1. Chapter 6
Social and Personality Development
in the Preschool Years
© 2006 Pearson Education/Prentice-Hall Publishing 1

2. Self-Understanding and
Forming a Sense of Self
 Psychosocial Development
8-2

3. Erikson:
Initiative vs. guilt
 ~3 to 6:
 Conflict b/t
independence of action
and sometimes negative
results of that action.
8-3

4. Discipline
8-4

5. Self Concept in the School Years:
Thinking About the Self
What is self?
 Children typically overestimate their skills and
knowledge
8-5

6. Developing racial, ethnic and
gender awareness
Gender is well
established
Gender > ethnicity
8-6

7. What are some possible explanations?
8-7

8. Theoretical explanations for gender
related attitudes
 Biological perspectives
 Psychoanalytic perspectives
 Social-learning/Cognitive approaches
 Includes parental/cutlural influences
8-8

9. Friends and Family:
The social lives of preschoolers
Increased interactions with the world
at large.
 ~ 3 children begin to develop
real friendships; individuals with
special qualities.
 Friendship is focused on the
carrying out of shared activities
[as opposed to?]
8-9

10. Playing by Rules
 Parallel play
 Associative play
 Cooperative play
 Sensorimotor play
 practice play
 pretense/symbolic play
 social play
 constructive play
 games
8-10

11. Fantasy Play
 Play becomes increasingly
unrealistic during the
preschool period
 What would Vygotsky say
about the increase in pretend
play?
8-11

12. Effective Parenting: Teaching Desired
Behaviors
 Diana Baumrind (1971, 1980); parenting
styles:
• Authoritarian
• Authoritative
• Permissive/Indulgent
• Neglectful
Democratic
8-12

13. 8-13

14. Lower SES parents
 children conform to society’s expectations
 home atmosphere > authority
 Inc physical punishment
 more directive, less conversational
 As opposed to…
8-14

15. Higher-SES parents
 more concerned with developing initiative and
delay of gratification
 atmosphere in which children are more nearly
equal participants
 rules are discussed
 less directive; more conversational
8-15

16. Child Abuse and Maltreatment
What kinds of abuse?
8-16

17. Types of Child Abuse
8-17

18. Child Abuse
 Occurs in any home, though most
frequent in stressful family environments:
 Poverty
 Single-parent homes
 Families with high levels of marital discord
 70% DO NOT grow up to abuse
8-18

19. Moral Development and Aggression
 Piaget
 Social Learning
 Kohlberg
 Gilligan
8-19

20. Piaget’s View of Moral
Development
 Heteronomous Morality: Initial stage, ~4 to 7
years old.
 Rules are invariant and unchangeable.
 Immanent Justice: Immediate punishment.
8-20

21. Piaget’s View of Moral
Development
 Incipient Cooperation ~ 7 to 10.
 Children are more social and learn the rules.
 Play is according to a shared conception of
the rules.
8-21

22. Piaget’s View of Moral
Development
 ~ 10: Autonomous Cooperation
 aware that game rules can be modified if
players agree.
 Critics:
He underestimated
the age at which
children's moral
skills develop.
8-22

23. Moral Development in Children:
Social-learning approaches
 How environment
influences children's moral
behavior.
• Children model
prosocial (helping)
behavior
 Reinforcement and
modeling.
8-23

24. Viewing Violence on TV
 Conducting a true experiment nearly
impossible
 Correlational studies difficult
Does television viewing cause violence?
8-24