CHAPTER 7:
children feel guilty.
Expanding Social Horizons Socioemotional
Development in Middle Childhood
7.1 Family Relationships
 The Family as a System
o the family structure evolved as
a way to protect and nurture
young children during their
development.
o families are part of a much
larger system that includes
extended family, friends, and
teachers as well as institutions
that influence development
 socialization
o teaching children the values,
roles, and behaviors of their
culture.
Dimensions and Styles of Parenting
 In a systems view of families, parents
and children influence each other; this
interacting family unit is also influenced
by other forces outside the family
 TWO GENERAL DIMENSIONS OF
PARENTAL BEHAVIOR EMERGE
1. One is the degree of
warmth and
responsiveness that
parents show their
children
2. Psychological control
refers to parents’
efforts to manipulate
their children’s
emotional states by, for
example, withdrawing
their love or making
3. Behavioral control
refers to parents’
efforts to set rules for
their children and to
impose limits on what
children can and cannot
do.
 What’s best for children is minimal
psychological control combined with an
intermediate amount of behavioral
control. Children typically fare best
when parents set reasonable standards
for children’s behavior, expect their
children to meet those standards, and
know where their children are, what
they’re doing, and with whom
Parenting Styles
 Authoritarian
parenting combines high control with
little warmth. These parents lay down
the rules and expect them to be
followed without discussion
o style of parenting in
which parents show
high levels of control
and low levels of
warmth toward their
children.
 Authoritative parenting
combines a fair degree of parental
control with being warm and
responsive to children.
o style of parenting in
which parents use a
moderate amount of
control and are warm
and responsive to their
children.
 Permissive parenting
offers warmth and caring but little
parental control. These parents
 generally accept their children’s
behavior and punish them infrequently.
o style of parenting in
which parents offer
warmth and caring but
little control over their
children.
 Uninvolved parenting
provides neither warmth nor
control. Indifferent-uninvolved parents
provide for their children’s basic
physical and emotional needs but little
else.
o They try to minimize
the time they spend
with their children and
avoid becoming
emotionally involved
with them.
Variations Associated with Culture and
Socioeconomic Status
The general aim of child rearing—helping
children become contributing members of their
culture—is much the same worldwide (Lansford
et al., 2016), and warmth and control are
universal aspects of parents’ behavior. But
views about the “proper” amount of warmth
and the “proper” amount of control vary with
particular cultures
 European Americans want their
children to be happy and self-reliant
individuals, and they believe these
goals are best achieved when parents
are warm and exert moderate control
 In China emotional restraint and
obedience are seen as the keys to
family harmony. Consequently, parents
in China often rely on an authoritarian
style in which they are less often
affectionate and expect their children
to obey them without question.
 Latino culture typically places greater
emphasis on having strong family ties
and respecting the roles of all family
members, particularly adults; these
values lead parents to be more
protective of their children and to set
more rules for them.
Genetic Influences on Parenting
 Families and parenting are
adaptations that evolved to provide
for children until they mature. In
other words, genes linked to
behaviors that make for effective
parenting (e.g., being nurturing)
were more likely to be passed on
because they helped children to
reach maturity.
Parental Behavior
Dimensions and styles are useful as general
characterizations of parents, but they tell us
little about how parents behave in specific
situations and how these parental behaviors
influence children’s development.
Researchers have identified three specific
parental behaviors that influence children:
direct instruction, modeling, and feedback
 Direct Instruction and Coaching
telling a child what to do, when, and
why.
 Modeling.
Children learn a great deal from
parents simply by watching them. The
parents’ modeling and the youngsters’
observational learning leads to
imitation, so children’s behavior
resembles the behavior they observe.
o counter imitation
learning what should
not be done by
observing the behavior.
  Feedback.
By giving feedback to their
children, parents indicate whether
a behavior is appropriate and
