Chapter 12: Social and Emotional Development in Middle Childhood
working memory
A mental "workbench" where individuals manipulate and assemble information when making decisions, solving problems, and comprehending written and spoken language.
A boy in the first year his parents' divorce
Highest likely level of difficulty
A girl whose mother has had custody for two years, and who has had a stepfather for two additional years
Lower level of difficulty
A girl in the second year after her parents' divorce
Next highest level of difficulty
Among young children, more disruptive behavior on the part of younger siblings leads to more disruptive behavior on the part of their older siblings.
Not supported by research
Older girls with younger brothers do not engage in more masculine-stereotypical activities.
Not supported by research
Younger siblings tend to have more parent-child conflict than their older siblings had experienced.
Not supported by research
Among older children and adolescents, children who have a disruptively behaving older sibling on the average tend to be more disruptive themselves.
Supported by research
Conflict between siblings can lead to increased understanding of others' points of view if parents serve as effective mediators of the conflicts.
Supported by research
Girls with an older brother tend to engage in more masculine-stereotypical activities.
Supported by research
Which of the following statements characterizes children raised by same-sex parents?
They develop in similar ways to children raised by heterosexual parents.
phonological processing deficits
a deficit in phonological awareness, retrieving phonological codes, such as letter names from memory, and phonological working memory that is characteristic of most children with dyslexia
specific learning disorder
a developmental disorder that interferes with the ability to learn specific academic skills in the domains of reading, writing, or mathematics.
A trend with age in self-esteem is __________.
a general decline in self-esteem as children attend elementary school followed by a rise later in middle childhood
intellectual disability
a general delay in cognitive development
rehearsal
a memory strategy that involves repeating information to oneself to improve recall
adaptive behavior deficit
a problem in carrying out daily living skills
dyslexia
a problem involving slow development of printed word recognition and spelling
consolidation
a process by which new information is securely stored in memory
In addition to stresses associated with changes in the family's circumstances, one of the most important sources of problems for both boys and girls undergoing a family divorce is thought to be __________.
a reduction of warmth, support, and structure provided by the custodial parent
general intelligence
a single factor that accounts for much of the variance in intelligence scores across individuals
Longitudinal studies of socially rejected children reveal a cycle of rejection and __________ that leads to externalizing and internalizing behavior problems.
aggression
response to intervention
an approach to learning disabilities that provides additional intervention to children who do not respond to initial interventions
Normal distribution
an arrangement of data in which most values cluster in the middle of the range and the rest taper off symmetrically toward either end that when graphed, resembles a bell
According to a study by Turiel (2008), children's ability to tell whether a character in a little story has violated moral rules (such as hitting another person) or social-conventional rules (such as interrupting the teacher in class) develops __________ their ability to understand moral and social-conventional rules in real-life situations.
at about the same time as
"I am a great soccer player" is an example of what category of self-esteem?
athletic competence
When parents allow children more independence and foster feelings of competence and social relatedness, it is called _____.
autonomy-supportive parenting
During middle childhood, there is an increase in the expectation that friends will share their values and __________.
be loyal and stick up for them
"I follow the rules at home and at school" is an example of what category of self-esteem?
behavioral conduct
According to surveys, births to single, unmarried mothers continue to be common in the United States, particularly among __________.
black females
The best outcomes in stepfamilies are observed on average for __________.
boys in a mother/stepfather relationship with an authoritative stepfather
special needs children
children who have been identified as requiring special attention and support in one or more areas of development
Greg is planning to show up early for soccer at recess and be one of the people picking teams so that he will be assured a place on the team.
cope behaviorally
Greg was excluded from the soccer game at recess yesterday. He tells himself it happened because he arrived late and they had already had an equal number of players on each side.
cope cognitively
Jenny is angry at her brother, but waits to talk to him so that her emotional arousal will decrease.
cope emotionally
phonics approach
curriculum in which children are taught phonological decoding and sight word recognition
whole language approach
curriculum in which children learn to read by interacting with interesting and meaningful text, but with minimal use of phonics
School-age children ordinarily prefer to share winnings or earnings equally among a group of people who worked on a task, which refers to a type of moral thinking known as __________.
distributive justice
A child decides to give a bigger cookie to her sister who spent more time helping Dad make the cookies
distributive justice -- merit based
In deciding how to divide up earnings, children give more to someone described as poor.
distributive justice -- norm of charity
Analyses of media time diaries indicate that children who engage in more video game play, computer game play, and television watching tend to __________.
do less reading and studying
Children's relationships with siblings are often characterized by a high degree of __________.
emotional intensity
In middle childhood, children develop greater independence and flexibility in managing their emotions, a process known as __________.
emotional regulation
Parents may contribute to a fixed mindset by telling children they are good at schoolwork, and teachers may do so by __________.
emphasizing scores and grades
Researchers conducting the Fast Track intervention worked with high-risk children and achieved a long-term reduction of __________ in grades 6 through 10.
