2 page essay
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If you recall from our discussion regarding cognitive development, we examined the essence of critical thinking, which we defined as “thinking reflectively and productively, and evaluating evidence.” Thus, for this assignment, you are to critically think about Erikson’s Psychosocial theory (see slide 4 of the lecture notes) and utilize it to address the dynamics associated with the behavior and attitudes that stem from strong loyalty to one’s social group (e.g., race, social economic status, profession, etc.).
However, rather than simply referring to the annotated notes for Erikson’s Psychosocial theory, you will need to further investigate those 8 stages so that you may have richer understanding of its purpose.
It will also be beneficial for you to critically think about the content posted in slides 24 and 32 as that will help guide the narrative of your paper.
Please refer to Section 6 (PREPARING ASSIGNMENTS FOR SUBMISSION) of the syllabus prior to starting your assignment. Finally, you will not need references for this assignment, but you must be thorough. To that end, your document should be 3 pages (the cover page is page 1). Please upload as a Word doc
A Topical Approach to Life-Span Development, 7th edition
John W. Santrock
PsychoSocial Development
Copyright McGraw-Hill Education, 2014
The Nature of Development
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Theories of Development
Erikson’s Psychosocial Theory
Social motivations and desire to affiliate with others is central influence in development
Emphasized importance of early and later experiences in life
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Theories of Development
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Theories of Development
Behavioral and Social Cognitive Theory
Development is observable behavior that we learn through experience with the environment
Emphasizes continuity in development
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Theories of Development
Skinner’s Operant Conditioning
Consequences of behavior produce changes in probability of behavior
Rewards and punishments shape behavior
Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory
Development shaped through observational learning
Form cognitive representations of others’ behaviors
May adopt behaviors, thoughts, and feelings accordingly
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Theories of Development
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Theories of Development
Ecological theory
Emphasizes environmental factors on development
Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory
Development reflects the influence of several environmental systems
Microsystem
Mesosystem
Exosystem
Macrosystem
Chronosystem
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Theories of Development
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Exploring Emotion
Emotion
Feeling, or affect, that occurs in a state or an interaction that is important to a person, especially to his/her well-being
Positive emotions include enthusiasm, joy, and love
Negative emotions include anxiety, anger, guilt, and sadness
Emotions influenced by biological foundations and a person’s experience
Social relationships provide setting for development of emotions
Cultural variations characterize emotional development
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Development of Emotion
Reduced negative emotion in older adults may be associated with decreased physiological arousal of emotion
Aging of the amygdala and autonomic nervous system
Socioemotional selectivity theory
Older adults become more selective about their activities and social relationships in order to maintain social and emotional well-being
Deliberately spend more time with familiar individuals with whom they have rewarding relationships
Motivation for knowledge-related goals decreases while motivation for emotion-related goals increases in middle and late childhood
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Temperament
Temperament
Individual differences in behavioral styles, emotions, and characteristic ways of responding
How quickly emotion is shown, how strong it is, how long it lasts, and how soon it fades away
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Attachment and Love
Social referencing
Reading emotional cues in others to help determine how to act in a specific situation
A mother’s facial expression influences how an infant will explore an unfamiliar environment
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Attachment and Love
Attachment
Close emotional bond between two people
Freud – infants attach to person/object that provides oral satisfaction
Harlow – contact comfort is crucial element in developing attachment
Erikson – trust vs. mistrust stage emphasizes the role of physical comfort
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Attachment and Love
Strange Situation
Observational measure of infant attachment in which the infant experiences a series of introductions, separations, and reunions with caregiver and an adult stranger in prescribed order
Securely attached children
Use caregiver as a secure base to explore environment
Insecure avoidant children
Show insecurity by avoiding the mother
Insecure disorganized children
Disorganized and disoriented
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Attachment and Love
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Attachment and Love
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Attachment and Love
Fathers have the ability to care for infants as sensitively and responsively as mothers do
Maternal interactions with infants center on child-care activities
Feeding, changing diapers, bathing
Paternal interactions more likely to include play
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Attachment and Love
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Attachment and Love
Romantic partners fulfill some of the same needs for adults as parents do for their children
Adults count on romantic partners to be a secure base to return to and obtain comfort and security in stressful times
Young adults who were securely attached in romantic relationships were more likely to describe early relationships with parents as securely attached
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Attachment and Love
Adult attachment styles:
Secure attachment
Positive view of relationships, easy to get close to others, not overly concerned with or stressed out about romantic relationships
Avoidant attachment
Hesitant about getting involved in romantic relationships
Once in a relationship, distance themselves from partners
Anxious attachment
Demand closeness, less trusting, more emotional, jealous, and possessive
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The Self
Self
All characteristics of a person
Identity
Who a person is, representing a synthesis and integration of self-understanding
Personality
Enduring personal characteristics of individuals
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The Self
Selective optimization with compensation theory:
Selection
Older adults have reduced capacity and loss of functioning
Reduction in performance in most life domains
Optimization
Maintain performance in some areas through continued practice and use of new technologies
Compensation
When life tasks require a level of capacity beyond current level
Used in circumstances that impose high mental and physical demands
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Identity
What is identity?
