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Chapter 6
School
University of GuelphDepartment
Family Relations and Human DevelopmentCourse Code
FRHD 1010Professor
Susan ChuangChapter
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Week 5
Chapter 6 – Early Childhood: Psychosocial Development:
Emotional Development:
• Children gradually become more capable in every aspect of their lives, including learning when and
how to express emotions
• Emotional regulation – the ability to control when and how emotions are expressed
Initiative Versus Guilt:
• Initiative versus guilt – Erikson’s third psychosocial crisis, in which children undertake new
skills and activities and feel guilty when they do not succeed at them
Protective Optimism:
• Children’s beliefs about their worth are connected to parental confirmation, especially when parents
remind their children of their positive accomplishments
• Self-concept – a person’s understanding of who he or she is, incorporating self-esteem,
physical appearance, personality, and various personal traits, such as gender
and size
Brain Maturation:
• The new initiative that Erikson describes benefits from myelineation of the limbic system, growth of
the prefrontal cortex, and a longer attention span, all made possible by neurological maturation
• Emotional and cognitive maturation develop together, each enabling the other to advance
Motivation:
• Motivation (the impulse that propels someone to act) comes either from a person’s own desires or
from the social context
• Intrinsic motivation – a drive, or reason to pursue a goal, that comes from inside a person,
such as the need to feel smart or competent
• Extrinsic motivation – a drive, or reason to pursue a goal, that arises from the need to have
one’s achievements rewarded from outside, perhaps by receiving
material possessions or another person’s esteem
Culture and Emotional Control:
• Although there is considerable variation within, as well as among, cultures, national emphases on
regulating emotions seem to include the following:
o Fear (United States)
o Anger (Puerto Rico)
o Pride (China)
o Selfishness (Japan)
o Impatience (many Native American communities)
o Disobedience (Mexico)
o Erratic moods (the Netherlands)
• Control strategies vary as well – they sometimes ignore emotional outbursts, sometimes deflect them,
sometimes punish them, and so forth; shame is used when social reputation is a priority
• Cultural differences are also apparent in emotional expression: children may be encouraged to laugh,
cry, and yell, or to hide their emotions
• Finally, temperaments vary, which makes people within the same culture unlike one another –
nonetheless, parents everywhere teach emotional regulation as their context expects
• Unfortunately, children of parents who suffer from mental illness such as depression, bipolar disorder,
or schizophrenia are less able to regulate their emotions
Seeking Emotional Balance:
• Psychopathology – an illness or disorder of the mind
• Parents guide children toward “an optimal balance” between emotional expression and emotional
control
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Week 5
Externalizing and Internalizing Problems:
• Externalizing problems – difficulty with emotional regulation that involves expressing
powerful feelings through uncontrolled physical or verbal
outbursts, as by lashing out at other people or breaking things
• Internalizing problems – difficulty with emotional regulation that involves turning one’s
emotional distress inward, by feeling excessively guilty, ashamed,
or worthless
Key Points:
• Emotional regulation is the crucial psychosocial task in early childhood
• Erikson thought young children are naturally motivated to take initiative, with joy at new tasks, yet
vulnerable to feeling guilty
• Brain maturation and family guidance help children regulate their emotions, avoiding either extreme
externalizing or internalizing reactions in a culturally appropriate way
• Young girls are less aggressive and more advanced in controlling their emotions, but virtually all sex
differences are in averages, not absolutes
• Controlling emotions is influenced by both genetics and culture. Difficulties in controlling emotions can
lead to externalizing and internalizing problems
Gender Development:
• Biology determines whether a child is male or female – it is possible for sex hormones to be
unexpressed prenatally, in which case the child does not develop like the typical boy or girl
• Most children are male or female in all three ways: chromosomes, genitals, and hormones – that is
their nature, but obviously nurture affects their sexual development from birth until death
Sex and Gender:
• Sex differences – biological differences between males and females, in organs, hormones,
and body shape
• Gender differences – differences in the roles and behaviours that are prescribed by a
culture for males and females
• Gender identity – the ability of children to make gender distinctions by accurately labelling
