Childhood: Developmental Psychology – Lecture summary (UNIVERSITY OF AMSTERDAM)
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Socialization refers to the process of developing social and emotional skills across the lifespan and is a process through generations. In this process, people develop beliefs (1) behaviours (2), values (3) and norms (4) that are appropriate in society. It is essential for healthy social development (e.g. forming positive relationships).
Socialization has three functions:
Vygotsky states that the sociocultural context influences development. He emphasizes the importance of social interaction (i.e. all development goes through social interaction) and he states that the elementary mental functions (e.g. memory; sensation) become higher mental functions as a result of social interaction. This would mean that all cognitive skills have social origin.
The zone of proximal development focuses on the role of joint involvement episodes where the caregivers make use of scaffolding techniques. The social learning theory (i.e. Bandura) states that learning occurs through observation (i.e. social models). There are several factors influencing observation:
Bandura demonstrated that there is a strong person-environment interaction. This means that a child’s predisposition is strongly influenced by the environment. For example, a more aggressive child will become the most aggressive when that child is exposed to aggression but not when this child is exposed to positive models.
The social information processing theory states that there are different steps in social interaction:
Each stage of the theory can be a target for an intervention (e.g. treating interpretation bias). All stages are also influenced by one’s mental state. Joint attention (1), emotion regulation (2), inhibitory control (3), imitation (4), causal understanding (5) and language (6) are emotional, cognitive and behavioural skills involved in harmonious peer interactions. In preschool, there is consolidation of these social skills and they are applied in the context of a group. The capacity for prosocial behaviour increases in childhood.
Empathy refers to being able to understand other’s feelings and one’s own feeling in the same situation. It is age-related as it improves with development and is mostly a learned skill through modelling (1), affectively oriented discipline (2) and sensitive parenting (3). Empathy is demonstrated in reacting to other’s distress and empathetic behaviour is already shown at a very young age. It is the root of prosocial behaviour (e.g. altruism). However, there is no consensus regarding the definition of empathy. The definitions of empathy vary in their reference to the sharing of another’s emotional state (1), the explicit understanding of another’s emotional state (2) and the prosocial behaviour that is the result of empathy (3).
Empathetic responses are automatic and there are different empathetic responses:
The cognitive aspect of empathy is the same as theory of mind (i.e. perspective-taking). According to Hoffman, there are different stages in the development of empathy.
Parenting behaviour which includes the provision of clear rules and principles (1), empathetic caregiving (2), attributing prosocial qualities to the child (3) and modelling by the parent (4) are more likely to lead to prosocial behaviour in the child. There are several predictors of prosocial behaviour:
There are two types of relationships:
While peer relationships in early life are horizontal relationships, in adolescence they also fulfil the function of vertical relationships. Mixed-age peer interaction refers to interactions among children who differ in age by a year or more. The asymmetry in this interaction could help children acquire certain social competencies. The presence of younger peers may foster the development of compassion (1), caregiving (2), prosocial inclinations (3), assertiveness (4) and leadership skills (5). This does not have the same influence as sibling contact as sibling status is determined by birth order and peer status is more flexible.
There are several developmental trends for peer interactions:
Contingent peer interactions (i.e. contingent responsiveness) refers to an interaction that resembles turn-taking and can be observed at six months of age. Infants are better at this when a toy is not present. Most conflict between peers in young children regards the possession of toys or violation of personal space and the conflicts are characterized by communicative gestures and signs of social influence. In toddlerhood, preferences for playmates and same-sex peers develop. Stable individual differences in aggression and externalizing problems emerge during toddlerhood.
An infant’s ability to engage successfully in interaction with peers requires several skills:
Deficits in either of these skills could hinder adjustment to peers in group settings and impair peer relationships. Causal understanding is associated with intentional communication (1), referencing (2), aggression (3) and prosocial behaviour (4).
