Social Development

Mechanisms of development
Maturation it is the process of genetic maturation. gradual development of forms of behavior which emerge as the child becomes physically mature enough for that behavior to be triggered. e.g., walking, Conditioning
Genetic predispositions towards certain kinds of behavior. Basic forms of learning Classical and operant conditioning

Social learning mechanism

Imitation Learn by copying other peoples behavior. Known as vicarious reinforcement Refers to tendency to repeat behaviours that we see others rewarded for performing (for example, copying the aggression of a player who is rewarded for that aggression by winning a match and gaining public compliments. Identification Conerns with general styles of behavior. It guides our behavior Make comparisons between themselves and other people. Identify people who are important and then behave accordingly similarly with social groups as well.

Metacognition and social cognition

Concerns how children think about learning. Learn how memory works What they can do or cant do. Social reinforcement is important to learn how to interact socially. Social cognition refers to learn to adjust behavior according to social norms and values. Base of conformity and obedience Self-efficacy Self-fulfilling prophecy

Achievement Motivation
nAch need to achieve Arising from three elements motive strength, expectancy and incentive Sources of high expectations A realistic analysis The self-efficacy beliefs The standards Approach-avoidant conflict Effort and attribution E.g., if children attribute failure to lack of effort then they will put more effort to get succeed.

Achievement Motivation
Learning and Performance goals Bandura and Dweck study Two groups of children. First group believed that intelligence will increase thru effort. They have learning goals, aim to do better at any task. Second group believed that intelligence is a stable thing cant change. They have performance goals, judge a task as being valuable or not. thus thru the process of learning and effort one can achieve success. Childs cognitive appraisal and beliefs about the situation is also important which helps the child to identify the goal.

Play
What is play? a range of voluntary, intrinsically motivated activities normally associated with pleasure and enjoyment. Stages of play First is the sensory and motor apparatus Also developing of the skills by tracking the things, catching things, etc. Secondly development of physical skills Artistic or Aesthetic described by Spencer reveals that child may engage in modeling, drawing, or building towers with similar activities. After that child passes on to a higher level of co-ordinated play such as structured games with rules Fourth is Mimicry

Piagets model of play

Stages of cognitive development Sensorimotor stage: child engages in mastery play-: to gain control of its environment thru sensations. Coordination of muscles and actions In preoperational stage, child engage in symbolic play such as make believe and pretend games. Concrete operational stage, child engage in rulebound play. Construct and generate enjoyable activities

Categories of social play

Solitary play Onlooker play Parallel play Associative play Cooperative play. Distinctive features of play Intrinsically motivated Child pay attention to the means rather than the ends of the behavior e.g., if a child is conducting a dolls tea party, focus on the arrangement, setting out cups and saucers etc. Focus on the manipulation of the objects Pretend their behaviours called non-literal behaviors

Theories of play
Play as surplus energy by Spencer Play resulted from the extra energy being produced by organism As nervous tissues and cells are repaired they revitalize the organism, and generating energy. Once the survival needs have been met, remaining energy is used in play. Phylogenetic scale (animals which are closer to human beings) Criticism Hydraulic energy model refers that surpuls energy assumes that there is a kind of tank of energy which is filled up or overflowed in the young child. Children will play to exhaustion,Draining off the energy, A circular argument

Play as relaxation
Patrick suggested that play serves as a restorative function for both child or adults. Allow us to gather our energies Give relief from fatigue by doing hunting, fishing Usage of rattles, drums, and horns reveals the primitive nature of human such as evolutionarily familiar activities Criticisms Inadequate explanation of physical work play Cant explain why modern children often spend much time on computer games.

Play as practice
Known as practice theory by Groos in 1901 Serves a purpose by allowing children to practice the kinds of skills which they will need in later life. During play children preferred the processes of behavior than in the products such as encourages the development of skills. Distinguish two different types of play Experimental and socioeconomic play Critism Need of implicit knowledge that which skill is needed.

Modern theories of play

Play as the expression of underlying conflicts Based on psychodynamic approach (Melanie Klein and Anna Freud) focused on the resolution of the psychological conflicts such as the oedipal conflict, Play therapy based on this model which helps in dealing with highly disturbed children. Case of a Dibs who was able to resolve his conflicts by acting the roles of his family members through playing with dolls. This theory allow the therapist to gain insight into the problems of child.

Language
Skinners theory of language acquisition Language was an acquired skill thru the process of operant conditioning. Infants start babbling first, then produce phoneme. A phoneme is a basic unit of sound Skinner suggested that parents encourage the child when he produces similar sounds thru similing, or giving additional attention. Production of sounds become the production of words thru a behavior-shaping process. Combination of phonemes called morphemes E.g., muh-muh muh sound with an uh sound

Chomskys theory of language acquisition

Chomsky argued that skinners approach to language was inadequate Skinner argued that children learn entirely thru trail and error, but chomsky suggested that children acquire language very quickly and abt two years able to use extensive vocabulary. He proposed the LANGUAGE ACQUISITION DEVICE (LAD). Inherited mechanism Allows the child to decode the spoken langauge Language only differ on the surface referred as Surface structure and the apparent rules and grammar are same. Deep structure of language is same. Child only extract key distinctions, identifying significant words and use in a language and avoid idiosyncratic rules of grammar.

Chomskys theory of language acquisition

Transformational grammar Refer as a complex grammatical system for extracting the deep structure from utterances Problems with chomskys model Have little systematic approach to explain the logic of deep structure. As this rule apply on Indo-European languages Simple exposure to spoken language is not enough. Child needs to be taught. Lenneberg took up Chomskys idea that language acquisition has biological basis as well He focused on the critical period. Critical period refers to a genetically determined time during development when a particular form of learning ust take place if it is ever to be learned at all. e.g., young children learn language quickly than adults Criticism : case of Genie

Social interaction and language acquisition

Children learn language from their parents or any other adult interaction Thus language is taught by the adults Like parents often introduce the child to new E.g what is this? Its a cow. Language can be made easy for the children by vocalizing soft sounds e.g., say wabbit as oppose to rabbit mum instead of water. Children acquire language without being taught is not valid. E.g., study of a child born to deaf parents who learn language from the therapist at age four. Inherited predisposition of language, it isn't entirely learned as the child promptly learn language at age four.