Transcript Chapter 5

Chapter 6
Psychosocial Development During
the First Three Years
EMOTIONS
Subjective reactions to events and experiences
that are associated with physiological and
behavioral changes.
Emotional development is an orderly process
building on simpler to more complex.
See Table 6-1 (page 194)
EMOTIONS
Crying is first emotion noticed.
Three distinct cries:
1. hunger (or basic), characterized by rhythmic,
repetitive vocalization;
2. anger, characterized by long and loud
verbalization;
3. pain, characterized by a sudden, long cry
followed by a long silence as infant holds breath,
followed by another wail.
EMOTIONS
Smiling and laughing
From birth. To caregivers by third week.
Empathy: ability to react to another person’s
distress; putting self into another person’s shoes.
Does not develop until second year; Due to ego
centrism.
Social referencing: process of incorporating facial
cues into response sequences, as well as using
social cues.
EMOTIONS
Self-conscious emotions: embarrassment,
empathy, envy, develop after selfawareness between 15-24 months.
Self-evaluative emotions after age 3 (pride,
shame, guilt).
Emotional neglect- failure to thrive.
Temperament
Person’s characteristic, biologically based
way of approaching and reacting to people
and situations. Consistent and enduring
patterns that are fairly stable over time.
Temperament refers to a style of behavior:
how a person does whatever they do
Temperament
Temperament affects the infant’s experience
in two ways:
1. infants with different temperaments elicit
different responses from others.
2. infants with different temperaments have
different reactions to the same
environment or events.
Thomas and Chess identified three types of
temperament:
1. Easy babies: (40% of sample) were
playful, regular in body functions, and
adaptable. They approached new
situations with interest and were moderate
in their responses. They were the least
likely to have problems later.
a. they had a positive mood
b. high rhythmicity
c. low or moderate intensity reactions
d. high adaptability
e.
an approach orientation to new situations and
stimuli.
f. As infants and young children, slept and ate
regularly, were generally happy, and readily
adjusted to new people and events
g. Thru later childhood and early adolescence,
adjusted easily to changing school requirements
and adapted and participated in games and other
activities
h. Easy because they presented with few problems
for parents, teachers, or peers.
i. They would be expected to have adaptive,
normative interactions
2. Difficult babies (10% of sample) were negative,
irregular, and unadaptable.
They withdrew from new situations and had
intense reactions. Intense and frequent
negative moods.
Cries often and loudly, laughs loudly.
Respond poorly to change.
More likely to have difficulty or problems
with their parents, school, and peers later
in their development. 70% of the difficult
children in the sample received psychiatric
services while only 18% of the easy
children did. They presented with 5
attributes:
They presented with 5 attributes:
• Low rhythmicity
• High intensity reactions
• A withdrawal orientation
• Slow adaptation
• Negative mood
All make for difficult social interactions.
As infants and young children, they ate and
slept irregularly, took a long time to adjust
to new situations, and were characterized
by a great deal of crying.
Suspicious of strangers, reacts to frustrations
with tantrums.
This pattern persisted into late childhood and
early adolescence, and required parents,
teachers, and peers to show both tolerance
and patience in order to interact at all
favorably with them.
3. Slow-to-Warm-Up (15% of sample) were
low in activity and mild in their responses.
They tended to withdraw from new
situations and needed time to adapt to
change. Negative initial response to new
stimuli. Sleeps and eats more regular than
difficult child, less regular than easy child.
They present with:
• A low activity level;
• A withdrawal orientation
• Slow adaptability
• A somewhat negative mood
• Relatively low-reaction intensities
• Interaction problems for parents, teachers,
requiring efforts to get the child involved in new
activities and situations.
• This child’s mood and adaptability
characteristics created a barrier for positive
interactions with parents and teachers.
The remaining 35% unclassifiable.
They found that infants vary their responses to
people and events, and therefore a “good”
home or “bad” home may not always
account for temperament problems.
The key to healthy development is goodness
of fit between the child’s temperament and
the demands made on the child in their
home environment. A child’s environment
should be in harmony with their
temperament.
If the two influences are harmonized, one can expect
healthy development of the child; if they are
dissonant, behavioral problems are sure to
ensure.
Environment must fit temperament.
A difficult child should not have new situations
forced on them too quickly.
Easy child can be expected to adapt to sudden
changes more readily.
Some biological determinants as well, although may
or may not continue into adulthood.
