering
comfort
Insecure Resistant Baby
Attachment Groups –
American Children
Factors Associated with Security of
Attachment
o
Parental
sensitivity in child rearing
o
Mothers of
securely attached infants respond readily to their children’s signals.
o
Mothers of
anxious/resistant infants are inconsistent in caregiving.
o
Mothers of
anxious/avoidant infants tend to be indifferent and emotionally unavailable.
o
Disorganized/distressed
infants tend to be frightened by or confused by their mothers.
Do these predict later behaviors
o
Yes, in that securely attached babies have
closer and better relationships with peers and are generally more successful
later in life
o
To some extent this is because “good parenting”
during infancy predicts better parenting later in development
o
However, there also can be change. Parents can change and reverse effects seen
in early insecure babies