Chapter 13: Emotional and Social Development in Middle Childhood

Gender Contentedness

-The degree to which the child feels comfortable with his or her gender assignment, which also promotes happiness

Are traits static or do they change according to children in middle childhood?

-5 and 6 year olds tend to believe optimistically that undesirable traits will improve greatly with age -7 to 10 year olds views are more realistic -Asians attend more to failure than to success because failure indicates where corrective action is needed. Americans, in contrast, focus more on success because it enhances self-esteem

Divorce Mediation

-A series of meetings between divorcing adults and a trained professional aimed at reducing family conflict, including legal battles over property division and child custody

Phobia

-About 5% of school-age children develop an intense, unmanageable fear, called a phobia -Children with inhibited temperaments are at high risk, displaying phobias five to six times as often as other children -Some children with phobias and other anxieties develop school refusal- severe apprehension about attending school, often accomplished by phsycial complaints such as dizziness, nausea, stomachaches, and vomiting.

Blended, or reconstituted, family

-About 60% of divorced parents remarry within a few years. Others cohabit, or share a sexual relationship and a residence with a partner outside of marriage. Parents, stepparent, and some children form a new family structure called a blended, or reconstituted, family.

Culture and Gender in middlehood

-An especially strong emphasis on social comparison in school may explain why Chinese and Japanese children, a difference that widens with age. They tend to be reserved in positive self-judgments but generous in praise of others. -Whereas girls score high in language-arts self-esteem, boys have higher math and science self-esteem-even when children of equal skill levels are compared. At the same times, girls exceed boys in self-esteem dimensions of close friendship and social acceptance -Compared with their Caucasian age-mates, African-American children tend to have slightly higher self-esteem, perhaps because of warm extended families and a stronger sense of ethnic pride -The more TV black kids watch, the lower self-esteem they have- an association that applies to causation girls. -In contrast, the more TV white boys watch the higher their self esteem

Self-care children

-An estimated 4.5 million 5 to 14 year olds in the United States are self- care children, who regularly look after themselves for some period of time during after-school hours.

Co-regulation

-As children demonstrate that they can manage daily activities and responsibilities, effective parents gradually shift control from adult to child -They do not let go entirely but, rather, engage in co-regulation, a form of supervision in which they exercise general oversight while letting children take charge of moment-by-moment decision making.

Popular-prosocial children

-Both socially accepted and admired, combine academic and social competence -They perform well in school, communicate with peers in friendly and cooperative ways, and solve social problems constructively

Self-Esteem in Middle Childhood

-By age 6 to 7, children in diverse Western cultures have formed at least four broad self evaluations: (1) academic competence, (2) social competence, (3) physical/ athletic competence (4) physical appearance. -During childhood and adolescence perceived physical appearance correlates more strongly with overall self-worth than does any other self-esteem factor

Discuss factors related to child sexual abuse, its consequences for children's development, and its prevention and treatment

-Child sexual abuse is generally committed by male family members, more often against girls than against boys. Abusers have characteristics that predispose them toward sexual exploiting of children. Reported cases are strongly associated with poverty and marital instability -Abused children often have severe, persisting adjustment problems. Treatment typically requires specialized trauma-focused therapy with both children and parents. Educational programs that teach children to recognize inappropriate sexual advances and whom to turn to for help reduce the risk of sexual abuse.

Moral and Social Convention Understanding in Middle Childhood

-Children construct a flexible appreciation of moral rules. They take into account an increasing number of variables, including both an actor's intentions and the context of his behavior in terms of harm done to others. -Prejudice generally declines in middle childhood

Friendships in Middle Childhood

-Children tend to select friends similar to themselves in age, sex, race, ethnicity, and SES -Friends also resemble one another in personality (sociability, inattention/ hyperactivity, aggression, depression) peer popularity, academic achievement, and prosocial behavior -Over middle childhood, high-quality friendships remain fairly stable; about 50 to 70% endure over a school year, and some last for several years. -Aggressive girls' friendships are high in exchange of private feelings but also full of relational hostility, including jealousy, conflict, and betrayal. Aggressive boys' friendships involve frequent expression of anger, coercive statements, psychical attacks, and enticements to rule breaking. These findings indicate that the social problems of aggressive children operate within their closest peer ties.

Learned Helplessness

-Children who develop learned helplessness attribute their failures, not their success, to ability. When they succeed, they are likely to conclude that external factors such as luck, are responsible -They hold a fixed view of ability- that it cannot be improved by trying hard -Learned-helplessness children focus on performance goals- obtaining positive and avoiding negative evaluations of their fragile sense of ability

Perceived Popularity

-Children's judgments of whom most of their classmates admire. -Only moderate correspondence exists between the classmates children perceive as popular (believed many "like most" ratings) and those classified as popular based on peer preferences (received many "like most" ratings)

Culture and Moral Understanding in Middle Childhood

-Chinese young people, whose culture places a high value on respect for and deference to adult authority, nevertheless say that adult's have no right to interfere in children's personal matters, such as how they spend free time -Children everywhere seem to realize that higher principles, independent of rule and authority, must prevail when people's personal rights and welfare are at stake.