Career and work path
Political beliefs
Spiritual beliefs
Relationship status
Achievement/intellectual identity
Cultural/ethnic identity
Interests
Personality
Physical identity/body image
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Identity
Erikson’s stage – identity vs. identity confusion
Adolescents faced with deciding who they are, what they are all about, and where they are going in life
Questions occur throughout life, but become especially important during adolescence
Search for identity aided by psychosocial moratorium
Society leaves adolescents relatively free of responsibility
Allows them to try on different identities
Adolescents who do not successfully resolve identity crisis suffer from identity confusion
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Identity
Identity statuses
Crisis – a period of identity development during which individual explores alternatives
Commitment – personal investment in identity
4 statuses:
Identity diffusion
Identity foreclosure
Identity moratorium
Identity achievement
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Identity
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Identity
During early adolescence, youth primarily in identity statuses of diffusion, foreclosure, or moratorium
Parental support, established sense of industry, and self-reflective stance toward the future are important to identity formation
Researchers have developed a consensus that key changes in identity most likely to take place in emerging adulthood, not adolescence
Many young adults are identity diffused
Further exploration during college years
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Identity
Complex reasoning skills and experiences may stimulate individuals to reach higher level of integration of identity
Identity may not remain stable throughout rest of the life
“MAMA cycles” – changing from moratorium and achievement and back again
Identity consolidation continues into early adulthood and possibly into early part of middle adulthood
Individuals move from early to middle adulthood and become more concerned about their identity
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Identity
Parents are important in adolescent identity development
Poor communication and persistent conflict with friends linked to less positive identity development
Family atmosphere promotes individuality and connectedness:
Individuality – self-assertion and separateness
Connectedness – mutuality and permeability
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Identity
Capacity to explore identity linked to quality of friendships and romantic relationships
Friends as a safe context for exploring identity-related experiences
Adolescents grow up in cultural contexts with either individuality or collectivist emphasis
Fitting in with group and connecting with others
Identity development may take longer in certain cultures
Postpone identity exploration beyond adolescence and emerging adulthood
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Identity
Ethnic identity includes a sense of membership in an ethnic group
Attitudes and feelings related to that membership
Choice between two or more identifications – own ethnic group or dominant culture
Bicultural identity – identifying in some ways with their ethnic group and in other ways with dominant culture
Adolescents increasingly consider meaning of ethnic identity
Due to advanced cognitive skills, abstract thinking, self-reflection
Also have more ethnic-related experiences
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Personality
Trait theories
Personality consists of broad dispositions that produce characteristic responses
Big Five factors of personality
Openness to experience
Conscientiousness
Extraversion
Agreeableness
Neuroticism
Related to health, intelligence, cognitive functioning, achievement, work, and relationships
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Personality
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Personality
Levinson views midlife as a crisis
Middle adult is suspended between past and future, trying to cope with gap to ensure life’s continuity
Vaillant concludes that forties are a decade of reassessing and recording the truth about adolescent and adulthood years
Only a minority of adults experience a midlife crisis
Vaillant’s research found few midlife crises
Emotional well-being does not decrease significantly
Some psychological gains experienced
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Personality
Middle-aged adults interpret, shape, alter, and give meaning to their lives
Midlife crisis may be experienced in one context of life but not others
Work vs. family
In ⅓ of cases of midlife crisis, it is triggered by life events such as job loss, financial problems, or illness
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Personality
Contemporary life events approach
How life events influence an individual’s development depends on the event, as well as mediating factors, the individual’s adaptation to the event, life-stage context, and sociohistorical context
Drawbacks:
Too much emphasis on change, not enough on stability
Daily experience may be primary sources of stress, not major life events
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Personality
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Personality
Generativity versus stagnation
Generativity – adults’ desire to leave a legacy of themselves to the next generation
Stagnation – an individual senses he/she has done nothing for the next generation
Middle-aged adults are especially concerned about generativity
Linked to positive social engagement in family life and community activities
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Peer Relations in Childhood and Adolescence
Peers
Individuals of about the same age or maturity level
Provide source of information and comparison about world outside of the family
Receive feedback about abilities
Peer influence can be positive or negative
Rejection and neglect by peers
Can undermine parent values and control
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Peer Relations in Childhood and Adolescence
Parents influence children’s peer relationships
Basic lifestyle decisions of parents largely determine pool from which children select possible friends
Choice of neighborhood, church, school, and their own friends
Parent-child relationships influence children’s peer relations
Children also learn other modes of relating through peer relationships
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Peer Relations in Childhood and Adolescence
Peer interaction is influenced by context
Type of peer individual interacts with
Acquaintance, crowd, clique, friend, romantic partner
Situation or location where peers interact
School, neighborhood, community center, religious setting, etc.
