Exam 3
Women's expressive characteristics
nurturance, sympathy, concern with feelings, orientation toward children
What do judgements about rightness and wrongness depend on?
According to researchers, they depend on both whether the consequences of actions are positive or negative and whether the consequences are intended or accidental
The 3 components of moral development
Cognitive Behavioral Emotional
Teachers
gender labels in elementary school, female teachers tend to frown on the independent, assertive, competitiveness, and boisterous qualities that have been encouraged in boys since infancy
Gender
the behavioral, cultural, and psychological component; the person's socially constructed identity has to do with the certain role on society
Level 2 - Needs-oriented
expresses concern for physical, material, and psychological needs of others even if they conflict with own needs concern is expressed in the simplest terms without verbal expressions of sympathy, evidence of elf-reflective role taking, or reference to internalized affect such as guilt peaked in middle school and leveled off related to more prosocial behavior
Cognitive Theories of moral development
-knowledge about ethical rules -judgements about the goodness of badness of certain behaviors in Kohlberg and Piaget's theories, moral development was simply a part of cognitive development Piaget's Cognitive Theory of Moral Judgement Kohlberg's Cognitive Theory of Moral Judgement Turiel's Social Domain Theory
How do parents exert pressure on their children to play with gender-typed toys?
fathers reward their children for playing with gender-appropriate toys and punish them for playing with cross-gender toys mothers took the same approach with their daughters but were less consistent with their sons; sometimes they punished them and sometimes rewarded them for playing cross-gender toys
Gender development (timeline)
2 years: labels for self and others; aware of gender stereotypes 3-5 years: gender stability; preschool years - children's knowledge of stereotypes increases rapidly between ages 3 and 5 and is well developed by the time they enter school; knowledge of stereotype increases 5-7 years: very rigid gender stereotyping 7-8 years: children are quite inflexible about gender stereotyping 8-9 years: they begin to be more flexible about what's acceptable for members of each sex to do - but they still wouldn't be friends with a boy who wore lipstick or a girl who played football
What are the 3 phases in understanding gender that all children go through?
2-3 years: they acquire basic gender identity, recognizing that they're either a boy or girl 4-5 years: they acquire the concept of gender stability, recognizing that males remain male and females remain female 6-7 years: children acquire the notion of gender constancy, recognizing that superficial changes in appearance or activities do not alter gender
The social structure theory of gender roles
focuses specifically on factors such as institutionalized constraints on male and female opportunities in educational, occupational, and political spheres as determinants of gender roles the distribution of power and status between men and women in the home, the work force, and political arenas strongly influences gender development
Martin & Halverson (1983)
5-6 year olds drawings of children involved in gender "consistent" and "inconsistent" activities 1 week later: - better at remembering consistent pictures - more likely to distort information by changing gender in inconsistent pictures
Parents and other caregivers facilitate children's development of self-regulation
A cooperative, affectionate, and mutually responsive relationship with parents helps children develop a strong conscience or internalized values and standards of moral behavior children with such relationships internalize their parents' values and standards at a younger age and can use these internalized rules and values to guide their actions even when they are not under the watchful eye of an adult they're eager to comply with internalized rules because they want to maintain positive ties with their parents children who exhibited stronger internalization of their parents' rules were more competent and better socialized later on and for maternal rules, that link was mediated by the child's moral self
How are gender roles likely to intensify when adults become parents?
following the birth of a child, men and women become more traditional in their gender-role attitudes, especially for first-time mothers these roles emphasize women's expressive characteristics and men's instrumental characteristics
Level 5 - Transitional
justifications for helping or not involve internalized values, norms, duties, or responsibilities, and may refer to the necessity of protecting the rights and dignity of other persons these ideals, however, are not clearly stated
What is aggression?
