Chapter 10: Prosocial Behavior

Are girls or boys better at masking?

- children learn to display an emotion opposite to the one they feel, often to give a false impression to a parent or friend -Girls showed greater masking of negative emotion than boys, smiling more broadly in response to a disappointing prize than to a desirable prize -As children mature through the preschool years, their facial expressions become progressively less reliable indicators of their true feelings. learn more about the context.

What happens when kids are shown pics that have conflicting facial & situational cues?

-Although preschool children perceived both facial and situational cues, their inferences about the emotions were based solely on facial expressions. -Older children tried to reconcile the discrepancies between facial expressions and situational cues, sometimes by suggesting that the children might be masking their true emotions. -ability to consider effects of personal experience improves steadily throughout middle childhood. -So does their ability to understand that different children may have different emotional reactions to the same situation

What is oedipal complex & electra complex

-Freud believed that during the preschool years; children developed an intense sexual love for their opposite sex parent which can only be fulfilled by sexual intercourse with that parent. -Oepidal complex for males & electra complex for females. -children defend themselves against anxiety through identification~ by incorporating characteristics of the same-sex parent and. to a lesser extent, the opposite-sex into the personality as an ego ideal. -Ego ideal becomes a permanent component of personality, providing a prescription for gender-appropriate role behavior

How do parents influence gender learning?

-Parents have complete control over the their children's access to resources. -parents reacting more positively to their children's same-sex behaviors and more negatively to cross-sex behaviors. -parents respond more positively to boys than girls when playing with blocks & girls were reinforced more than boys for playing with dolls. Fathers were negative when boys were playing w/dolls. -fathers responded more positively to play of daughters & more negatively to play of sons. -Fathers also showed consistently greater pressure for sex-typed behaviors for both sons and daughters than mothers, often by ridiculing children for cross-sex play

What is dysregulation?

-The failure of children's efforts to consistently self-regulate emotions across situtions

What is a gender schema?

-a cognitive structure with which the child actively searches for gender-related information from the environment -when a child enters a new experience such as the first day of kindergarten~ the gender schema searches for info that helps the child define the situation in terms of femaleness or maleness. -EX: looking around a new classroom such as balls, blocks, climbing equipment those will go into the male schema, or even story books read primarily by boys he will assimilate into his gender schema.

What is the gender schema theory?

-accounts for gender-typing by combining the concept of an active role for the child from cognitive-developmental theory, and concept of environmental influence from social learning theory -the childs active role is incorporated into the concept of gender schema -essential to social survival; 1st grades know what line to go into, what bathroom, what clothes to wear, what behaviors are appropriate for girls/boys. -ppl who adopt a clear sense of gender identity, gender role, consistent w/cultural values are more likely to be accepted.

What is prosocial behavior?

-behavior that shows concern for the welfare of others. -behaviors include helping, caring, sharing, rescuing, protecting, & donating. -children respond to other people's distress before the end of the second year -From 2 - 2 1/2 years children begin to respond with more direct efforts to reduce the suffering of other.

What are gender roles?

-behaviors, attitudes, & beliefs that a particular culture considers appropriate for men & women. -men are portrayed as strong, competent, independent, aggressive, and relatively unemotional -women are expected to nurturant, emotional, dependent, unassertive, and compliant. -society values have allowed men to be nurturant & emotional and for females to be more assertive and independent. -These changes in cultural values create "moving targets" for children's gender role learning.

What is the social learning perspective?

-children learn gender roles the same way they learn any other behavior -they observe how same sex peers & adults behave, imitate what they see, and are reinforced & punished depending on whether their behaviors are gender-appropriate. -theory has been criticized for onceiving of children as the passive recipients of environmental influences, ignoring the active role that children play in interpreting society's gender roles

What are display rules?

-conventions for appropriate display of emotions in particular situations. -Learning display rules is complicated by the fact that rules change from situation to situation. -Crying in ur room is ok, but crying in a movie theater is not. -Learning display rules is further complicated by the fact that display rules in a given situation often change developmentally: whereas silliness may be tolerated in 3-year-olds at day care, it is considerably less appropriate for 5-year-olds -children make huge progress in understanding of & use of display rules during preschool years.

Which forms of prosocial behavior increase or stay constant?

-helping & comforting increase in frequency during preschool years, other forms such as sharing~ may stay constant or even decrease -increase in prosocial may depend on the development of children's ability to show empathy~ that is understand & actually feel the emotions experienced by other individuals. -Children who are more prosocial at 3-4 years of age are likely to be more prosocial at 5-6

What could be some causes as to why one child might be more prosocial than another?

-mothers of more prosocial kids were more nurturing & emotionally responsive to their children. -When their children were the cause of distress in other children, these mothers tended to moralize in strong emotional tones: "look at what you did! don't pull her hair" -mothers combined empathic caregiving and power-assertive moral communications to promote prosocial behavior in their children.

How does society affect our gender schema?

-our gender schema does not have to be strained to find gender schema info bc toys and and clothing have designated isles for females and males. TV commercials are geared for m/f -The intensity of cultural programming of gender role virtually assures that few children will have to think for themselves with respect to gender role. -as it develops becomes a part of our self-concept. Prompting you to look at the world through a gender colored glass. -Bem says "he gender schema becomes a prescriptive standard or guide, and self-esteem becomes its hostage. Start to conform to gender standards that are set. parents & teachers can help w/resisting this.

