What characteristics do children in early childhood typically use to describe themselves?

-is a child's cognitive representation of the self, the substance and content of the child's self-conceptions

Developmental Changes - Infancy

-Children are not just given a self by their parents or culture -They find and construct selves -As children develop, their self-understanding changes

-Strategy to test infant's visual self-recognition -Mother puts dot of rouge on the infant's nose; observes whether or not touching nose increases in front of mirror; Increased touching indicates that the infant realizes that it is the self in the mirror

Developmental Changes - Early Childhood

-Self-understanding in childhood is not limited to visual self-recognition, as it is during infancy

Five Main Characteristics of Self-Understanding in Young Children

1. Confusion of self, mind and body 2. Concrete descriptions 3. Physical descriptions 4. Active descriptions 5. Unrealistic positive overestimations

1. Confusion of Self, Mind, and Body

-Most young children conceive the self as part of the body, which usually means the head -For them, the self can be described along many material dimensions, such as size, shape, and color

-Preschool children define themselves in concrete terms -Ex. "I know my ABCs," and "I can count" -4 to 5 years: begin to include these in their own self-descriptions

-Distinguish themselves from others through many physical and material attributes

-Central component of the self in early childhood -Ex. preschool children often describe themselves in terms of activities such as play

5. Unrealistic Positive Overestimations

-Self-evaluations are often realistically positive and represent an overestimation of personal attributes -Occur because children: have difficulty in differentiating their desired and actual competence; Cannot generate between ideal self and real self; Rarely engage in social comparison

Developmental Changes - Middle and Late Childhood

-Self-evaluation becomes more complex -Five key changes characterize the increased complexity

Five Key Changes Characterize the Increased Complexity:

1. Psychological Characteristics and Traits 2. Social Descriptions 3. Social Comparison 4. Real Self and Ideal Self 5. Realistic

1. Psychological Characteristics and Traits

-From 8-11 years of age, children increasingly describe themselves with psychological characteristics and traits in contrast to the more concrete self-descriptions of younger children -Older children are more likely to describe themselves as popular, nice, helpful, mean, smart. and dumb

Children begin to include SOCIAL ASPECTS such as references to social groups in their self-descriptions

Children's self-understanding includes increasing reference to social comparison

4. Real Self and Ideal Self

Children begin to distinguish between their real and ideal selves

Children's self-evaluations become more realistic

Developmental Changes - Adolescence

-The development of self-understanding in adolescence is complex and involves a number of aspects of the self -Adolescents have a tendency to compare themselves with others. However, most deny it because they are aware that it is somewhat socially undesirable -Youth who effectively navigate their various worlds can develop bicultural or multicultural selves and become "culture brokers" for others

Developmental Changes - Adolescence
Other ways in which the adolescent's self-understanding differs from the child's:

-Abstract and Idealistic -Self-Conciousness -Contradictions within the Self -The Fluctuating Self ---Real and Ideal Selves ---Self-integration

Refers to the processes involved in understanding the world around us, especially how we think and reason about other people

Understanding Others - Early Childhood

-4 to 5 years: begin to perceive others in terms of psychological traits -4 year olds understand that people may make untrue statements in order to obtain what they want or to avoid trouble -Believe most things that people say are true, given that it is impossible to learn everything about the world

Understanding Others - Early Childhood (cont.)

-Individual differences characterize young children's social understanding -These individual differences are linked to conversations caregivers have with young children about other people's feelings and desires, and children's opportunities to observe others talking about people's feelings and desires

Understanding Others - Middle and Late Childhood

-Increase in PERSPECTIVE TAKING -Ability to assume other people's perspectives and understand their thoughts and feelings -Perspective taking is especially thought to be important in whether children develop prosocial or antisocial attitudes and behavior

Taking another's perspective improves children's likelihood of understanding and sympathizing with others when they are distressed or in need

Some researchers have found that children who have a low level of perspective taking skills engage in more antisocial behavior than children at higher levels

Understanding Others - Middle and Late Childhood (cont.)

