Psych306 exam 4 (last test :)))

Describe Piaget's theory of moral development: Heteronomous morality.

5-10 years. Children view rules as handed down by authorities. The rules have a permanent existence, are unchangeable, and require strict obedience.

What is gender identity? Androgyny?

A person's perception of the self as relatively masculine or feminine in characteristics. Androgyny is someone that scores high on both masculine and feminine personality characteristics. Masculine and androgynous children/adults have higher self-esteem than feminine individuals.

What areas in the brain are vital for emotional responsiveness to the suffering of others and to one's own misdeeds?

Areas within the frontal region of the cerebral cortex: Ventromedial area, located behind the bridge of the nose. Orbitofrontal area, resting above the orbits of the eyes. Mirror neuron systems support empathic responding.

Describe the relation of personal and moral domains.

As children's grasp of moral imperatives and social conventions strengthens, so does their conviction that certain choices are up to the individual. Children learn that parents and teachers are willing to compromise on personal issues and sometimes on social-conventional matters but not on moral concerns. Young children tend to reason rigidly. Gradually their understanding becomes more complex, taking in account many variables. Notions of personal choice enhance children's moral understanding. Adolescents think more intently about conflicts between personal choice and community obligation. They demand that the protections they want for themselves extend to others. They are increasingly mindful of the overlap between moral, social and personal choices.

Describe Kohlberg's preconventional level.

At this level, morality is externally controlled. Children accept rules of authority figures and judge actions by their consequences. Behaviors that result in punishment are bad, those that lead to rewards are good. Stage 1: Punishment and obedience orientation. Children find it difficult to consider two points of view in a moral dilemma. They overlook people's intentions. They focus on fear of authority and avoidance of punishment. Stage 2: Instrumental purpose orientation. Children realize that people can have different perspectives in a moral dilemma but at first, this understanding is concrete. They view right action as flowing from self-interest and understand reciprocity as equal exchange of favors.

Describe gender stereotyping in early childhood.

Between 18mo-3yrs, children label their own and others' sex. As they sort out what these categories mean in terms of activities and behaviors, gender stereotypes appear and expand. During early childhood hold, gender-stereotyped beliefs strengthen and children apply them as blanket rules rather than flexible guidelines. 3-6yo are firm about not wanting to be friends with a child who violates gender stereotypes. Their judgments are a joint product of gender stereotyping in the environment and young children's cognitive limitations. Most preschoolers do not realize that characteristics associated with being male or female do not determine a person's sex.

Describe African-American extended family.

Black people live with a large extended family, which assists its members with all aspects of daily life. By providing emotional support and sharing income and resources, the black extended family helps reduce the stress of poverty and single parenthood. Extended-family members help with child rearing and adolescent mothers with extended families are more likely to complete high school and get a job. The teen mom develops effective parenting skills as well. The extended family plays a role in transmitting black culture.

Describe the emergence and types of aggression.

By 6mo, infants develop cognitive capacity to identify sources of anger and frustration and hte motor skills to lash out at them. By age 2, two types of aggression emerge: Proactive/instrumental aggression - children act to fulfill a need or desire and unemotionally attack a person to achieve their goal. Reactive/hostile aggression - an angry, defensive response to a provocation or blocked goal and is meant to hurt another person. Three forms of aggression: Physical aggression - harm others through physical injury Verbal aggression - harms others through threats of physical aggression Relational aggression - damages another's peer relationships Physical and relationship can be either direct or indirect, which verbal being direct.

Describe gender stereotyping in middle childhood and adolescence.

By age 5, stereotyping of activities and occupations is well-established.During middle childhood and adolescence, knowledge of stereotypes increases in less obvious areas of personality traits and achievement. Older children realize that gender-stereotypic attributes don't define gender and their capacities of characteristics become more flexible.

Describe how observational learning affects gender-stereotyping.

Children encounter many people and view media and books that conform to traditional gender roles. When children are exposed to nonstereotyped models, they care less traditional in their beliefs and behaviors. Children who often see their parents cross traditional gender lines less often endorse gender stereotypes. Girls with career-oriented mothers show special benefits; they are likely to engage in typically masculine activities, have higher educational aspirations and hold nontraditional career goals. Children of divorced parents are also less gender typed because they have fewer opportunity to observe traditional gender roles than in a two-parent household.

Describe stability of aggression.

Children high in physical or relational aggression tend to remain so over time. Boys high in childhood aggression - high in teen Boys medium-high and medium childhood aggression- declining in teen Boys low in childhood aggression - low in teen Some children that are at risk for aggression, whether or not they become aggressive largely depends on child-rearing conditions.

Describe how peers affect gender-stereotyping; cultural variations.

Cultures differ in the extent of gender-typed communication within groups. African-American and Hispanic-American lower SES-girls are more assertive and independent than Caucasian-American girls. Chinese girls also use more direct commands, complaints, and critical statements. Chinese boys combined commands with warning and justifying statements which reduced dominance relations. In collectivist societies where group cohesion is valued, children may not feel a need to work as hard at maintaining same-sex peer relations through traditional interaction patterns.

Describe the transition to parenthood.

Demands of a baby usually cause gender roles of husband and wife to become more traditional. For most, the arrival of a baby does not cause significant marital strain. Marriages that are gratifying and supportive remain so. But troubled marriages usually become more distressed with a baby. Sharing caregiving tasks predicts greater sensitivity by both parents to their baby. But for employed low-SES women, whose husbands take on considerable child caring, the mothers feel disappointed at being unable to fulfill their desire to do most of the caregiving. Postponing childbearing until the late 20s or 30s eases the transition to parenthood. Well-functioning families with a second newborn pull back from traditional division of responsibilities that occurred after the first birth. Fathers placed grater emphasis on parenting. Interventions ease the transition to parenthood. Participating fathers described themselves as more involved with their child than fathers with no intervention. Marriages were also still intact and as happy as they had been before parenthood.

How different are boys and girls in personality traits? Depression

Depression is the most common psychological problem of adolescence. Depression increase sharply from ages 12-16 in industrialized nations, with more girls than boys displaying symptoms. Teen girls are twice as likely to experience depression. Studies reveal that heredity plays an important role. Genes can induce depression by affecting the balance of neuroT in the brain, development of brain regions involved in inhibiting negative emotion, or body's hormonal response to stress. Experience also activates depression. Teens with depressed parents lead to impaired self-regulation, attachment and self-esteem. They develop a learned-helpless attributional style. Stressful life events and gender-typed coping styles seem to be responsible for the reason girls are more prone to depression. Gender intensification of early adolescence strengthens girls' passivity, dependency, and tendency to ruminate on anxieties/problems. Ados that identify strongly with feminine traits ruminate more and are more depressed. Stressful experiences and stress reactivity feed on one another, sustaining depression.

