Chapter 12
Social Development

Outline Introduction
Conceptions of Social Development
Infancy: Using Caregivers as a Base for Growth
Childhood: Learning to Play By and With the Rules
Adolescence: Breaking Out of the Cocoon
Adulthood: Finding Satisfaction in Love and Work

Introduction

Social Development refers to the changing nature of our relationships over the course of life.

This area asks:

How, across the life-span, do people develop distinctively different modes of seeing themselves and interacting with others?

Typically examined topics are:

Emotional Development (this area is important even though it is not covered in your text).

Personality Development

Interpersonal Development

Development of Morality

NOTE TO STUDENTS: As you study these notes, try to answer the questions that appear in this column to check your mastery of the material. To see the answers to the questions, highlight the 'invisible' text that is after the word ANSWER.

LINK: Tufts University's Child & FamilyWebGuide

LINK: GMUS's Online Resources for Developmental Psychology

Conceptions of Social Development

There are several broad theoretical perspectives that have influenced research and theory on social development in each life stage. These theories can be divided into three classes:

Biological theories

Cultural Theories

Cognitive Theories

Biological Theories

The work of Freud inspired many of the earliest biologically based theories of social development. Freud believed that social development is basically channeling one's sexual and aggressive drives in socially acceptable ways. Other theorists expanded upon Freud's theories by adding drives and going beyond the age range that Freud discussed.

Erikson's Psychosocial Theory of Life Stages

Erikson argues that, as we grow, life presents us with different "crises". You can also call these crises developmental challenges or tasks. Our "goal" is to satisfactorily meet these challenges/tasks. The successful completion of task allows us to move on in a healthy manner to conquer next task. The unsuccessful completion of task means you'll still probably move on, but will:

always be faced with difficulties brought by earlier failure

also probably (but not necessarily) have problems with subsequent developmental challenges. Each task can be represented as a continuum ("good" - "bad" outcome).

The stages are:

Trust versus mistrust (birth to one year)

Autonomy vs. shame/doubt (1 to 3 years)

Initiative vs. guilt (3 to 5 years)

Industry vs. inferiority (5 to 12 years)

Identity vs. identity confusion (adolescence)

Intimacy vs. isolation (young adulthood)

Generativity vs. stagnation (middle adulthood)

Integrity vs. despair (late adulthood to death)

Limitations to Erikson's Theory

His theory is hard to validate empirically.

His theory is culturally specific.

Identity development during adolescence has been of much interest:

Marcia and identity development

Elaboration of Erikson's 5th conflict: What kind of identity does an adolescent achieve?

Ethological and Evolutionary Perspectives

From an evolutionary perspective, we are prewired to experience certain AFFECTS. Affects serve regulating functions for us and others in our environment. This is why emotions are an integral part of our genetic, evolutionary heritage.

Affects are signals to action:

For the person experiencing the affect:

Anger - remove obstacle

Fear - get away from danger

Sadness - grieve lost object

For a person witnessing these affective expressions:

Other is angry -----> I feel? -----> I should ?

Other is afraid -----> I feel? -----> I should ?

Other is sad -----> I feel? -----> I should ?

Affects are crucial means of interaction during infancy. Various examples: Sensitive and responsive caregivers illustrate affective dialogue or "dance" (Tronick video clip)

Children who are neglected develop extreme affective dysregulation and cannot be calmed easily by "affective reactions" provided by environment (Spitz video clip)

Stranger anxiety illustrates the affective dialogue

But, why do children exhibit stranger anxiety? (back to Piaget)

Children's use of caregivers as "social referents" also illustrates affective dialoguing (Campos & Emde video clip).

Interpersonal Development

Material not covered in book, which you need to know: How are children socialized?

Social learning theory

Cognitive developmental theory

Stricter learning theory

Children learn by observing others

Modeling is involved in acquisition of new responses

performance of already known responses

Acquisition: watch others

Performance - saw rewarded

Inhibit performance - saw punished

Adapting to Culture-Specific Norms and values

Cultural theories focus on cross-cultural differences that illustrate the flexibility of human nature. Human development is, at least in part, a matter of adapting to the social customs and economic conditions of your culture. Therefore to understand development in any culture, one needs to understand that culture's customs and conditions.