Behavior that is intended to and in fact does harm another person by inflicting pain or injury - it is sometimes difficult to determine whether an action was intentional or accidental Aggression is an act is aggressive if the aggressor intends it to harm the victim, the victim perceives it to be harmful, and it is considered aggressive according to the norms of the community
Expression of aggression
Direct aggression - physical or verbal hostile behavior that directly targets another person Indirect aggression - hostile behavior by an unidentified perpetrator that hurts another person by indirect means
Adaptive aggression
Early childhood - aggressive interchanges can teach young children how to settle conflicts and dispute and promote their social-cognitive growth Middle childhood - aggression can be used as a way to attract peers and impress them with the aggressor's toughness Adolescence - demonstration of aggressive prowess may be a key to maintaining membership or rising in the status hierarchy of a gang adaptive advantages ay be mixed with maladaptive outcomes - gaining status with peers especially deviant peers can lead to increases in deviant activities and increased contact with authorities including law enforcement
Girls and aggression
Girls are more likely than boys to disapprove of aggression and to anticipate parental disapproval for acting aggressively relational aggression is used as early as preschool and continues to grow in sophistication during middle childhood and adolescence BUT boys use relational aggression as much as girls do - although they use physical aggression more than girls
Biopsychosocial model
look in aggression lecture
Conventional Level 2
moral judgements is based on the motive to conform, either to get approval from others or to follow society's rules and conventions conform to get approval from others (stage 3) conform with society's rules, laws, and conventions such as duty to family, marriage vows, or the country (stage 4)
Turiel's Social Domain Theory
morality is one of the many domains of children's social knowledge includes knowledge about: - social norms and conventions - concerns about privacy and personal choices Social Conventional Domain Psychological Domain
Boys and aggression
by toddlerhood, boys are more likely than girls to instigate and be involved in direct physical aggressive incidents among 3-5 year olds, boys are more physically aggressive than girls and this difference persists through adolescence in adolescence, approximately 5 times as a many boys as girls are arrested for violent crimes rates of nonphysical antisocial behavior, including lying, cheating, and stealing, are higher for boys than for girls boys are also about twice as likely as girls to violate the rights of others and break age-appropriate social norms and rules
Development changes in aggression
Infancy: 0-2 years - children express anger and frustration - some early signs of aggression (pushing, shoving) appear - differences in irritability predict later aggression Preschool years: 2-6 years - proactive/instrumental aggression occurs - expressions of verbal aggression increase - boys are more physically aggressive than girls - relational aggression (excluding from playgroup, ignoring) begins to appear Elementary years: 6-10 years - reactive/ hostile aggression occurs - proactive aggression decreases - boys use both physical aggression and relational aggression girls' reliance on relational aggression become more marked - relational aggression (gossip, rumors) becomes more sophisticated - physical aggression declines - aggressive children may do poorly in school and be rejected by peers - parental monitoring becomes important to deter delinquency Adolescence - aggressive children select aggressive, deviant peer groups - relational aggression continues (excluding from cliques, alliance building) - violent aggression increases among some youth - rates of violent behavior are much higher for boys than girls - hormonal changes are associated with increases in reactive aggression in boys - individual differences in hormone levels are important determinants of levels of aggression
Level 4 - Empathic
Judgements include evidence of sympathetic responding, self-reflective role taking, concern with the other's humanness, and guilt or positive affect related to the consequences of actions
Studies on gender stereotypes
Liben & Bigler (2002): - explicit measure - 9-13 year olds - more than half of traits viewed as applying to only one gender Bian, Leslie, & Cimpian (2017): - 5, 6, 7 year olds - stories about someone "really, really smart," interest in game - by age 6, girls were less likely to think that girls are "really, really smart," and were less interested in a game for "really, really smart" children
The development of prosocial reasoning
Nancy Eisenberg's model of the development of prosocial reasoning parallels Kohlberg's model of moral reasoning Level 1: Hedonistic Level 2: Needs-oriented Level 3: Approval-seeking Level 4: Empathic Level 5: Transitional Level 6: Internalized
In adolescence, gender intensification is observed
with the onset of puberty, young people shift toward more typical gender-typed patterns of behavior (although gender-typed preferences and interests are evident in childhood, many boys and girls participate in activities for both genders
Forms of aggression
Physical aggression - hostile behavior that inflicts physical pain or discomfort Verbal aggression - words that inflict pain by yelling, insulting, ridiculing, humiliating and so on Relational aggression - behavior that damages or destroys interpersonal relationships by means such as exclusion or gossip
Functions of aggression
Proactive aggression: behavior in which a person is hurt or injured by someone who is motivated by a desire to achieve a specific goal Reactive aggression: a form of hostile behavior in response to an attack, threat, or frustration, usually motivated by anger
Environmental/ Cultural Determinants of Prosocial Development
children acquire prosocial concepts and behavior by watching and imitating prosocial models parents can promote children's prosocial behavior by giving htem opportunities to perform prosocial acts children spend time with peers who are similar to them in prosocial behavior children who perform more domestic chores and spend more time caring for their infant brothers, sisters, and cousins, are more altruistic
Cultural Influences on the Development of Social Knowledge
children all over the world distinguish among moral, social-conventional, and psychological domains - the content of social conventions and personal issues varies dramatically across cultures despite differences, children still judge violations in the moral domain as more serious than infractions in social-conventional and psychological domains
Media
The gender schemas guide the specific programs children watch, and what they view shapes their gender beliefs - creating an endless cycle of gender typing and stereotyping limited representation of roles
What did Lisa Serbin and her colleagues find?
