Lecture 3

Question 1

Socialization

Answer 1

• develop social and emotional skills across the lifespan
• beliefs, behaviours, values and norms important and appropriate in society
• important for moral development
• promotes personal growth - motivation for i.e. career development
• generational information
• healthy social development -> family, friends, teachers

Question 2

Vygotsky

Answer 2

• sociocultural context
• children learn through social interaction with more knowledgable others
  influences development
• importance of social interaction
• active approach
• child develops cognitions through social interactions
• it has elementary mental functions (memory, sensation etc.), but also higher mental functions (sophisticated strategies, cognitive change)
• socially transmitted strategies
• zone of proximal development is the best place to be to learn
• scaffolding (joint involvement episodes where other is helping the child to learn new skills but the help is gradually reduced)

Question 3

Bandura

Answer 3

• social learning theory
• modeling
• people will reproduce behaviour by observing it
• reinforcement can play a role
• learning through observation
  1. Attention : factors influencing the attention paid to the model
  2. Retention: factors influencing the cognitive organization of observation in memory
  3. Reproduction: factors that influence ability to reproduce behaviour
  4. Motivation: factors influencing motivation to reproduce behaviour

Question 4

Social Information Processing Theory

Answer 4

• 1. encoding the cue
     
     2. interpreting cues
     3. clarifying goals (find out how to react)
     4. accessing or constructing appropriate responses
     5. deciding on a response
     6. acting on the chosen response
        (then there is peer evaluation and response where you learn from it which can influence future reaction patterns)
• you also have a database of memory store, acquired rules, social schemas and social knowledge
• you can intervene at any of the stages

Question 5

Empathy

Answer 5

• understanding the feelings of others
• children at a very young age display empathic behaviour
• age related
• innate attribute (partly genetic) but also a learned skill (modeling, sensitive parenting, affectively oriented discipline)
• a reaction to other’s distress
• necessary for psychological health

Question 6

Stages of empathy development

Answer 6

1. Global empathy: first year, others not yet, others not yet perceived as distinct, another’s distress confounded with own feelings
2. Egocentric empathy: own feelings are still central, second year, child becomes aware of other’s distress, but the other’s internal states are still assumed to be the same as the child’s
3. Empathy for another’s feelings: about 2/3, child becomes aware that others have distinct feelings and response to these in non-egocentric ways
4. Empathy for another’s life condition (late childhood): other’s feelings are perceived as expression of their life experience, empathic affect combined with mental representation of other’s condition

Question 7

Debate surrounding what empathy is

Answer 7

• is it the sharing of another’s emotional state
• or just the understanding of another’s emotional state
• is it only empathy if followed by prosocial behaviour

Question 8

Definitions differ in affective and cognitive components of empathy

Answer 8

• affective: an affective response more appropriate to someone else’s situation that to one’s own
• cognitive: intellectually take the role or perspective of another person, decode and label emotions

Question 9

Predictors of prosociality

Answer 9

• altruism, empathy, moral development
• genetic factors
• social context i.e. parenting behaviour: provision of clear rules and principles, empathic caregiving to the child, attributing prosocial qualities (explicitly labeling it) to the child, modeling (social learning theory)
• cultural context (i.e. focus on mutual interdependence bcs they learn to take care of more people, caring for the group, more collectivistic cultures)

Question 9

Ecological Systems Theory

Answer 9

Microsystem – The immediate environment (family, school, peers).

Mesosystem – Interactions between microsystems (e.g., how parents interact with teachers).

Exosystem – Indirect environments that still impact the individual (e.g., a parent’s workplace).

Macrosystem – Cultural and societal influences (e.g., socioeconomic status, laws, customs).

Question 10

Levels of peer affiliation

Answer 10

• interactions: prosocial (encourage social engagement), antisocial (discourage social engagement), withdrawn (shyness)
• relationship: development of interactions over time
• groups: arise from sets of relationships

Question 11

Peer relationships

Answer 11

Vertical relationships: hierarchal power difference, asymmetric, main function: security, protection, guidance
Horizontal relationships: same power level, symmetrical, main function: cognitive, emotional and social skill learning among equals

Question 12

Developmental trends in peer interactions: childhood

Answer 12

• substantial increase in capacity to read other’s minds
• choosy in partners (same minded, usually same sex friends)
• peer group forms important part in life

Question 13

Skills needed for peer interactions

Answer 13

• joint attention
• modeling
• emotion regulation
• inhibitory control
• causal understanding
• language
• consolidation of social skills
• context: groups
• capacity for prosocial behaviour increases in childhood

Question 14

Developmental trends in peer interactions: infancy

Answer 14

• at 3 months: interest in other babies
• interactive behaviour only at 1.5 yrs
• many unreciprocated approaches