Temperaments were fairly stable over time;
Thomas et al demonstrated that a child’s
ratings for each of the various
temperamental attributes were stable over
from infancy to adolescence
A mother with a difficult baby may be less
responsive to their infants and less
sensitive to changes in their babies
emotional states.
Babies with difficult temperaments begin at an early
age to cause problems between themselves and
their parents: this can lead to a heavy-handed
parental discipline and child rebellion may
continue long after biologically determined
temperamental predisposition has ceased to
directly influence the child’s disposition.
Restructuring the environment to better suit the older
child’s temperament may inadvertently reward
the child for inappropriate behavior.
Differences in temperament and change exist. Some
malleability possible.
Parents who place great importance upon the
speed of their child’s physical and motor
development may cause problems.
Mother’s role
Feeding and physical care
Comforting by close body contact
Emphasize verbal play
Father’s role
Highly physical style of play
More time playing than care giving
How gender differences are shaped
• Through expectations
• Preferences of toys and play activities
• By second year, fathers talk more and
spend more time with sons than daughters.
Mothers do the same but for the daughter
Development issues
Erik Erickson: Trust Versus Mistrust
Earliest is the oral-sensory stage demonstrated by
infant’s capacity to sleep peacefully, to take
nourishment comfortably, and to excrete
relaxfully.
Situations of comfort and person’s associated
with these comforts become familiar and
associates with a good feeling.
Daily routines, consistency, and continuity in the
infant’s environment provide earliest basis
for a sense of psychosocial identify.
Development issues
Erik Erickson: Trust Versus Mistrust
Proper ratio of trust and mistrust results in hope.
(Q: what are the potential ramifications if
parent is untrustworthy, inconsistent, etc?)
Lack of recognition can cause estrangement; a
sense of separation and abandonment.
Perverted sense or opposite: idolism.
To trust others is to trust self.
The oral stage.
Development issues
Erik Erickson: Trust Versus Mistrust
*****Parents must maintain an adequate
environment-supportive, nurturing, and
loving- so that the child develops basic
trust.
To help achieve this stage:
care for, feed, build a warm, affectionate
relationship with child
Developing Attachments
The close, affective relationship formed
between a child and one or more
caregivers.
Attachment Theory
Attachment is an enduring emotional tie to a
specific person.
Infants are attached when:
1. they stay close to a person;
2. becomes distressed when separated from
that person;
3. shows joy and relief when the person
returns; and
4. is orientated toward that person when
they are not interacting- watches that
person’s movements, listens for that
person’s voice, and attempts to capture
their attention whenever they can.
Bowlby: Four phases in the development of
attachment:
1. Indiscriminate Sociability (birth to 2 months)
Newborn cries to attract adults. Uses rooting, grasping,
and after middle of second month, smiling and
vocalizations to keep adults near. Predisposed to
initiate and respond to social interaction. Content as
long as someone pays attention.
2. Discriminating Sociability (2 to 6 months)
Begins to discriminate among people, to recognize
caregivers and show preferences for them. These
are subtle changes. They sooth more easily when
held and smiles more often at them. Begins to
add playful behavior to repertoire for holding
favored adult’s attention.
Bowlby: Specific Attachments (7 to 24 months)
Emergence of intentional behavior and independent
locomotion. Enduring and affectionate
attachments to specific people.
For first time, infant protests when the person they
are attached to leaches. Caregivers are no longer
replaceable. They know and make preferences
known.
Can now use newly acquired mobility to stay close to
attachment figures. Creeps, crawls to follow.
Behavior is more purposeful and goal-directed.
Uses motor abilities deliberately to influence
others. These relationships are limited by
egocentrism.
Bowlby: Specific Attachments (7 to 24 months)
4. Partnerships (over 24 months)
Bye age 2, child begins to understand that
other people have different needs and
desires and begins to take these into
account. Language will be added soon,
which will be used to negotiate mutually
agreeable plans with mother/care giver.
5. Goal Corrected Partnerships
More mature relationships. Child becomes
more willing and better able to interact
with peers and unfamiliar adults.
Three different patterns of response to mother’s
presence or absence (Ainsworth).