by measuring these visual preferences, they found that boys and girls differed in their attraction to dolls and cars by choosing gender-typed toys, girls and boys develop gender-typed interests
What are the overlaps between girls and boys?
There are a lot of overlap between girls and boys such as the characteristics gender differences in social relationships and emotional well-being are particularly small
Gender-based beliefs
children begin by developing these beliefs that include awareness of their own gender, understanding of gender labels applied to them and to others, and knowledge of gender stereotypes
Victims
Victims are likely to be... - rejected by peers - experience problems in school - have low social status - have low self-esteem - experience depression - have difficulty forming new friendships - have poorer academic achievement bully-victims are even morel likely than either bullies or victims to be... - avoided by their classmates - have high rates of conduct problems - have high rates of school disengagements increase in cyberbullying -> bullies have more ways to harass victims and victims can't escape bullying
How does age change men and women?
Women tend to become more autonomous as they and their children grow older, and older men become more expressive and nurturant boys' preference for gender-stereotyped toys remains constant as they age, whereas girls' interest in gender-stereotyped activities decreases the male role is more clearly defined than the female role, and the pressure for boys to conform to the masculine gender stereotype is higher than for girls - although sissy boys are rejected, tomboy girls are tolerated
Shame vs Guilt
although the moral emotions of guilt, shame, and remorse make children uncomfortable, they clearly serve a positive function in their moral development shame does not appear to serve the same inhibitory functions as guilt and may even be a detrimental factor - correlated with more externalizing symptoms in childhood and more intentions toward illegal behavior in adolescence guilt, not shame, is more effective in motivating moral behavior it's been suggested that children who are excessively guilt prone may become self-berating, depressed, and anxious children who are able to follow moral rules in the absence of external surveillance (moral behavior) are more likely to experience guilt in anticipation of or after committing a transgression (moral emotion) children's integration of moral components is also reflected in the fact that their knowledge of social domains is relate to their moral behavior and moral emotions
Psychological domain
an understanding of self and others as psychological systems - personal issues - those that affect only the self (i.e. having spiked hair, getting a tattoo) - prudential issues- those that have immediate physical consequences for the self (i.e. smoking, drinking, and taking drugs); not as bad as moral transgression because they harm only the self, not someone else individual choices are acceptable children increasingly distinguish between moral rules and personal choices as they get older - as children move into adolescence, they increasingly appeal to personal choice as a rationale when they have a conflict with their parents
Passive victims
are anxious or weak and respond non-aggressively to bullying
Early understanding of of prosocial behavior
as early as 3 months, infants prefer prosocial behavior over non-helpful behavior at 6 months of age, they are more likely to help someone who has previously been cooperative in a game than someone uncooperative even before the end of the first year of life, babies apparently have some appreciation or understanding of prosocial behavior
The development of prosocial behavior
before the first year, babies apparently have some appreciation or understanding of prosocial behavior birth to 6 months: - reacts emotionally to others' distress (crying) 6-12 months: - exhibits sharing behavior - displays affection to familiar persons 1-2 years: - plays cooperative games - comforts people in distress - helps parents with household tasks - shows and gives toys to adults; children engage in these early sharing activities without prompting or direction and without being reinforced by praise or efforts 2-3 years: - shares - exhibits increasingly planned caregiving and helping - verbally expresses intention to help - gives helpful verbal advice - tries to protect others 3-10 years: - is hedonistically motivated to perform prosocial acts - recognizes others' needs even when they conflict with own - justifies prosocial behavior by reference to notions of good and bad and consideration of approval and acceptance from others 10-17 years: - justifies helping according to internalized values and concern with rights and dignity of others - may believe in individual and social obligations and the equality of all individuals - may base self-respect on living up to own values and accepted norms children become increasingly likely to engage in prosocial behavior as they grow older and become more cognitively mature increasing emotional knowledge helps them detect other people's subtle emotional cues and realize when they need help individual differences in prosocial behavior appear early in childhood and are quite stable as children develop prosocial behavior seems fairly consistent across time: children who start out being generous, helpful, and kind are likely to continue these prosocial qualities as they mature
Gender-typed behavior/ gender role preferences
behavior that matches what is socially or culturally typical for one's gender can differ from culture to culture