Describe poverty variations in child rearing.

When families slip into poverty, effective parenting and children's development as profoundly threatened. The constant stressors that accompany poverty gradually weaken the family system. When daily crises arise, parents become depressed, irritable, and distracted. Hostile interactions increase and children's development suffers. Reduced parental involvement and depleted home learning environments profoundly affect poor children's cognitive and emotional well-being.

What direct influences does family/children have on each other?

When parents are firm but warm, children tend to comply with their requests. When children cooperate, parents are likely to be warm and gentle in the future. Parents who discipline with harshness and impatience tend to have children who resist and rebel.

What is the social systems perspective?

Viewing the family as a complex set of interacting relationships influenced by the larger social context.

What are further challenges to Kohlberg's theory?

- Few measure up to Stage 5 & 6. Stages 3 & 4 do require profound moral constructions. Postconventional is more reflective and those who contemplate it are advanced in education, such as philosophy, or special individuals. - Kohlberg's theory inadequately accounts for morality in real life. They assert that each person makes moral judgments at varying levels of maturity, depending on individual's current context and motivations. - Kohlberg's stages explains moral understanding in adolescents/adult more than childhood. Creating dilemmas relevant to children's everyday lives show that children's prosocial moral reasoning is more advanced than the stages suggest.

Describe research on Kohlberg's stages.

- Stages are not organized wholes, many do not use the same level of moral reasoning in the Heinz dilemma as in real-life. They often elicit moral reasoning below their capacity because they involve practical considerations and mix cognition with emotion. The stages more loosely organized and overlapping. - Kohlberg believed that each stage requires certain cognitive and perspective taking capacities as well as reorganization of thought. The domain in which the cognitive ingredients required for mature moral judgment first emerge - cognitive, social or moral - remains unclear.

What factors in promoting moral understanding did Kohlberg, like Piaget, believe are important for cognitive development?

- disequilibrium, actively grappling with moral issues and noticing weaknesses in one's current thinking - gains in perspective taking

Describe evaluation of Piaget's theory. How was he right and wrong?

-Children can judge intentions earlier than Piaget thought. -Young children do not regard adults with unquestioning respect as Piaget assumed. -Children can display both heteronomous and autonous reasoning, raising doubt about Piaget's stage-like process. -Moral development is more extended than Piaget believed. -Piaget was right in that young children center more often on consequences and interpret intentions (obligation to follow through if you said you will do something) rigidly.

Describe generally how Kohlberg viewed his stages of Moral Understanding.

-Invariant and universal, a sequence in which all people move in a fixed order -Each new stage builds on reasoning of the preceding stage -Each stage is an organized whole, a qualitatively distinct structure of moral thought that a person applies across a wide range of situations

Describe the development of gender constancy.

1. Gender labeling - during early preschool years, children can label their own sex and that of others correctly but believe a girl can turn into a boy if wanted. 2. Gender stability - children have a partial understanding of the permanence of sex, in that they grasp its stability over time. They still believe that changing hairstyle and clothes will change a person's sex. 3. Gender consistency - during late preschooler/early school years, children understand that sex is biologically based and remains the same even if a person dresses cross-genderly or engages in nontraditional activities. Cognitive immaturity, not social experience, is responsible for young kids' difficulty grasping the permanence of sex.

What two factors limit children's moral understanding in Piaget's heteronomous morality stage?

1. The power of adults to insist that children compy, which promotes unquestioning respect for rules and those who enforce them 2. Cognitive immaturity: children's limited capacity to imagine other perspective and their realism - tendency to view mental phenomena as fixed external features of reality. Young children think that all people view rules in the same way, and that rules are absolutes. They focus on outcomes rather than on the intent.

How do children learn about gender through mother-child conversations?

1/3 of the time, mothers affirm stereotypes and rarely did they explicitly counter a child's stereotype. When using a noun to refer to a person, mothers explicitly called attention to gender, rather than age, more than half the time. Children begin to sort their social world into gender categories, even when statements themselves do not explicitly convey stereotypes. Both mothers and children express generic utterances, which prompt children to view individuals of the same gender as alike and to ignore exceptions. Ways to combat stereotypical thinking in children: - refrain from labeling gender when it is unnecessary - substitute references to individuals - monitor their inclination to affirm stereotypical claims, counter them - discuss gender biases in language with children, ask children to avoid using gender labels and generics

Describe Piaget's theory of moral development: Autnomous morality/Morality of cooperation.

10 years +. Children no longer view rules as fixed but see them as flexible, socially agreed-on principles that can be revised to suit the will of the majority. Children start to with a tit-for-tat understanding of reciprocity. Older children/adolescents move into ideal reciprocity - the idea expressed in the Golden Rule.

What effect does biology have on gender stereotyping and gender-role adoption?

According to an evolutionary perspective, males were largely oriented toward competing for mates, females toward rearing children. Therefore, males become genetically primed for dominance and females for intimacy and responsiveness. These sex differences exist in 97% of mammalian species. Two sources of evidence have been used to support the role of biology: cross-cultural similarities in gender stereotypes and gender-role adoption & the influence of hormones

Describe religious involvement and moral development.

Adolescents who are part of a religious community are advantaged in moral values and behavior. - Religious involvement provides people with expanded networks of caring adults and peers, which foster moral maturity. - Religious education and activities teach concern for others and provide opportunities for moral discussions and civic engagement. - Adolescents who feel connected to a higher being may develop certain inner strengths, inc moral self-relevance and prosocial values that help them resolve real-life moral dilemmas.

What are the perceptions and expectation of adults on gender-role?

Adults tend to rate infants' physical features and their personality traits in a gender-stereotyped fashion. Boys are viewed as firmer, larger, hardier; girls as softer, finer featured, delicate. During childhood and adolescence, parents continue to hold different perceptions and expectation of their sons and daughters. Parents of preschoolers respond more negatively to the idea of boys than of girls crossing gender lines. They predicted that cross-gender children of both sexes would grow up to be slightly less well-adjusted than typical children.

Describe affluence variations in child rearing.

