1. Infants, Children, and Adolescents
Eighth Edition
Chapter 13
Emotional and Social Development in Middle Childhood

2. Learning Objectives (1 of 3) Socio-emotional Dev.
1. What personality changes take place during Erikson’s stage of industry versus inferiority?
2. Describe school-age children’s self-concept and self- esteem, and discuss factors that affect their achievement- related attributions.
3. Cite changes in the expression and understanding of emotion in middle childhood.
4. Describe changes in moral understanding during middle childhood, including children’s understanding of diversity and inequality.

3. Learning Objectives (2 of 3) Middle Children
5. How do peer sociability and friendship change in middle childhood?
6. Describe major categories of peer acceptance and ways to help rejected children.
7. What changes in gender-stereotyped beliefs and gender identity occur during middle childhood?
8. How do maternal employment and life in dual-earner families affect children’s development?

4. Learning Objectives (3 of 3)
9. Cite common fears and anxieties in middle childhood.
10. Discuss factors related to child sexual abuse, its consequences for children’s development, and its prevention and treatment.
11. Cite factors that foster resilience in middle childhood.

5. Erikson’s Theory: Industry vs. Inferiority
Industry: developing a sense of competence at useful skills and tasks
Industry combines several developments of middle childhood:
Positive but realistic self-concept
Pride in accomplishment
Moral responsibility
Cooperative participation with agemates
Inferiority: pessimism and lack of confidence in one’s ability to do things well

6. Self-Concept in Middle Childhood
Self-concept is refined and organized into stable psychological dispositions.
Perspective-taking skills are crucial for developing self-concept based on personality traits.
Children form an ideal self that they use to evaluate actual self.

7. Influences on Self-Concept
Cognitive development influences structure of self.
Cognitive capacities and feedback from others influence content of self-concept.
Perspective-taking skills (ability to distinguish others’ viewpoints from one’s own) improve.
Family and community support are important.
Content of self-concept depends on culture:
Asian parents stress harmonious interdependence.
Western parents emphasize independence and self- assertion.

8. Self-Esteem in Middle Childhood
differentiates and adjusts to more realistic level.
becomes hierarchically structured.
Four broad self-evaluations:
academic competence
social competence
physical/athletic competence
physical appearance

9. Hierarchical Structure of Self-Esteem in Mid-Elementary School Years
Figure 13.1: Hierarchical structure of self-esteem in the mid-elementary school years
Figure 13.1
Photos from left to right: © Ellen B. Senisi; © Tim Pannell/Corbis; © Mitch Wojnarowicz/The Image Works; © Radius Images/Photolibrary

10. Influences on Self-Esteem
Cultural values
Gender-stereotyped beliefs
Child-rearing practices:
Authoritative parenting builds self-esteem.
Controlling parenting undermines self-esteem.
Achievement-related attributions

11. Achievement-Related Attributions
Mastery-oriented attributions:
Attribution of successes to ability
Incremental view of ability (belief that it can be improved through effort)
Focus on learning goals
Learned helplessness:
Attribution of failure to ability and success to luck
Fixed view of ability (belief that it cannot be changed)
Focus on performance goals

12. Influences on Achievement-Related Attributions
Person praise vs. process praise
Teachers’ messages: emphasis on learning vs. grades
Adult feedback: gender differences
Cognitive development: more realistic view of abilities
Cultural values

13. Fostering a Mastery-Oriented Approach
Attribution retraining:
teaches children to attribute success to effort and strategy use.
encourages children to focus on individual improvement more than grades.
is best begun in middle childhood.
Prevention of learned helplessness:
Provision of meaningful tasks
Parent and teacher encouragement
Private performance evaluations, providing constructive feedback
Small classes, providing individualized support for mastery and accommodation for differences in learning styles

14. Emotional Development in Middle Childhood
Self-conscious emotions—pride and guilt:
Pride and guilt become clearly governed by personal responsibility.
Children experience self-conscious emotions even when no adult is present.
Pride motivates children to take on further challenges.
Guilt prompts them to make amends and strive for self-improvement.
Emotional understanding:
Ability to explain emotion by referring to internal states
Appreciation of mixed emotions

15. Emotional Self-Regulation
Coping with stress: problem-centered vs. emotion- centered coping
Emotional self-efficacy:
Feeling of being in control of one’s emotional experience
Fosters favorable self-image, optimistic outlook
Cultural influences:
Hindu emphasis on control of emotional behavior vs. Buddhist emphasis on maintaining calm, peaceful disposition
Western emphasis on personal rights, self-expression

16. Moral Development Social conventions
Conventions with vs. without clear purpose
Consideration of intentions and context of violations
Moral rules
Matters of personal choice
Recognition of areas of personal choice as well as limits on choice

17. Understanding Individual Rights
Children typically challenge adult authority within the personal domain.
Notions of personal choice enhance children’s moral understanding.
Older school-age children
place limits on individual choice.
typically favor kindness and fairness when faced with conflicting concerns.

18. Understanding Diversity and Inequality
Children absorb prevailing societal attitudes, associating power and privilege with white people, inferior status with people of color.
Children pick up information about group status from implicit messages in their surroundings.
When authority figures confer status distinctions, children may form biased attitudes.