Gender stereotypes
beliefs that members of a culture hold about acceptable or appropriate attitudes, activities, traits, occupations, and physical appearance for each gender have been stable over time - in general, people regard the expression of warmth in personal relationships, the display of anxiety under pressure, and the suppression of overt aggression and sexuality as more appropriate for women than for women - a mentally healthy woman is not only nice and nurturing but also independent and up for a challenge - gender differences in occupations illustrate how gender-role development is embedded in a societal context and reflects differences in males' and females' status and power - women who have a college education are less likely to have a stereotyped view of the feminine role than less educated women and women's views are less stereotyped by men's
Parents influence children's moral emotions
by creating a positive or negative emotional climate in the home by providing explanations - if parents simply assert their power and punish their children for wrongdoing, the children are less likely to feel guilt; if parents explain the rules and provide reasons for not violating them, children exhibit more guilt and remorse when they transgress - children learn to react with guilt or shame after a rule violation and they use memories of these emotions as deterrents to future misdeed by forcefully expressing their own emotions - when parents dramatize their distress and express their anger, children's attention focus on the harm or injustice they have caused - too much parental anger is negatively arousing for children and is likely to inhibit their focus on feelings - too much emotional arousal leads children to self-oriented, aversive emotional reactions, such as fear or sadness, rather than other-oriented reactions such as sympathy by responding to the children's emotional expressions - if parents respond positively when their children express remorse, shame, or guilt, the children learn that expressing these emotions is a way of mitigating parental reprimands and restoring or repairing their relationship with the parent - children with inhibited temperaments are generally likely to develop feelings of guilt, and their parents' behavior doesn't make a significant difference - children with uninhibited temperaments develop feelings of guilt only if their parents provide consistent discipline
How do parents provide opportunities for boys and girls to learn gender-typed behaviors?
by enrolling them in different types of gender-typed activities
Information-processing Gender-scheme theory
children begin to develop their own naive theories about gender differences and form schemas of gender-appropriate behavior when they're about 2 or 3 years old children develop schemas based on their own perceptions and information that parents, peers, and cultural stereotypes provide - children use these gender schemas to evaluate and explain behavior the gender schema theory suggests that children need only basic information about gender, such as identification of the sexes, to begin forming and following rules about it gender labeling is sufficient to affect children's gender-typed activity preferences once a child has a sense of their own gender identity, they develop schemas to organize and structure their experiences
Cognitive developmental theory of gender typing
children categorize themselves as females or males on the basis of physical and behavioral clues and then behave in ways they understand to be gender appropriate, making gender-typed choices by the time they're 6 or 7 years old Lawrence Kohlberg proposed that from an early age, children begin to differentiate between male and female roles and perceive themselves as more like same-sex than opposite-sex models they find it rewarding to behave in gender-appropriate ways to imitate the same-gender models
Parents' Influences on the Development of Social Knowledge
children understand right and wrong as early as 16 months by age 3, children can justify their actions or mothers were justifying their rules in most disputes the mothers engage their young children in moral dialogues about rules, and the children were nodding or shaking their heads or providing verbal answers to their mothers' inquiries children learn about the different consequences of breaking moral rules and breaking social-conventional rules through family interactions - feedback from parents is most effective if it is domain-appropriate - when children are a little older, their moral judgements are advanced if their parents initiate discussions about other people's feelings, use disciplinary techniques that involve reasoning and explanation mothers tend to allow children much more choice and freedom regarding personal and social-conventional issues than moral ones parents' reasoning and discipline is most effective if it is domain-appropriate - if it focuses on the harm or injury caused by a moral transgression or on the disorder created by a conventional transgression adults' explanations that are slightly more sophisticated than the child's current level of understanding expose children to more mature thinking, challenge them, and are likely to advance their moral understanding adolescents accept parental regulation of moral behavior and some parental regulation of social-conventional and prudential matters - not likely to accept regulation of personal matters (i.e. their appearance, friendship choices, or spending decisions) - conflicts between teenagers and parents most often arise in this area of personal issues and occur with increasing frequency as adolescents mature authoritative parents are more likely than authoritarian or permissive parents to establish clear and legitimate boundaries between moral, conventional, and personal issues for their adolescents