Affluent parents with prestigious occupations and six-figure incomes often fail to engage in family interaction and parenting that promote healthy development. Poorly adjusted affluent young people report less emotional closeness and supervision from their parents who lead professionally and socially demanding lives. Wealthy parents are nearly as physically and emotionally unavailable to their kids as parents coping with financial strain. These parents make excessive demands for achievement and value accomplishments more than character. For both affluent and low-SES youths, eating dinner as a family is associated with a reduction in adjustment difficulties.

Describe gender stereotyping in middle childhood and adolescence; achievement areas.

After entering elementary school, children figure out which academic subjects and skill areas are masculine and which are feminine. They regard reading, spelling, art and music for girls; math, sports, and mechanical skills for boys. These stereotypes influence children's preferences for and sense of competence at certain subjects. Girls adopt a general stereotype that males are smarter than females, and apply that to themselves. Some children's gender-stereotyped beliefs about achievement areas may be changing a little with girls from economically advantaged homes thinking that girls (not adults) are equally as good at math compared to boys.

Describe aggression and delinquency in adolescence.

Aggression declines in most by adolescence but delinquency rises. Delinquency is rises over early teen years, peaks at middle years and then declines. This antisocial behavior increases due to desire for peer approval. Over time, peers becomes less influential, decision making and moral reasoning improve. The gender gap in adolescence widens. Serious, violent crime continues to be mostly the domain of boys. SES and ethnicity are only mildly related to teens' self-reports of antisocial acts. The difference is due to the tendency to arrest, charge and punish low-SES ethnic minority youths more often.

Describe sex hormones on biology's influence on gender-roles.

Androgens are known to promote male-typical sexual behavior and aggression and suppress maternal caregiving in many species. Some of these hormonal effects may extend to humans. Through school years, children continuously show a strong preference for same-sex peers. Hormones affect play styles. Children choose partners whose interests and behaviors are compatible with their own. Congenital adrenal hyperplasia is a disorder in which a genetic defect causes the adrenal system to produce unusually high levels of androgens. Prenatal androgen exposure influences certain aspects of masculine gender-role behavior. Girls with CAH tend to be higher in activity level, like cars, trucks and blocks better than dolls, prefer boys as playmates and are more interested in masculine careers. Androgen insensitivity syndrome is where androgen receptors in body cells are partially or completely impaired, or androgen production is reduced. This reduction predicted feminine gender-typed behavior.

Describe the impact of ethnic and political violence on children.

Around the world, many children live with armed conflict, terrorism and other acts of violence stemming from ethnic and political tensions. Many children of war lose their sense of safety, become desensitized to violence, haunted by terrifying memories, struggle with moral reasoning, and adopt a pessimistic view of the future. Anxiety, depression, aggression and antisocial behavior increase. Parental affection and reassurance are the best protection against lasting problems. They can serve as role models of calm emotional strength. Education and recreation programs are powerful safeguards too, providing consistency and teacher/peer supports in children's lives.

Describe aggression in early and middle childhood.

Between ages 3-6, physical aggression declines and verbal increases. Proactive aggression declines as preschoolers' improves in DOG. Reactive aggression in verbal and relational forms tend to rise. By 17mo, boys are more physically aggressive than girls, due to biological factors and gender-role conformity in particular have an effect. Beginning in preschool years, girls concentrate most aggressive acts in relational category. Girls use more indirect relational tactics. Sex differences in aggression are small. They are different in both sexes, however.

Describe self-control in childhood and adolescence; moral self-regulation.

Capacity for self-control is in place by age 3 but not complete. Preschoolers use many strategies for resisting temptation. They find it hard to keep their minds off tempting activities and objects for long. Teaching preschoolers to transform the stimulus in ways that de-emphasize its arousing qualities by shifting attention and inhibiting emotional reactivity, promotes DOG. During school years, children become better at devising their own strategies for resisting temptation. Self-control has become a flexible capacity for moral self-regulation, the ability to monitor one's own conduct, constantly adjusting it as circumstances present opportunities to violate inner standards. School-age children suggest a broader array of arousal-reducing strategies with age. In elementary school years, children mentioned techniques of transforming the rewards or their own arousal states. Transformation appear late perhaps because it requires hypothetical reasoning powers of formal operational thought.

Describe culture and moral, social-conventional, and personal distinctions.

Children and teens in diverse Western and non-Western cultures use similar criteria to reason about moral, SC and personal concerns. There are certain behaviors that are classified differently across cultures. When asked about acts that obviously lead to harm or violate rights, cross-cultural similarity prevails.

Describe developing non-gender-stereotyped children.

Children need experiences that repeatedly counteract their readiness to absorb our culture's extensive net of gender-linked associations. Parents and teacher should make a concerted effort to delay young children's learning of gender-stereotyped messages. Adults can eliminate traditional gender roles from their own behavior. Teacher can make sure that all children spend some time each day in both adult-structured and unstructured activities. Adults can avoid using language that conveys gender stereotypes and shield children from media presentations that do the same. Once children notice the wide array of gender stereotypes in their society, parents and teachers can point out exceptions. With older children, adults can discus the historical roots and current consequences of gender inequalities. Children who hold flexible beliefs about what boys and girls can do are more likely to notice gender discrimination.

Describe ethnicity variations in child rearing.

Chinese parents describe their parenting as less warm and more controlling. They are more direct in teaching and scheduling their children's time. They withhold praise which they believe results in self-satisfied and poorly motivated children. They report expressing affection concern and using induction but more often shame a misbehaving child, withdraw love and use physical punishment. In Hispanic, Asian Pacific Island, and Caribbean families of African and East Indian origin, firm insistence on respect for parental authority is paired with high parental warmth. Black parets use firm control for broader reasons which protects children from becoming victims of crime. Low-SES black parents who use more controlling strategies tend to have more cognitively and socially competent children. The family structure and child-rearing customs fo many minorities buffer the stress and disorganization caused by poverty.

What is civic responsibility?

Civic responsibility - a complex combination of cognition, emotion and behavior that involves knowledge of political issues, a desire to make a difference in community, and skills for achieving civic goals. Family influences - encouraging teens to form opinions about controversial issues, engage in community service and stress compassion. School and community influences - Democratic climate in school that promotes discussion of controversial issues and respecting others' ideas, participation in extracurriculars.

Describe distributive justice.