should continue or is inappropriate
and should stop.
Feedback comes in two general
forms.
 Reinforcement is any action
that increases the likelihood of
the response that it follows.
Parents may use praise to
reinforce a child’s studying or
give a reward for completing
household chores.
o negative reinforcement
trap unwittingly
reinforcing a behavior
you want to discourage.
 Punishment is any action that
discourages the recurrence of
the response that it follows.
o One method combines
the best features of
punishment while
avoiding its
shortcomings. In time-
out, a child who
misbehaves must
briefly sit alone in a
quiet, unstimulating
location.
Children’s Contributions: Reciprocal Influence
 Age.
 Parenting changes as children grow. The
same parenting that works well with
infants and toddlers is inappropriate for
adolescents. These age-related changes
in parenting are evident in the two
basic dimensions of parental behavior:
warmth and control.
 Temperament and Behavior
 A child’s temperament can have a
powerful effect on parental behavior.
To illustrate the reciprocal influence of
parents and children, imagine two
children with different temperaments
as they respond to a parent’s
authoritative style.
Divorce and Remarriage
 In joint custody, both parents
retain legal custody of the children.
Children benefit from joint custody
—they adjust better behaviorally
and socially, especially when they
spend approximately equal time
with both parents
 blended family consisting of a
biological parent, a stepparent, and
children
Effects of Abuse on Children
 suffer permanent physical
damage
 children’s social and emotional
development is often disrupted
 poor relationships with peers
 Their cognitive development
and academic performance are
also disturbed
Resilience
 One factor that protects children is their
ego resilience, which denotes children’s
ability to respond adaptively and
resourcefully to new situations.
7.2 Peers
 friendship
voluntary relationship between two people
involving mutual liking.
Quality and Consequences of Friendships
 Children with good friends cope better
with stressful experiences, such as
doing poorly on an exam or being
rejected by peers
 The benefits of friendship are long-
lasting as well: Children who have
friends are, as adults, at less risk for
depression, anxiety, and aggressive
behavior
 co-rumination
conversations about one’s personal
problems, common among adolescent girls.
Groups
 clique small group of friends who are
similar in age, sex, and race.
 crowd large group including many
cliques that have similar attitudes and
values
Group Structure
 dominance hierarchy ordering of
individuals within a group in which
group members with lower status defer
to those with greater status.
 A dominance hierarchy is useful
in reducing conflict within
groups because every member
knows his or her place
Peer Influence
 Groups establish norms—standards of
behavior that apply to all group
members—and may urge members to
conform to these norms.
 Peer pressure is not all-powerful.
Instead, peer influence is stronger when
youth are younger and more socially
anxious, peers have high status or are
friends; and standards for appropriate
behavior are not clear-cut, as in the
case of tastes in music or clothing or
standards for smoking and drinking.
Popularity and Rejection
 popular children who are liked by many
classmates.
 rejected children as applied to
children’s popularity, children who are
disliked by many classmates.
 controversial children as applied to
children’s popularity, children who are
intensely liked or disliked by classmates.
 average children as applied to children’s
popularity, children who are liked and
disliked by different classmates, but
with relatively little intensity.
 neglected children as applied to
children’s popularity, children who are
ignored—neither liked nor disliked—by
their classmates
As for rejected children, many are overly
aggressive, hyperactive, socially unskilled, and
unable to regulate their emotions. These
children are usually more hostile than popular
aggressive children and seem to be aggressive
for the sheer fun of it, which peers dislike,
instead of using aggression as a means toward
other ends, which peers may not like but
grudgingly respect. Other rejected children are
shy, withdrawn, timid, and, not surprisingly,
lonely.
Aggressive Children and Their Victims
 instrumental aggression -used to
achieve an explicit goal.
 hostile aggression unprovoked
aggression that seems to have the sole
goal of intimidating, harassing, or
humiliating another child
 relational aggression, in which children
try to hurt others by undermining their
social relationships
7.4 Understanding Others