19. In-Group and Out-Group Biases: Development of Prejudice
By age 7 or 8, both majority and minority children express in-group favoritism.
Around the same time, white children’s prejudice against out-group members often weakens.
Extent to which children hold biases depends on personal/situational factors:
Fixed view of personality traits
Overly high self-esteem
Social world in which people are sorted into groups

20. Ways of Reducing Prejudice
Intergroup contact in which racially and ethnically different children
have equal status
work toward common goals
become personally acquainted
are expected by authority figures to interact
Long-term contact and collaboration among neighborhood, school, and community groups
Inducing children to view traits as changeable

21. Peer Groups Peer groups Peer culture
form on basis of proximity and similarity.
adopt similar dress and behavior.
Peer culture
involves specialized vocabulary, dress code, place to “hang out.”
often involves exclusion of peers who deviate.
may be characterized by relational aggression.

22. Friendship in Middle Childhood
Friendship becomes more complex and psychologically based.
Trust is the defining feature of friendship.
Friendships are more selective.
High-quality friendships are fairly stable.
Impact of friendships depends on qualities of friends: kindness and compassion vs. aggression and hostile interaction

23. Peer Acceptance
Likability: extent to which child is viewed as worthy social partner
Categories of peer acceptance:
Popular children: popular-prosocial, popular- antisocial
Rejected children: rejected-aggressive, rejected- withdrawn
Controversial children
Neglected children
Average children

24. Helping Rejected Children
Coaching, modeling, and reinforcing positive social skills
Training in perspective taking and social problem solving
Interventions focusing on parent–child interaction

25. Peer Victimization: Bullies and Their Victims
About 20% of children are bullies; about 25% are repeatedly victimized.
About 20–40% of youths have experienced “cyberbullying.”
Approaches to reducing bullying:
Change victimized children’s negative opinions of themselves and help them acquire social skills.
Change youth environments to promote prosocial attitudes and behaviors.

26. Gender Typing in Middle Childhood
Gender stereotyping
is well-established by age 5.
extends to personality traits and academic subjects.
Gender-stereotype flexibility
increases dramatically from age 7 on.
is less pronounced for boys than for girls.
Sex-segregated peer associations
strengthen during middle childhood.
continue to contribute powerfully to gender typing.

27. Gender Identity and Behavior
Gender identity expands to include
gender typicality: degree to which child feels similar to others of same gender.
gender contentedness: degree to which child feels comfortable with his/her gender assignment.
felt pressure to conform to gender roles: degree to which child feels that others disapprove of his/her gender-related traits.

28. Never-Married Single-Parent Families
About 40% of U.S. births are to single mothers:
More than double the percentage in 1980
Steady decline in teenage parenthood since early 1990s
Especially common among African-American young women
Increases financial hardship, adjustment problems in children

29. Divorce Rates: International Comparisons
Figure 13.6: Divorce rates in 13 industrialized nations
Figure 13.6
(Based on U.S. Census Bureau, 2014b.)

30. Consequences of Parental Divorce
Immediate consequences:
Instability, conflict, drop in income
Parental stress, disorganized family life
Affected by children’s age, temperament, sex
Long-term consequences:
Improved adjustment after two years
More problems among boys, children with difficult temperaments
Affected by extent of father’s involvement

31. Maternal Employment and Child Development
Benefits (when mothers enjoy work and remain committed to parenting):
higher self-esteem
positive family and peer relations
fewer gender stereotypes
better grades
more father involvement
Drawbacks (when mother’s employment is stressful):
less time for children
risk of ineffective parenting

32. Support for Employed Parents and Their Families
Father’s participation in child-rearing responsibilities
Part-time work or flexible schedules
Job sharing
On-site child care
Paid leave when children are ill
Equal pay and employment opportunities for women

33. Child Care for School-Age Children
Self-care children regularly look after themselves during after-school hours.
Self-care increases with age and with SES.
Implications depend on children’s maturity and how they spend their time.
Before age 8 or 9, most children need supervision.
“After-care” programs offering academic assistance and enrichment activities have special value for low-SES children.

34. Fears and Anxieties in Middle Childhood
Fears of the dark, thunder and lightning, and supernatural beings persist.
Additional fears include personal harm, academic failure, injuries and death, peer rejection.
Phobias are intense, unmanageable fears.
School refusal:
Age 5–7 : fear of maternal separation
Age 11–13 : fear of particular aspects of school
Harsh living conditions contribute to anxieties.

35. Impact of Ethnic and Political Violence
When war is temporary, most children do not show long-term difficulties.
Chronic danger can impair psychological functioning.
Parental affection and reassurance are best protection against lasting problems.
International organizations aid children in war-torn regions.

36. Child Sexual Abuse Characteristics of victims More often female
Most reported in middle childhood
Characteristics of abusers
Usually male
Often a parent or known by a parent
Consequences
Adjustment: anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, anger/hostility
Behavior: sleep difficulties, loss of appetite, suicidal reactions, substance abuse, delinquency
Prevention and treatment
Prevention: education
Treatment: long-term therapy

37. Children’s Eyewitness Testimony
Age differences:
School-age children give more accurate, detailed accounts.
Older children are more resistant to misleading questions.
Even preschoolers can give accurate accounts if interviewed properly.
Suggestibility:
Questioners may lead or pressure witnesses.
Long delays, biased interviewing, and stereotyping of the accused can lead to false information.
Interventions:
“Court schools” to prepare child witnesses
Unbiased, open-ended questions; warm, supportive interview tone
Methods to protect children from emotional trauma or later punishment

38. Resources That Foster Resilience
Personal: easygoing temperament; above-average intelligence; favorable self-esteem; pleasure in mastery; good emotional self- regulation
Family: warm, trusting relationship with a parent; authoritative child rearing; positive discipline; supportive sibling relationships
School: teachers who are warm, helpful, and stimulating; lessons in tolerance, respect; extracurricular activities that strengthen skills
Community: high-quality after-school programs; adult who is a positive coping model; stability of neighborhood and services; youth groups that promote prosocial behavior