Securely Attached Infants: (about 60% of sample) use
mothers as a base for exploration. Stay close to
mother and after a few months begin to explore
room, toys, etc. Move back towards mother when
stranger enters room. These infants had consistently
sensitive, responsive mothers. Mothers were alert to
infants signals, moods, and preferences; let baby
stop to play during a meal if they want to; accepted
interruptions and frustrations as part of being a
mother. Cry/protest when mother leaves and greet
happily upon her return. Cooperative and relatively
free of anger.
Three different patterns of response to
mother’s presence or absence (Ainsworth).
Ambivalently Attached Infants: (about 20% of
sample) are reluctant to explore the room or
play with toys. Some cling to mother, hiding
from a stranger. Becomes anxious even
before mother leaves. Intensely distressed
when mothers leave, difficult to soothe when
they return. Some push away angrily. May be
afraid mother will never return and angry
when they do.
Three different patterns of response to
mother’s presence or absence (Ainsworth).
Avoidant Infants: (about 10% of sample)
somewhat slow to explore. Rarely cry when
mother leaves. They avoid their mothers
when they return, ignoring their greetings.
Some are friendlier to strangers than to
mother. Seem almost afraid of mother.
Dislike being held and being put down.
Main & Solomen (1986) identified a fourth
attachment pattern: disorganized-disorientated
attachment. Subtle and difficult to observe. Lacks
organized strategy to deal with stranger anxiety.
Contradictory, repetitive, or misdirected behaviors
(seeking closeness to stranger versus mother).
Greet mother happily upon return but then turns
away or approaches without looking at her.
Appears confused and afraid. This is the least
secure attachment. Mothers tend to be
insensitive, intrusive, or abusive, or suffered
unresolved loss. 10% of low risk and higher
percent of high-risk populations. Factor for
behavioral problems, especially aggression.
The mother’s of the ambivalent and avoidant
infants tended to be rejecting, interfering, or
inconsistent in their treatment. The concept
of “sensitive responsiveness” is an important
one. Mothering is not something a woman
does to the baby, but that it is a reciprocal
process, an active dialogue between mother
and infant.
Ainsworth argues that attachment promotes
autonomy. Disputes that infants tied to
mother’s apron strings will grow into an
immature adult.
Leah Matas and colleagues (1978) presented 2
year olds with difficult problems for their
age. Those rated as securely attached as
infants were enthusiastic about the task,
listened to directions, tolerated failure, and
asked for help when they needed it. Those
rated as ambivalently or avoidant ignored
directions, quickly became frustrated with the
task, got angry at their mothers or at the
materials, and gave up. The first group
approached learning as a game, not a test, and
performed better. These effects may well
carry into later years.
Other researchers found that those who were securely
attached as infants were better adjusted to school at
5 years that their insecure peers were. According to
teachers and other observers, they were popular,
outgoing, empathetic, and high in self-esteem.
Children at age 5 who had been insecurely attached
as infants were hesitant and shy or hostile and
aggressive-less socially competent.
The moral: mothers have a direct impact on the child’s
development.
Stranger anxiety: difficulty with strangers.
Separation anxiety: distress when caregiver leaves.
Emotional Communication
Mutual Regulation: Infant and caregiver respond
appropriately and sensitively to each other’s
mental and emotional states.
Social Referencing: the abilities to seek out
emotional information to guide behavior.
Observing another’s persons’ perceptions.
Babies interpret their caregiver’s response to
a new item.
Self-Concept
Our image of ourselves, our abilities and
traits. Describes how we feel about
ourselves.
Self-efficacy: sense of being able to master
challenges and achieve goals. Develops 410 months.
Erikson’s Stage 2: Autonomy Versus Shame
and Doubt
• Anal-muscular stage in psychoanalytic
scheme
• Learns what is expected of it, what its
obligations and privileges are along with
what limitations are placed upon it.
• Child is starving for new and more activityorientated experiences; places new demand
for self-control and for the acceptance from
others in the environment.
Erikson’s Stage 2: Autonomy Versus Shame and
Doubt
• Adults must tame the child’s willfulness and utilize
appropriate shame; yet encourage the child to stand
on own two feet and to establish own sense of
autonomy.
• The adults who exercise control must also be firmly
reassuring.
• Child should be encouraged to experience situations
that require the autonomy of free choice.
• Excessive shamefulness will only induce the child to
be shameless or force it to attempt to get away with
things by being seductive, sneaky, and sly.
Erikson’s Stage 2: Autonomy Versus Shame and
Doubt
• This stage promotes freedom of self-expression and
lovingness.