Distributive justice is beliefs about how to divide material goods fairly. 4yo - Recognize importance of sharing but with reasons of self-serving. 1. Strict equality (5-6) - Focus on equality in tangible outcomes and are intent on making sure each person gets same amount of a resource. 2. Merit (6-7) - Take intangible considerations into account. Extra rewards go to someone who has worked extra hard or performed exceptionally. 3. Equity and benevolence (8-9) - Take into account participants' circumstances. Special consideration sohuld be given to those at a disadvantage. Adapt basis of fairness to fit the situation.

Describe parenting in adolescence: fostering autonomy.

During adolescence, striving for autonomy becomes a salient task. Autonomy has two aspects: - emotional component - relying more on oneself and less on parents - behavioral component - making decisions independently by weighing one's own judgment and suggestions of others to arrive at a well-reasoned course of action. Young people that successfully construct personally meaningful values and life goals are autonomous. Warm, supportive parent-adolescent ties that permit young people to explore ideas and social roles foster adolescent autonomy. Coercive parents interfere with development of autonomy.

Describe gender identity in middle childhood.

During middle childhood, boys strengthen their identification with masculine role while girls' identification with feminine characteristics decline. They become more androgynous of sexes. These changes are due to a mix of cognitive and social forces. School-age children of both sexes are aware that society attaches greater prestige to masculine characteristics which girls start to identify with. Their gender identity expands to include the following self-evaluations: - gender typicality: the degree to which the child feels similar to others of the same gender - gender contentedness: the degree to which the child feels satisfied with his/her gender assignment - felt pressure to conform to gender roles: the degree to which the child feels parents and peers disapprove of his/her gender-related traits which leads to serious difficulties. Gender-typical and -contented children gain in self-esteem whereas those that were atypical and discontented declined in self-worth. They feel intense pressure to conform to gender roles.

What are the two routes to adolescent delinquency?

Early-onset type - Youngsters inherit traits that predispose them to aggressiveness. Behavior begins in middle childhood. Inept parenting transforms their undercontrolled behaviors into hostility, defiance and persistent aggression. They befriend deviant youths that facilitate one another's violent behavior. Early-onset teens' limited cognitive and social skills result in high rates of school dropout and unemployment, contributing further to antisocial involvements. Late-onset type - Display antisocial behavior around puberty, gradually increasing their involvement. Their problems arise from peer context of early adolescence, not biological deficits and history of unfavorable development. When age brings gratifying adult privileges, they draw on prosocial skills and abandon antisocial ways. Some continue their antisocial acts due to being trapped in situations that close off opportunities for responsible behavior. The longer they spend in prison, the more likely they are to sustain a life of crime.

How different are boys and girls in personality traits? Compliance and dependency

Girls are more compliant than boys, due to girls' more rapid language development and greater effortful control. Girls seek help and info from adults more often and score high in dependency. These variations have to do with the activity environments in which boys and girls spend their time. From an early age, girls are encouraged into adult-structured activities at home/school. They spend more time near adults, whereas boys are attracted to activities where adults are minimally involved or entirely absent. A balance of adult-structured and unstructured activities is best, enabling children to develop capacity to be assertive and ability to comply with others' directives.

Describe SES variations in child rearing.

Education and earnings exert substantial influence, with occupation playing lesser. SES is linked to timing of parenthood and family size. People who work in skilled manual occupations tend to marry and have children earlier and give birth to more than people in professional/technical occupations. The two groups differ in child-rearing values and expectations. Lower-SES parents emphasize external characteristics: obedience, politeness, neatness. Higher-SES parents emphasize psychological traits: curiosity, happiness, self-direction, cognitive and social maturity. High-SES parents talk to, read to, stimulate their children more. They set high developmental goals and use more warmth, explanations, inductive discipline and verbal praise. Commands, criticism and physical punishment occur more often in low-SES households. Education is a contribution. Higher-SES parents' interest in providing verbal stimulation and nurturing inner traits is supported by years of schooling. Greater economic security permits them to devote more time, energy and material resources to nurturing their children's psychological characteristics. High levels of stress due to economic insecurity, along with belief in value of physical punishment contribute to low-SES parents' greater use of coercive discipline.

How well does gender constancy predict gender-role adoption?

Evidence for it is weak. Gender-appropriate behavior appears early in preschool years that modeling/reinforcement must contribute to its initial appearance. Cognitive changes do play some part in facilitating gender typing. Gender consistency may contribute to increase gender-stereotype flexibility. But overall all, gender constancy's impact on gender typing is not great.

Describe the difference between mothers versus fathers.

Fathers discriminate the most in aspect of differential treatment of boys and girls. Fathers tend to engage in more physically stimulating play with infant sons than daughters, whereas mothers tend to play quietly with babies of both sexes. Fathers more than mothers encourage gender-appropriate behavior and place more pressure to achieve on sons than daughters. Furthermore, parents are committed to ensuring the gender typing of children of their own sex.

How different are boys and girls in personality traits? Emotional sensitivity

Females are more emotionally sensitive than males. They are adept at understanding more complex, self-conscious emotions. Except for anger, girls express their feelings more freely and intensely in everyday interaction. Girls are better at identifying their feelings. Females may be genetically primed to be more emotionally sensitive as a way of ensuring their effectiveness as caregivers. Other research suggests that girls are not naturally more nurturant but that Caucasian boys' willingness to relate to infants declines. Cultural expectations that girls be warm and expressive and boys be distant and self-controlled seem largely responsible for the gender gap in emotional sensitivity. Parents are more likely to use inductive discipline with girls and to pressure girls to be thouhgtful and caring. Girls receive far more encouragement than boys to express and reflect feelings.

Describe gender identity in adolescence.

Gender intensification - increased gender stereotyping of attitudes and behavior and movement toward a more traditional gender identity. Girls continue to be less gender-typed than boys but feel less free to experiment with other-gender activities and behaviors than they did earlier. Biological, social and cognitive factors are involved in gender intensification. Puberty magnifies sex differences in appearance, causing adolescents to spend more time thinking about themselves in gender-linked ways. When teens start to date, they become more gender-typed as a way of increasing their attractiveness. Cognitive changes make young teens more responsive to gender-role expectations. As young people move toward a mature personal identity, they become less concerned with others' opinions of them and more involved in finding meaningful values to include in their self-definitions. Highly stereotypical self-perceptions decline.

Describe gender stereotyping in middle childhood and adolescence; gender-stereotype flexibility.

