CONCEPT I:Perspectives on Social and Personality Development

Social development refers to how a person's interactions and relationships with others change as that person grows older. Personality development is the emergence of distinctive styles of thought, feeling, and behavior which make each human being unique.

Freud believed that the adult personality and social relations can be understood by knowing how sexual and aggressive urges were managed during childhood. Erik Erikson, who focused less on sexual urges and more on social settings, has proposed a series of eight stages of psychosocial development. Each of these life stages involves the resolution of a particular challenge. How a person resolves the challenges determines the development of the personality. Social learning theorists view social and personality development as a consequence of modeled behaviors combined with rewards and punishments. The cognitive development perspective focuses upon a person's level of thinking and habitual ways of responding. The biological perspective focuses upon the influence of biological and inherited characteristics and their influence on development.

CONCEPT II: Social and Personality Development in Infancy

The infant acquires social competence, the ability to interact with others in a reciprocal fashion, through development guided by inherent tendencies. Infants reinforce adult attention with looking, cooing, and the social smile, which is triggered by the sight of a human face and which develops at a week of age.

Temperament (relatively stable behavioral disposition) forms the basis of interaction between parent and infant. Parents influence the child's temperament through their responses, and the child's basic temperament influences the parents' behavior. This interaction is called bi-directional influence. Both social competence and temperament show how biological tendencies are modified by experience. Reaction range refers to the range of possibilities within which hereditary tendencies can vary due to environmental influences.

Early in development a baby will form an attachment (or emotional bond) to its principal caregivers. Harlow used newborn monkeys separated at birth from their mothers to demonstrate that need satisfaction alone was not enough to cause the development of attachment. Indeed, when placed in a cage with a wire milk-giving surrogate (mother substitute) and a terrycloth non-milk-giving surrogate, the baby monkeys showed attachment preferences for the terrycloth surrogate.

Children form attachments at about the same age to both parents. The quality of the attachment is influenced by parental behavior. Secure attachments, which lead to good adjustment in later life, are the result of prompt and consistent attention to the child's needs. Anxious attachment results when the caregiver is slow and ineffective in responding to the child's needs. Anxious attachments can result from a number of interacting factors including the child's temperament, the parents' personalities, and the amount of stress in the family. Insecurely attached children tend to have mothers who score low on measures of emotional stability/maturity and empathy toward others, who experience a decline in marital satisfaction following the birth of their child, who view their child as becoming more difficult with age, and who view their social environment as unfriendly and unsupportive.

The importance of attachment has raised questions concerning day care and the frequency of repeated separation of infant and parent. Research is showing that good-quality day care does not disrupt normal attachment and later development; poor-quality day care can. Generally, placement in poor-quality day care can lead to behaviors like avoidance of the mother in stressful situations and later anxiety and hostility. Two factors seem especially important in the quality of day care: good day care should include active involvement of the caregiver with the children, and care should be consistent so that children can come to feel comfortable with a familiar care provider.

CONCEPT III: Social and Personality Development in Childhood

By the time a child is two years old, he or she has begun to develop a sense of self. The parental role now changes from caregiver to teacher and disciplinarian. Baumrind has identified three basic parenting styles. Authoritative parents are nurturant and responsive but set firm limits. Their children are energetic, emotionally positive, curious, self-reliant, and self-controlled. Authoritarian parents are unresponsive, inflexible, and harsh. Their children are moody, apprehensive, passively hostile, and either negative in social relations or socially withdrawn. Permissive parents are nurturant but fail to set limits or require appropriate behavior. Their children are impulsive, under-controlled, low in self-reliance, but cheerful and somewhat resilient.

About 2 million cases of child abuse are reported in this country every year, and many more go unreported. Abused children are at risk for insecure attachments, blunted emotions, low self-esteem, depression, heightened aggressiveness, suicide, and drug addiction, among other negative consequences. People who abuse their children tend to be ambivalent about being a parent, to have high stress in their lives, to have been abused themselves as children, and to be socially isolated.

About half of all babies born in the U.S. today will spend at least some of their childhood in a one-parent home. Children who have more difficulty coping with divorce are usually those who experience more stress and turmoil. Also children with difficult temperaments tend to be more vulnerable, as are those with low self-esteem, overdependence, and a tendency to blame themselves.

Studies of identical and fraternal twins are demonstrating that personality is somewhat determined by hereditary factors. According to one study, heredity may explain as much as 50 percent of the variability in personality traits, especially in sociability, emotionalism, and general activity level. Environment influences personality development as well, but the effects of family life seem to be experienced differently by each child in a family, both because parents treat different children differently and because different children respond differently to the same treatment.

Gender roles are patterns of behavior that are either masculine or feminine. Some gender role differences are present at a very early age, indicating a possible biological basis. For example, newborn boys are more active than newborn girls, and male toddlers tend to cry more and sleep less than girls of the same age. Sex hormone differences may predispose males to behave more aggressively than females in certain situations. Biological differences, however, interact with environmental factors. The importance of learning is clearly seen in cross-cultural comparisons, which identify widely varying gender roles that exist in different cultures.

