Download Overview

Social and emotional
development
An Overview based on Thompson
(1993; 1999; 2000)
PSY341
Vertus and Messinger
Class
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Questions
Overview
Final topic questions
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Neonate
4
months
4 Months
8 months
1 year
1 year 6 months
Erikson’s Stages
Erik Erikson’s Psychological Theory (1963)
• Psychodynamic, developmental theorist
• Argues that personality develops throughout lifespan
• Series of crises to be resolved; outcome is favorable or unfavorable
Erikson (ages and interpretation)
Education x Cohort  Initiative
Younger cohort:
High education began with higher initiative; but declines slightly;
Low education slight increase through 30s then slight downward.
Older cohort: No clear difference for education
Gender x Cohort x Occupational prestige  Industry
Men
Women
Younger cohort with low prestige peaked in industry in late 30s then declined
But older cohort with low prestige continued steady increase throughout late 50s
Example
• Emotional and Social Development in
Early Childhood (bananas)
Temperament
• Temperament: underlying, biologically based
(heritable) individual differences in the behavioral
characteristics of the individual that is constant
over time and across situations
• Personality-to-be
Temperament
• Dispositions
– Reactivity and regulation
• More multidimensional and enduring than
emotion
Usher
Genes and environment
• Genetic individual differences can be reflected in
some physiological systems
– reactivity in sympathetic and central nervous system
• Individual temperamental characteristics
interact with the child’s environment
– level of stress in home, sensitivity and adaptability of
social partners, cultural beliefs and values
• To influence attachment, sociability, and
adjustment.
How or what of behavior
• Rhythmicity of biological functions, approach vs
withdrawal from new, adaptability, distractibility,
activity level, mood quality, attention span,
intensity of reaction, and threshold of
responsiveness
– (Thomas, Chess, et al.)
• Activity level, soothability, duration of
orientation, smiling/laughter (positive reactivity),
fear, distress to limitations
– (Rothbart, 1981, 1986; Derryberry, 1981)
• Activity level, emotionality, and sociability
– (Buss & Plomin)
Emotion
• Structuralist Theory: The physiological (heart rate,
sweaty palms), subjective (level of distraction), cognitive
appraisal ( threats, the unexpected), and expressive
components (facial expressions) that accompany such
feelings as fear, anger, joy, distress, guilt, happiness.
Structuralist views
• Established emotions as respectable,
portraying them as
– Biologically based
– “discrete, coherent constellations of
phsyiological, subjective, and expressive
activity” (Thompson, 1993, p. 374)
– yield discrete emotions (fear, anger, joy)
– micro-analytic coding because
– Face = emotion.
But emotion is functional
• Functionalist theory: Emotion is the person’s
attempt or readiness to establish, maintain, or change the
relation between the person and the environment on on
matters of significance to that person (Saarni et al., 1998).
• Emotion is associated with goal-attainment, social
relationships, situational appraisals, action tendencies, selfunderstanding, self regulation, etc.
Functionalist views
• Emotion has to do with goals
– changing and maintaining relationship with the
environment.
• Emotions come in families defined by these goals
– not by facial expression, or brain activity
• Research focus
– socialization of emotional experience
– acquisition of emotional competence (Saarni),
– secondary emotions such as pride.
Critique of functionalism
• Overly broad
• Circular reasoning
– How do you measure goals?
– Or final causality
• Multimodal measurement
• Measurement of impact of emotional signal
– Similar to ethology
Emotion regulation
• Modifying emotions to attain goals
• Sees emotions as
– flexible not stereotypical
– functional not disruptive
– responsive not rigid
• E.g., Impulse control, anger modulation, embarrassment,
gift receipt.
– Similar to general movement of field in ‘80-90s and to
functionalism in particular.
Critique of emotion regulation
• Inhibition or maintenance/intensification?
• Self or other regulation?
• What’s emotion and what’s its regulation?
– Does functionalism wish to unite concepts?
– Is a regulated emotion the same emotion?
– Avoid premature judgements of good emotion
regulation before we know its normative development
and how to measure its adequacy
Structural/Functional synthesis
• Structural insight.