According to a theory proposed by Robert

Selman (1980, 1981), understanding other
people begins with the egocentric thinking
characteristic of preoperational children—they
think that others think as they do. As children
develop, they are able to take the perspective
of other people.

 recursive thinking
 thoughts that focus on what another
person is thinking
 It emerges at about 5 or 6 years of age
and improves steadily during the
elementary school years due to the
combined effects of increased language
skill and greater executive functioning.

CHAPTER 8: Rites of Passage
Physical and Cognitive
Development in Adolescence
8.1 Pubertal Changes
Signs of Physical Maturation
 Puberty denotes two general types of
physical changes that mark the
transition from childhood to young
adulthood.
 The first are bodily changes,
including a large increase in
height and weight, as well as
changes in the body’s fat and
muscle content.
 The second concern sexual
maturation, including change in
the reproductive organs and
the appearance of secondary
sexual characteristics such as
facial and body hair and growth
of the breasts
Physical Growth
Body parts don’t mature at the same rate.
Instead, the head, hands, and feet usually begin
to grow first, followed by growth in the arms
and legs. The trunk and shoulders are the last to
grow.
Brain Growth in Adolescence
At the beginning of adolescence, the brain is
nearly full size—it’s about 95% of the size and
weight of an adult’s brain. Nevertheless,
adolescence is important for fine-tuning the
brain’s functioning
 myelination, which is the acquisition of
fatty insulation that allows neurons to
transmit information faster
 synaptic pruning, which is the weeding
out of unnecessary connections
between neuron.
 Adolescence is a vulnerable time
because the reward- and pleasure-
seeking centers of the brain (limbic
system) mature more rapidly than the
behavioral control systems (frontal
system); the gap between the two
systems is particularly great in
adolescence.
Sexual Maturation
 primary sex characteristics
Physical signs of maturity that
are directly linked to the
reproductive organs.
 secondary sex characteristics
Physical signs of maturity that
are not directly linked to
reproductive organs.
 Menarche, the onset of
menstruation, typically occurs
at about age 13. Early
menstrual cycles are usually
irregular and without ovulation.
 At about age 13, most boys
reach spermarche, the first
spontaneous ejaculation of
sperm-laden fluid. Initial
ejaculations often contain
relatively few sperm; only
months or sometimes years
later are there sufficient sperm
to fertilize an egg
Mechanisms of Maturation
The pituitary gland is key: It helps to regulate
physical development by releasing growth
hormone. In addition, the pituitary regulates
pubertal changes by signaling other glands to
secrete hormones.
 the pituitary signals the adrenal
glands to release androgens,
initiating the biochemical
changes that will produce body
hair.
 A few years later, in girls, the pituitary
signals the ovaries to release estrogen,
which causes the breasts to enlarge, the
female genitals to mature, and fat to
accumulate.
 In boys, the pituitary signals the
testes to release the androgen
hormone testosterone, which
causes the male genitals to
mature and muscle mass to
increase
Genetic influence is also shown by the fact that
a mother’s age at menarche is related to her
daughter’s age at menarche
 In general, puberty occurs
earlier in adolescents who are
well nourished and healthy than
in adolescents who are not
Moodiness
Adolescents are often thought to be
extraordinarily moody—quickly moving from
joy to sadness to—reflecting the influx of
hormones associated with puberty
 Instead of reflecting hormones,
teenagers’ moodiness reflects
frequent changes in their
activities and social settings
 Maturing early can be harmful
for girls. Girls who mature early
often lack self-confidence, are
less popular, are more likely to
be depressed and have
 behavior problems, and are
more likely to smoke and drink.
 Maturing early can be harmful
for boys, too. Early-maturing
boys are at risk for
psychological disorders such as
depression; they are also more
prone to substance abuse and
to sexual activity.
8.2 Health
Nutrition
 A typical teenage girl should consume
about 2,200 calories per day; a typical
boy should consume about 2,700
calories
Obesity In part because of a diet high in fast
foods, many American children and adolescents
are overweight. The technical definition of
“overweight” is based on the body mass index
(BMI), which is an adjusted ratio of weight to
height
 body mass index (BMI) Adjusted ratio of
weight to height; used to define
“overweight”.
 Heredity
 Parents
 Sedentary lifestyle
 Too little sleep
 anorexia nervosa Persistent refusal to
eat accompanied by an irrational fear of
being overweight.
 bulimia nervosa Disease in which
people alternate between binge eating
—periods when they eat uncontrollably
—and purging with selfinduced
vomiting, laxatives, fasting, or excessive
exercise
  Physical Fitness 8.4 Reasoning About Moral Issues
Being physically active promotes mental
Kohlberg identified three levels of moral
and physical health during adolescence
reasoning:
and throughout adulthood. Individuals
who regularly engage in physical activity  preconventional level First level of
reduce their risk for obesity, cancer, reasoning in Kohlberg’s theory, where
heart disease, diabetes, and moral reasoning is based on external
psychological disorders, including forces.
depression and anxiety.  obedience orientation
Characteristic of Kohlberg’s stage 1,
8.3 Information Processing During Adolescence
in which moral reasoning is based
Working Memory and Processing Speed on the belief that adults know what
is right and wrong.
 Working memory is the site of ongoing
 instrumental orientation
cognitive processing, and processing
Characteristic of Kohlberg’s stage 2,
speed is the speed with which people
in which moral reasoning is based
complete basic cognitive processes.
on the aim of looking out for one’s
 that teenagers are better able than
own needs.
children to store information needed
 conventional level Second level of
for ongoing cognitive processes. In
reasoning in Kohlberg’s theory, where
addition, processing speed becomes
moral reasoning is based on society’s
faster.
norms.
Problem-Solving and Reasoning  Interpersonal norms
Characteristic of Kohlberg’s
 The heuristic solution relies on personal
stage 3, in which moral
testimony from familiar people. In this
reasoning is based on winning
case, that means relying on the aunt’s
the approval of others.
experience.
 social system morality
 the analytic solution relies on the
Characteristic of Kohlberg’s
statistical information from consumers’
stage 4, in which moral
ratings.
reasoning is based on
maintenance of order in
society.
 Postconventional level Third level of
reasoning in Kohlberg’s theory, in which
morality is based on a personal moral
code.
 social contract Characteristic of
Kohlberg’s stage 5, in which
moral reasoning is based on the
belief that laws are for the good
of all members of society.
 universal ethical principles
Characteristic of Kohlberg’s
stage 6, in which moral
reasoning is based on moral
principles that apply to all.

Preconventional Level: Punishment and

Reward

Stage 1: Obedience to authority

Stage 2: Nice behavior in exchange for

future favors

Conventional Level: Social Norms

Stage 3: Live up to others’ expectations

Stage 4: Follow rules to maintain social

order

Postconventional Level: Moral Codes

Stage 5: Adhere to a social contract when it

is valid

Stage 6: Personal moral system based on

abstract principles