According to Freud, gender roles develop as a result of the Oedipus conflict which occurs between the ages of three and six. At this age, children see themselves as rivals of the same-sex parent for the affection of the opposite-sex parent. Anxiety develops from the ensuing conflict, and eventually the child identifies with (assumes the gender role of) the same-sex parent. Identification is an important part of gender role acquisition.

Social learning theorists reject the notion of the Oedipus conflict and believe that gender role acquisition is a gradual learning process shaped by parents and society. This theory rests on the assumption that parents treat their male and female children differently, an assumption supported by research. It is also quite possible that parents interpret the same behavior differently, depending on whether it is displayed by a son or a daughter.

Cognitive development theorists believe that once a child recognizes himself as male or herself as female, the child will automatically be motivated to imitate behaviors observed in members of the same sex. In one study, children who could distinguish gender in pictures of males and females were more likely to choose same-sex playmates. Cognitive psychologists argue that sex-typed behavior and modeling becomes more pronounced as the understanding of gender matures.

Parents typically attempt to teach their child society's rules and values in a process called socialization. The basic goal of socialization is internalization, incorporation of society's values into the self-concept so that violations produce feelings of guilt.

Moral development involves learning the rules of conduct by which people judge their own and others' behavior. Freud believed a child's moral code is established during the resolution of the Oedipus conflict through which the child develops a superego, or conscience. Research, however, indicates that moral development is a more gradual process than Freud's theory would suggest.

Social learning theorists view moral development as a product of reinforcement and punishment patterns. Research shows that children often imitate both generous and aggressive behavior they see in adults and that power-assertive techniques of punishment tend to be associated with low levels of moral development and that reasoning with children appears to be associated with high levels.

The cognitive development view proposes that a child goes through stages of moral development. Kohlberg has formulated a theory based on subjects' responses when faced with a moral dilemma. His theory specifies three general levels of moral development: the preconventional stage (motivated by fear of punishment), the conventional stage (motivated by desire to win the approval of others), and the postconventional stage (motivated by recognition of universal ethical principles). Adults tend to be more advanced in their moral reasoning than children, but few adults function at the postconventional level. Maturity in moral stages coincides with the maturing cognitive ability to take the perspective of another. The more advanced stages of moral development relate to the ability to take a broader view. Kohlberg's theory has been criticized because it does not always predict moral behavior and because it does not consider cultural or sex-related differences in values. Furthermore, abstract abilities to reason morally do not necessarily dictate actual behavior.

CONCEPT IV: Social and Personality Development in Adolescence

The period of adolescence is marked by the onset on puberty, the period of sexual maturation. Primary sexual characteristics, those characteristics directly related to reproduction, emerge as the sex organs develop. As an example, menarche, the menstrual cycle, begins in females. Secondary sexual characteristics, such as facial hair in males and breasts in females, also appear.

Males who mature early have a psychological advantage because they can excel in masculine activities like athletics due to increased strength. Early maturation for females tends to be less of an advantage and may cause considerable stress.

The major concern of adolescence is to establish an independent identity; they must establish themselves as separate from their parents. Erikson states that adolescents must establish a sense of personal continuity by trying out different roles before they can resolve the adolescent "identity crisis." Some—but not all—adolescents have a difficult time achieving this goal. Adolescence is also a time when intimacy with others develops, first with same-sex peers and later with members of the opposite sex. Sexual activity is significant for adolescents, particularly since peers become very important during this stage. A nationwide survey reported that 61 percent of boys and 53 percent of girls had experienced sexual intercourse by age 17. Even though peers become very important sources of influence during adolescence, parental influence remains fairly high, especially with regard to basic values.

CONCEPT V: Social and Personality Development in Adulthood

Some psychologists, such as Freud, believe that personality development ceases in adulthood. However, recent research has indicated that an individual's outlook continues to change as he or she passes through adulthood. Early adulthood is typically a period of action, in which commitments are made and responsibilities assumed. This period today poses special challenges to women, since their roles in our society are undergoing marked change. Around age thirty, a crisis often develops in which the person questions the future direction of his or her life.

After the turmoil has subsided, the next stage of adulthood is characterized as an extremely productive period. At about age forty, the midlife transition begins. In this crisis, people question past accomplishments and outline future goals. Upon resolution of this crisis, middle adulthood emerges. It is characterized by stability, increased importance of personal relationships, and the awareness that life is finite.

Even though stage theories suggest that adults experience common milestones, people's lives do unfold in unique and different ways.

Effective coping with changes in late adulthood and satisfaction with life have been related to several factors. Satisfaction at the age of thirty with job choice, spouse, and health, among other factors, is related to satisfaction at age seventy. Involvement in rewarding activities in old age seems to improve satisfaction and coping ability.