What should a mom do to promote more prosocial behavior?

-parents model prosocial behavior in their own lives and assign responsibilities to their children that encourage prosocial response - such as caring for younger siblings or assisting elderly grandparents or neighbors. -be patient; prosocial response does not come easy to preschoolers; -generous and caring parents are likely to have generous and caring children.

What is the cognitive developmental perspective?

-portrays children as active agents in the learning of gender roles. -gender label works as a magnet, helping children organize information about the world by sorting new experiences into sex-approraite and sex-inapproraite categories. -Children come to value only those new experiences that are perceived as sex-appropriate, and incorporate those values into their self-concept - for ex: boys are more likely to aspire to careers as doctors or mechanics based on their repeated exposure to media portrayals of doctors and mechanics as males.

Why does gender segregation occur?

-some parents may encourage gender segregation in their role as gatekeepers of their children's social contacts - it is unlikely that this contributes to children's preferences for same-sex playmates -some theorists believe that young children are attracted to the unique subcultures that emerge in all-girl and all-boy groups -boys influence each other by establishing dominance through physical force -the play style in girls is friendly, with high rates of turn-taking & shared decisions, girls influence with polite suggestion rather than making demands

Can the tendency toward gender-segregation be reversed?

-teachers were trained to reinforce preschool children to play with opposite-sex partners. -although this slightly increased cross-sex play; the children returned to their original low levels of cross-sex play as soon as reinforcement was eliminated. -more evidence of cross-sex play in open nursery schools. given a choice of activites. - preschool children have a strong tendency toward same-sex play -it is unlikely that high levels of cross-sex play can be sustained without continuing efforts by adults.

What is emotion reactivity and self-regulation are dimensions of what?

-temperament; implying that these factors may be biologically-based, increasing stability over time and they prove difficult to modify through efforts of parents, caregivers & teachers. -ability to successfully self-regulate emotions plays an increasingly critical role and long-term role in social adjustment

What is gender identity? What is gender constancy?

-the ability to classify oneself & others by sex~ appears in the third year of life. -girls begin to identify with the label girl by their second birthday; boys identify with the label boy a year later by their third birthday. Understanding of gender identity develops through preschool years. - the concept that gender does not change regardless of how one behaves or what clothes one wears.

What do successful social interactions hinge upon?

-the ability to read emotional signals & to infer emotional states. -adults are generally aware that people are more approachable when they are in positive moods than in negative mood -We infer someone's emotional state by observing facial expression and context. -young children are accurate in inferring one another's emotional states if situation is familiar and uncomplicated. -reasoning about emotions develops rather slow during early & middle childhood.

What is masking?

-the process by which children alter the overt expression of emotions to conform to display rules -children put on a poker face to hide their feelings, abused child may hide their fear to defy his abuser. -children learn to distinguish between apparent emotions(look on someone's face) & the emotion the person actually feels - children also come to understand why someone might display an emotion that is different from the felt emotion -Although children have no control over what they feel, they can learn to control how they express their emotions to others

Why do fathers bring more pressure to bear on sex-typed behaviors?as well as father present. vs absent effects

-they benefited more form a traditional family roles than mothers & hope to perpetuate the system. -Fathers who held more conservative attitudes toward women and who engaged less frequently in feminine role activities in the home, had children who were more traditionally sex-typed. -showed no differences on gender role measures for girls from father-absent compared to girls from father-present homes -preschoolers boys from father-absent homes were less traditionally sex typed than father-present boys, true for older boys. -the results do not suggest consistent, long-term effects of father absence on gender-role development.

What is self-regulating?

-to control the intensity and duration of their emotional reactions to conform to the requirements of challenging situations -achieve this by refocusing their attention, controlling distance from the source of arousal, and by self-soothing behaviors -in some instances children are required to reduce their negative emotions(moderate anger if younger brother annoys her) -other situations require children to self-regulate by increasing emotional response.Increase ethnunaism for challenging task in response to a cue from parent or teacher. -gradually integrate into childs personality during preschool years w/effects on social adjustment

What is emotional reactivity?

-variations in thresholds for specific emotions and the intensity and duration of emotional reactions. -As children develop into the preschool years, the intensity of their emotions and their ability to regulate their emotions (or have those emotions regulated by others) become more patterned and consistent within the individual and across situations. -toddlers begin to show relatively stable individual differences in how they react emotionally to certain events -when faced with a frustrating task, some may react calmy while others may react with intense & prolonged stress.

What is gender segregation?

-when given the free choice of play partners in unstructured settings, there is a strong tendency to congregate in same-sex groups. -a training ground for learning of gender roles, promoting dominance, aggression & competitiveness for boys -and for girls; nurturance, prosocial behavior, compliance. -begin very early in development; girls prefer other girls by end of 2nd year/ boys & boys by 3rd yr. -intenses through preschool yrs, & dominates child play in middle school.

Who is more likely to not be accepted by society in terms of gender?

-who develop cross-sex gender identity or gender role -particularly boys who adopt feminine traits - are likely to be rejected by peers and treated negatively by some adults, including parents and teachers.