Human Development

Moral, Personality, & Social Development

 

Announcement

• Tom Sgouros will be performing "Judy, or What is it Like to be a Puppet?" on Wednesday, November 7th, 7:00 P.M., in Furman 114.

Moral Development

• How does moral reasoning develop?
• How do people come to have moral emotions (e.g., empathy, shame, & guilt)?
• How do people learn to behave morally?

Kohlberg's Stages of Moral Reasoning

• Preconventional
• External consequences
• Conventional
• Social order
• Postconventional
• Ethical principles

Moral Emotions:
Empathy, Shame, & Guilt

• "Without this fundamental human capacity, which 19th Century observers called a moral sense, the child could not be socialized (Kagan, 1984)."
• Antisocial personality disorder: No sense of responsibility & feels no shame or remorse when hurting others. Extremely self-centered; incapable of genuine love or affection. May be superficially charming & sincere; poised, calm, & verbally facile; actually insincere, untruthful, unreliable.

Empathy

• Global empathy: genuine distress at another's misery; develops in 1st year.
• Egocentric empathy: recognize that another is in distress and feel sad about it; ages 1-2.
• Empathy for another's feelings: age 2-3.
• Empathy for others' life condition: 3+.

Shame & Guilt

• Shame: Arises from perceiving that others have seen you do something wrong and that they will like you less for it; normally develops by the age of 2.
• Guilt: Arises from not living up to an internalized standard of behavior; normally develops by the age of 3 or 4.

Reasoning & Emotions Aren't Enough

• People can develop high levels of moral reasoning and all of the requisite moral emotions, and still behave like scoundrels.
• John Vann, a Vietnam War hero, abandoned his wife & children, and lied to avoid being court-martialed for seducing a 15-year old.
• In one survey, one-third of American and Canadian college men said they would force a woman into sexual acts if they could get away with it.
• Why?

Moral Action

• Child rearing practices have a huge effect on the development of moral behavior.
• How did your parents react when you did something wrong?

Power Assertion

• Threats, physical punishment, depriving child of privileges ("Do it because I say so!").
• Linked to negative outcomes for moral behavior:
• A study of male delinquency showed that consistent discipline, parental affection, low aggressiveness in father, placing restrictions on son's behavior, and high parental standards predicted which boys would avoid a life of crime. In families below the median on these measures, 58% of sons eventually committed serious crimes; in families above the median, only 15% did.

Induction

• Parent appeals to child's own resources, helpful nature, affection for others, and sense of responsibility.
• Induction tends to influence children positively on five dimensions:
• Feel guilty if they hurt others; internalize standards of right and wrong; confess rather than lie if they misbehave; accept responsibility; & are considerate of others.

Parenting Styles

• Authoritarian
• Use power assertion.
• Parents exercise too much power and give little nurturance. Parent issues orders and child is expected to obey.
• Children tend to be less socially skilled, have lower self-esteem, a do poorly in school.

Parenting Styles

• Permissive
• Parents are nurturant but don't set boundaries and are inconsistent.
• Children are likely to be impulsive, immature, irresponsible, and academically unmotivated.

Parenting Styles

• Authoritative
• Use induction.
• High but reasonable expectations and teach children how to meet them; they give children emotional support and encourage two-way communication.
• Children tend to have good self-control, high self-esteem, and high self-efficacy; independent and cooperative; do better than average in school; socially mature.

Culture & Society

• Moral behavior is influenced heavily by what others expect of them.
• In cross-cultural studies, American children are the least altruistic and most egoistic.
• Altruistic children come from societies in which children are assigned many tasks, e.g., caring for younger siblings, gathering and preparing food, etc. Children learn that their work makes a genuine contribution to the well-being or economic survival of the family.

Personality Development

• Erikson's Psychosocial Theory
• Eight major stages.
• Each stage represents a developmental challenge.
• The outcome determines a major feature of personality: hopefulness, will, purpose, competence, fidelity, love, generativity, & wisdom.

1. Trust vs. Mistrust

• Birth to 1 year.
• Infants depend on others to provide comfort, food, cuddling, warmth.
• If these needs are not met, the child may never develop the essential trust necessary to have meaningful relationships.
• Success leads to a hopeful attitude toward life and what can be obtained from it.

2. Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt

• Ages 1-3.
• Children learn to be independent, and must do so without feeling ashamed or doubtful of their actions.
• Success leads to the development of will: a sense of control and mastery.
• Failure leads to feelings of doubt and shame about one's abilities.

3. Initiative vs. Guilt

• Ages 3-6.
• Children learn to take initiative and to assert themselves in positive ways, but also must learn to control impulses and energies.
• Success leads to a sense of purpose in life.
• Failure may lead to feelings of guilt and to a lack of initiative.