Same-gender peer groups
children were more likely to play with a gender-neutral toy or even a cross-gender toy after observing a same-gender model or so peers reacted strongly when children violated appropriate gender-role behavior patterns children were more effective in shaping up the behavior of their same-sex playmates than they were at influencing peers of the other gender children chose friends whose activity level fit their comfort zone - preschool boys chose friends who had high activity levels, but preschool girls chose friends with low activity levels
Effortful control or the ability to deliberately inhibit one's behavior
children who are able to inhibit their actions become better self-regulators they show more internalization of rules of conduct and comply more with the rules in the absence of adult surveillance
Children differ in the rate at which they go through the 3 phases of self-regulation
children who are early self-regulators have a stronger sense of moral self; they endorse and internalize parents' values and rules, and they make conscious efforts to control their behavior even when it requires giving up or postponing pleasurable outcomes
Moral behavior is stable across development
children who displayed good self-control in the preschool period were better self-regulators in adolescence and young adulthood having a deficient conscience in childhood - marked by callousness, impaired moral emotions, and limited internalization of rules and behaviors - can launch a trajectory leading to immoral behavior in adolescence and adulthood
The anticipation of guilt by age 4 1/2
children who showed early signs of guilt also developed stronger moral selves; they described themselves as more concerned about rules, more committed to rule-compatible behavior, and generally more morally concerned at age 4 1/2
Level 1 - Hedonistic
concerned with self-oriented consequences decision to help or not help another is based on consideration of direct gain to self, future reciprocity, and concern for people to whom the person is bound by affectional ties decreased with age was related to less sharing and empathy
Prosocial behavior
conduct intended to help or benefit other people includes sharing, caring, comforting, cooperating, helping, sympathizing, and performing "random acts of kindness" appear in quite young children
Biological determinants of prosocial development
early appearance of prosocial behaviors -> human beings are biologically prepared to engage in prosocial activities - behaviors such as helping, sharing, and consoling are seen in animals - evolutionists explain these prosocial behaviors with the notion of kin selection identical twins are more alike in their prosocial behavior than fraternal twins extremes of prosocial behavior are exhibited by children with certain genetic abnormalities - Williams syndrome are more prosocial and empathic than other children brain-imaging studies reveal that specific brain regions are activated when people hear sad stories, feel empathy, and compressions, etc.
Proactive victims
engage in aggressive behavior when attacked; provoke and irritate other children
How do infants express preferences?
even before they can talk or reach for a toy, infants express preferences by where and how long they stare
Judith G. Smetana
examined how the structure and content of parental guilt inductive statement and child's misdeed, impact children's perceptions 3 groups of ages - children, early adolescence, middle adolescents guilt induction that draws attention to moral transgressions for others is more acceptable than similar inductions regarding personal choice issues
Gender differences in prosocial behavior
gender differences in prosocial behavior depend on the particular action - differences are most noticeable for acts of kindness and consideration - girls consistently display more consideration and kindness - girls are also more empathic - girls are somewhat more likely than boys to engage in instrumental helping, comforting, sharing, and donating - men have been observed to behave more pro-socially than women in extreme circumstances such as making life risking rescues from floods or mountaintops - no gender differences have been observed in situations in which prosocial actions are anonymous gender differences are more pronounced when data come from self-reports and reports by family members and peers rather than in data gathered by objected observers - this suggests that some gender differences reflect people's conceptions of what boys and girls are supposed to be like rather than how they actually behave gender differences in prosocial behavior also increase with age, presumably because children become more aware on gender stereotypes and internalize these in their self-image
Gender stability
girls remain girls and boys remain boys for the rest of their lives
Kohlberg's Cognitive Theory of Moral Judgement