There are different types of interaction in early childhood:
There are four types of play:
Passive, constructive solitary play (e.g. build tower of blocks) is positively associated with emotional adjustment and social competencies among kindergarten girls but not boys. Children whose play was more complex are more outgoing (1), pro-socially inclined (2), less aggressive (3) and less withdrawn (4). The cognitive complexity of a child’s play is an important predictor of future social competencies with peers.
Pretend play refers to imaginative pretence where one actively experiments with social roles. There is a shared responsibility and the play revolves around solving a problem. Pretend play may be important in the development of communication skills (1), emotional understanding (2), social perspective-taking (3) and enhanced capacity for caring (4). The complexity of pretend play increases with level of language and pretend play fosters friendships. Pretend play may have three developmental functions:
A peer group refers to a group that provides one with a sense of membership and formulates norms. In this group, children often discover the value of teamwork (1), develop a sense of loyalty (2) and develop commitment to shared goals (3). A clique refers to a small group of friends. A crowd refers to a larger, reputationally based peer group. It consists of cliques that share similar norms, interests and values. Identifying with a crowd can be harmful if the norms and values are harmful (e.g. positive of substance use). Cliques and crowds allow adolescents to try out new roles and express emerging values as they begin to forge an identity apart from their family. Group activity in children is characterized by friendships (1), gender segregation (2), dominance hierarchies (3) and peer acceptance and rejection (4).
Peer acceptance refers to which degree children are accepted by their peers and this is influenced by the social environment (e.g. the mother’s social network) and the child’s style of interaction. Children who are indirectly monitored by their parents during play (as compared to directly monitored) are liked better by peers. Peer acceptance is influenced by prosocial behaviour (1), aggressiveness (2), shyness (3), parenting style (4), temperamental characteristics (5) and cognitive skills (6).
Prosocial behaviour tends to be stable throughout childhood and is a key factor in gaining acceptance. The influence of aggression on peer rejection depends on the beliefs about the stability of aggressive behaviours in peers (e.g. entity beliefs). Sociometry refers to a method for the classification of peer acceptance. It asks children who they like and who they dislike and it is not the same as peer assessment.
There is a bi-directional relationship between peer relationships and children’s disorders. Variation in responsiveness to young peers may relate to general individual differences in emotionality and behavioural inhibition. There are three processes that are important for peer acceptance in the preschool years;
There are several types of children:
The average and popular status are stable in the short-term but not in the long-term. Rejection status tends to be more stable over time. This may be due to biases as the negative behaviour is attributed to stable causes and prosocial behaviour is attributed to dispositional causes. The opposite pattern occurs for liked children. Neglected children are not less socially skilled than average children.
There are two types of rejected children:
Changes in social status have behavioural implications (e.g. aggressive children that are accepted typically become less aggressive over time). Popularity and likability are not the same and likability is more adaptive for adolescents.
Children who are aggressive but were not victimized experienced more adult aggression and conflict but were not necessarily victimized by adults. It is possible that children who are more aggressive are more often rejected by peers and this leads them to develop a friendship with more aggressive peers. This increases the risk of conduct disorder. However, peer rejection and early aggression could also independently increase the risk of conduct disorder.
The base rate of aggression within a peer group influences whether aggressive children are rejected (i.e. aggressive behaviour is evaluated in light of the social norms of the peer group). There is more conflict in aggressive peer groups and this may lead to more aggressive episodes (i.e. friendships facilitating aggression). One important method of decreasing aggression may be reducing the time spent with the deviant peer group. Association with deviant peers around 14 or 15 years of age has the biggest impact on criminal activity and substance use.
Peer rejection is predictive of antisocial behaviour and may be especially detrimental to children who already show maladaptive behaviour. Girls and reactive-aggressive children are most vulnerable to the consequences of peer rejection.
Neglected children also show more internalizing behaviour. When it comes to children’s status and their characteristics, there is an issue of causality. It is unclear whether children with more social characteristics become more popular or whether children who are excluded develop less competence. A bidirectional relationship is likely and this may be responsible for high stability in peer acceptance over time. The rejected children have the most stable peer status.