externalizing problems
Kecia's mom takes her after school to dance classes and softball. By making these activities available, Kecia's mom is engaging in a process labeled __________ by developmental scientists.
gatekeeping
The finding that some children attribute their successes to ability and their failures to insufficient effort or an overly difficult task is thought to reflect an attitude toward achievement known as __________.
growth mindset
Allie understands that her friend is sad to move away but looking forward to living closer to her grandparents. Allie is most likely __________.
in late middle childhood, about ages 9 to 12
Although the most immediate goal of a bully is to achieve dominance over another child, the long-term goal of most bullies seems to be to __________.
increase their own social status among peers
metacognition
knowledge about cognitive processes, such as attention, memory, and comprehension
metamemory
knowledge about how memory works
semanic memory
knowledge of words and concepts, usually visualized as a network with nodes and links between nodes
A boy whose mother has had custody for two years, and who has had a stepfather for two additional years
lowest level of difficulty
In the study by Blackwell et al. (2007), low-achieving math students showed an improvement in __________ after eight weeks of lessons on having a growth mindset.
math grades
A field experimental study of children randomly assigned to have a video game in the home revealed that playing video games seems to lead to declines in all of the following except __________.
mathematics scores
organization strategy
memory strategy in which similar items are grouped together for encoding or retrieval
hierarchical model of intelligence
model in which g is made up of separate sub-abilities
A law that denies medical care to the poor is viewed by children as unjust
moral rule
seriation
ordering items along a quantitative dimension such as length or weight
Children's behavior has been observed to improve after __________.
parents in a high-conflict relationship undergo divorce
Young children tend to base their judgments of other people on concrete, observable behavior or appearances, whereas older children begin to focus on __________.
personality/psychological traits
"I think I look good in my clothes" is an example of what category of self-esteem?
physical appearance
Children rated as high in social acceptance by their peers tend to have high levels of __________ and low levels of __________ in middle childhood.
prosocial behavior; aggressive behavior
Harming others socially by spreading rumors, gossiping, or excluding them from groups is termed __________.
relational aggression
No-nonsense parenting engaged in by immigrant and minority group parents, in which the parent establishes a warm and supportive relationship with the child but occasionally doles out harsh punishment, appears to __________.
result in similar child outcomes as authoritative parenting in these types of families
"I am second best in spelling in my class" is an example of what category of self-esteem?
scholastic competence
Children's self-rated academic competence, social competence, athletic competence, physical appearance, and behavioral conduct contribute in varying ways for different children to overall _______.
self-esteem
There is longitudinal evidence that children with more friends in middle childhood had higher levels of __________ in early adulthood, controlling for earlier social competence and self-esteem.
self-esteem
Children's self-evaluations become more realistic due to the process of __________, in which they compare their skill levels to those of other children.
social comparison
"I make new friends easily" is an example of what category of self-esteem?
social competence
One thing shared in common by teenage mothers and older mothers who decide to raise a child without a partner is that they benefit from __________.
social support from extended family or friends
Children are supposed to line up for class at the end of recess
social-conventional rule
Children who are rejected by their peers generally form two subgroups: a subgroup that is aggressive and a subgroup that is __________.
socially withdrawn
concrete operations
systematic mental rules or procedures that are reversible
All of the following are the most common areas of child behavior or emotional problems following a family divorce except __________.
taking sides with the father rather than the mother
All of the following are features of the anti-bullying programs mentioned in the chapter except __________.
teaching children to fight back against bullies
According to an observational study by Gottman in which previously unacquainted children were observed in a home setting three times, children who became friends __________.
tended to be better at exchanging relevant information
Transitivity
the ability to reason about the relations between items in a serial
metalinguistic awareness
the ability to reflect on the use of language
inclusion
the inclusion of a child with disabilities in the regular classroom as much as possible
intellectual giftedness
the presence of unusual talents or abilities in an individual
coordination of theory with evidence
the process by which scientists cycle through explicit testing and modification of theories based on evidence
class inclusion
the relationship between subordinate and superordinate categories
Bullies have all of the following characteristics except __________.
they are low in social competence
Most children develop stereotyped thinking and prejudice against racial out-groups between the ages of 3 and 5 years. This is due to two tendencies: __________.
thinking essentialistically about race and the natural human tendency to favor in-group over out-group members
Longitudinal studies comparing the later development of children from closely matched families who either divorce or remain intact indicate all of the following except __________.
those who experienced divorce are more likely to be in jail
phonological decoding
using letter-sound correspondences to sound out new words
self-teaching mechanism
using repeated phonological decoding to make a transition to sight word recognition
Sibling conflicts can serve as a positive influence on development under all of the following circumstances except __________.
when parents use the conflicts as an opportunity to punish both siblings
sight word vocabulary
words children can read quickly or without sounding them out