Children encounter different messages and opportunities to engage in adaptive or maladaptive behavior with peers
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Peer Relations in Childhood and Adolescence
Other factors that affect peer relations:
Personality
Emotionality
Status/power of peer
Around age 5, children prefer to spend time with same-sex playmates
Preference increases in childhood
Frequency of positive and negative peer interactions increase
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Peer Relations in Childhood and Adolescence
Social knowledge involved in ability to get along with peers:
What goals to pursue in poorly defined or ambiguous situations
How to initiate and maintain a social bond
What scripts to follow to get other children to be their friends
Emotions play strong role in determining whether peer relations are successful
Moody and emotionally negative children are often rejected
Emotionally positive children are often popular
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Peer Relations in Childhood and Adolescence
Peer statuses:
Popular children
Frequently nominated as best friend and rarely disliked by peers
Average children
Receive average number of both positive and negative nominations from peers
Neglected children
Infrequently nominated as best friend but not disliked by peers
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Peer Relations in Childhood and Adolescence
Peer statuses (continued):
Rejected children
Infrequently nominated as someone’s best friend and actively disliked by peers
Controversial children
Frequently nominated both as someone’s best friend and as being disliked
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Peer Relations in Childhood and Adolescence
Popular children have social skills that contribute to being well liked
Give out reinforcements
Listen carefully
Maintain open lines of communication
Happy
Control negative emotions
Show enthusiasm and concern for others
Self-confident without being conceited
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Peer Relations in Childhood and Adolescence
Neglected children engage in low rates of interaction with peers and often described as shy
Rejected children often have serious adjustment problems
Aggressive
Sometimes shy
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Peer Relations in Childhood and Adolescence
Social contexts influence bullying
70-80% of victims and bullies are in same classroom
Classmates often aware of and witness bullying
Bullies torment victims to gain higher status in peer group
Bullied children are more likely to experience depression, suicidal ideation, attempt suicide
Increasing concern about cyberbullying
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Peer Relations in Childhood and Adolescence
Cliques
Small groups ranging from 2-12 individuals
Members usually of the same sex and about same age
Share ideas and hang out together, develop an in-group identity
Crowds
Larger than cliques and less personal
Members grouped together based on reputation and may not spend much time together
Defined by activities they engage in
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Friendship
Functions of friendship:
Companionship
Stimulation
Ego support
Social comparison
Affection and intimacy
Intimacy in friendships
Characterized by self-disclosure and sharing of private thoughts
May not appear until early adolescence
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Aging and Social World
Disengagement theory
To cope effectively, older adults should gradually withdraw from society
Increased self-preoccupation, lessened emotional ties, decreasing interest in society’s affairs
Historically relevant theory, but not accurate
Activity theory
More active and involved older adults experience more life satisfaction
Strong support found for theory
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Aging and Social World
Ageism
Prejudice against others because of age, especially older adults
Often perceived as incapable of clear thinking, learning new things, enjoying sex, contributing to community, or holding responsible jobs
Many older adults face discrimination or are shunned socially
Ageism is widespread
Most frequent form is disrespect for older adults
Followed by assumptions of ailment or frailty caused by age
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Aging and Social World
Social convoy model
Individuals go through life embedded in personal network of individuals to whom they give, and from which they receive, social support
Social support helps individuals cope with life challenges
Related to older adults’ physical and mental health
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Sociocultural Influences
Culture
Behavior, patterns, beliefs, and all other products of group of people that are passed on from generation to generation
Ethnocentrism
Tendency to consider one’s own group superior to others
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Sociocultural Influences
Individualism
Priority placed on personal goals rather than group goals
Emphasizes values that serve the self
Feeling good, personal achievement, independence
Collectivism
Personal goals subordinated to preserve group integrity
Emphasizes values that serve the group
Interdependence, harmonious relationships
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Sociocultural Influences
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