Friendship can be differentiated from popularity as not all popular children have good friends and not all low-accepted children are without a best friend. Friendships become more stable with age. There are several functions of friendship:
Lonely children have more emotional problems (1), lag behind others in perspective-taking skills (2), are less altruistic (3), are less sociable (4), make fewer educational gains (5) and have lower levels of peer competence (6). Chronic loneliness predicts low social skills (1), depression (2), aggression (3) and suicidal ideation by age 15 (4). Lonely children are rejected and victimized by their peers more often leading to them getting rejected more often over time. However, the effect of being alone depends on the developmental stage (e.g. negative in middle childhood; positive in adolescence).
Anxious solitude refers to being alone due to anxiety and while it is not the same as solitude due to peer exclusion, it predicts peer exclusion. There may be intergenerational transmission of loneliness as loneliness is related to how parents socialize their children and resolve difficulties that arise during interactions with their peers. A controlling interaction style is associated with loneliness.
There is individual variation in the susceptibility to feeling lonely. People seek social connection for a sense of safety, meaning that adverse peer experiences early in life (e.g. victimization) lead to more loneliness, partially depending on one’s susceptibility to feel lonely.
Bullying has several characteristics:
There appears to be a decrease in bullying over time. This may be due to a decrease in self-report or due to the increase of assertiveness and social skills. Boys are victimized more often and the bully is often a same-sex peer. Early family experiences predict what role children take in bully-victim relationships (e.g. bully). Bullies do not necessarily have a poor theory of mind or social skills as they may need this to bully someone.
Bullying victimization is associated with loneliness over and above concurrent psychopathology, social isolation and genetic risk. Childhood bullying predicts loneliness in young adulthood even in the absence of ongoing victimization. Emotional maltreatment may disrupt the formation of secure attachments and this negatively shapes individuals’ perceptions of their relationships with others. Polyvictimization refers to the experience of multiple victimizations of different types and is a strong predictor of negative outcomes.
People who have been victimized in both childhood and adolescence were lonelier than people who were victimized in one of these time periods. Being bullied while seeing other peers have normal relationships could elicit a sense of injustice and perception of oneself as an outsider. This feeling could increase feelings of isolation and loneliness. Bullying may also increase loneliness through diminished self-esteem (1), social anxiety (2) and elevated sensitivity to social rejection (3). The effect of victimization on loneliness may vary according to the developmental stage in which it is experienced.
It is possible that domain-specific mechanisms designed by natural selection to deal with specific aspects of the physical or social environment (e.g. face recognition) evolved, though domain-general mechanisms are also likely to exist as a result of evolution (e.g. executive function). Constraints limit the type of information that can be processed and the way this can be processed. There are three types of constraints on learning:
Evolved probabilistic cognitive mechanisms refer to information-processing mechanisms that have evolved to solve recurrent problems faced by ancestral populations. This will develop in a species-typical manner if the individual experiences a species-typical environment (e.g. innate readiness to be afraid of snakes but no innate fear of snakes).
Geary states that the mind is a set of hierarchically organized domain-specific modules that develop as children engage their physical and social worlds. Development finetunes these modules as these are very flexible and broad (i.e. adaptive). The long period of immaturity of humans may be necessary to master the complexities of human society and technology (i.e. cognition needs to be adapted to a wide range of environments).
There are biologically primary abilities (e.g. language):
There are also biologically secondary abilities (e.g. reading):
A dynamic system refers to describing how a state develops into another state over time (e.g. butterfly effect). A system (e.g. a child) refers to a collection of components that are connected. In a dynamic system, all these components are changing and influencing each other. Dynamic systems theories state that change is equal to development. According to these theories, variation in factors (e.g. childhood environment) leads to changes in development. This leaves space for individual differences.
