Infant Social Development
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What determines
how children learn to interact in a social world
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Emotion
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Personality
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Attachment
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Self
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Peer
relationships
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Personality
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Gender
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Will initially
focus on infancy/preschool period and will discuss social development in older
children later in the cousrse
Infant Social Development
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How much impact do parents have?
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What is important for parents to do?
Psychoanalytic Theories
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Sigmund Freud and
Erik Erikson�
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Freud:� Behavior is driven by the need to satisfy
drives and motives that are largely unconscious.
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Erikson:� Development is driven by a series of
age-related developmental tasks that individuals must resolve to achieve
healthy development.
Sigmund Freud
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Freud was a
neurologist and a founder of developmental theory (1856�1939).
Freud�s Theory of Psychosexual Development
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His lasting
contributions to developmental psychology:
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Role of early
experience
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Importance of
subjective experience
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Discovery of the
unconscious
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Emphasis on the
role of emotional relationships in development
Basic Features of Freud�s Theory
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There are five
biologically determined stages of development, three of which occur during the
infancy and preschool period
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Motivation
springs from drives and the reduction of these drives.
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There are three
basic structures of personality:� the id,
ego, and superego.
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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
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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.�
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Superego:� The conscience that enables a child to
control behavior and develop morally. The superego develops through internalization
of parents� standards
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Ego:� The mind�s link to the external world of
reality. Stands for �reason and good sense.�
Freud�s Stages of Development
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Oral stage, birth
to 1 year:� Primary source of
satisfaction is oral pleasure, such as sucking and eating. The id controls.
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Anal stage, 1 to
3 years:� Primary source of pleasure is
defecation.
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Beginning or
superego and ego
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Phallic stage, 3
to 6 years:� Children become interested
in their own genitalia and curious about parents� and playmates�.�
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True Development
of superego
Early Theories of Infant Social Development
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Erikson
(1902�1994) had enormous influence on developmental psychology
Erikson�s Theory of Psychosocial Development
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Proposed eight
age-related development stages that span infancy to old age.
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Each stage is
characterized by a crisis, or task, that the individual must resolve.
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An unresolved
task will impede progress in the next stage.
Erikson�s Stages
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Basic trust vs.
Mistrust, birth to 1 year:�� corresponds
to Freud�s oral stage.�
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The task is to
develop an essential trustfulness of others as well as a sense of one�s own
trustworthiness.�
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Development of
basic trust requires warm, consistent, reliable caregiving that leads the
infant to trust the mother or caregiver.
Erikson�s Stages (continued)
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Autonomy vs.
Shame and Doubt, 1 to 3 years:��
corresponds to Freud�s anal stage.
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Children gain
motor skills, cognitive abilities, and language, which enable them to make
choices and decisions for themselves.
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Children need a
supportive atmosphere that allows them to gain a sense of self-control that
enhances self-esteem.
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Severe
punishment, shame, or ridicule will impede achievement of autonomy.
Erikson�s Stages (continued)
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Initiative vs.
Guilt, 4 to 6 years:� Children identify
with and learn from their parents.
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Corresponds with
Freud�s phallic stage.
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Children set
goals and learn to achieve them.
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Children
internalize parents� rules and standards and develop a conscience.�
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Children need to
achieve a healthy balance between initiative and guilt.
Current Perspectives on Psychoanalytic
Theories
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Freud�s emphasis
was on the importance of early experiences and emotional relationships.
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Erikson�s
reinterpreted without emphasis on sexual drives.
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The weakness of
both theories is that they are not testable and not verifiable.� Doesn�t make them invalid
Learning Theories
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Emphasize the
role of external factors in shaping personality and social behavior.
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Wanted viewable
and testable theories
Watson�s Behaviorism
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Watson believed
that children�s development is determined by their social environment,
especially their parents.
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Ignored mental
states and emphasized conditioning.
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Proved with his
famous �Little Albert� experiment that fear could be conditioned.
Skinner�s Operant Conditioning
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Skinner believed
that behavior was under environmental control.
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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
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Skinner showed
that attention is a powerful reinforcer.
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The
behavior-management strategy of �time-out� focuses on the withdrawal of
attention.
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Skinner showed
the difficulty of extinguishing behavior that has been intermittently
reinforced (that is, sometimes rewarded and sometimes not).
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Skinner�s work
led to behavior-modification therapy, which is useful for changing undesirable
behaviors.
Problems with Traditional Social Learning
Theories
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Ignored role of the child
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Children play an active role in their
development
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A Learning theorist who took this into account
was Albert Bandura
Bandura�s Social/Cognitive Learning Theory
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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.
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Bandura
emphasized �reciprocal determinism� between children and their social
environment, which emphasizes the active role children have� in their own development.
Reciprocal Determinism
Problems with both Psychoanalytic and Social
Learning Theories
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Ignores the role of individual differences in
children� children are born with different temperaments
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Social development is actively evolving over
development� Transactional View
Individual Differences in Emotions and
Regulation
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Temperament:� Individual differences in emotional
reactivity that are seen shortly after birth.�
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Temperament is
biologically based:� Heredity, neural,
and hormonal factors affect response to the environment.
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Stella Chess and
Alexander Thomas developed three categories of temperament.
Thomas and Chess�s Temperament Types
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Easy babies:� 40% of infants; adjust easily to new
situations, quickly establish routines, are generally cheerful and easy to
calm.
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Difficult
babies:� 10% of infants; slow to adjust
to new experiences, likely to react negatively and intensely to stimuli and
events.
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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)
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Fearful distress
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Irritable
distress
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Attention span
and persistence
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Activity level
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Positive affect
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Rhythmicity
Temperament and Social and Psychological
Adjustment: Nature and Nurture
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�Goodness of fit�
refers to the compatibility between temperament and the demands and
expectations of the social environment.
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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)
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The role of
temperament in social and psychological adjustment is complex and
interdependent on parents and the environment.
Jerome Kagan:� Innate Temperament and Stability