-Children also become more skeptical of others' claims -Children become increasingly skeptical of some sources of information about psychological traits -Elementary-school aged children also begin to understand other motivations. For example, they understand that a desire to win a prize may tarnish someone's judgement

-Refers to a person's self-worth or self-image; a person's global evaluation of the self

-Refers to domain-specific evaluations of the self

A useful measure developed to assess self-evaluations by children is Susan Harter's (1985) SELF-PERCEPTION PROFILE FOR CHILDREN

Susan Harter's Self-Perception Profile for Children taps general self-worth plus self-concept for five specific domains:

1. Scholastic Competence 2. Athletic Competence 3. Social Acceptance 4. Physical Appearance 5. Behavioral Conduct

Susan Harter's Self-Perception Profile for Adolescents

-It assesses global self-worth and the five domains tested for children plus three additional domains - friendship, romantic appeal, and job competence -Self-esteem appears to have an especially strong tie with self-perception in one domain in particular: physical appearance.

Developmental Changes Overview

-Self-esteem is high in childhood, declines in adolescence, and increases in adulthood until late adulthood, when it declines again -Other researchers argue that the adolescent drop is very slight and not nearly as pronounced as presented in the media -The self-esteem of males was higher than that of females through most of the life span

Developmental Changes Overview (cont.)

-During adolescence, the self-esteem of girls declined more than that of boys -One explanation for this gender difference holds that the drop in self-esteem is driven by a negative body image and that girls have more negative body images during pubertal change compared with boys -Another explanation emphasizes the greater interest that adolescent girls take in social relationships and society's failure to reward that interest

How do adolescents rate their self-images across different areas?

-One study examined the self-image of 675 adolescents from 13 to 19 years of age in Naples, Italy -Self-image was assessed using the Offer Self-Image Questionnaire, which consists of 130 items grouped into 11 scales that define five aspects of self-image (next slide)

Offer Self-Image Questionnaire (130 items grouped into 11 scales that define 5 aspects of self image:)

1. The psychological self 2. The social self 3. The coping self 4. The familial self 5. The sexual self

How do adolescents rate their self-images across different areas?

-The adolescents had positive self-images with their scores being above a neutral score on all 11 scales -The aspect of their lives in which adolescents had the most positive self-image involved their educational and vocational aspirations -The lowest self-image score was for impulse control -These results support the view that adolescents have a more positive perception of themselves than is commonly believed

Variations in Self-Esteem

-Have been linked with many aspects of children's development -However, much of the research is CORRELATIONAL rather than EXPERIMENTAL -In fact, there are only moderate correlations between school performance and self-esteem, and these correlations do not suggest that high self-esteem produces better school performance

Variations in Self-Esteem (cont.)

-Efforts to increase students' self-esteem have not always led to improved school performance -Children with high self-esteem show greater initiative, but this can produce positive or negative outcomes -High self-esteem children are prone to both prosocial and antisocial actions

Variations in Self-Esteem (cont...)

-Researchers have also found strong links between self-esteem and happiness -Many studies have found that individuals with low self-esteem report that they feel more depressed that individuals with high self-esteem -Low self-esteem has also been linked to suicide attempts and to anorexia nervosa

Increasing Children's Self-Esteem

-A current concern is that too many of today's children and adolescents grow up receiving empty praise and as a consequence have inflated self-esteem -It is possible to raise children self-esteem: ----Identify the domains of competence important to the child ----Provide emotional support and social approval ----Recognize achievement ----Encourage coping skills

A self-portrait composed of many pieces, including these: - Vocational/career identity - Political identity - Religious identity - Relationship identity - Achievement/Intellectual identity - Sexual identity - Cultural/Ethnic identity - Interest, personality, and physical identity

What is identity? (cont.)

-Synthesizing the identity components can be a long and drawn-out process with many negations and affirmations of various roles and faces -Identity development gets done in bits and pieces -Decisions are not made once and for all, but have to be made again and again -Identity development does not happen neatly, and it does not happen cataclysmically

Erikson's View: Identity vs. Identity Confusion

Erikson's fifth developmental stage (adolescence) during which adolescents are faced with deciding who they are, what they are all about, and where they are going in life

Erikson's View: Psychosocial Moratorium

Erikson's term for the gap between childhood security and adult autonomy during which society leaves adolescents relatively free of responsibility and free to try out different identities

-Youth who successfully cope with their conflicting identities emerge with a new sense of self that is refreshing and acceptable -Adolescents who do not successfully resolve the identity crisis suffer what Erikson calls IDENTITY CONFUSION

The confusion takes on of two courses: 1. Individuals WITHDRAW, isolating themselves from peers and family or 2. They immerse themselves in the world of peers and lose their identity in the crowd