themselves as a boy or a girl
• Gender stability – the ability of children to understand that their gender is stable over time
and will not change
• Gender constancy – the ability of children to understand that gender cannot change,
regardless of their outside appearance, such as cutting their hair or
wearing a dress
Theories of Gender Development:
• In recent years, sex and gender issues have become increasingly complex – individuals may be
lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, mostly straight, or totally heterosexual
• A dynamic systems approach reminds us that attitudes, roles, and even the biology of gender
differences and similarities change from one developmental period to the next; theories about how
and why this occurs change as well
Psychoanalytic Theory:
• Phallic stage – Freud’s third stage of development, when the penis becomes the focus of
concern and pleasure
• Oedipus complex – the unconscious desire of young boys to replace their fathers and win
their mothers’ exclusive love
• Superego – in psychoanalytic theory, the judgment part of the personality that internalizes
the moral standards of the parents
• Electra complex – the unconscious desire of girls to replace their mothers and win their
fathers’ exclusive love
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Week 5
• Identification – an attempt to defend one’s self concept by taking on the behaviours and attitudes of
someone else
Other Theories of Sex-Role Development:
• Although the psychoanalytic theory of early sex-role development is the most elaborate, there are
many other theories that explain the young child’s sex and gender awareness
• Learning theory teaches that virtually all roles, values, and behaviours are learned; to behaviourists,
gender distinctions are the product of ongoing reinforcement and punishment, as well as social
learning
• According to social learning theory, children model themselves after people they perceive to be
nurturing, powerful, and yet similar to themselves – for young children, those people are usually their
parents
• Furthermore, although national or provincial/territorial policies have an effect on gender roles, and
many fathers are involved caregivers, in every nation women do much more child care,
housecleaning, and meal preparation than men do
• Cognitive theory offers an alternative explanation for the strong gender identify that becomes
apparent at about age 5
o Gender schema – a child’s cognitive concept or general belief about sex differences,
which is based on his or her observations and experiences
• Systems theory teaches that mothers and fathers play an important role in developing their children’s
understanding of gender
• Humanism stresses the hierarchy of needs, beginning with survival, then safety, then love and
belonging; the final two–respect and self-actualization–are not priorities for people until the earlier
ones are satisfied
o Ideally, all babies have their basic needs met, and toddlers learn to feel safe, which puts
preschoolers at the “love and belonging stage” – they seem to strive for admiration from the
group of peers they belong to even more than for the love of their parents; therefore, the girls
want to become of the girls and the boys to be one of the boys
• Evolutionary theory holds that sexual attraction is crucial for humankind’s most basic urge, to
reproduce – for this reason, males and females try to look attractive to the other sex, walking, talking,
and laughing in gendered ways
Key Points:
• Sex differences are biological differences between males and females, while gender differences are
culturally prescribed roles and behaviours
• Young children learn gender identify during the first year of their life; however, they do not have a full
understanding of gender until later
• Theorists refer to attitudes, roles, and biology to explain sex-role development
Play:
• Play is timeless and universal – apparent in every part of the world for thousands of years
• Many developmentalists believe that play is the most productive as well as the most enjoyable activity
that children undertake
• Play is so universally valued that the United Nations has explicitly recognized it as a specific right for
children
Playmates and Friendship:
• Young children play best with peers, that is, people of about the same age and social status
• Through friendships, young children are able to learn and master age-graded tasks as friendships
provide a forum for learning and refining of socioemotional skills – through these peer interactions,
children learn to cooperate and understand different perspectives; friendships also meet the needs for
intimacy
• For young children, friendships are typically play-oriented dyads that socialize children into group life
• Whether playing with peers or friends, there is a tendency for sex segregation early in life
o Sex homophily – a preference to interact with one’s own sex
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