Chapter 6

What are gender roles?

CUltural expectations for appearance and behavior specific to males or females

Summarize the roles that parents and peers play in gender socialization, and explain how gender schemas lead to self-socialization

Children learn gender identity by age 2 but do not learn gender constancy until 6/7. In early childhood they become rigid of their views of gender roles. Parents are key agents of gender socialization especially fathers in regard to their sons and conformity to gender is enforced by peers as well. Once children possess gender schemas, they seek to maintain consistency between their schemas and their behavior, a process called self-socialization

What is reticular formation?

Part of the lower brain involved in attention

What is internalizing problems?

Problems that entail turning distress inward, toward the self, such as depression and anxiety

WHat is externalizing problems?

Problems that involve others, such as aggression

What is socialization?

Process by which people acquire the behaviors and beliefs of the culture they live in

What is early intervention program?

Program directed at young children who are at risk for later problems, intended to prevent problems from developing

Identify the rates and consequences of media use in early childhood.

Rates of media use in early childhood average about 2 hours/day in the US. Abundant evidence shows violent television promotes aggressive behavior in young children. Early childhood is important for the dev of responses to music as children learn to connect musical sounds with specific emotions.

What is hostile aggression?

Type of aggression that entails signs of anger and intent to inflict pain or harm on others

What is relational aggression?

Type of aggression that involves damaging another person's reputation among peers through social exclusion and malicious gossip

Identify the main nutritional deficiencies and the primary sources of injury, illness, and mortality during early childhood in developed and developing countries.

~80% of children in developing countries experience nutritional deficiencies, but a high level of children in developed countries experience them as well. Calcium is the most common nutritional deficiency in the US whereas the two most common types in developing countries are lack of protein and iron. Mortality rates in early childhood are higher in developing countries due mainly to infectious diseases but have declined substantially in recent years. In developed countries, most common cause of injury in early childhood is falling, due to limitations in gross motor skills

What is infantile amnesia?

Inability to remember anything prior to age 4/\5

What is stunting?

A process experienced by children who are malnourished and consequently are short for their age

What is classification?

ABility to understand objects can be part of more than one cognitive group

What is emotional self-regulation?

Ability to exercise control over one's emotions

What is theory of mind?

Ability to understand thinking processes in oneself and others

What is corpus collosum?

Band of neural fibers connecting the two hemispheres of the brain

Identify the features that are most important in preschool quality and explain how they reflect cultural values.

Children generally benefit cognitively from attending preschool especially when the program quality is high. Key dimensions of high-quality preschool programs include education and training of teachers, class size and child-teacher ratio, age appropriate materials and activities, and quality of teacher-child interactions. American and Chinese preschools often include academic preparation but preschools in Japan focus more on group play in order to reinforce collectivist Japanese values, such as cooperation and sharing

Explain how the quality of friendships changes from toddlerhood to early childhood, and describe the role of play and aggression in young children's friendships.

Children's play becomes more gender-segregated in childhood. From toddlerhood through early childhood, solitary play and parallel play decline whereas simple social play and cooperative pretend play increase. Physical aggression peaks in toddlerhood and the first year of early childhood, then declines as verbal and relational aggression rises.

What is egocentrism?

Cognitive inability to distinguish between one's own perspective and another person's perspective

What is preoperational stage?

Cognitive stage from 2-7 where children become capable of representing the world symbolically for example- through the use of language- but it is still very limited in ability to use mental operations

Identify advances in emotional understanding and self-regulation during early childhood.

Early childhood is a key time for emotional self-regulation dev. as children improve effortful control. Children also improve in their ability to understand the sources of others' emotions. Children with undercontrol are prone to externalizing problems whereas children experiencing overcontrol are at risk for internalizing problems.

Specify the main changes in gross and fine motor abilities during early childhood.

From 3-6 young children learn to make more hops in a row and hop on one foot, jump farther from a standing position and make a running jump, climb stairs without support-alternating their feet, throw a ball farther and more accurately, become better at catching a ball, and increase their running speed and ability to stop/change direction quickly. Fine motor changes as children learn to pick up smaller objects more precisely and quicker, draw something recognizable, write first letters and some short words, put on/remove clothes, use scissors, and use a knife to cut soft food.

What is gender schema?

GEnder-based cognitive structure for organizing and processing information, comprising expectations for males' and females' appearance and behavior

Describe the main cultural variations in how parents discipline young children, and explain how cultural context influences children's responses to discipline.

In Western cultures the approach in early childhood tends to emphasize the authoritative approach of explaining the consequences of misbehavior and the reasons for discipline whereas outside of the West the parental role has more authority and children are expected to obey. Physical punishment and psychological control have quite different effects on children depending on the cultural context.

What is initiative vs guilt?

In erikson's lifespan theory, the early childhood stage in which the alternatives are learning to plan activities in a purposeful way, or being afflicted with excess guilt that undermines initiative

Summarize the physical growth and change that takes place during early childhood

It slows in early childhood. From 3-6 the typical American child grows 2-3in/year and adds 5-7 pounds. Average heights and weights in early childhood are considerably lower in developing countries due to inadequate nutrition and higher likelihood of childhood diseases, and stunting is common.

What is conservation?

Mental ability to understand the quantity of a substance or material remains the same even if its appearance changes

Describe the changes in brain development that take place during early childhood and the aspects of brain development that explain "infantile" amnesia.

Most notable changes take place in the growth of connections between neurons, and in myelination of the corpus collosum, cerebellum, reticular formation, and hippocampus. Research suggests infantile amnesia is due mainly to the immaturity of the hippocampus.

Explain the features of Piaget's preoperational stage of cognitive development.

Piaget viewed children in the preoperational stage of cognitive dev. (2-7) as capable of mental representations but prone to a variety of errors, including centration, lack of reversibility, egocentrism, and animism. Research has shown Piaget underestimated the cognitive abilities of early childhood.

What is cerebellum?

Structure at the base of the brain involved in balance and motor movements

What is animism?

Tendency to attribute human thoughts and feelings to inanimate objects and forces

Describe moral development in early childhood, including empathy, modeling, and morality as cultural learning.

The capacity for empathy increases in early childhood leading to increase in prosocial behavior. Children learn morality through modeling. Early childhood is when children show a capacity for moral reasoning and demonstrate they have learned their cultures moral standards and beliefs

Explain what "theory of mind" is and the evidence for how it develops during early childhood.

Theory of mind is the ability to attribute mental states to self and others and to understand others have beliefs, intentions, and perspectives that are different from one's own. False-belief tasks, a common set of measures for testing theory of mind, indicate most 4y/os have attained theory of mind. However, research using other methods suggests 1y/os have some understanding that other people can hold false beliefs.

WHat is instrumental aggression?

Type of aggression when a child wants something and uses aggressive behavior or words to get it

What is gender constancy?

UNderstanding that femaleness and maleness are biological and cannot change