Chapter 8: Early Childhood - Social & Emotional Development

Question 1

What does ‘authoritative’ mean?

Answer 1

Refers to a child-rearing style in which parents are restrictive and demanding yet communicative and warm.

Question 2

What does ‘authoritarian’ mean?

Answer 2

Refers to a child-rearing style in which parents demand submission and obedience.

Question 3

What does ‘permissive-indulgent’ mean?

Answer 3

Refers to a child-rearing style in which parents are warm and not restrictive.

Question 4

What does ‘rejecting-neglecting” mean?

Answer 4

Refers to a child-rearing style in which parents are neither restrictive and controlling nor supportive and responsive.

Question 5

What are ways parents might enforce restrictions?

Answer 5

• Inductive methods (explanations/reasoning)
• Power-assertive methods that include physical punishment and denial of privileges
• Withdrawl of love

Question 6

What is ‘parental power assertion’ associated with?

Answer 6

• Childre’s lower acceptance by peers, poor grades, and more antisocial behaviour
• More assertion, the less likely the child will develop internal standards of conduct

Question 7

What does the term ‘redirecting’ mean?

Answer 7

One way to manage children who are doing something wrong or bad is to direct them toward a different activity; preschoolers more readily comply when asked to do something than when asked to not do something.
* Triple P

Question 8

What does the ‘inductive technique’ refer to?

Answer 8

Refers to a parenting technique based on an attempt to foster an understanding of principles behind parental demands, characteristic of disciplinary methods, such as reasoning.

Question 9

What is ‘regression?’

Answer 9

A return to behaviour characteristic of earlier stages of development.

Question 10

What is ‘dramatic play?’

Answer 10

Play in which children enact social roles.

Question 11

What does ‘disinhibit’ mean?

Answer 11

Stimulate a response that has been suppressed by showing a model engaging in that response. Punishment inhibits behaviour. Conversely, media violence may disinhibit aggressive behaviour, especially when characters “get away” with it.

Question 12

Describe the characteristics of children with authoritative parents:

Answer 12

Parents are restrictive but warm, and they tend to have more component and achievement-oriented children.

Question 13

Describe the characteristics of children with authoritarian parents:

Answer 13

Parents are restrictive and cold; boys tend to be hostile and defiant, while girls tend to be low in independence and self-esteem.

Question 14

Describe the characteristics of children with rejecting-neglecting parents:

Answer 14

Children with these parents tend to show the least competence and maturity.

Question 15

Describe the dimensions of child-rearing and parenting styles:

Answer 15

Approaches to child rearing can be classified according to the dimension of warmth-coldness and restrictiveness-permissiveness.

Question 16

Explain Hartup’s discussion on the bidirectional relationship between parents and children:

Answer 16

Individuals are changed by relationships just as changes in relationships are precipitated b changes in the individual. This makes it difficult to understand where problematic behaviour begins in some cases.

Is it the child’s temperament that leads to inappropriate behaviour, leading to the parent treating the child harshly in return, or does the parent’s treatment of the child lead him or her to act negatively?

Question 17

Explain how siblings/birth order affects social development during early childhood:

Answer 17

• Siblings provide caregiving, emotional support, advice, role models, social interaction, restrictions, and cognitive stimulation.
• Siblings are also the source of conflict, control, and competition.
• First-born children + only children = highly motivated to achieve, more cooperative, more helpful, more adult-oriented, less aggressive
• Later-born children = greater social skills with peers
• First-born children tend to be more cooperative, and later-born children tend to be more social.

Question 18

What does ‘categorical self’ mean?

Answer 18

The definitions of the self that refer to external traits

Question 19

What is ‘gender role socialization?’

Answer 19

Learning to acquire clusters of traits and behaviours that are considered stereotypical f females and males.

Question 20

What is ‘gender identity?’

Answer 20

A person’s innate, deeply felt sense of being male or female (sometimes both or neither)
* Demonstrated in children by age 2 = most children can say if they are a boy or a girl
* Age 3 = can discriminate between anatomic sex differences

Question 21

What is ‘gender stability?’

Answer 21

The concept is that one’s sex is unchanging.
* Around ages 4-5: children recognize that people retain their sexes for a life time; a boy believes he will grow up to become a man

Question 22

What is ‘gender constancy?’

