Chapter Overview

Understanding Others

• Researchers use the terms social cognition to describe children’s understanding of other people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.

• Perspective taking involves the ability to take another person’s point of view. Perspective-taking abilities develop gradually during the elementary school years. Children are not able to view situations or themselves from another’s perspective until the late or middle childhood years. Perspective-taking abilities are important for social relations and moral development, in which other points of view must be considered.

• There are parallels between children’s self-conceptions and person perceptions. With development, children’s perceptions of other people become more differentiated and focused on psychological traits that can be observed in many different situations.

• Children can categorize people into racial and ethnic categories at a young age. Due to society’s racial biases, young children develop a pro-white orientation that decreases in elementary school when children develop a more balanced view of ethnicity. Adolescents can think about ethnicity from a social perspective and consider it social implications (e.g., differences in housing, income, opportunities).

Peer Relations

• Peer relations are necessary for normal psychological development. Positive peer relations can influence children’s feelings of efficacy, competence, and self-worth. Peers can also influence students’ school achievement. When deprived of positive peer relations, children may experience low self-esteem, poor school achievement and depression.

• The ability to initiate and maintain positive interactions with others is the main predictor of peer popularity. Popular children tend to be friendly, cooperative, sensitive, and good-natured. Rejected children tend to be aggressive, hostile, and disruptive. Some children are neither popular nor rejected by their peers. Neglected peers tend to be shy and withdrawn.

• Teachers can enhance children’s peer relations in a number of ways. Cooperative learning activities are particularly effective in promoting positive peer relations, if the activities are carefully structured and monitored. Children need opportunities to play, to cooperate, to share, and to negotiate problems. Some children may need special training in how to interact positively with others and to resolve conflict.

• Prosocial behaviors involve acts of caring, helping, sharing, and cooperating with others. These behaviors develop early but continue to increase in frequency as children mature cognitively and learn how their actions affect others. The capacity to know and feel another person’s emotional state is an important determinant of prosocial behavior that is shaped by early childhood experiences. Parents and teachers can foster the development of prosocial behavior in children by modeling such behavior and by helping children reflect on how their behavior affects others.

• Aggression is defined as behavior that is intentionally aimed at harming or injuring another person. Young children use physical force to obtain an object or to get their way because they have limited social and verbal skills. However, this type of instrumental aggression is not intended to harm another person. Hostile aggression is more frequent among elementary and school-age children, and it generally takes the form of teasing, ridiculing, and shouting as children grow older.

• Bullying behavior is one of the most common forms of aggression in school settings. This form of aggression has a negative impact on the school environment, as well as long-term negative consequences for both the victim and bully.

• Most, but not all, aggressive acts in adolescence are committed by young people with a long history of aggression. The causes of aggression depend on its age of onset. The early onset of aggression evolve from a complex interplay of the child’s temperament and family environment, whereas peers play a more important role in its late onset. Once aggression emerges as a way to control people’s behavior, it is often difficult to change, because it becomes self-reinforcing.

• Schools are becoming more and more involved in efforts to reduce aggression and violence among youths. Conflict resolution and peer mediation programs, which help children acquire the skills they need to resolve conflict, are becoming more widespread. Many schools are also implementing programs to help aggressive, immature children to develop missing social skills. These programs are most successful when combined with interventions to improve academic skills and to enhance parent-child relations.

Developmental Changes in Peer Relations

• Development of children’s peer relations follows a predictable pattern. Young children show preferences for playmates, and interactions are based on shared activities. Small selective peer groups of the same sex develop in elementary school. Friendships are mutual and reciprocal.

• The peer group structure changes in adolescence when cliques and crowds emerge. Cliques of peers who share similar interests and activities provide a more intimate setting for developing enduring and intimate friendships. Crowds are larger groups of peers, who share a certain social reputation. Crowds dissolve when interest in dating begins.

• Approximately 1 in 20 adolescents in the United State are gay, lesbian, or bisexual. Homophobia is pervasive in American high schools, and it places gay and lesbian youth at considerable risk for physical and verbal abuse from peers. Schools have a legal responsibility to provide a safe and supportive atmosphere for all youth.

Moral Development

• Kohlberg’s theory of moral development focuses on children’s conceptions of rules, fairness, and justice. Preschool children believe rules should be obeyed because they lead to rewards or punishment, whereas elementary children view rules as important for maintaining social order. Elementary-age children want to please others and obtain social approval. By late adolescence and adulthood, people begin to understand that rules are intended to help protect basic human rights such as equality, justice, and freedom.

• Gilligan argued that women are likely to make moral decisions based on an ethic of care, which emphasizes connections among people, as well as an ethic of justice. Women are socialized to care for others, and they tend to resolve moral conflicts in ways that preserve social relations and connections. Noddings argues that schools are an important place for the development of caring and compassion.

• Schools must be caring communities in which children feel understood, respected, and recognized. Schools must also help children learn how to care for themselves, others, the environment, and the world of ideas.