4. Industry vs. Inferiority

• Ages 6-12.
• Children learn to make things, to use tools, to acquire the skills of adult life; they learn a sense of capability and industriousness.
• Success leads to competence.
• Failure leads to feelings of incompetence and low self-worth.

5. Identity vs. Role Confusion

• Adolescence.
• Adolescents try to figure out who they are, what they value, who they want to become.
• Success leads to a sense of fidelity.
• People who do not succeed remain confused about who they are.
• More difficult in societies with many career & life-style options.

6. Intimacy vs. Isolation

• Early adulthood (20-40)
• Emerging adult tries to commit to a loving intimate relationship.
• Success leads to the ability to love in a giving and nonselfish way.
• Failure may lead to isolation and inability to form relationships with others.
• More difficult in societies that emphasize independence & individualism.

7. Generativity vs. Stagnation

• Middle adulthood (40-65)
• Adults try to be productive and contribute to the next generation.
• Success is referred to as generativity.
• Failure leads to stagnation, being self-centered.

8. Integrity vs. Despair

• Old age.
• People try to make sense of their lives and the choices they have made. They must come to terms with decisions they believe were incorrect.
• Success leads to wisdom.
• Failure leads to despair over lost opportunities.

Evaluation

• An important contribution is the claim that personality development is a lifelong process.
• Theory is difficult to disconfirm.
• Emphasis on stages is problematical, especially today, when many people depart from the traditional schedule of life.
• Perhaps best to emphasize transitions.

Gender Development

• Current arena for "nature" vs. "nurture" gladiators.
• Sex: Anatomical & physiological
• Sex differences in baldness, color-blindness, muscle development.
• Gender: Cultural and psychological
• Gender differences in film preferences, fondness for romance novels, etc.

Biological Theories

• Many differences between sexes are caused by hormones and brain lateralization (e.g., aggression, occupational interests, skills)
• Girls exposed to prenatal androgens are more likely to prefer "boys' toys."
• Among primates, males engage in more rough-housing than females.
• An extensive analysis of 172 studies showed that in 18 domains of parental treatment of children (e.g., responsiveness & warmth, interaction) sons & daughters were treated identically.

Social-Learning Theories

• Learning cannot account for all gender development, but it is still very important.
• At 1 year of age, boys and girls whose behavior is the same are treated differently by adults.
  • assertive boys > shy boys
  • verbal girls > less verbal girls
• Gender & math achievement
  • Talented boys vs. Hard-working girls

The Specific Situation

• Some situations, e.g., a date, evoke sex-typed behavior: Who asks whom out? Who pays for dinner? Who makes the first move?
• Other situations, such as working on an assembly line, do not.
• An analysis of 65 studies, involving over 9,000 people, showed that gender differences follow a hill-shaped function over time.

 

Interpersonal Development

• How do the abilities to interact with other people develop?

Attachment

• Strong and lasting emotional bond between people.
• Need is so critical that it must be driven in part by biological systems.

Types of Attachment

• What kinds of patterns of attachment exit?
• Often assessed with "strange situation test."
• Secure (~70%): Child shows distress, but seeks comfort.
• Avoidant (~20%): Child ignores parent.
• Resistant (~10%): Child is ambivalent, seeking comfort, but then resisting.

Determinants of Attachment

• Contact comfort
• Warm physical contact may matter most.
• Harlow's experiments with infant monkeys:
• "wire mesh" vs "cloth" mother
• baby monkeys sought cloth mother for comfort.
• none developed normally.

Determinants of Attachment

• Mothers and fathers who are abusive, neglectful, or simply uncomfortable are more likely to have insecurely attached children.
• Other variables matter too:
• Child's temperament
• Family environment (change, illness, etc.)

Determinants of Attachment

• Genie
• Learned to speak, but didn't progress beyond 4-5 year old; semantic development outpaced syntactic development.
• Had several unsuccessful stays in foster homes.
• Great difficulty forming relationships with other people.
• Now lives in a home for the mentally retarded.

Summary

• Moral development depends on the development of the cognitive capacities to evaluate complex moral issues; the moral emotions of empathy, shame, & guilt; and the capacity to behave in a moral manner, which is influenced heavily by parenting styles and societal expectations.
• Personality development is a life-long process, and according to Erikson's theory, involves meeting various challenges. How these challenges are resolved determines a major feature of personality.

More Summary

• Gender development is influenced by biological and by social factors. Gender-typical behavior is situation and age dependent.
• A major determinant of interpersonal develop-ment is attachment. People who fail to develop normal attachment early in life can have great difficulty forming relationships with others.