Cognitive, social, and cultural influences on self-concept

-Cognitive development affects the changing structure of the self -They combine typical experiences and behaviors into stable psychological dispositions, blend positive and negative characteristics and compare their own characteristics with those of many peers -The changing content of self-concept is a product of both cognitive capacities and feedback from others -Mead's ideas indicate that "perspective taking skills"- in particular, an improved ability to infer what other people are thinking and to distinguish those viewpoints from one's own- are crucial for developing a self-concept based on personality traits -School age children with a history of elaborative parent-child conversations about past experience construct a rich, positive narrative about the self and thus have more complex, favorable, and coherent self concepts. -Although parents and other adults remain influential, self-concept is increasingly vested in feedback from close friends

Peer Groups

-Collectives that generate unique values and standards for behavior and a social structure of leaders and followers -Peer groups organize on the basis of proximity (being in the same classroom) and similarity in sex, ethnicity, academic achievement, popularity, and aggression -With age, children are less likely to endorse excluding someone because of unconventional appearance of behaviors. Girls, especially, regard exclusion as unjust, perhaps because they experience it more often than boys. But when a peer threatens group functioning, by acting disruptively or by lacking skills to participate in a valued group activity (such as sports), both boys and girls say that exclusions is justified- a perspective that strengthens with age.

Self Concept in Middle Childhood

-During the school years, children refine their self-concept, organizing their observations of behaviors and internal states into general dispositions -Instead of specific behaviors, children emphasize competencies: "a very good cellist," "so-so in my studies" -Describes personalities, mentions both negative and positive traits- "truthful but short- tempered." -Older school age children are far less likely than younger children to describes themselves in extreme, all or none ways. -"Social comparisons": judgments of their appearance, abilities, and behavior in relation to those of others. -Whereas 4 to 6 year olds can compare their own performance to that of a single peer, older children can compare multiple individual individual, including themselves

Erikson's Theory: Industry versus Inferiority

-Erikson believed that the combination of adult expectations and children's drive toward mastery sets the stage for the psychological conflict of middle childhood: industry versus inferiority, which is resolved positively when experiences lead children to develop a sense of competence at useful skills and tasks.

Influences on Self-Esteem in middle childhood

-From middle childhood on, individual differences in self-esteem become increasingly stable -Individuals with favorable self-esteem tend to be well-adjusted, sociable, and conscientious

Personality Traits in Middle Childhood

-In many cultures, stereotyping of personality increases steadily in middle childhood, becoming adultlike around age 11.

Popular anti-social children

-Includes "tough boys"- athletically skilled but poor students who cause trouble and defy adult authority- and relationally aggressive boys and girls who enhance their own status by ignoring, excluding, and spreading rumors about other children. -Despite their aggressiveness, peers often view these youths as "cool", perhaps because of their athletic abilities and sophisticated but devious social skills

What is the most surprising finding regarding peer relationships?

-Neglected children. once thought to be in need of treatment, are usually well- adjusted -Most are just as socially skilled as average children and do not report feelings unhappy about their social life. -Neglected status (like controversial) is often temporary. -Few neglected children are socially anxious and poorly skilled, thus, at risk for peer rejection

Gender-stereotype flexibility

-Overlap in the characteristics of males and females. -By the end of school years, most children regard gender typing as socially rather than biologically influenced. -Children are especially intolerant when boys engage in cross gender acts, which children regard as nearly as bad as moral transgressions.

Person Praise vs Process Praise

-Person praise emphasizes a child's traits: you are so smart, you are very artistic -Process praise emphasizes a child's behavior and effort: you worked really hard, you figured it out -Research indicates that adults use more person praise with children low in self esteem and more process praise with children high in self-esteem. -Children, especially low in self-esteem, respond unfavorable to person praise -Person praise teaches children that abilities are fixed -Process praise implies that competence develops through persistence and hard work -Despite their higher achievement, girls more often than boys attribute poor performance to lack of ability

Self-conscious emotions in middle childhood

-Pride motivates children to take on further challenges, whereas gilt prompts them to make amends and to strive for self-improvement -Adolescents who experience guilt after transgressions tend to be well-adjusted- unlikely to react with depression, anger, or aggression. In contrast, those who experience shame are prone to these adjustment problems.

Problem-centered coping vs. emotion-centered coping

-Problem centered coping: they appreciate the situation as changeable, identify the difficulty, and decide what to do about it. If the problem solving does not work, they engage in emotion-centered coping which is internal, private, and aimed at controlling distress when little can be done about an outcome

Peer Acceptance

-Refers to likability- the extent to which a child is viewed by a group of age-mates, such as classmates, as worthy social partner -Peer acceptance is one-sided, involving the group's view of an individual.