he studied moral development by presenting a series of moral dilemma stories in which people had to choose either to obey rules and authority to respond to the needs and welfare of others - based on his interviews, Kohlberg formulated 3 broad levels of moral development, each subdivided into 2 stages that were based on what the person chose as well as the reason they gave according to Kohlberg, this sequence of 6 stages is fixed; that is, all people pass through the stages in the same order, and once attaining a level, a person does not go back to an earlier stage - the stages can occur in different people at different ages, and not all individuals reach the highest level - the sequence is also universal The 3 broad levels of moral development: - pre-conventional level 1 - conventional level 2 - post-conventional level 3 Limitations: - history shapes people's view on morality; the times in which people live can affect their moral judgements - data is based only on verbal responses to interviews about moral dilemmas = people are more likely to endorse post-conventional reasoning if they are asked to respond to multiple choice questions - hypothetical dilemmas differ from real-life dilemmas = moral decision makers are often involved in the moral conflict - it's emotional and people have invested interest in the outcome - only included boys and men as research participants - Kohlberg assumed that a person applies the same level of moral reasoning to all moral issues; critics argues that different contexts for different forms of moral judgement
Interaction with the parental relationship
highly negative infants were less self-regulated when they were unresponsive mother-child relationships but more self-regulated when they were in responsive relationships, whereas for infants who were not temperamentally prone to negative emotionality, there was no link between the mother-child relationship and self-regulation
Hormones and Social Behavior
hormones are biological contributors to gender differences and gender typing hormones organize the fetus's biological and psychological predispositions to be masculine or feminine, and a hormone surge in puberty activates these early predispositions the higher exposure to prenatal androgens, the stronger were these girls' preferences for masculine play and activities for both boys and girls, a high level of fetal testosterone predicts more male-typical play and less empathy aggression has also been linked to testosterone levels
Altruistic behavior
intrinsically motivated conduct intended to help others without expectation of acknowledgement or reward often anonymous truly altruistic behavior occurs only at later stages
Piaget's Cognitive Theory of Moral Judgement
investigated in 2 ways: - by studying how children's attitudes towards rules in games changed as the children got older - by examining the way children's judgements of the seriousness of transgressions changed with age Premoral Stage: - young children show little concern for or awareness of rules - more interested in exploration and figuring out how things work Moral Realism: - when children are about 5 years old - concern about rules that come from some form of authority - rules are viewed as unchanging and shouldn't be questioned - moral absolutism prevails; if asked whether kids in other countries could play marbles with different rules, children are sure they could not - immanent justice: they see any deviation from the rules as inevitably resulting in punishment; someone or something is going to punish you one way or another - children evaluate the seriousness of an immoral act solely in terms of its consequences; they don't consider the perpetrator's intentions Moral Reciprocity: - when children are about 11 years old - social rules are viewed as arbitrary agreements that can be questioned and changed - violations of rules are not always wrong or inevitably punished - are able to consider another person's feelings and perspective when judging the behavior of others - children believe in "equalitarianism" = they believe that there should be equal justice for all - mature morality includes an understanding and acceptance of social rules as well as concern for equality and reciprocity in human relationships Limitations: -findings do not generalize to other cultures - underestimates children's capacities: even 6 year old children are able to consider an actor's intensions when the situation is presented in a way they can understand; when stories are simplified, children show understanding of intention at younger ages one reason Piaget underestimated children's abilities was that he gave them only the bare bones of the stories; another reason is that Piaget mixed actors' intentions with action outcomes
Post-conventional Level 3
judgements are controlled by an internalized ethical code that is relatively independent of the approval or disapproval of others morality is based on society's consensus about human rights (stage 5) morality is based on abstract principles of justice and equality (stage 6) - people who have reach this level view rules and laws as arbitrary but respect them because they protect human welfare - they believe that individual rights can sometimes justify violating thee laws if laws are destructive
Pre-conventional level 1
justification for behavior is based on the desire to avoid punishment and gain rewards - reasoning at this level was not yet based on the conventions - rules and norms - that guide social interactions in society avoid punishment (stage 1) seek rewards (stage 2)
Level 6 - Internalized
justification for helping or not are based on internalized values, norms, or responsibilities, the desire to maintain individual and societal contractual obligations, and the belief in the dignity, rights, and equality of all individuals related to prosocial behavior requiring some cognitive reflection beyond simple acts such as helping someone pick up dropped books
Individual differences in parents' approaches
