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