-Damon acknowledges that successful identity development is a long term process of extended exploration and reflection, and in some instances it can involve postponing decisions for a number of years -What concerns Damon is that too many of today's youth aren't moving toward any identity resolution

-Identity formation begins with the appearance of attachment, the development of the sense of self, and the emergence of independence in infancy, and reaches its final phase with a life review and integration in old age -Adolescence is the first time that physical, cognitive, and socioemotional development advance to the point at which the individual can sort through and synthesize childhood identities and identifications to move toward adult maturity

A period of identity development during which the individual is exploring alternatives (most researchers use the term explorations rather than crisis)

A personal investment in identity

Marcia's Four Statuses of Identity

-Identity Diffusion -Identity Foreclosure -Identity Moratorium -Identity Achievement

The status of individuals who have not yet experienced a crisis or made any commitments

The status of individuals who have made commitment but not experienced a crisis

The status of individuals who are in the midst of a crisis but whose commitments are either absent or only vaguely defined

The status of individuals who have undergone a crisis and made a commitment

-In Marcia's terms, young adolescents are primarily in the identity status of diffusion, foreclosure, or moratorium -To move to the status of identity achievement, young adolescents need three things: 1. They must be confident that they have parental support 2. They must have an established sense of identity 3. They must be able to adapt a self-reflective stance toward the future

Identity Statuses (cont.)

-The identity status approach has been sharply criticized by some researchers and theoreticians -They maintain that the identity status approach distorts and trivializes Erikson's notions of crisis and commitment -Others still argue that the identity status approach is a valuable contribution to understanding identity

Social Contexts - Family Influences

- Parents are important figures in an adolescent's developing identity -Individuality consists of two dimensions: -----------self-assertion and separateness -Connectedness consists of two dimensions: -----------mutuality and permeability

the ability to have and communicate a point of view

the use of communication patterns to express how one is different from others

Sensitivity to and respect for others' views

Openness to others' views

An enduring aspect of the self that includes a sense of membership in an ethnic group and the attitudes and feelings related to that membership

Social Contexts: Culture and Ethnicity

-Ethnic Identity -Many aspects of sociocultural contexts influence ethnic identity -Membership in a minority group -Which generation of immigrants one belongs to -Broad social factors -The immediate contexts in which ethnic minority youth live

-In the 1920s, researchers confirmed the existence of human sex chromosomes, the genetic material that determines our sex -Humans normally have 46 chromosomes arranged in pairs -Two X-chromosomes = female -X and Y = male

The Evolutionary Psychology View

-Emphasizes that evolutionary adaptation during the evolution of humans produced psychological differences between males and females -Males evolved dispositions that favor violence, competition, and risk taking -Females evolved dispositions devoted to parenting and choosing mates who can provide their offspring with resources and protection

The Evolutionary Psychology View (cont.)

-Critics of evolutionary psychology -Argue that its hypotheses are backed by speculations about prehistory, not evidence -People are not locked into behavior that was adaptive in the evolutionary past -The evolutionary view pays little attention to cultural and individual variations in gender differences

Social Influences: Social Role Theory

-States that gender differences result from the contrasting roles of women and men -In cultures around the world, women have less power than men and control fewer resources -As women adapted to roles with less power and less status in society, they showed more cooperative, less dominant profiles than men -The social hierarchy and division of labor are important causes of gender differences in power, assertiveness, and nurture

Social Influences: The Psychoanalytic Theory of Gender

-Stems from Freud's view that the pre-school child develops erotic feelings toward the opposite-sex parent -At 5 or 6 years of age, the child renounces these feelings and identifies with the same-sex parent, unconsciously adopting the same-sex parent's characteristics -Developmentalists don't believe gender development proceeds as Freud proposed

Social Influences: The Social Cognitive Theory of Gender

-Children's gender development occurs through observation and imitation, and through the rewards and punishments children experiences for gender-appropriate and gender-inappropriate behavior -Parents, by action and example, influence their children's and adolescent's gender development -Once the label, girl or boy, is assigned, virtually everyone, from parents to siblings to strangers, begins treating the infant differently

Social Influences: The Social Cognitive Theory of Gender (cont.)