parents describe their newborn daughters as smaller, softer, cuter, more delicate, and more finely featured than they describe their son they emphasize their sons' size, strength, coordination, and alertness and their daughters' fragility and beauty they're harsher with boys and talk more with boys parents encourage boys to be independent, to explore, and to assume personal responsibility; they encourage girls to be dependent, be obedient, and maintain close family ties parents encourage their boys to achieve and compete more than they encourage their girls fathers are more likely to stress the importance of achievement, a career, and occupational success for their sons than for their daughters; they're more concerned about their daughters' interpersonal interactions girls achieve more when their parents have more gender-egalitarian attitudes and are more balanced in their treatment of boys and girls
Role of parents
parents have the strongest influence of children's early gender typing differential perceptions and treatment at birth (name, descriptions, clothes, room, activities) encouragement and reinforcement of gender-typed behavior (play, independence, achievement) modeling gender roles and attitudes - parents who are highly traditional in their own gender roles had children who knew more about gender stereotypes
Summary of developmental changes in aggression
proactive aggression decreases -> reactive aggression increases physical aggression decreases -> relational aggression increases direct aggression decreases -> indirect aggression increases
Delay of gratification
putting off until a later time possessing or doing something to give one immediate pleasure
Siblings and Peers' Influences on the Development of Social Knowledge
relationships with siblings and peers involve turn-taking difficulties, disputes over possessions, social exclusion, teasing, taunting, and hurting - these processes are opportunities for learning moral and social-conventional rules researchers found that 2 and 3 year olds who experienced significant sibling rivalry had more knowledge about how to hurt and upset other people when they were 5 or 6 years old than did children whose relationship with their sibling was close and affectionate; the latter children had a more mature orientation children also talk with each other about moral transgressions, which helps them learn about moral rules and concepts experiences of friendship loyalty and betrayal provide highly emotional forums for moral learning
Social policy
set of planned actions to solve a social problem or attain a social goal
Social cognitive vs. gender schema theories
social cognitive theory places more emphasis on emotion, motivation, and environment gender schema theory places more emphasis on cognition (child's perspective)
Social Conventional Domain
social expectations that help facilitate smooth and efficient functioning of a social system - i.e. norms for table manners, ways of greeting ,etiquette, reciprocity in conversations moral violations are consistently viewed as worse than social convention violations because the former result in harm to another person and violate norms of justice and fairness - as they mature, children expand their notion of what harm is both children and adolescents believe that moral rules are obligatory, absolute, universally acceptable, invariant, and normally binding children believe that social conventions are arbitrary, relative, alterable, and consensually agreed on, and that they vary across communities and cultures even children as young as 3 years old can distinguish between moral and social-conventional rules
Stability in gender stereotype
stability was especially strong when children's characteristics were congruent with gender stereotypes when children do not act in gender-typed ways in childhood, researchers found this, too, is stable across time
Evolutionary theory
stresses the principles of natural selection and adaptation proposes that males and females need different strategies to enhance survival of the species - strength, power, aggression - appearance, caregiving skills males have evolved to be aggressive, competitive females need strategies to attract mates and need skills and interests that commit them to child rearing according to the evolutionary theory, these 2 sets of complementary strategies have led to the evolution of gender differences in behavior in both animals and humans, including males' expression of strength, power, and aggression and females' concern with physical appearance and caregiving skills adaptive behaviors passed down through genes Limitations: - hard to test - doesn't account for individual differences - does not account for recent rapid changes in gender roles - doesn't explain cultural differences in gender roles - limited role of environment: the evolutionary theory has been criticized as being too strongly linked to genetic determinism rather than offering a fully interactive position that embraces the role of the environment
Men's instrumental characteristics
task and occupation orientations
Reducing aggression
teaching aggressive children how to read other's behavioral cues -> decreased hostile attribution bias and decreased aggression additional strategies that can reduce aggression include having children... - stop and think about social problems - consider alternative responses - contemplate negative consequences of aggression for themselves and others -cooperate and take turns
What is the effect when fathers are permanently away or simply show little interest in their boys?
