social & emotional development early childhood

• Vygotsky's Sociocultural Theory


  Children think and understand primarily through social interaction
• Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)

  • A range of tasks that are too difficult for the child to do alone but that can be accomplished with the help of others
  • Lower limit can be achieved by child working independently
  • Upper limit can be achieved by child with adult guidance
  • Adults and more skilled peers can assist with development through dialogue
• Scaffolding


  1. Changing the level of support

  2. A more skilled person adjusts the amount of guidance to fit the child's current performance
• Vocabulary and Grammar


  • By age 6, 10,000 words
  • Fast-mapping: Connecting a new word with an underlying concept after only a brief encounter
  • From simple sentences to complex grammar
  • Overgeneralization: overextend the rules to words that are exceptions
• Pragmatics


  • Preschoolers are learning how to use appropriate communication tools effectively
  • By age 4 children know culturally accepted ways of adjusting speech to fit age, sex, and social status role of persons
• Freud's Psychosexual Theory


  • 3 to 6 years: Phallic Stage
  • Child's pleasure focuses on the genitals
  • Oedipus Complex → Identification with parents
• Erikson's Psychosocial Development


  • During early childhood, children must discover who they are
  • Children show eagerness to try new tasks
  • Children use their perceptual, motor, cognitive, and language skills to make things happen
• Initiative vs. Guilt


  • If freedom and opportunity to initiate motor play happen → Initiative
  • If made to feel that their motor skill is bad, their questions are a nuisance, that their play is silly → Guilt
• Self-Conscious Emotions


  • Self-conscious emotions become more common
  • Influenced by parents' response to children's behavior
  • Gender differences for shame: Girls showed more shame than boys
• Emotion Language and Understanding of Emotion

  • Children increase the number of terms they use to describe emotions (emotion language)
  • They also are learning about the causes and consequences of feelings
  • Children begin to understand that the same event can elicit different feelings in different people
• Emotional Self-Regulation


  • Strategies we use to adjust our emotional state to a comfortable level of intensity so we can accomplish our goals
  • The ability to modulate one's emotion is an important skill that benefit children in their relationship with peers
• Foundations of Self-Concept


  • "I am Yumi."
  • "I got this new red T-shirt."
  • "I'm 4 years old."
  • "I can brush my teeth."
  • "I made this big, big tower."
  • "I am happy when I play with my friends."
  • "I don't like being with grown-ups."
  • "I am helpful."
  • "I'm shy."
• Peer Relations


  • Peers provide young children with learning experiences they can get in no other way
  • Good peer relations are necessary for normal socioemotional development
  • Preference for same-sex playmates increases in early childhood
• Types of Play


  • Unoccupied play
  • Solitary play
  • Onlooker play
  • Parallel play
  • Associative play
  • Cooperative play
• Unoccupied Play


  • Not play as it is commonly understood
  • The child may stand in one spot or perform random movements that do not seem to have a goal
• Solitary Play


  • Child plays alone and independently of others
  • The child seems engaged in the activity and does not care much about anything else that is happening
• Onlooker Play


  • Child watches other children play
  • The child may talk with other children but does not enter into their play
• Parallel Play


  Two children sit next to each other and play independently with the same toys
• Associative Play


  • Social interaction with little or no organization
  • Children seem to be more interested in each other than in the tasks they are performing
• Cooperative Play


  • Social interaction in a group with a sense of group identity and organized activity
  • (e.g.) formal games, competition aimed at winning
• First Friendship


  • Social Support
  • More compliance
  • More talking
  • Greetings
  • More praise
  • Looking at each other more often
  • More laughing
  • Emotionally more expressive
• Moral development


  The development of a person's sense of right and wrong and their corresponding behaviour
• Moral feelings


  • Guilt
  • Empathy
• Empathy


  Reacting to another person's feelings with an emotional response that is similar to the other's feelings
• Empathy


  Leads to moral action
• Moral reasoning (Piaget)


  1. Heteronomous morality (4-7)

  2. Transition period (7-10)

  3. Autonomous morality (10-)
• Heteronomous morality


  • Justice and rules are unchangeable properties of the world
  • Behavior is judged based on its consequences only
  • If a rule is broken, punishment will be given immediately
• Autonomous morality


  • Rules and laws are created by people
  • Actions and intentions should be judged
• Development of moral behavior

  1. Reinforcement

  2. Punishment

  3. Imitation
• Delayed gratification


  The ability to resist the temptation for an immediate reward and wait for a later reward
• Gender


  The social and psychological dimensions of being male or female
• Gender identity


  The sense of being male or female
• Gender roles


  Sets of expectations that prescribe how females or males should think, act, and feel
• Gender constancy


  The understanding that sex remains the same, even though activities, clothing, and hair style might change
• Parenting styles


  • Authoritarian
  • Authoritative
  • Indulgent
  • Neglectful
• Authoritarian parenting


  • Restrictive, punitive style in which parents exhort the child to follow their direction
  • Firm limits and controls on the child
  • Might spank the child frequently, enforce rules but not explain them, and show rage toward the child
• Authoritative parenting


  • Encourages children to be independent while placing limits and controls on actions
  • Extensive verbal exchange
  • Expect mature, independent, and age-appropriate behavior by children
• Indulgent parenting


  • Highly responsive but place few demands or controls on their children
  • Let their children do what they want
• Neglectful parenting


  • Uninvolved in the child's life
• Authoritative parenting may be the most effective type for a variety of reasons