The developmental systems approach states that development depends on the interaction at all levels between the environment and genes (i.e. epigenesis). New structures and functions emerge during development as a
.....read moreThere are three definitions of emotion:
Cognition and motivation are two central components of emotions. Emotions can change the environment which alters the probability of experiencing a certain emotion. Emotions consist of three key features:
The James-Lange theory of emotion states that an environmental stimulus leads to a bodily response. This response leads to the experience of a bodily response and this experience of a bodily response is the same thing as experiencing an emotion. There are several issues with this theory:
The Schachter-Singer theory states that there is an environmental stimulus that triggers physiological arousal. The interpretation of this arousal is the emotion (e.g “I am afraid because I saw a bear and my heart is beating like crazy”). However, the attribution of arousal is not essential for the experience of emotion.
Appraisal theories of emotion hold that cognition does not need to be conscious in the appraisal of an emotion. According to these theories, there is a stimulus and this is appraised. This appraisal leads to an action tendency, which, in turn, leads to a physiological response. This leads to behaviour and the labelling of emotion. All these aspects contribute to the emotional experience, meaning that there is not necessarily a sequence in the experience of emotions as they can occur simultaneously. These theories state that the meaning and interpretation people give to a stimulus is crucial in the experience of emotion.
Reappraisal refers to changing a situation’s meaning in such a way that there is a change in the person’s emotional response to the situation. This typically leads to decreased negative emotion experience and expressive behaviour and does not interfere with other ongoing cognitive processes.
Emotions can be measured in several ways:
Executive functioning has several definitions:
It typically involves working memory (1), inhibitory control (2) and mental flexibility (3). Planning (1), decision making (2), judgement (3) and self-perception (4) are results of executive functioning.
The prefrontal cortex is imperative for executive functioning. However, it is likely that mainly the interactions with the prefrontal cortex are essential for executive functioning. According to Luria, the prefrontal cortex consists of interactive functional systems and this involves the integration of subsystems. The subsystems have specific roles but cannot be considered outside of the larger systems. This means that executive function may be a function and not a mechanism or cognitive structure. Functions refer to behavioural constructs defined in terms of their outcome (i.e. what they accomplish).
Executive functions are conscious processes but can get better with practice. They are influenced by individual differences in intelligence (1), motivation (2) and education (3). Executive functioning changes over the life course. It improves radically over the first few years and continues to improve in adolescence. Moreover, executive functions can be trained.
There is a continuum between cool and hot executive functions. A task where no emotions are involved and which is purely cognitive is a cool executive function task. Cool executive function is elicited by abstract, decontextualized problems.
This is a requisition for how one performs on hot executive functions. Hot executive function is required for problems that are characterized by high affective involvement or demand flexible appraisals of the affective significance of stimuli. A task where social evaluation plays a role and a reward or something else is at stake is a hot executive function task. Hot executive functions are often reported and not tested directly whereas cool executive functions are tested in a lab environment.
Updating refers to updating and monitoring information. This is a task of working memory. Shifting (i.e. cognitive flexibility) refers to switching between tasks or mental sets. Rule use includes error detection and error correction. A mistake in rule use could reflect either and it is often difficult to distinguish from one another. Representational inflexibility refers to the inability to form a new plan. Lack of response control refers to the inability to carry out a new plan.
Inhibition refers to the suppression of responses and this is an active process. It consists of two parts:
It is hypothesized that executive function only reflects inhibition. However, this
.....read moreSocialization refers to the process of developing social and emotional skills across the lifespan and is a process through generations. In this process, people develop beliefs (1) behaviours (2), values (3) and norms (4) that are appropriate in society. It is essential for healthy social development (e.g. forming positive relationships).
Socialization has three functions:
Vygotsky states that the sociocultural context influences development. He emphasizes the importance of social interaction (i.e. all development goes through social interaction) and he states that the elementary mental functions (e.g. memory; sensation) become higher mental functions as a result of social interaction. This would mean that all cognitive skills have social origin.
