chapter 10 lifespan psych

the child as a psychologist

6-12 year olds develop a more complex view by looking beyond appearances and searching for deeper consistencies that help them interpret their personal world and other people's behavior, moving from concrete to abstract. around 7-8, dramatic shift in descriptions of others as child focuses on inner traits of others. Still use physical features to describe others.

reciprocal determinism

Bandura's model in which personal, behavioral, and environmental factors interact to influence personality development.

the big 5 personality traits

Extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, openness/intellect

Banduras social-cognitive view

He said emotions and stable patterns of responding together with cognitive factors constitutes one of three interactive components that influence social and personality development. person component = emotional/cognitive component. behavior and environment were other two components of his model. proposed that these three factors interact in a pattern known as reciprocal determinism.

Theories of Social and Personality Development

Psychoanalytic perspectives and the trait and social-cognitive perspectives attempt to describe the development of self-perceived competence during the middle childhood years of life.

media influences

TV = comparisons drawn between yourself and actors. more violent kids watch violent tv. some programs are educational but aren't popular among boys (more popular with girls). computers and the internet affect kids in that they use computers the same way they use other environment.s there is an age trend in game playing and social networking that related to the way they carry themselves in nondigital environments. videogames are a way for unintelligent kids to feel more accomplished in something as they are goal oriented but they increase emotional hostility and decrease the capacity of empathy. violent games = violent kids.

bullying

a complex form of aggression in which a bully routinely aggresses against one or more habitual victims. male bullies are more likely to be physically and verbally aggressive while females choose relational aggression.

self-esteem

a global evaluation of one's own worth. Kids judge themselves on various domains of competence including academic, athletic skills, physical appearance, social acceptance, friendships, romantic appeal, and relationships with parents. how it develops: strongly influenced by mental comparisons of children's ideal selves and their actual experiences. a child who perceives herself to have poor social skills due to unpopularity doesn't mean they have low self esteem if they don't value popularity or social skills. develops around age 7.

psychological self

a persons understanding of his or her enduring psychological characteristics. first appears during early to middle childhood transition and becomes increasingly complex. includes unique personality characteristics and self-judgments of competency.

conduct disorder

a psychological disorder in which children's social and or academic functioning is impaired by patterns of antisocial behavior that include bullying , destruction of property, theft, deceitfulness, and or violations of social rules.

trait

a stable pattern of responding to situations. Goal of _____ theories is to tell us the origins of ones differences in emotional responses to childhood experiences as they shape development and self-perceived competence.

extraversion

active/assertive/enthusiastic/outgoing high activity level, talkative, positive emotionality and sociability.

agreeableness

affectionate/forgiving/generous/kind/sympathetic/trusting. perhaps high approach/positive emotionality, perhaps effortful control

retaliatory aggression

aggression to get back at someone who has hurt you. increases among boys and girls from 6-12 yrs. development of it is related to kid's growing understanding of the difference between intentional and accidental actions.

relational aggression

aimed at damaging the other person's self-esteem or peer relationships by ostracism or threats of ostracism, cruel gossip or facial expressions of disdain. Girls use relational aggression more than boys.

psychological self: personality traits

psychological self-descriptors move from simple to more complex comparisons of their own behaviors/achievements to others by age 10.

neuroticism

aka emotional instability. anxious/self-pitying/tense/touchy/unstable/worrying. neative emotionality and irritability.

social status

an individual child's classification as popular, rejected, or neglected. things outside a child's control often affect this aong with temperament.

openness/intellect

artistic/ curious/ imaginative/ insightful/ original/ wide interest. sociability and low inhibition.

psychological self: self-efficacy

belief in one's capacity to cause an intended eventt occur or to perform a task. Bandura proposed that peer models are the primary source of self-efficacy beliefs. simply watching other children model success is insufficient for development of self efficacy because child must perceive that similarity in order to be influenced by the models.