Answer 22

The concept is that one’s sex remains the same despite changes in appearance or behaviour.
* Around ages 5-7: children can recognize that sex does not change even if they change their dress or behaviour

Question 23

What is ‘gender-schema theory?’

Answer 23

The view that society’s gender-based concepts shape our assumptions of gender-typed preferences and behaviour patterns.

Question 24

What is ‘gender neutral parenting (GNP)?’

Answer 24

The decision not to assign a specific gender to children based on their biological sex.

Question 25

Discuss personality and emotional development during early childhood, focusing on the self, Erikson’s views, and fears.

Answer 25

Children as young as age three years can describe themselves in terms of their behaviour and their internal statues. Secure attachment and competence contribute t self-esteem. Preschoolers are more likely to fear animals, imaginary creatures, and the dark.

Question 26

Explain Hartup’s discussion on the bidirectional relationship between parents and children:

Answer 26

Individuals are changed by relationships just as changes in relationships are precipitated b changes in the individual. This makes it difficult to understand where problematic behaviour begins in some cases.

Is it the child’s temperament that leads to inappropriate behaviour, leading to the parent treating the child harshly in return, or does the parent’s treatment of the child lead him or her to act negatively?

Question 27

What are the effects of divorce on early childhood?

Answer 27

• Young children experience divorce disrupting to their sense of security and safety, and they often feel they are blamed.
• They worry about abandonment and being separated from their parent.
• Change to their family significantly impacts their well-being.

Question 28

Explain how peer relationships affect social development during early childhood:

Answer 28

• Peer interaction fosters social skills - sharing, helping, taking turns and dealing with conflict.
• Friendship is characterized by shared positive experiences and feelings of attachment.
• Similar and proximity are important determinants in early childhood
• At 2 yrs = preference for a playmate

Question 29

What are Piaget’s identified kinds of play? In order.

Answer 29

Each type of play is characterized by increased cognitive complexity:
* Functional play (sensorimotor)
* Symbolic play (end of sensorimotor)
* Constructive play (early childhood)
* Formal play (whole life)

Question 30

What is ‘functional play?’

Answer 30

Beginning in the sensorimotor stage, the first kind of play involved repetitive motor activity, such as rolling a ball or running and laughing.

Question 31

What is ‘symbolic play?’

Answer 31

Also called pretend play, imaginative play, or dramatic play, symbolic play emerges towards the end of the sensorimotor stage and increases during early childhood. In symbolic play, children create settings, characters, and scripts.

Question 32

What is ‘constructive play?’

Answer 32

Children use objects or materials to draw or make something, such as a tower of blocks.

Question 33

What are ‘formal games?’

Answer 33

Games with rules include board games, which are sometimes enhanced or invented by children, and games involving motor skills, such as marbles and hopscotch, ball games involving sides or teams, and video games. Such games may involve social interaction, as well as physical activity and rules. People play such games for a lifetime.

Question 34

What are Piaget’s four stages of development?

Answer 34

• Sensorimotor stage (0-2 years)
• Preoperational stage (2-7 years)
• Concrete operational stage (7-11 years)
  *Formal operational stage (12 + years)

Question 35

What happens in the ‘sensorimotor stage?’

Answer 35

Babies start to build an understanding of the world through their senses by touching, grasping, watching, and listening.

They also begin to develop a sense of object permanence, which means they understand that objects exist even when they cannot see them.

Question 36

What happens in the ‘preoperational stage?’

Answer 36

Children develop language and abstract thought. This means they can think about concepts and ideas that are not physical.

They also begin symbolic play (“playing pretend”), drawing pictures, and talking about things that happened in the past.

Question 37

What happens in the ‘concrete operational stage?’

Answer 37

Children learn logical, concrete (physical) rules about objects, such as height, weight, and volume. They also learn that an object’s properties stay the same, even if the appearance changes (e.g., modeling clay)

Question 38

What happens in the ‘formal operational stage?’

Answer 38

Adolescents learn logical rules to understand abstract concepts and solve problems. For example, they may understand the concept of justice.