-Mothers and fathers often interact differently with sone and daughters, and these gendered interactions that begin in infancy usually continue through childhood and adolescence

Mother's Socialization Strategies

In many cultures, mothers socialize their daughters to be more obedient and responsible than their sons. They also place more restrictions on daughters' autonomy

Fathers' Socialization Strategies

Fathers show more attention to sons than daughters, engage in more activities with sons, and put forth more effort to promote sons' intellectual development

-Observation, imitation, rewards, and punishment - these are the mechanisms by which gender develops according to SOCIAL COGNITIVE THEORY -Interactions between the child and the social environment are the main keys to gender development in this view -Some critics argue that this explanation pays too little attention to the child's own mind and understanding, and portrays the child as passively acquiring gender roles

Cognitive Influences: Gender Schema Theory

-According to this theory, gender-typing emerges as children gradually develop gender schemas of what is gender-appropriate and gender-inappropriate in their culture

A cognitive structure, a network of associations that guides an individuals perceptions

Organizes the world in terms of female and male

are general impressions and beliefs about females and males

Traditional Masculinity and Femininity

A classic study in the early 1970s assessed which traits and behaviors college students believed were characteristic of females and which they believed were characteristic of males

-Traits associated with males -They included characteristics such as being independent, aggressive, and power oriented

-Traits associated with females -They included characteristics such as being warm and sensitive

Developmental Changes in Gender Stereotyping

-Even when adults don't explicitly engage in gender stereotyping when talking with children, they provide children with information about gender by categorizing gender, labeling gender, and contrasting males and females -Children use cues to construct an understanding of gender and to guide their behavior

Developmental Changes in Gender Stereotyping (cont.)

-Gender stereotyping continues to change during middle and late childhood and adolescence -By the time children enter elementary school, they have considerable knowledge about which activities are linked with being male or female -Across the elementary school years, children become more flexible in their gender attitudes

What is the reality behind gender stereotypes?

-The differences are averages and do not apply to all females or all males -Even when gender differences occur, there often is considerable overlap between males and females -The differences may be due primarily to biological factors, sociocultural factors, or both

Physical Similarities and Differences

-Women have about twice the body fat of men, most concentrated around breasts and hips. In males, fat is more likely to go to the abdomen -On the average, males row to be 10 percent taller than females -Androgens (the male hormones) promote the growth of long bones; Estrogens (the female hormones) stop such growth at puberty -Many physical differences between men and women are tied to health

Physical Similarities and Differences (cont.)

-From conception on, females have a longer life expectancy than males -Females are less likely than males to develop physical or mental disorders -Females are more resistant to infection, and their blood vessels are more elastic than males -Males have higher levels of stress hormones, which cause faster clotting and higher blood pressure

Physical Similarities and Differences (cont...)

-Humans brains are much alike, whether the brain belongs to a male or a female -However, researchers have found some differences -Female brains are smaller than male brains, but female brains have more folds, the larger folds allow more surface brain tissue within the skulls of females than in males -One part of the hypothalamus involved in sexual behavior tends to be larger in men than in women

Physical Similarities and Differences (cont.........)

The areas of the brain involved in emotional expression tend to show more metabolic activity in females than in males

Cognitive Similarities and Differences

-No gender differences in general intelligence have been revealed, but some gender differences have been found in some cognitive areas -Girls and women have slightly better verbal skills than boys and men, although in some verbal skill areas the differences are substantial -A recent study revealed no differences in math scores for boys and girls

Cognitive Similarities and Differences

-Boys have better visuospatial skills than girls -Gender difference in visuospatial skills is small -Females earn better grades and complete high school at a higher rate than boys -Males are more likely to be assigned to special/remedial education classes

Cognitive Similarities and Differences

-Toward the end of high school, girls are less likely to be taking high level math courses and less likely to plan to enter the so-called "STEM" fields of science, technology, engineering, and math -Some research indicates that same-sex education has positive outcomes for girls' achievement, whereas other research does not show any improvement for girls or boys in same-sex eduction

Socioemotional Similarities and Differences: Aggression

-Boys are more physically aggressive than girls; The difference occurs in all cultures and appears very early in children's development -Girls are more likely to engage in verbal aggression -Males usually show less SELF-REGULATION than females, and this low self-control can translate into behavioral problems

Socioemotional Similarities and Differences: Aggression (cont.)