Understanding Diversity and Inequality in Middle Childhood

-Research indicates that children pick up much information about group status from implicit messages in their surrounding -Children do not necessarily form stereotypes even when some basis for them exist, but when an authority figure behaves in ways that endorse group distinctions, children form biased attitudes.

Emotional Understanding in Middle Childhood

-School-age children understanding of mental activity means that, unlike preschoolers, they are likely to explain emotion by referring to internal states, such as happy or sad thoughts, rather than to external events -Appreciating mixed emotions helps children realize that people's expression may not reflect their true feelings. It also fosters awareness of self-conscious emotions.

Rejected-Aggressive Children

-Show high rates of conflict, phsycial and relational aggression, and hyperactive, inattentive, and impulsive behavior. -They are usually deficient in perspective taking, and they tend to misinterpret innocent behaviors of peers as hostile and to blame others for their social difficulties. -Compared to popular anti-social children, they are more extremely antagonistic

Felt Pressure to Conform to Gender Roles

-The degree to which the child feels parents and peers disapprove of his or her gender-related traits. Because such pressure reduces the likelihood that children will explore options related to their interests and talents, children who feel strong gender typed pressure are often distressed.

Gender typicality

-The degree to which the child feels similar to others of the same gender. Although children need not be highly gender typed to view themselves as gender-typical, their psychological well-being depends, to some degree, on feeling that they "fit in" with their same sex peers

Mastery-Orientated Attributions

-Those who are high in academic self-esteem and motivation make mastery-orientated attributions, crediting their success to ability- a characteristic they can improve by trying hard and can count on when faced with new challenges. This incremental view of ability- that it can increase through effort influences children's interpretations of negative events

Self descriptions given by children in America and China

-US school age children have longer accounts including more personal preferences, interests, skills, and opinions. -Chinese children, in contrast, more often referred to social interactions and to others rather than themselves. -Similarly in their self- descriptions, US children listed more personal attributes (I'm smart, I like hockey), Chinese children more attributes involving group membership and relationships with others (I'm in second grade, My friends are crazy about me)

In-Group and Out-Group Biases: Development of Prejudice in Middle Childhood

-Voicing of negative attitudes toward minorities declines after age 7 or 8 -Around this time, both majority and minority children express in-group favoritism and white children's prejudice against out-group members often weaken -Children (and adults) with very high self-esteem are more likely to hold racial and ethnic prejudices. -The more children believe that people can change their personalties, the more they report liking, wanting to spend time with, and perceiving themselves as similar to members of disadvantaged out-groups

Emotional Self-Efficacy in Middle Childhood

-When emotional self-regulation has developed well, school age children acquire a sense of emotional self-efficacy: a feeling of being in control to their emotional experience. -In response to stories about emotionally charged situations (such as peer aggression or an unjust parental punishment), Hindu children more often said they would feel angry but would try to mask their feelings. Buddhist children, in contrast, interpreted the situation so that they felt "just ok" rather than angry.

Rejected-withdrawn children

-are passive and socially awkward -overwhelmed by social anxiety, they hold negative expectations about interactions with peers and worry about being scorned and attacked. Like their negative counterparts, they typically feel like retaliating rather than compromising when conflicts arise, although they less often act on those feelings.

Child-rearing practices in middle childhood

-children whose parents use an authoritative child-rearing style feel especially good about themselves. -Controlling parents- those who too often help or make decisions for their child- communicate a sense of inadequacy to children. Having parents who are repeatedly disapproving and insulting is also linked to low self esteem -Indulgent parenting is associated with unrealistically high self-esteem, which also undermines development. These children-whom researchers label narcissistic because they combine an inflated sense of superiority with obsessive worry about what others think of them- are vulnerable to temporary, sharp drops in self-esteem when their overblown self-images are challenged -Research suggests that children do not benefit from compliments (you're terrific) that have no basis in real accomplishment

Attribution Retraining

-encourages learned helpless children to believe they can overcome failure by exerting more effort and using more effective strategies -Children are given tasks difficult enough that they will experience some failure, followed by repeated feedback that helps them revise their attributions: you can do it if you try harder. After they succeed, children are given process praise- your strategies worked, you really tired hard on that one- so they attribute their success to both effort and effective strategies, not chance.

Name and explain the different types of peer acceptance

1. Popular children: who get many positive votes (well-liked) 2. Rejected children: who get many negative votes (are disliked) 3. Controversial children: who receive many votes, both positive and negative (are both liked and disliked) 4. Neglected children: who are seldom mentioned, either positively or negatively 5. Average children: who receive average numbers of positive and negative votes.