The zone of proximal development focuses on the role of joint involvement episodes where the caregivers make use of scaffolding techniques. The social learning theory (i.e. Bandura) states that learning occurs through observation (i.e. social models). There are several factors influencing observation:
Bandura demonstrated that there is a strong person-environment interaction. This means that a child’s predisposition is strongly influenced by the environment. For example, a more aggressive child will become the most aggressive when that child is exposed to aggression but not when this child is exposed to positive models.
The social information processing theory states that there are different steps in social interaction:
Each stage of the theory can be a target for an intervention (e.g. treating interpretation bias). All stages are also influenced by one’s mental state. Joint attention (1), emotion regulation (2), inhibitory control (3), imitation (4), causal understanding (5) and language (6) are emotional, cognitive and behavioural skills involved in harmonious peer interactions. In preschool, there is consolidation of these social skills and they are applied in the context of a group. The capacity for prosocial behaviour increases in childhood.
Empathy refers to being able to understand other’s feelings and one’s own feeling in the same situation. It is age-related as it improves with development and is mostly a learned skill through modelling (1), affectively oriented discipline (2) and sensitive parenting (3). Empathy is
.....read moreThe interaction between nature and nurture produces intelligent behaviour. The transactions are essential (i.e. parents change behaviour children and vice versa). The development of intelligence is continuous and there is a reciprocal interaction between the child with a biological disposition and the changing environment. This means that genes drive experience (i.e. genotype -> environment theory).
The individual multiplier effect states that there may be a small difference in nature (e.g. height) and the effect of this initial difference becomes bigger and bigger because it is multiplied by nurture (e.g. basketball analogy). This multiplier effect due to nurture can occur because of selecting environments that encourage innate differences and through additional practice.
The social multiplier effect states that a small difference between groups in nature can become greater due to the interaction between the initial difference and the environment of the group (e.g. people at a school liking chess, starting a chess club and this school subsequently becoming better at chess). Social multipliers can lead to differences between groups but also between generations. The cause for the differences is mainly nurture (i.e. practice) but the ones with talent (i.e. nature) still have the biggest chance of becoming the best (e.g. the smartest; the best athlete).
According to the social multiplier effect, if intelligence is promoted and admired in a group due to initial differences, then these differences between this group and other groups will become larger. The social multiplier effect is one of the explanations for the Flynn effect (i.e. generations valuing intelligence more and spend more time improving it). This effect may lead to more focus on cognitive development in certain groups which lead to greater intelligence.
The cumulative deficit effect refers to multiple risks persisting over many years adding up. This is comparable to the negative individual multiplier effect. This means that having more risk factors has an additive effect and the more risk factors one has, the greater the deficit. Risk factors often do not come in isolation. One risk factor is often followed by other risk factors leading to risk factors adding up (e.g. cascade effect).
The positive manifold refers to the fact that individual differences in intelligence are general and not specific (e.g. people who are ‘more intelligent’ score better on all the metrics of an IQ test and not just on some). One explanation for the positive manifold is the g-factor (i.e. general intelligence factor). However, this is atheoretical (1), there is no developmental model for this (2), it is unclear ‘where’ in the brain it is (3) and it is unclear what it is (4).
Mutualism states that there is a positive influence of cognitive modules on each other and this is another explanation for the positive manifold. For example, having better memory strategies leads to better reading comprehension and this makes it easier to gain more knowledge, which, in turn, makes it easier to remember things. Without some form of intervention, individuals
.....read morePlato’s paradox refers to children acquiring language without appearing to be taught it. This raises the question of how children actually learn a language.
Word segmentation is one of the challenges of learning a language (i.e. where does one word start and where does it end in a stream of sounds). One proposed mechanism of learning is statistical learning. This holds that children learn from the regularities in language (e.g. picking up on strong vs. weak words). Children at 7.5 months of age are capable of word segmentation of 2-syllable words.