young boys sometimes have problems in their gender-role development and behave more like girls problems are most severe when the father's unavailability occurs before the boy is 5 years old as children grow up and have wider social contacts, other male models from among the child's peers, siblings, teachers, and sports heroes can compensate for the father's absence
Gender and the Brain
the "female" brain is organized to be socially adept, empathic, friendly, and sensitive to social and emotional signals the "male" brain is oriented to objects and organized to systematize information individuals with autism spectrum disorders have been suggested to have extreme "male" brains the right hemisphere in most people is involved in processing visual and social-emotional information - it's been suggested that men's brains are more lateralized than women's that is, more specialized for processing language in the left hemisphere and visual information in the right
Self-regulation
the ability to use strategies and plans to control one's behavior in the absence of external surveillance including inhibiting inappropriate behavior and delaying gratification the development of self-regulation proceeds through 3 phases: - control phase: children depend on adults for demands and reminders about acceptable behavior - self-control phase: children comply with adults' expectations even in their absence - self-regulation phase: children use strategies and plans to direct their own behavior children in the self-regulation phase exhibit delay of gratification children continue to increase in self-control and self-regulation, and in the late preschool period, children's move to more mature self-regulation is accompanied by advances in the development of the frontal cortex
Gender constancy
the belief that superficial changes in appearance or behavior do not alter one's gender
What is the effect of father's absence on gender typing in girls?
the effect of father's absence on gender typing in girls are minimal or at least delayed until adolescence when they show up in the girls' behavior with the opposite sex learning theories suggest that father-absent girls had not developed the social skills and confidence they need for normal heterosexual relationships because they had missed out on interactions with a man who rewarded and enjoyed their femininity and modeled ways to behave with the opposite sex evolutionary theory suggests that girls in homes without a father viewed male parental investment in families as unreliable and unimportant and as a result were likely to form casual sexual liaisons
Gender roles
the general patterns of appearance and behavior associated with being a male or a female in a particular culture - on average, girls are physically and neurologically more advanced at birth, learn to walk earlier, and reach puberty at younger ages than boys - boys have advantages in muscular development and lung and heart size compared with girls, and they usually do better at activities involving strength and motor skills - boys are more concerned with dominance than friendship
Sex
the genetic/biological component
Bandura's social cognitive theory of gender development
the most influential theoretical account of social influences on gender typing children engage in observational learning about gender from models - by watching other children and adults of both sexes, children learn which behaviors are appropriate for their own sex and actively construct notions of appropriate appearance, occupations, and behavior for both sexes -use this knowledge to develop concepts of gender-appropriate behavior receive feedback from the environment - rewards and punishments for behavior - children learn about gender by responding to positive and negative feedback provided by others when their behavior is gender appropriate or inappropriate - although external influences at first regulate this behavior, over time , children develop internalized expectancies that gender-appropriate choice are likely to lead to positive outcomes, and gender violations are likely to lead to penalties and punishments doesn't mean that gender is not "real"
Gender identity
the perception of oneself as a male or female or transgender closely tied to gender roles but not for everyone for transgender people, their gender doesn't match their biological sex
Gender typing
the process by which children acquire social behaviors viewed as appropriate for their sex or gender
Victimization
the process of being threatened or harmed on a consistent basis by a more powerful peer boys are more likely to be physically attacked; girls are more likely to be relationally attacked
Moral Behavior
the second component of moral development the development of self-control is considered to be an essential process in the development of moral behavior
Moral Emotions
the third component of moral development emotions like remorse, shame, and guilt play a role in regulating moral actions and thoughts and help us negotiate the struggle between wishes and rules guilt is experienced as early as age 2 - the period between 2 and 3 years is normal for the emergence of guilt and the beginning of conscience - it's not until several years later that children are sensitive to the function of guilt displays in other though at age 5, children are able to recognize displays of guilt in others not all children feel equally guilty when they violate a moral rule - children with more fearful temperaments experience more guilt - girls display more guilt and shame than boys
Fearful or passive inhibition
this is related to the development of self-regulation through an interaction with parental discipline gentle maternal discipline promotes development of conscience in children who have a fearful inhibited temperament but does not work for children who are not fearful
Bullying
use of aggression against weaker individuals to gain status or power bullies use direct, indirect, physical, and relational aggression - girls are more likely to use relational aggressive tactics; boys are more likely to use physical aggressive tactics bullying can result in gains in status - bullies chose victims not likely to be defended by socially significant others acceptance of bullying increases and defense of victims decreases with age bullies may develop... - conduct disorders - have elevated levels of school disengagement - suffer from severe depression
Level 3 - Approval-seeking
uses stereotyped images of good and bad persons and behaviors and consideration of others' approval and acceptance in justifying prosocial or non-helping behaviors
What are the two most commonly used examples of interests, activities, and abilities in boys and girls
verbal ability - females visual/spatial ability - males we see these often