Example: Look back at Erikson's eight stages and consider them from a cultural perspective. As mentioned earlier, one of the limitations of Erikson's theory of development is that it is culturally specific. That is, it doesn't make much sense to apply such stages to the development of children that are not from Western cultures.

One theorist that has attempted to account for cross-cultural differences in childhood development is Urie Bronfenbrenner, who developed a model of social ecology. Social ecology refers to the entire network of interactions and interdependencies among people, institutions, and cultural constructs to which the person must adapt psychologically.

Bronfenbrenner's model of social ecology

Cognitive Developmental Theory

Opposed to learning view of blind molding

Emphasizes role of understanding, rather than simple imitation based on vicarious reinforcement

Child's motive for imitation is an "attempt at understanding". This itself is rewarding

Child's understanding increases with general mental development

This affects what s/he will imitate

This, in turn, affects what s/he understands

Sigmund Freud

Erik Erikson

LINK: Marcia's Model of Identity Statuses

Infancy: Using Caregivers as a Base For Growth

Infant's attachment to caregivers

Harlow's Monkeys - In Harlow's famous attachment experiment, he raised infant monkeys individually in isolated cages containing two surrogate mothers-one made of bare wire and the other covered with soft terrycloth. The infants could feed themselves by sucking milk from a nipple that for half of them was attached to the wire surrogate and for the other half was attached to the cloth surrogate. Harlow found that regardless of which surrogate provided the milk, all infants treated the cloth-covered surrogate as a mother. This demonstrated the role of contact comfort in the development of attachment bonds and also laid the foundation for understanding the specific functions of attachments in young primates.

Bowlby - Also developed a theory of human attachment. He found that a) attached children exhibit less distress when the object of their attachment leaves, especially if they are in an unfamiliar environment, b) attached children exhibit pleasure when reunited with that person, c) attached children exhibit displeasure when approached by a stranger unless comforted by the object of their attachment, d) attached children are more likely to explore an unfamiliar environment if the object of their attachment is present.

The Strange Situation test - In order to assess attachment systematically, Mary Ainsworth developed the strange situation test. In this test, the person to whom the infant is attached moves into and out of an unfamiliar room, leaving the infant with a stranger or alone.

Cross cultural differences in infant care

Sleeping arrangements - In our culture, children typically sleep alone whereas many other cultures it is common for infants and toddlers to sleep in the same room as their parents. One of the consequences of requiring children to sleep alone is that the rate of attachment to inanimate objects is higher.

Caregiving in hunter-gatherer societies - Since the biological underpinnings of infants' and caregivers' behaviors evolved in the context of hunter-gatherer societies, it is useful to study how still-existing hunter gatherer societies function. For example, infants in !Kung society spend much of their time with their mothers throughout the day. In general, parental involvement appears to be greater in hunter-gatherer societies than in agricultural or industrial ones.

Issues of indulgence and independence - Western cultures often discourage overindulging children by doing things like appeasing them every time they cry and allowing them to sleep with their parents when they are upset. Studies of cultures that do encourage such "indulgent" behaviors (such as the !Kung) have suggested that children do not become uncooperative or incompetent adults. Some researchers believe that high indulgence of infants' desires may foster long-lasting emotional bonds that are stronger than those developed by Western practices.

(Cartoons by Mark Parisi. Used by special permission. For many more, visit his site.)

LINK: Patterns & Styles of Attachment

LINK: SIDS; Risk and Protective Factors

Childhood: Learning To Play By and With the Rules

Children learn about and practice their culture's values, morals and manners by observing and listening to their caregivers. This process is called socialization.

Hoffman's theory of discipline in moral development

Three classes of disciplinary techniques:

induction - this is where the parent uses verbal reasoning to get a child to think about the consequences of his or her actions.

power assertion - This is the use of physical punishment or rewards to control a child's behavior.

love withdrawal - This is when parents express disapproval of the child rather than the child's actions.

Hoffman points out that power assertion and love withdrawal both have harmful effects on children.