Question 15

Developmental trends in peer interactions: toddlerhood

Answer 15

• more frequent and complex interactions
• reciprocal play and turn taking

Question 16

Developmental trends in peer interactions: preschool

Answer 16

• symbolic play and verbal skills for communication
• increasing capacity for group play

Question 17

Developmental trends in peer interactions: adolescence

Answer 17

• increased interest in other-sex relationships
• peer group as reference group (sense of identity becomes more important)
• definition of peers changes from shared outside activities to shared mindsets and attitudes

Question 18

Nonsocial play

Answer 18

• child is in the room playing alone but not paying attention to anyone

Question 19

Parallel play

Answer 19

• children are playing next to each other but they are not talking and do not play together

Question 20

Associative play

Answer 20

• children are playing the same game, they are interested in eachothers toys but they are not working together, not coordinating
• some interaction, borrow a toy, swap a toy

Question 21

Cooperative play

Answer 21

• children are working together to play a game, sharing with one another, following rules and guidelines

Question 22

Pretend play/symbolic play

Answer 22

• imaginative pretense, actively experimenting social roles
• share responsibility, solve problems
• increases with level of language
• ## extremely important for social development, fosters friendships

Question 23

Types of relationships

Answer 23

• friendships
• peer groups: sense of membership, formulate norms
• clique: small group of friends, sense of belonging
• crowds: larger, reputationally based peer group, cliques that share similar norms, interests and values

Question 24

Friendship

Answer 24

- can be differentiated from peer popularity - not all popular children have good friends - not all low accepted children are without at least one best friend - related to empathy - foster social skills - quality and perception of friendship more important than quantity

Question 25

Popular, neglected and rejected children

Answer 25

- measured through peer nomination: children asked to tell which children are liked and who are disliked, they can also report who they like most and who they like least - this can help teachers know which children may need more help

Question 26

Functions of friendships

Answer 26

- sources of companionship and fun - allow for skill acquisition - source of self-knowledge and knowledge of others - emotional support in face of stress - forerunners of subsequent relationships

Question 27

Sociometric methods

Answer 27

- method to assess whether someone is liked

Question 28

Popular children

Answer 28

- nominated as being liked by other children, disliked by view - physically attractive - high levels of cooperation - willing to share - good leadership qualities - little aggression - acceptance is predicted by prosocial behaviour which is why empathy and prosocial behaviour is so important

Question 29

Rejected children

Answer 29

- highest number of nominations of dislike - much disruptive and inappropriate behaviour - often antisocial - extremely active - frequent attempts at social approaches - much solitary activity - little cooperative play, unwilling to share - hostile attribution bias: interpret more situations as negative and blame others for their situation - can also be divided into aggressive and unaggressive

Question 30

Neglected children

Answer 30

- little liked, little disliked - largely ignored - shy, unassertive - little antisocial behaviour - rarely aggressive, withdraw in the face of others' aggressive - but do not fare much worse than average children - lots of solitary activity, may prefer being alone - avoid dyadic interaction, more time with larger groups

Question 31

Unaggressive rejected children

Answer 31

- fearfulness - anxiety - withdrawal - internalizing behaviour

Question 32

Aggressive rejected children

Answer 32

- externalizing behaviour - hostility - lack of control - distractibility

Question 33

Issue of causality

Answer 33

- with cross sectional research it is hard to determine whether children with more social characteristics become more popular - or if children who are excluded develop less social competence because they have less interaction

Question 34

Charactersitics of Loneliness

Answer 34

- more emotional problems - lack of perspective taking skills - stable: children who are lonely in childhood are often lonely in adolescence - less altruistic - less sociable - fewer educational gains - disliked children, rejected children are generally most lonely - children who are bullied are also more lonely

Question 35

Loneliness trajectory

Answer 35

- chronic loneliness (high levels of loneliness at all measurement points) predicted: low social skills, depression, aggression and suicidal ideation at 15 - at 5 times loneliness was assessed (at age 7, 9, 11 and 15) - tried to model trajectories - trajectories found: chronic loneliness, decreasing loneliness, high increasing loneliness, moderate increasing loneliness, stable and low levels of loneliness (most children) - measured loneliness using questionnaire data with loneliness and social dissatisfaction questionnaire

Question 36

Ecological systems theory

Question 37

Loneliness and bullying

Answer 37

- you can be susceptible to feeling lonely - seek social connection -> sense of safety (evolutionary models - adverse peer experiences earlier in life (i.e. victimization) - but also genetics (especially stability in loneliness) but when we see change its due to non shared social environment - dose-response relationship: the more bullying= the more loneliness - bullying victimization is associated with loneliness more than concurrent psychopathology, social isolation and genetic risk - childhood bullying victimization continued to predict loneliness in young adulthood, even in absence of ongoing victimization