The Development of Self, Gender and Morality

CHAPTER 10: Becoming
Who We Are -The Development

of Self, Gender, and Morality
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Copyright © 2005 Allyn & Bacon 1

THE DEVELOPMENT OF SELF:
What Is Self?
 Based on work of William James (1890), two
basic aspects of self distinguished:
I-self, or awareness of separate existence
Me-self, or what you know about yourself
 Self-evaluation: judgments a person makes
about his own characteristics; self-opinion
 Opinions about self form basis of self-esteem,
or the emotions one feels toward the self
What Is Self?
 Self-evaluations may be quite different
depending on domain
 Younger children distinguish fewer domains
 From infancy, children construct working
model of self
 Model changes as children have more
experiences and interact with more people

What Is Self?
 I-self and me-self are cognitive constructions
that become increasingly complex with
advancing cognitive skills
 No innate sense of self; social interaction
important to develop one
 Biology influences in that temperament has
important influence on self-representation

Changes in Self-Representation
 During first few months of life, baby develops
an understanding that she is individual with
unique physical sensations and emotions
 Cross-modal perception helps infants become
aware of physical self and understand that
emotions distinct from others

 Personal agency: realization that actions have
effect on environment; enhanced by response
of caregivers
 Consistent interactions form basis for sense of
self-efficacy

 Between first and
second year, me-self
emerges as indicated
by rouge test
 Most show self-
recognition by 21
months

 Development of me-self reflected in language
 Young child’s self-concept tied to concrete
behavior
 Self-descriptions become increasingly
abstract with age
 Older children increasingly realistic in their
assessments of abilities

 Three factors influence changes in
self-representation:
1. Overall cognitive development
2. Language, especially personal narratives
3. Social comparisons

 Erikson believed issue of identity
development primary during adolescence
 Fueled by abstract thought, comparison of
“real” with “ideal,” and role-taking
 Task is to integrate many aspects of self-
representation into coherent sense of identity
 Marcia (1966) proposed two aspects of task:
the crisis and commitment
IDENTITY STATUSES IN ADOLESCENCE

 Some adolescents have additional task of
developing ethnic identity
 Begins in middle childhood, develops fully in
adolescence
 Phinney (1990) proposed three stages similar
to Marcia’s identity statuses: unexamined
ethnic identity, ethnic identity search,
resolution of conflict
 Important to remember that there are multiple
aspects to identity; adolescent may reach
commitment in some areas before others
 Culture plays important role
 Relationship with parents also key -
supportive accepting approach that provides
reasonable expectations and limits best

Evaluating the Self
 Global self-evaluation formed about 7 years
of age
 Self-evaluations become increasingly
differentiated
 Each domain evaluated independently,
resulting in profile of strengths/weaknesses

Evaluating the Self
 Self-evaluations typically become more
negative at about 11 or 12 years of age
 Biological, cognitive, social factors important
 Self-evaluations typically show gradual
increases in later adolescence

Evaluating the Self - Influences
 Basis for self-evaluation begins in infancy
with quality of caregiving received
 Second factor is comparison of real self with
ideal self - discrepancies in important
domains and degree of received social support
 Perceived physical appearance most highly
correlated with overall self-esteem

Evaluating the Self - Consequences
 Self-evaluation and perceived competencies
have direct impact on choice of activities and
persistence on difficult activities
 Strong relationship between self-evaluations
and depression ( r between .72 and .80), but
direction of relationship unclear

Self-Regulation
 Self-regulation: ability to control own
behavior, emotions, and thoughts and to alter
them in accordance with situational demands
 Includes ability to inhibit first responses, to
resist interferences, and to persist
 Various aspects of self-regulation associated
with number of positive outcomes

Self-Regulation
 Ability to inhibit shows steady improvement
from ages 3 to 7
 Older children and adolescents increasingly
able to self-regulate behavior, emotions,
problem-solving strategies
 Also affected by context, such as type of
self-regulation requested by task

SELF-REGULATION BY AGE

Self-Regulation - Influences
 Aspects of temperament related to
self-regulation
 Maturation of brain areas such as frontal lobes
related to inhibition
 Modeling of other’s behavior important
 Role of private speech
 Parenting style affects how well and how
quickly self-regulatory skills develop
THE DEVELOPMENT OF GENDER
 Gender role: cognitive understanding of what
it means to be male or female
 Gender concept: degree of understanding
that sex is a permanent unmodifiable feature
 Sex-typed behavior: behavior that matches
gender-role expectations of culture