The Cause-Effect problem in relating children's behavior to parental styles

Many research studies have shown correlations between parenting styles and children's behavior that are consistent with Hoffman's findings. Diana Baumrind has classified parents into three groups:

Authoritarian = Autocratic

parent demands good behavior

parent is typically punitive for bad

"You do what I say"

Has a bad effect on future development

Child not well socialized

Acts only to avoid punishment

Permissive or Laissez-faire

Parent essentially lets child do what s/he wishes

Results in extremely uncontrolled, demanding children

Highest level of aggressiveness and conduct disorder

Authoritative-reciprocal

Think of this as a democratic environment

Parent sets strict rules. H/She IS the parent who knows best, BUT

Let's child and family participate in making the rules, changing rules

Best outcomes

Gender differences in social development

The words sex and gender are often used as synonyms. Psychologists use the word sex to refer to the biological basis for categorizing people as male or female, while gender refers to the entire set of differences attributed to males and females, which can differ across cultures.

Even early in infancy, boys and girls usually behave somewhat differently from each other. For example, newborn boys tend to be more irritable and less responsive to caregivers voices and faces than newborn girls.

Parents also behave differently towards boys and girls. They tend to be more gentle with girls than with boys, tend to talk to girls and jostle boys, and offer help and comfort to girls more than to boys. Cross-cultural research suggests that the degree to which boys and girls are treated differently corresponds with the degree of difference in the culture's adult make and female roles.

LINK: Baumrinds Parenting styles

LINK: NOVA: Sex Unkonwn

Adolescence: Breaking out of the cocoon

Adolescence is the transition period from childhood to adulthood. It begins with the first signs of puberty and ends when the person is viewed by himself and others as a full member of the adult community.

In Erikson's life-span theory adolescence is the stage of identity crisis, the goal of which is to give up one's childhood identity and establish a new identity - including a sense of purpose, a career orientation and a set of values appropriate for entry into adulthood. Adolescence is a period in which young people either consciously or unconsciously act is ways designed to move themselves from childhood toward adulthood. This includes behaviors such as breaking away from parental control, establishing more intimate relationships with peers, increased rates of recklessness and delinquency (especially among males), and an expanded moral vision and a moral sense of self.

Kohlberg was interested in Piaget's idea that logical reasoning develops in a series of stages in childhood and culminated, in adolescence, with the ability for formal, abstract thought. Kohlberg suggested that the ability to reason about moral issues may also develop through stages. Kohlberg assessed moral reasoning by posing hypothetical moral dilemmas to people and asking them how people should react and why. For example:

In Europe a woman was near death from a special kind of cancer. There was one drug that the doctors thought might save her, a form of radium that a druggist in the same town had recently discovered. The drug was expensive to make, but the druggist was charging ten times what the drug cost him to make. He paid $200 for the radium and charged $2,000 for a small dose of the drug. The sick woman's husband, Heinz, went to everyone he knew to borrow the money. He could only get together $1000 which is half of what it cost. He told the druggist that his wife was dying and asked him to sell it cheaper or let him pay later. But the druggist said, "No, I discovered the drug and I am going to make money from it." So Heinz got desperate and broke into the man's store to steal the drug for his wife.

Now answer the question: Should Heinz have done this? Why or why not?

Kohlberg's Stages of Moral Reasoning Level One - Preconventional Morality

Stage 1: Punishment and obedience orientation (the consequences of acts determines of they are good or bad).

Stage 2: Instrumental orientation (an act is moral if it satisfies one's needs).

Level Two - Conventional Morality

Stage 3: Good person orientation (an action is moral if it pleases or helps others and leads to approval).

Stage 4: Maintaining the social order orientation (moral people are those who do their duty in order to maintain the social order).

Level Three - Postconventional Morality

Stage 5: social contract and individual rights orientation (a moral person carefully weighs rights against society's needs of consensus rules).

Stage 6: Universal ethical principles orientation (the ultimate judge of what is moral is a person's own conscience operating in accordance with certain universal principles. Society's rules are arbitrary and they may be broken when they conflict with universal moral principles

For more about Kohlberg, try this link.

LINK: Kohlberg's Model of Moral Development

Adulthood: Finding Satisfaction in love and work

There are many different theoretical approaches to explaining adult development, but virtually every one emphasizes the importance of caring and working, as the title of this section suggests.

Romantic love viewed as adult attachment - researchers have argued that romantic love in similar in form, and perhaps in underlying mechanism, to the attachment of infants to their parents.

Like infants' attachments to their caregivers, adult attachments can be classed as secure, anxious, or avoidant.

Marital success seems to hinge, at least in part, on intimacy, commitment, and style of solving mutual problems. Happy couples often report that they are not only lovers, but are also good friends.