Gender-stereotype flexibility - overlap in the characteristics of males and females. School-age children develop a more open-minded view of what males and females can do, a trend that continues into adolescence. Flexibility increase dramatically from age 7 on. It rises as children develop the cognitive capacity to integrate conflicting social cues. They no longer rely on a gender label alone to predict what a person will be like, they also consider the individual's unique characteristics. This change is a tendency to view gender typing as socially rather than biologically influenced. However, acknowledging that boys and girls can cross gender lines does not mean children approve of it. They tend to take a harsh view of certain violations. Male deviations from gender roles are viewed negative at all ages, which reflects greater social pressure on boys/men to conform to gender stereotypes.

Describe parenting in middle childhood: coregulation.

In middle childhood, the amount of time children spend with parents declines. Parents deal with new issues as children's independence grows. Child rearing becomes easier for those who established an authoritative style during the early years. Reasoning is more effective with them. Effective parents gradually shift from adult to child. They engage in coregulation, a form of supervision in which parents exercise general oversight while letting children take charge of moment-by-moment decision making. Coregulation supports and protects children while preparing them for adolescence.

Describe how treatment by teachers affect gender-stereotyping.

In some ways, preschool and elementary school teachers reinforce children of both sexes for feminine rather than masculine behavior. Men and women teachers value obedience and discourage assertiveness. This feminine bias may be harmful for girls who conform, with possible long-term negative consequences for their sense of independence and self-esteem. Teachers act in ways that maintain and extend gender roles taught at home. They often emphasize gender distinctions and labeling that promote gender stereotyping, in-group favoritism, out-group prejudice. They promote social dominance in boys and passivity in girls. They praise boys for their knowledge and girls for obedience. Teachers can also counteract gender typing by modifying the way they communicate with children. They can introduce new materials in a non-gender-biased fashion, praise all students for independence and persistence, and ignore attention seeking and dependency.

Describe Kohlberg's conventional level.

Individuals continue to regard conformity to social rules as important but not for reasons of self-interest. They believe that actively maintaining the current social system ensures positive human relationships and societal order. Stage 3: Good boy-good girl orientation. The desire to obey rules because they promote social harmony within close personal ties. They want to be a considered a good person around friends and relatives. They also understand the Golden Rule/ideal reciprocity. Stage 4: Social-order-maintaining orientation. The individual takes into account of a larger perspective, societal laws. Rules should be enforced in the same fashion for everyone and each member of society has a personal duty to uphold them. Laws should be obeyed because they are vital for ensuring societal order and cooperation between individuals.

Describe Kohlberg's postconventional level.

Individuals move beyond unquestioning support for the rules and laws of society. They define morality in terms of abstract principles and values. Stage 5: Social-contract orientation. Individuals regard laws and rules as flexible instruments for furthering human purposes. They imagine alternatives and emphasize fair procedures for interpreting and changing the law. Stage 6: Universal ethical principle. Right action is defined by self-chose ethical principles of conscience that are valid for all humanity, regardless of law and social agreement.

What is Kohlberg's Moral Judgment Interview?

Individuals resolve dilemmas that present conflicts between two moral values and justify their decisions, i.e., the Heinz dilemma. Participants explain their answer and evaluate the conflicting moral values on which the dilemma is based. Kohlberg believed that is is the way an individual reasons about the dilemma, not the content of the response that determines moral judgment maturity.

Describe how treatment by parents affect gender-stereotyping.

Infancy and early childhood - Parents encourage a diverse array of gender-specific play activities and behaviors. Parents create specific environments for their young children, such as in bedroom decor and certain toys given. Parents reinforce independence in boys and closeness/dependency in girls. Mothers label emotions when talking to girls and explain emotions to boys. Language is a powerful indirect means for teaching children about gender stereotypes/roles. Middle childhood and adolescence - Parents continue to demand greater independence from boys. Parents behave more mastery-orientedly in helping a son with a task. Parents hold gender-differentiated perceptions of and expectation for children's competencies in various school subjects. This also affects children's self-perceptions. Parents use more directive speech with girls; they ask boys to make decision but for girls parents tend to decide. Parents allow boys to range farther from home with supervision and in assignment of chores. In homes where fathers devote as much or more time to child care as mothers, children tend to be less gender-typed in emotional expression.

What are instrumental traits? Expressive traits?

Instrumental - reflecting competence, rationality, assertiveness (regarded as masculine) Expressive - emphasizing warmth, caring, sensitivity (feminine)

Describe cross-cultural similarities on biology's influence on gender-roles.

Instrumental-expressive dichotomy is reflected in gender stereotyping of many national groups. Most, but not all, societies promote instrumental traits in males and expressive traits in females. Experience profoundly influence gender typing. Nevertheless, reversals of traditional gender roles are rare.

Describe sex differences in moral reasoning.

Kohlberg focuses on rights and justice orientation. Gilligan believes that feminine morality emphasizes an 'ethic of care' that Kohlberg's system devalues. She believes that moral development pays little attention to caring and responsiveness. Females tend to stress care or empathic perspective-taking, due to greater experience as caregivers.

Describe sex differences in spatial abilities.

Males do better in mental rotation tasks (rotate a 3D figure rapidly and accurately inside their heads). Also in spatial perception tasks where people must determine spatial relationship by considering the orientation of the surrounding environment. Sex differences on spatial visualization tasks, involving analysis of complex visual forms, are weak/nonexistent. Heredity, perhaps exposure of androgens, enhances right hemispheric functioning, giving males a spatial advantage. Boys also engage in activities that contribute to spatial performance.

Describe gender stereotyping and gender-role adoption.

Mixed evidence on whether gender-stereotyped thinking influence children's gender-role adoption. Gender-typed preferences and behaviors increase sharply over the preschool years. Boys show greater conformity to their gender role. A reverse direction of influence may operate because certain gender-role preferences are acquired before children know much about stereotypes. Rather than stereotype knowledge, stereotype flexibility is a good predictor of children' gender-role adoption in middle childhood. Gender stereotypes affect behavior only when children incorporate those beliefs into their gender identities - self-perceptions of what they can and should do at play, in school, future participants of society.

Describe how siblings affect gender-stereotyping.

Older siblings serve as powerful role models for younger siblings. A study showed that children with same-sex siblings were more gender-typed than children with no siblings, who were more gender-typed than children with opposite-sex sibling. Other studies found that children with same-sex siblings are less stereotyped in interests/personality than those from mixed-sex families. A modeling and reinforcement effect (increase in gender typing in same-sex siblings) focus on children from two-child families. Larger families report a differentiation effect. Parents whose children all same-sex sometimes relax pressure toward gender typing. In all-girl/all-boy families, children are more likely to be assigned cross-gender chorse.

