Social Development

1. Social Development The changing nature of relationships with others over the life span

2. What Are the Issues ? • Individuals develop socially. How do social relationships develop? • What factors drive social development? • biological • cultural • cognitive

3. Erikson’s Theory • Biological in belief that there are innate drives to develop social relationships and that these promote survival (Darwinism) • Divided life span into eight psychosocial stages, each associated with a different drive and a problem or crisis to resolve • Outcome of each stage varies along a continuum from positive to negative

6. Infant Attachment • Intense emotional bond between infant and caregiver

7. Harlow’s Study of Attachment • Infant rhesus monkeys placed with two surrogate mothers, one wire, one covered with soft cloth • Milk-producing nipple attached to either wire or cloth mother

8. Attachment was based on “contact comfort” rather than feeding

9. Ainsworth’s Strange Situation • Mother-child observed in playroom • 4 conditions: • initial mother-child interaction • mother leaves infant alone in playroom • friendly stranger enters playroom • mother returns and greets child

10. Forms of Attachment • Securely attached - explores the room when mother present, becomes upset and explores less when mother not present, shows pleasure when mother returns • Avoidantly attached - form of insecure attachment; child avoids mother and act coldly to her

11. Forms of Attachment • Anxious resistant attachment - insecure attachment; child remains close to mother and remains distressed despite her attempts to comfort

12. Secure Insecure Positive Negative Memory and attachment history (Belsky et al., 1996) Recognition score

13. Gender Differences • Biological basis: difference in prenatal hormone exposure • Cultural basis: difference in interactions with caregivers

14. Hoffman’s Categories of Discipline • Power assertion - use of rewards and real or threatened punishments to control children’s behavior • Love withdrawal - expressing disapproval of child rather than action • Induction - verbal reasoning in which parent induces child to think about harmful consequences of actions

15. Baumrind’s Parenting Styles • Authoritarian - value obedience and use a high degree of power assertion • Authoritative - less concerned with obedience, greater use of induction • Permissive - most tolerant, least likely to use discipline • Neglectful - completely uninvolved

16. Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development • Assessed moral reasoning by posing hypothetical moral dilemmas and examining the reasoning behind people’s answers • Proposed five stages, each taking into account a broader portion of the social world

17. Levels of Moral Reasoning • Preconventional - moral reasoning is based on external rewards and punishments • Conventional - laws and rules are upheld simply because they are laws and rules • Postconventional - reasoning based on personal moral standards

18. Stage 1: Obedience and Punishment Orientation • A focus on direct consequences • Negative actions will result in punishments • Positive actions will result in rewards

19. Stage 2: Self-Interested Exchanges • Reflects the understanding that different people have different self-interests, which sometimes come in conflict • Getting what one wants often requires giving something up in return

20. Stage 3: Interpersonal Accord and Conformity • An attempt to live up to the expectations of important others • Positive actions will improve relations with significant others • Negative actions will harm those relationships

21. Stage 4: Law-and-Order Morality • To maintain social order, people must resist personal pressures and follow the laws of the larger society

22. Stage 5: Human-Rights and Social-Welfare Morality • A balance is struck between respect for laws and ethical principles that transcend specific laws • Laws that fail to promote general welfare or that violate ethical principles can be changed, reinterpreted, or abandoned