• A sense of self-control provides a feeling of good
will and pride; a sense of loss of self-control can
cause a lasting feelings of shame and doubt.
• The virtue of Will emerges here: awareness and
attention, manipulation, verbalization, and
locomotion; can make free choices, to decide, to
exercise self-restraint, and to apply oneself.
• Judicious: judges itself and others to differentiate
between right and wrong.
Erikson’s Stage 2: Autonomy Versus Shame and
Doubt
• Develops sense of right and wrong of certain words
and acts, preparing for next stage of feeling guilty.
****As the child develops bowels and bladder control,
they should also develop a healthy attitude toward
being independent and somewhat self-sufficient. If
the child is made to feel that independent efforts are
wrong, then shame and self-doubt develop instead
of autonomy.
Socialization- the process of developing habits,
skills, values, and motives that make them
responsible, productive members of society.
Compliance with parental expectations is first
step. Internalize parent’s standards. See Table
6-4 (page 215)- how to deal with terrible twos
Self-regulation- control of own behavior to
conform to caregiver’s demands or
expectations, even when caregiver is absent
(age 2).
Conscience- (8-10 months) internal standards of
behavior, usually control’s conduct and
produce emotional discomfort when violated.
Inhibitory Control- conscious, effortful holding
back of impulses.
Committed compliance- do not need prompting.
older children.
Situational compliance- need prompting;
ongoing parental supervision.
Impact of Working Mothers
No significant negative impact was found.
European American Children: negative impacts on
cognitive development at 15 months to 3 years.
Questionable study.
Impact of childcare
• Income directly impacts quality of daycare options
and therefore directly impacts quality of care.
•
Shy and insecurely attached children experienced
greater stress.
Impact of childcare- continued
• Quality of care contributes to cognitive and
psychosocial competence. Structural characteristics:
staff training, ratio of children to caregiver. Process
characteristics: warmth, sensitivity, responsiveness
of caregiver and the developmental appropriateness
of activities.
•
Stimulating interactions with responsive adults are
crucial to early cognitive, linguistic, and
psychosocial development. Low staff turnover is
important, consistent caregivers.
Impact of childcare- continued
• The more time spent in childcare up to age
4½, more likely child was seen as aggressive,
disobedient, and hard to get along with.
•
Long days in daycare associated with stress
for 3-4 year olds.
High quality day care had positive influence:
• Low staff-child ratios
• Small group sizes
• Trained, sensitive and responsive caregivers who
provided positive interactions and language
stimulation resulted in children with higher tests on
language comprehension, cognition, and readiness
for school.
• Developmental outcomes based on family
characteristics (income, home environment, amount
of mental stimulation from mother, mother’s
sensitivity to child, strongly predicted outcomes
regardless of how much time spent in daycare.
High quality day care had positive influence:
• Maternal sensitivity was strongest predictor of
attachment.
•
Childcare had no direct effect on attachment.
•
However, unstable, poor quality, more time (10 or
more hours week) than usual daycare were
combined with insensitive, unresponsive mothering,
insecure attachment was more likely. High quality
daycare seemed to offset insensitive mothering.
•
Impact for disadvantaged children even more
important
Maltreatment & Abuse
Physical abuse: any contact that could or does result in
physical harm; injury though punching, beating,
kicking, burning, harsh punishment.
Neglect: failure to provide a child’s basic needs,
including housing, medical treatment, nourishment,
safe environment, protection, supervision.
Sexual abuse: any sexual activity or contact involving a
minor that is sexual in nature; contact between an
older person and a minor; nonconsensual contact.
Emotional maltreatment: acts of abuse or neglect that
cause behavioral, cognitive, emotional, or mental
disorders. Includes rejections, terrorism, isolation,
exploitation, degradation, ridicule, failure to provide
emotional support.
Approximately 60% of children are maltreated; 20%
physically abused; 1/3rd sexually abused.
Abusive parents tend to be exhibit: depression, anger
problems, poor problem solving skills, have histories of
abuse or neglect, substance abuse problems, emotionally
distant from their children, isolated, poor relationship
history. However, abuse and neglect are always a
choice, not out of the parent’s control!
Impact of abuse
• Experience moderate to severe mental health
problems and disorders
• Become abusers
• Continue to be victims
• Physical, cognitive, emotional, social
impairment
• Brain injury, which results in all of the above
• Developmental impairment and delays
• Low self esteem, depression, anxiety,
antisocial personalities