Describe the influence of helping children and parents control aggression; Coaching, modeling and reinforcing alternative behaviors

Parent training programs based on social learning theory have been devised to interrupt destructive family interaction. A therapist observes inept parenting behaviors, models alternatives, and has parents practice them. Children are taught nonaggressive ways of resolving conflict. They model and role-play cooperation and sharing.

What are the benefits of the link between family and community?

Parental interpersonal acceptance - someone listens to parents' concern, helps parent interact more sensitive and involved with her children Parental access to valuable info and services - friend helps parent find job or babysits her children Child-rearing controls and role models - someone that encourages and demonstrates effective ways of interacting with children and discourage ineffective practices Direct assistance with child-rearing - as children participate in their parents' social networks and youth-oriented community activities, other adults influence children directly through warmth and stimulation. Family-neighborhood ties can reduce impact of ineffective parenting.

Describe family influence in aggression.

Parenting behaviors that undermine moral internalization and self-control (lack of love, power assertion, negative comments, physical punishment, etc) are linked to aggression. Forceful discipline begins the pattern of the aggressive behaviors between parent and child, which repeat and escalate. These cycles become frequent and generate anxiety and irritability among other family members, who join in the hostile interactions as well. Boys are more likely than girls to be targets of hard, inconsistent discipline bc they are more active, impulsive and harder to control. Parents can encourage aggression indirectly through improper supervision of children. Few, if any, limits are placed on out-of-home activities and association with antisocial friends, who encourage their hostile style of responding.

Describe how peers affect gender-stereotyping; gender-role learning in gender-segregated peer groups.

Peer context is a potent source of gender-role learning. Children who spend more time playing with same-sex partners show grater gains in gender typing. By age 3, same-sex peers positively reinforce one another for gender-appropriate play by praising, imitating or joining in. Peers get criticized for engaging in cross-gender activities. Children develop different styles of social influence in gender-segregated peer groups. Boys rely on commands, threats, physical force. Girls' preference for playing in pairs leads to greater concern with a partner's needs. Over time, children come to believe in the "correctness" of gender-segregated play, which further strengthens gender segregation and stereotyped activities. Forming mixed-sex activity groups in classroom and recreational settings is a vital means of reducing gender stereotyping and broadening developmental possibilities for both sexes. Interventions may have to modify the styles of social influence typically learned in same-sex relations.

What makes authoritative style effective?

Perhaps parents of well-adjusted children are authoritative because their kids have cooperative dispositions. Children's characteristics do contribute to the ease with which parents can apply the authoritative style. Authoritative child rearing promotes maturity and adjustment in children of diverse temperaments. Some children require "heavier doses" of certain authoritative features. Who exert appropriate oversight are likely to parent effectively in other ways as well, giving teens both less opportunity and less reason to engage in delinquency. Authoritative rearing creates a positive emotional context for parental influence: - Children are more likely to comply with and internalize control that is fair/reasonable, not arbitrary - Warm, involved parents provide models of caring concern, confidence and self-controlled behavior - Parents with warmth and reasonable control are likely to be more effective reinforcing agents - By making demands and engaging in autonomy grating that fit with children's ability, parents let children know that are competent individuals who can do things successfully for themselves. - This style is a powerful source of resilience, protecting children from negative effects of family stress and poverty.

What are the influences on moral reasoning?

Personality - Open-minded approach to new info and experiences is linked to gains in moral reasoning. Open-minded people are more socially skilled. A rich social life enhances exposure to others' perspectives. Child-rearing practices - Children who gain most in moral understanding have parents that engage in moral discussions, encourage prosocial behavior, insist that others tbe treated respectfully and fairly and create a supportive atmosphere. Schooling - Higher education introduced people to social issues that extend beyond personal relationships to entire political and cultural groups. Peer interaction - Interaction among peers who confront one another with differing viewpoints (conflict resolution) promotes moral understanding. It makes people aware of others' perspectives. Culture - Industrialized cultures move through the stages more rapidly and advance to a higher level. In village societies, moral cooperation is based on direct relations between people and does not allow for development of advanced moral understanding. Collectivist cultures respond differently to Heinz dilemma.

What does a family unit of our evolutionary ancestors provide? Nowadays?

Reproduction - replacing dying members Economic services - producing/distributing goods and services Social order - devising procedures for reducing conflict and maintaining order Socialization - Training the young to become competent, participating members of society Emotional support - Helping others surmount emotional crises and fostering in each person a sense of commitment and purpose Nowadays, family assumes primary responsibility of socialization, reproduction, emotional support.

What is the domain approach to moral understanding?

Researchers taking this approach focus on children's developing capacity to distinguish and oordinate moral imperatives, which protect people's rights and welfare, from two types of social rules and expactations: Social conventions - cutoms determined by consensus and rituals of social interaction. Matters of personal choice - choice of friends, style, hobbies, which do no violate rights and are up to the individual.

How do children develop a gender identity? Describe in terms of social learning theory and cognitive-developmental theory.

SL theory - behavior comes before self-perceptions. Preschoolers first acquire gender-typed response through modeling/reinforcement. Later, they organize these behaviors into gender-linked ideas about themselves. CD theory - self-perceptions come before behavior. Preschoolers acquire a cognitive appreciation of the permanence of their sex. They develop gender constancy (a full understanding of the biologically based permanence of their gender). Then they use this knowledge to guide their behavior.

What is Sociomoral Reflection Measure-Short Form?

SRM-SF is made up of short-answer questionnaires, which are more efficient in gathering and scoring moral reasoning. It is far less time consuming than the Moral Judgment Interview.

Describe self-control in toddlerhood; compliance & delay of gratification.

Self-control is supported by the ability to think of themselves as separate beings who can direct their own actions. They have representational, memory and inhibitory skills to recall a caregiver's directive and apply it to their own behavior. Compliance (12-18mo) - toddlers show clear awareness of caregivers' wishes and expectation and can obey simple requests and commands. Self-control depends heavily on caregiver support. Vytgotsky believes that children cannot guide their behavior until integrated adult-child dialogues into their self-directed speech. Delay of gratification - waiting for an appropriate time and place to engage in a tempting act. At age 1.5-3, they show an increasing capacity to wait. Children advanced in attention and language tend to be better at DOG, which explain why girls are better than boys at self-control.