-Recently, increased interest has been shown in RELATIONAL AGGRESSION, which involves harming someone by manipulating a relationship -Relational aggression includes such behaviors as trying to make others dislike a certain individual by spreading malicious rumors about the person -Relational aggression increases in middle and late childhood

Five Areas of Socioemotional Development in which gender has been studied:

1. Relationships 2. Aggression 3. Emotion 4. Prosocial Behavior 5. Achievement

-Tannen concludes that females are more relationship-oriented than males and this relationship orientation should be prized as a skill in our culture more than it currently is -However, some researchers criticize Tannen's idea as being overly simplified and that communication between males and females is more complex

Emotion and Its Regulation

-Girls are more likely to express their emotions openly and intensely than are boys, especially in displaying sadness and fear -Girls are also better at reading others' emotions are more likely to show empathy than are boys -Males usually show less self-regulation of emotion than females, and its low self-control can translate into behavioral problems

-Females view themselves as more prosocial and empathetic -Across childhood and adolescence, females engage in more prosocial behavior than males

-Controversy continues about the extent of gender differences and what might cause them -David Buss argues that gender differences are extensive and caused by the adaptive problems they have faced across their evolutionary history

Gender Controversy (cont.)

-Alice Eagly also concludes that gender differences are substantial but reaches a very different conclusion about their cause -She emphasizes that gender differences are due to social conditions that have resulted in women having less power and controlling fewer resources than men -By contrast, Janet Shibley Hyde concludes that gender differences have been greatly exaggerated, especially fueled by popular books

Guiding Children's Gender Development:
Boys

-Encourage boys to be sensitive in relationships and engage in more prosocial behavior -Encourage boys to be less physically aggressive -Encourage boys to handle their emotions more effectively -Work with boys to improve their school performance

Guiding Children's Gender Development:
Girls

-Encourage girls to be proud of their relationship skills and caring -Encourage girls to develop their self-competencies -Encourage girls to be more self-assertive -Encourage girls' achievement

Gender Role Classification

-In recent decades, roles assumed by males and females in the US have become increasingly similar - that is androgynous -In many countries, roles have remained more gender specific -Increasing gender equality is appearing

the behavior, patterns, beliefs, and all other products of a particular group of people that are passed on from generation to generation

Culture is reflected in _______________ that people have and the way they interact with children.

-Involves the comparison of a culture with one or more other cultures, provide information about other cultures and the role of culture in children's development -This comparison provides information about the degree to which children's development is SIMILAR, or universal, across cultures, or the degree to which it is CULTURE-SPECIFIC

-Gives priority to personal goals rather than to group goals -It emphasizes values that serve the self, such as feeling good, personal distinction and achievement, and independence

Emphasizes values that serve the group by subordinating personal goals to preserve group integrity, interdependence of members, and harmonious relationships
**All cultures have both; The difference is where they fall in the continuum.

Values that reflect parents; beliefs in INDIVIDUALISTIC cultures about what is required for children's effective development of autonomy: (4)

1. Personal choice 2. Intrinsic motivation 3. Self-esteem 4. Self-maximization (achieving one's full potential)

Beliefs in COLLECTIVISTIC cultures: (3)

1. Connectedness to the family and other close relationships 2. Orientation to the larger group 3. Respect and obedience

Individualism vs. Collectivism

-Differences emerged as a way of adaptation to different environments -Collectivistic cultures emphasize more physical contact in the mother-child relationship because in these societies infant mortality is high. Thus, the immediate perceived need is to protect infants. -In societies where survival is not the main concern, mothers can organize their practices towards investing in long term educational processes (such as being autonomous, self-direction, problem solving)

-Race: Physical characteristics (African, Caucasian, Asian...)
-Ethnicity: Geographical place of origin (Puerto Rican, Hispanic-Americans...)

Ethnicity and Immigration

Relatively high rates of minority immigration have contributed to the growth in the proportion of ethnic minorities in the US population

Differences and Diversity

-There is considerable diversity within each ethnic group -Ethnic minority groups have different social, historical, and economic backgrounds -The US federal government now recognizes the existence of 511 different Native American tribes, each having a unique ancestral background with differing values and characteristics

Immigrants often experience special stressors. These include:

-Language barriers -Separations from support networks -Change in socioeconomic status -The struggle both to preserve ethnic identity and to adapt to the majority culture

-Poverty contributes to the stressful life experiences of many ethnic minority children: Compared with White children, ethnic minority children are more likely to experience persistent poverty over many years and live in isolated poor neighborhoods where social supports are minimal -Middle SES ethnic minority children still encounter prejudice, discrimination, and biases associated with being a member of an ethnic minority group

What kind of self

How do children describe themselves?

How do preschool children most commonly describe themselves?

What is self image in early childhood?