– Discrete or no, emotional processes have an internal
dynamic
• happiness wanes, frustrated love is not neutral; sadness loves
company
• Functional insight
– Emotions are inherently relational.
– And usually but not always functional
• Methodological synthesis.
– Detailed attention to face and other expressive
modalities, and their perception by others.
ATTACHMENT
• The Big Question: How do early experiences of
relationships impact later relationships?
– Infancy to childhood
– Infancy to adulthood
– Infancy to parenthood
• Through behavioral and then internal
representations of what can be expected from
relationships
Internal representations
• Individuals construct belief systems and
interpret (and sometimes construct) reality
based on those beliefs.
Self
• Grounded in temperament
– Life choices
• Awareness/representation
– Internal working model
– Provides coherence to experiences
• Ingroup/outgroup distinctions
• Elements of the self
– Self-perceptions
– Memory
– Self-esteem
What is Self
(“me”)
• Self is comprised of the “I-self”
– active participant, contributor to experiences
• And the ‘me’
– self-evaluations
– and the social self.
• With some things in between
– self-representation,
– autobiograghical personal narrative,
Infant self
• Early. Through sensorimotor interactions with the
environment and social interactions, infants acquire the
capabilities that allow then to develop a sense of self
• Middle Infancy: Social scope extends to peer
relationships. Children compare themselves to other peers.
Evaluation of strengths and weaknesses takes place.
Early Childhood Self
• Infant-caregiver interactions become crucial
infant’s self-representation; self-evaluations based
upon parents; descriptive physical and
psychological characteristics
Adolescence and Beyond:
• Development of abstract thinking allows the
teenager to reconcile conflicting, inconsistencies
in themselves and others. Experimentation in
search of the true self is undertaken. An identity
is formed/formulated.
• The “self” is continually shaped and developed.
• Personality: Different experiences throughout the
lifespan, negatively or positively go into shaping
the individual’s personality.
The Big Picture: Psychosocial
ecology of human development
• Physical and social circumstances are likely
to be the among the strongest predictors of
socioemotional development
– divorce/remarriage, beginning and changing
schools, economic upturns/downturns -
• Are these direct or indirect effects?
– The emotional impact of the divorce or the
downturn in standard of living?
Parenting
• Different parenting styles have different
outcomes
• Authoritative style thought to be optimal
Parenting: Current view
• What particular features of a parenting style
- including affective behavior - produces
outcomes in particular circumstances.
– More flexibility for older adolescents
– Group differences
• More restrictive caregiving is seen as more loving
and has more positive outcomes among AfricanAmerican teens (Mason)
Parenting and emotion
• Try to achieve goals with/for offspring is
very emotional!
– Discipline strategies are modified by perception
of child’s temperament.
– The actual process is bidirectional
• Mutual expectations impact next
interactions so that relationships impact
relationships
In Defense of Parenthood:
Children Are Associated With
More Joy Than Misery
•
S. Katherine Nelson, Kostadin Kushlev, Tammy English, Elizabeth W. Dunn, and Sonja Lyubomirsky
• Does having children make people happier? Participants were
prompted to report their level of positive and negative emotions five
times a day for 7 days. Researchers also collected information on
participants' level of global happiness and depressive symptoms. The
researchers found that participants with children reported higher levels
of global well-being, fewer depressive symptoms, and more positive
emotions than did nonparents. Parenthood was more consistently
linked to increases in well-being in men. A follow-up study also found
that parents reported more positive emotions and a stronger sense of
meaning in life when taking care of their children. These findings run
contrary to the widely held belief that children are a source of reduced
wellbeing.
Policy Implications
• Researchers can’t hide in the lab, but they
should not be overly prescriptive
• They should understand that policy can
have unintended repercussions for diverse
parties
– attachment and daycare
– adoption
– maternal drug use
References
– Thompson, R. A. (1999). The individual child:
Temperament, emotion, self, and personality. In
M. H. Bornstein & M. E. Lamb (Eds.),
Developmental psychology: An advanced
textbook (4th ed.) (pp. 377-409). Mahwah, NJ:
Larence Earlbaum.
– Thompson (2001). Development in the first
years of life. The Future of Children, 11(1),
20-33.
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