Psychoanalytic perspectives (Freud and Erikson)

children vary greatly in the ways that they respond to such situations. Some become angry and others withdrawal. The challenge of middle childhood years according to Freud was to form emotional bonds with peers and to move beyond those that were developed with parents in earlier years. Erikson thought this true and added the characterization of middle childhood as the period of industry vs. inferiority in which children develop a sense of their own competence through the achievement of culturally defined learning goals. If they fail to learn to read and write they will feel inferior, sometimes for the rest of their life. Contemporary studies = kids need to feel competent like Erikson said. Self-assessments and actual achievements are strongly correlated.

self-regulation

children's ability to conform to parental standards of behavior without direct supervision. variables of parents that contribute to development of self-regulation include the parents' own ability to self-regulate and the degree of self-regulation expected of the child.

valued self

developmentalists study the emergence of _____ _____ to understand why a child can have an accurate view of their personality traits with solid self-efficacy but still fail to value themselves as an individual. This involves self esteem and how it develops. the nature of self-esteem/how self-esteem develops

conscientiousness

efficient/organized/prudent/reliable/responsible. effortful control/task persistence.

gender self-segregation

elementary school years are very self-gender segregated. that pattern continues throughout the lifespan. while they may interact with each other a little bit, the usually seem to return to their associated gender groups. boy friendship groups are larger than girls who like playing in pairs or small groups. boys roam over a larger play area. boys = competition and dominance. girls friendships = agreement, compliance, and self-disclosure. collaborative and cooperative exchanges between the two genders are common.

relationships with parents

middle childhood is a period of increasing independence of the child from the family. they have a growing capacity for self-regulation. A parents confidence in their child's ability to self-regulate differs among cultures and gender.

patterns of aggression

physical aggression declines, verbal aggression increases. middle-childhood = anger is disguised and aggression is controlled. in all boy pairs or groups, physical aggression remains high.

moral reasoning stage

piaget's process of making judgments about the rightness or wrongness of specific acts. rules of games can't be changed because they come from authorities such as parents and religious figures/government. Happens around age 6.

poverty

poor families have more chaotic environments and are more stressed with less resources. parents place more of an emphasis on making ends meet than quality time with kids. these kids differ in all developmental domains from well off peers. higher rates of birth defects and early disabilities. negative effets exacerbated for kids growing up near drugs and violence. PTSd symptoms in these kids. These kids are either end up resilient or vulnerable depending on the combined effects of the number of stressors and range of competencies they dal with on the daily.

influences beyond family and peers

poverty and media influences affect a kids psyche.

friendships

the biggest shift in relationships during middle childhood is the increasing importance of peers. best friends happen in this time of life. they're important indicators of a child's overall social development and competence. Robert Selman was the first to study children's understanding fo friendships and found that mostly it has to do with playing together. Rose and Asher found that children who expressed the view that children shouldn't help others being teased in such situation to avoid putting themselves at risk of being teased by helping a peer. Those kids had less friends than the people that did put themselves at risk to help another. school age kids are more critical of friends and have more conflicts with them and they're politer to strangers.

Advances in social cognition

the child as a psychologist, moral reasoning, friendships, gender self-segregation, patterns of aggression, social status

moral realism stage

the first stage of Piaget's stages of moral development in which children believe rules are inflexible.

The trait and social-cognitive perspectives

the five big personality trait theorists were right in that traits emerge stably around middle childhood, though current psychologists suggest that traits are known to contribute to the development of feelings of competence. It doesn't explain why extraversion doesn't always lead to social competence and why some people overcome their introverted tendencies to become competent socially. From the social cognitive perspective, both psychoanalytic theorists and trait perspective focus on only one set of factors that shape development of self-perceived competence in middle childhood.

moral reasoning

the process of making judgments about the rightness or wrongness of specific acts.

self-concept

the psychological self and the valued self. across the years from 6-12, this grows adding these two new components near age 12.

moral relativism stage

the second of piaget's stages of moral development in which children understand that many rules can be changed through social agreement. after age 8, kids learn people an agree to change rules if they want to. they don't understand that their agreement doesn't apply to those who weren't present for the agreement. 6-12 year olds still have highly egocentric moral reasoning ("it's not fair").

the social world of the school-aged child

these kids have a growing ability to understand others changes in their social relationships in important ways, like their changing attachment to their parents and the stability of their relationships.

two types of rejected children

withdrawn/rejected = realize they are disliked by peers and give up on trying to relate. aggressive/rejected kids are disruptive, uncooperative, bossy, and believes that their peers like them.