Question 39

Describe characteristics of prosocial behaviour:

Answer 39

Also known as altruism, it refers to behaviour that is intended to benefit another without expectation or reward.
* Begins to develop in the first year when children begin to share
* Development of pro social behaviour is linked to the development of empathy and perspective taking

Question 40

Describe characteristics of empathy:

Answer 40

Refers to sensitivity to the feelings of others; it is demonstrated by such activities as sharing and cooperation.
* Promotes prosocial behaviour
* Decreases aggressive behaviour
* Girls show more empathy than boys (socialization rather than sex differences)

Question 41

Describe characteristics of perspective-taking:

Answer 41

In the preoperational stage, children are still developing this trait.
* Piaget = children tend to be egocentric. They tend not to see things from the vantage points of others.
* Associated with more prosocial behaviour and less aggressive behaviour.

Question 42

Describe trends in aggressive behaviour:

Answer 42

• Preschool agrssion = instrumental
• 6-7 years = seen as a method to obtain something valuable, like a toy; also become person-oriented such that children taunt and criticize each other at this age
• Aggression appears to be stable and can predict problems in adulthood

Question 43

What are theories of aggression?

Answer 43

• Genetic link to the male hormone testosterone
• Social cognitive explanations which focus on environmental factors, such as reinforcement and observational learning
• Media influences (Bobo doll experiment)

Question 44

What are ways in which depictions of violence contribute to actual violence?

Answer 44

• Observational learning
• Disinhibition
• Increased arousal = media violence & aggressive video games increase viewers’ level of arousal. People are more likely to be aggressive under high levels of arousal.
• Priming of aggressive thoughts and memories
• Habituation = becoming used to repeated stimuli; children are more likely to assume that violence is acceptable and are desensitized.

Question 45

Describe the characteristics of children whose parents used the ‘inductive parenting technique:’

Answer 45

Parents foster prosocial behaviour when they use inductive techniques such as explaining how behaviour affects others (You made them cry, it is not nice to hit)
* Children shown more mature behaviour

Question 46

What two aspects do 4-yr olds make evaluative judgments on?

Answer 46

• Physical & cognitive competence (no distinctions, they are good at things in general but cannot say they are good at one thing and bad at another)
• Social acceptance by peers and parents

Question 47

Describe the trends of fears:

Answer 47

• # of fears peak between 2.5 and 4 years
• Preschoolers are more likely to fear animals, imaginary creatures, the dark, and personal danger

Question 48

What are the stages within Kolhberg’s gender theory?

Answer 48

According to Kohlberg, the acquisition of gender-role identity emerges in three stages:
* Gender identity (2 yrs)
* Gender stability (4/5 yrs)
* Gender constancy (5/7 yrs)

Question 49

What is ‘gender fluidity?’

Answer 49

Opposite to gender constancy, it is the idea that gender expression can vary greatly from day to day.

Question 50

How does ‘gender schema’ differ from ‘Kohlberg’s theory?’

Answer 50

• According to gender-schema theory, children do not have to understand that gender is constant to begin to form a scheme for being male or female.
• Children age and become more flexible in their abilities to adopt characteristics outside their perceived gender.

Question 51

What are the next steps for ‘personality development’ in early childhood development, according to Erikson?

Answer 51

• Stage 2: autonomy vs. Shame & Doubt (19 months - 3 yrs)
• Stage 3: Initiative vs. Guilt (4-5 yrs)

Question 52

What stage are children entering when they are in early childhood, according to ‘Erikson’s Theory of Development?’

Answer 52

• Stage 2: autonomy vs. Shame & Doubt (19 months - 3 yrs)
• Stage 3: Initiative vs. Guilt (4-5 yrs)

Question 53

What happens during ‘Stage 2: autonomy vs. Shame & Doubt (19 months - 3 yrs)?’

Answer 53

• A challenge of autonomy versus shame and doubt
• This stage focuses on the ability (or inability) to master certain skills, as children become controllers of their universe by mastering skills such as social and cultural rules as toilet training and sleep schedule.
• Opportunity to build self-esteem, well cared for children will explore their environment with pride.

Question 54

What happens during ‘Stage 3: Initiative vs. Guilt (4-5 yrs)?’

Answer 54

Focuses on the life stage where children begin to copy the important people in their lives by taking the initiative in creating play situations.
* Make up stories, play our character roles.