Chomsky states that children have an innate deep structure. This is an underlying understanding of language which enables the child to learn language. The specific language a child learns is the surface structure. Thus, according to Chomsky, people have a language acquisition device (LAD).
Phonology refers to the sounds of a language. Phonemic awareness (i.e. phonological awareness) refers to the knowledge that words consist of separable sounds and phonological recoding refers to understanding the sounds of phonemes. There are several stages of phonological development:
Morphology refers to the structure of words and to a system of rules for combining units of meaning into words (e.g. adding ‘ed’ to a word makes it past tense). A morpheme refers to the smallest unit of meaning in a language. Free morphemes can stand alone as words (e.g. fire; run) and bound morphemes cannot stand alone and are attached to free morphemes (e.g. the letter ‘s’). The mean length of utterance refers to the average number of morphemes a child uses in a sentence and is indicative of children’s linguistic development. Overregularization refers to overusing a rule (e.g. using ‘ed’ for everything that is past tense).
Syntax refers to a system of rules for creating phrases and sentences out of words. Holophrases refer to one-word sentences (i.e. single words with different intonations to convey different meanings). Telegraphic speech refers to using meaningful words and omitting words that make language easier to understand (e.g. daddy give milk).
Semantics refers to the meaning of language terms. Vocabulary is one indication of children’s semantic development. Children speak their first words at about 10 to 12 months of age and there typically is a word spurt at 18 months of age. Fast mapping refers to the ability to learn new words based on very little input and this may underlie the word spurt. Overextensions refer to stretching a familiar word beyond its correct meaning (e.g. ‘bird’ for everything that flies). This may lead adults to provide them with the correct word. Underextension refers to using a too strict category for a word (e.g. only one cat is a cat).
Word learning is
.....read moreThe self-concept is something unique to a person. It consists of self-compassion (1), mindset (2), self-efficacy (3) and self-esteem (4). Children first view the self as something that is distinct from the body and children have some intuitive theories about the self. Eventually, the self-concept becomes stable with some fluctuations. It is influenced by culture and the developmental stage of a person.
There are age-related changes in the self-concept. The early self-concept depends on the feedback one receives (e.g. “the teacher tells me you are great!”). Later, the self-concept also depends on social comparison. This comparison is influenced by cognitive ability and self-evaluative tasks (e.g. how good one is at reading and the opportunities one has to compare oneself with others on tasks such as exams). This demonstrates that social relationships are central to the development of the self-concept (i.e. Vygotsky). The interactions and feedback in those interactions with parents (1), peers (2) and teachers (3) shape the self-concept.
Self-perceived ability consists of domain-general ability (i.e. general ability) and domain-specific ability (i.e. specific ability). It can be measured in different contexts (e.g. school context; sports context). Academic achievement is closely and regularly monitored in the school environment and children tend to develop their self-perceived ability based on this regular assessment. One’s self-perceived ability influences one’s effort and one’s subsequent achievement which, in turn, influences self-perceived ability again. This leads to a feedback loop where achievement and self-perceived ability influence each other through effort:
The positive perception of skill could be increased by peer comparison and positive feedback. This means that self-concept of ability plays an important role in motivating achievement over time and across achievement levels.
Early math achievement predicts later math achievement even when controlling for a lot of characteristics (e.g. SES; demographics). The same pattern exists for early reading achievement. One’s self-concept in math and reading predict achievement in this domain at a later age and this pattern holds across the achievement spectrum (i.e. low- and high achievement).
at a later age in each domain and this holds across levels of achievement (i.e. low- and high achievement). However, the relationship is smaller when achievement is high compared to when it is lower.
Self-esteem refers to a global evaluation of oneself as a person. It has three characteristics:
The sociometer theory states that self-esteem is an internal monitor of how much one is valued by others. A child which has relational value has a higher self-esteem. The social comparison theory states that a child compares oneself with others to evaluate ability and this leads
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