Describe growing up with siblings; emergence

Siblings influence development both directly, through relationships with one another and indirectly, through the impact of an additional child on parents' behavior. Most preschoolers find the arrival of a baby difficult. They must now share their parents' attention and affection. They become demanding, clingy, and deliberately naughty. Attachment security declines. But, older children also show affection and sympathetic concern. By end of baby's first year, siblings spend much time together. There are individual difference in sibling relationships. Temperamental traits can increase the chances of sibling conflict. Parenting is also influential. Warmth toward both children is related to positive sibling interaction. A good marriage is also linked to preschool siblings' capacity to cope adaptively with jealously and conflict.

Describe the influence of helping children and parents control aggression; Social-cognitive interventions

Social-cognitive treatments focus on teaching children and adolescents to attend to relevant, nonhostile social cues, to seek additional info before acting, and to evaluate the likely effectiveness of potential responses. These interventions increase skill in solving social problems, reduce hostile behaviors and improve relationships with teachers and peers. Training in perspective taking also helps.

Does parenting really matter?

Some believe that parents are minor players in children's development and that the effects of children's genetic makeup and peer culture is stronger. This claim comes from siblings that show little resemblance. Some refute this, saying parents are one of the influences that exert a profound impact. - Relation bw parenting and children's development is sometimes substantial - Parenting often has different effects on different children - Parenting affects children's development - Parenting interventions show that when child rearing improves, children's development changes accordingly - Parents influence children's peer relations - Some parenting influences cannot be measure easily

Describe the influence of helping children and parents control aggression; Comprehensive approaches

Some researchers believe effective treatment must be multifaceted. A program called EQUIP uses positive peer culture - an adult-guided but adolescent-conducted small group approach aimed at creating a prosocial climate. EQUIP is supplemented with training in social skills, anger management, correction of cognitive distortions, and moral reasoning. Another program, multisystemic therapy, had counselors train parents in communication, monitoring, and discipline skills, integrated violent youths into positive school, work and hobbies, and disengaged them from deviant peers.

What are gender stereotypes? Gender roles? Gender identity? Gender typing?

Stereotype - widely held beliefs about characteristics deemed appropriate for males and females. Role - reflection of these stereotypes in everyday behavior Identity - private face of gender - perception of the self as relatively masculine or feminine in characteristics Typing - any association of objects, activities, roles, or traits with biological sex in ways that conform to cultural stereotypes of gender

Describe gender stereotyping in middle childhood and adolescence; personality traits.

Stereotyping of personality traits increases steadily in middle childhood, becoming adultlike around age 11. Stereotypes first reflect in-group favoritism in early ages. In addition to specific traits, children pick up a widely head general impression of genders.

Describe the influence of social-cognitive deficits in distortions on aggression.

Those high in aggression often see hostile intent where it does not exist. When feeling threatened, they are likely to interpret accidental mishaps as hostile. They make unprovoked attacks. High aggression is linked to different social-cognitive deficits. They believe that there are more benefits a fewer costs for engaging in destructive acts, and think that aggression works. They have overly high esteem which may prompt others to challenge them and then they lash out angrily. In order to neutralize their empathy, they blame their victims. Some, called bistrategic controllers, combine aggressive and positive social tactics to access desirable resources. They are adept at perspective taking and social problem solving and moral norms, which they use to manipulate others to get what they want.

How different are boys and girls in personality traits? Aggression - biological influences/environmental influences

Studies on aggression between girls and boys show mixed results. Girls find relationship aggression more harmful than boys do. Girls may emphasize relational aggression bc it is hard for adults to detect and punish. Biological influences - Androgen exposure plays some part in aggression. Prenatal androgens may promote physical activity and competitivenesschange into aggression in certain situations. Sex hormones may influence brain functioning in ways that affect emotional reactions. Ado boys are more dominant and therefore more likely to respond with aggression when provoked. Environment - Coercive child-rearing practices and strife-ridden families promote aggressive behavior. Boys are more likely than girls to be affected. After observing adults' angry exchanges, boys report feeling more hostile than girls. Parents and teachers give boys positive attention rather than using clear, firm prohibitions. They respond negatively to girls' assertive and aggressive acts. Gender-segregated groups extend adults' lessons about expressing aggression.

Describe Sweden's commitment to gender equality.

The Swedish "equal roles family mode" maintains that husband and wife should have the same opportunity to pursue a career. Swedish fathers have longer paid paternal leave than any other nation. Child-care centers are available so that less privileged women may not be exploited for caregiving and domestic work. Sweden mandated that mothers and fathers with children unger 8 could reduce their working day to 6 hours without a reduction in benefits. Over 80% of mothers are employed and fathers are more involved than many other nations. 90% of Swedish fathers take at least some paternal leave. More than 50% make work adjustments so they can spend additional time with children. Valuing masculine over the feminine has shown to be less pronounced in Swedish adolescents than in American. They regard gender as a blend of instrumental and expressive traits, and they view gender roles as a matter of learned tasks and domains of expertise rather than inborn traits, right or duties. Swedish adults also hold more favorable attitudes toward maternal employment. They believe a working mother could establish just as warm and secure a relationship with her children as a mother who doesn't work.

Describe family size and child development.

The assumption that large families make less-intelligent children has been refuted. Children's IQ's did not decline with later birth order. However, the larger the family, the lower the scores of all siblings. The link between family size and children's IQ can be explained by the strong trend for mothers lower in intelligence to have more children. Children of bright, economically advantage mothers did not show the family size-IQ correlation.

Describe moral reasoning and behavior. Moral self-relevance.

The connection between mature moral reasoning and action is only modest. Moral self-relevance, the degree to which morality is central to self-concept, affects moral behavior. Moral goals that are personally important affect people to feel obligated to act. Relationships with others that model prosocial behavior and empathy/guilt, which combine with moral cognition.... motivate moral action. Just educational environments, where teachers guide students in democratic decision making and rule setting and civic dispute resolving, are influential.

Describe adapting to change.

The interplay of forces within family is dynamic and ever-changing as each member adapts to the development of other members. For ex, as children acquire new skills, parents adjust the way they treat them. Parent's development affects children as well. The increase in conflict during adolescence is due to both teens' striving for independence as well as parents' striving for togetherness (reaching middle age). This imbalance promotes friction, which parents and teens resolve by accommodating to changes in each other.

Describe the authoritative child rearing.

