Developmental Psychology

o Industry vs Inferiority, Psychosocial Development Stage o Occurs between ages 6 and 11 years of age o Children begin doing things such as school work and artwork. Children begin feeling as if they are industrious o If encouraged by caregivers, there will be continual feelings of industrious o If dismissed by caregivers, the child may feel inferior o Inferiority complexes are possible during this stage During the middle childhood stage, self-esteem will continue to develop, and children will become evenmore introspective. During development, especially when it comes to self-esteem, children learn how to control their reactions, and will attempt to be more self-regulated. There are external factors that may affect the further development of self-esteem. Some examples of the external factors are socioeconomic status, origin country, immigrant status and even family dynamics are a factor. One of the most underestimated factors of self-esteem is peers. When children are bullied, teased, etc., naturally their self-esteem will be decreased. Parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and other family members can certainly help with an individual’s self-esteem. The structure of a family does not matter, as long as there is little conflict, and a high level of support at home can help immensely during the development of a child’s self-esteem. 6.7 Difficulties of Adjustments While a child goes through the middle childhood, there are bound to be many adjustments that a child has to experience. Some examples of periods of adjustment are moving to a new town, a new school year, changes in family dynamics such as divorce, etc. There are also aggressive behaviors that come with periods of adjustment. Males do seem to be more aggressive than females, when it comes to physical aggression. Female children will usually mimic emotional manipulations that they experienced or observed. Male children tend to have a physical aggression after observation. It was Freud that proposed the Frustration-Aggression Hypothesis , which says that when someone attempts to obtain a goal, and it is blocked, there will naturally be frustration. Social Learning Theory was proposed by Alfred Bandura. This differs from the behavioral theories that the social learning theory emphasizes, especially when it comes to the cognitive process of learning experiences. Aggression, according to the Social Learning Theory is learned through observation. Remember the Bobo Doll Experiment that was mentioned in earlier chapters? Let’s take a look back at this experiment. The Bobo Doll Experiment allowed 2 different groups of children to watch videos of other children playing with a bobo doll. The children who had watched the video with the children who were violent towards the doll and did not get punished then exhibited the same behavior when it was their turn to play with the dolls. The children who viewed the video of children being violent with the doll and actually getting punished for being violent with the doll ended up being reserved and did not want to be aggressive towards the doll.

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