THE DEVELOPMENT OF GENDER:
In What Ways Do Genders Differ?
 In most areas, similarities far outweigh
differences
 Girls demonstrate better performance in some
verbal skills, though some differences get
smaller by adolescence
 Some spatial skills (e.g., mental rotation)
superior in males by late childhood, increase
in size through adolescence
In What Ways Do Genders Differ?
 Girls earn higher grades in mathematics early
 By adolescence, boys excel in math problem solving
 Boys more likely to engage in rough play and to
explore; show higher levels of physical aggression
and assertiveness
 Girls show less exploration, perform better on tasks
involving flexibility and fine-motor coordination
 Differences in expression of emotions, particularly
negative ones, noted by adolescence
Gender Concept and Sex-Typed Behavior
 Children begin to show gender-stereotyped
preferences even before understand own sex
 Early gender stereotypes quite rigid, become
more flexible after age 8, intensify again
during adolescence

 Majority of children experience feelings of
sexual attraction by late childhood or early
adolescence
 Sexual orientation refers to object of one’s
sexual attraction
 Some differences can be seen in childhood
 Interaction of genetics, biology, environment

 In 1970s researchers
reconceptualized
masculinity and
femininity as two
separate dimensions
 Androgyny refers to
being strong on both
dimensions,
undifferentiated to
being strong on neither
Theories of Gender Development
 Freud’s theory predicted that children would
not show sex-typing before ages 4 or 5, but
studies show preferences begin much earlier
 Biological theories emphasize genetic basis
and importance of hormones
 Gender differences in brain lateralization

Theories of Gender Development
 Social learning approach emphasizes direct
reinforcement of sex-typed behavior and
observational learning by child
 Based on Piaget, Kohlberg’s cognitive
developmental theory proposes that gender-
related behavior is a cognitive category;
development of gender identity, gender
stability, gender constancy
 Recent approach: gender schema theory
MORAL DEVELOPMENT:
Moral Reasoning
 Refers to cognitive aspects of morality, or
ways in which children and adults think about
right and wrong
 Depends on level of cognitive development,
perspective taking, degree of cognitive
disequilibrium

MORAL DEVELOPMENT:
Moral Reasoning
 Lawrence Kohlberg studied moral reasoning through
responses to moral dilemmas
 Theorized three levels of reasoning divided into two
stages each: preconventional level, conventional
level, postconventional level
 Several aspects of Kohlberg’s theory well supported
by research
 Critics question cross-cultural differences,
consistency, validity of model for women
RESULTS OF TWENTY-YEAR LONGITUDINAL STUDY OF
KOHLBERG’S ORIGINAL SAMPLE

MORAL DEVELOPMENT:
Guilt and Empathy
 Some theorists focus on moral affect, or how
emotions are involved in morality
 Parenting based on punishment associated
with lower levels of moral behavior
 Inductive parenting encourages development
of empathy and sympathy
 Empathy involves cognitive development

MORAL DEVELOPMENT:
Moral Behavior - Altruism and Aggression
 Social learning theorists such as Bandura argue that
moral and immoral behavior learned through operant
conditioning and modeling
 Altruism is prosocial behavior which is self-chosen
and internally guided
 Sharing and attempts to help seen as early as one
year of age
 Aspects of context and child affect prosocial
behaviors such as sharing and cooperation
MORAL DEVELOPMENT:
 Aggression: behavior intended to harm people or
property
 May be instrumental, hostile, or relational
 Common during childhood years, typically during
conflicts over possessions
 Physical aggression decreases by age 5 while verbal
aggression increases
 Instrumental aggression decreases while hostile
aggression increases from 4 to 7 years
GENDER PATTERNS OF AGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOR

MORAL DEVELOPMENT:
 In general, boys more physically aggressive
from an early age, but girls more likely to
show relational aggression
 In adolescence, patterns harder to characterize
 Hostile and openly aggressive behavior
reaches highest levels between ages 13 and 15
and then decreases, while other forms of
aggression continue
STABILITY OF AGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOR

MORAL DEVELOPMENT:
 Family environment plays key role, especially
in coercive home environment
 Way of thinking about social situations also
affects likelihood of aggressive behavior
 Effects of cultural conditions and poverty

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CHAPTER 10: Becoming

Who We Are -The Development

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