The most successful approach, that involves high acceptance and involvement, adaptive control techniques, and appropriate autonomy granting. Authoritative parents are warm, attentive, and sensitive to child's needs. They exercise firm, reasonable control. They engage in appropriate autonomy granting, allowing the child to make decisions in areas where he is ready to make choices.

Describe the family system in context.

The social systems perspective views the family as affected by surrounding social contexts. In the mesosystem and exosystem, formal organizations and informal social networks influence parent-child relationships. Poverty-stricken communities introduce stressors that undermine parents' warmth/involvement and increase harshness and inconsistency. In contrast, strong family ties to the surrounding social context, reduce youth adjustment problems.

Describe morality as rooted in human nature.

Theories have suggested that many morally relevant behaviors and emotions have roots in evolutionary history. Animals such as ants and bees show self-sacrifice. Chimps conform to moral-like rules and reciprocate favors and engage in kind acts. Humans in particular engage in reciprocal exchanges that are far more common, varied and highly developed. Prosocial acts can promote survival of the species. Willingness of members of a group to aid others and self-sacrifice ensures that the majority of the group will survive and reproduce.

What are child-reading styles? What three features make up these styles?

They are combinations of parenting behaviors that occur over a wide range of situations, creating an enduring child-reading climate. 1. Acceptance of the child and involvement in the child's life, which establishes an emotional connection with child 2. Control of the child, which promotes more mature behavior 3. Autonomy granting, which encourages self-reliance

What INdirect influences does family/children have on each other?

Third parties (relationships between mom and dad, parent with sibling for example) can serve as supports for development of they can undermine it. When parents' marital relationship is warm and considerate, moms and dads are likely to engage in effective coparenting - mutually supporting each other's parenting behaviors. They have more secure attachment relationships with their babies. Parents who marriage is tense and hostile often interfere with one another's child-rearing efforts and develop less secure attachment and show internalizing/externalizing of difficulties. Other family members may help to restore effective interaction.

Describe uninvolved child rearing.

This style combines low acceptance and involvement with little control and general indifference to issues of autonomy. These parents are emotionally detached and depressed and have little time/energy for children. Uninvolved parenting is a form of child maltreatment called neglect. It disrupts virtually all aspects of development. Children display poor emotional self-regulation, school achievement difficulties and antisocial behaviors.

Describe authoritarian child rearing.

This style is low in acceptance and involvement, high in coercive control and low in autonomy granting. Parents appear cold and rejecting, frequently degrade their child by mocking and putting him down. They make decisions for their child and expect the child to accept it unquestioningly. Children of these parents are anxious, unhappy, and low in self-esteem and self-reliance. They tend to react with hostility like their parents. These parents engage in psychological control - behaviors that intrude on and manipulate children's verbal expressions, individuality, and attachments to parents.

Describe permissive child rearing.

This style is warm and accepting but uninvolved. Permissive parents are either overindulgent or inattentive and thus, engage in little control. They allow children to make many decisions for themselves at an age they are not yet capable of doing so. Children of these parents are impulsive, disobedient, and rebellious. They are overly demanding and dependent on adults.

Describe the gender schema theory.

This theory is an info-processing approach that explains how environmental pressures and children's cognition work together to shape gender typing. It also integrates the various elements of gender typing - gender stereotyping, gender identity and gender role adoption - into a unified picture of how masculine and feminine orientations emerge and are often strongly maintained. At an early age, children pick up gender-typed preferences and behaviors from others. They also organize experiences into gender schemas, masculine/feminine categories that they use to interpret the world. When can label and grasp stability of own gender, they select gender schemas consistent with it and apply them to themselves. Individual differences exsit. Children that apply gender schemas to their experiences are gender-schematic and their gender-salience filter immediately makes gender highly relevant. The other type is gender-aschematic who seldom views the world in gender-linked terms and responds on the basis of interests. Interventions that promote multi-D thinking about gender and other aspects of the world induces children to construct more gender-equitable beliefs.

Describe individual and group differences in gender stereotyping.

To build a coherent notion of gender, children must assemble many elements. The precise pattern in which they acquire the pieces, the rate at which they do so and the flexibility of their beliefs vary greatly from child to child. Group differences in gender stereotyping exist. Boys hold more rigid gender-stereotyped views than girls throughout childhood and adolescence. Older boys begin to view gender roles as encompassing more varied possibilities. African-American children hold less stereotyped views of females than Caucasian-American children. This may be a response to less traditional gender roles in black families - employed mothers, mother-headed households. In adolescence/adulthood, higher-SES individuals tend to hold more flexible gender-stereotyped views than lower-SES counterparts. Years of schooling and wider array of life options contribute to this difference.

What individual differences affect self-control?

Two processing systems, hot and cool, govern the development of self-control and accounts for individual differences. With age, the hot system is increasingly subordinated to the cool system as a result of improved functioning of the frontal lobes of cerebral cortex. Throughout childhood and adolescence, temperament and parenting jointly influence the extent to which cool-system representations gain control over hot-system reactivity.

How different are boys and girls in mental abilities?

Verbal abilities - Girls are ahead of boys in language development. Throughout school years, girls attain higher scores in reading achievement and writing. The gender gap in reading/writing increases over adolescence. Mothers talks more to girls which leads to this. Language is also viewed as a feminine subject. Math abilities - Girls tend to be better in arithmetic computations at a younger age. But around adolescence, when math concepts become more abstract and spatial, boys start to outperform girls. Even in science, boys' advantage increases as problems become more difficult. Heredity may contribute to the gender gap in math. Boys have more rapid numerical memory and superior spatial reasoning. Social pressure and stereotype threat (fear of being judged on the basis of a negative stereotype) cause girls to do worse than their abilities allow on hard math problems.

Describe moral vs social-conventional distinctions.

Young children judge moral violations as more wrong than violations of social conventions. After a moral offense, peers respond with strong negative emotion and an adult who intervenes calls attention to the victim's rights and feelings. Violations of social convention elicit less intense peer reactions. Adults demand obedience without explanation.

What are community and cultural influences on aggression?

Young people's tendency to engage in antisocial behavior increases under certain environmental conditions. In a tense, competitive peer-group atmosphere, hostility is more likely, which is common in poverty-stricken neighborhoods. Children therefore have easy access to drugs, deviant peers, firearms and gangs. Schools in the area also fail to meet students' developmental needs. Ethnic and political prejudices magnify the risk of aggression. In ghettos and war-torn areas of the world, children live in the midst of constant danger, chaos and deprivation. They are at risk of severe emotional stress, deficits in moral reasoning and behavior problems.