Ethological theory - Unisa Study Notes



HYPERLINK "" Biological perspective?Biological perspectiveAccording to biological perspective behaviour is determined by biological factors.Biological perspective emphasises the role of heredity, the nervous system and the endocrine system in behaviour.The maturational theory. According to this theory child development reflects a specific and prearranged scheme or plan within the body.In Gesell's view development is simply a natural unfolding of a biological plan,?experience matters littleAccording to Gesell, behaviours as speech, play and reasoning emerge spontaneously according to predetermined development timetable, without the influence from environment such as parents.Ethological theoryThis theory views development from an evolutionary perspective and contends that many behaviours tend to be adaptive, they have survival value.Ethological theorists assume that people inherit many of these adaptive behaviours.In contrast to maturationists, ethologists believe that all animals are biological programmed so that some kinds of learning occur only certain stages called critical periods.A critical period is the stage in development when a specific type of learning?take place before or after the critical period, the same learning is difficult or even impossible.? HYPERLINK "" Psychodynamic perspective?Psychodynamic PerspectiveThe psychodynamic perspective explores the influence of unconscious psychological motives, such as drives or urges on behaviour.Its roots are traced back to the best known of Sigmund Freud.Sigmund Freud and Erik Erikson are best known in this regard.Freud's psychodynamic theoryFreud created the first psychodynamic theory, called psychoanalysis, which hold that development is determined by how well people resolve the unconscious conflicts that they face at different ages.The central theme of Freud's theory is that behaviour is the wishes, desires and feelings that people are unaware of unconscious thoughts.According to Freud's theory people have three types of primitive unconscious instincts.Id refers to innate biological impulse and urges.Id is present at birth and demands immediate gratification of bodily needs and wants.Example a hungry baby crying illustrates the I'd in action.Ego refers to the executive part of the self that regulates the expression of theI'd instinctual energy.Ego begins?to emerge during the first year of life, ssh infants that they cannot always have what they want.Ego act as a mediator between I'd and superego.Ego directs power by linking the desires of the id to external reality.Ego is guided by the reality principle that delays action until the activity is practical appropriate.Superego is the moral agent in the child personality.It emerges during the preschool years as children begin to internalise adult standard of right and wrong.Freud also proposed the series of psychosocial stages through which a child moves in a fixed sequence determined by maturation.In each stage, the focus is on a different part of the body called the erogenous zone, which are dominated by sexual instincts.Permitting either too much or too little gratification of these urges, problems may result, which Freud called fixation.Erikson's psychosocial theoryErikson's psychosocial theory, development consist of a sequence of stages, each defined by a unique crisis or challenge.The complete theory includes the eight stages.Erikson also argued that the earlier stages of psychosocial development provide the foundation for later stages.The psychodynamic perspective emphasises that the journey to adulthood is difficult because the path is strewn obstacles.?Erikson?THE PSYCHODYNAMIC PERSPECTIVEErikson’s psychosocial theoryErikson departed from Freudian theory in emphasizing societal, rather than chiefly biological influences on personality.Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development covers eight stages across the life span.Each stage requires the balancing of a positive trait and a corresponding negative one.The successful outcome of each stage is the development of a particular virtue or strength.Erikson’s theory is important because of its emphasis on social and cultural influences and on development beyond adolescence.THE LEARNING THEORY PERSPECTIVESocial cognitive theoryAccording to social learning theory, children learn by imitating the behaviour of adult models.According to this theory, imitation of models is the most important element in how children learn a language, deal with aggression, develop a moral sense and learn gender-appropriate behaviours.The observational learning can occur even if the child does not imitate the observed behaviour.Bandura increases emphasis cognitive processes as central to development.THE COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENTAL PERSPECTIVECognitive perspective focuses on thought processes and the behaviour that reflects those processes.Piaget’s theory of cognitive developmentPiaget suggested that cognitive development begins with an inborn ability to adapt to the environment.Piaget described cognitive development as occurring in four qualitatively different stages which represent universal patterns of development.At each stage a child’s mind develops a new way of operating.From infancy through adolescence, mental operations evolve from learning based on simple sensory and motor activity to logical, abstract thought. This cognitive growth occurs through three interrelated processes: Organization, adaptation and anization?is the tendency to create increasingly complex cognitive structures.Systems of knowledge or ways of thinking that incorporate more and more accurate images of reality. These structures are called?Scheme.As children acquire more information, their schemes become more and more complex, e.g a new born infant has a simple scheme for sucking but soon develops varied schemes for how to suck at the breast, a bottle or a thumbAdaptation?is how children handle new information in light of what they already know.Adaptation involves two steps:- ?Assimilation?is taking in new information and incorporating it into existing cognitive structures- Accommodation, modifying ones cognitive structures to include the new informationEquilibration?– a constant striving for a stable balance or equilibrium dictates the shift from assimilation to accommodation. When children cannot handle new experiences within their existing cognitive structures, they experience an uncomfortable state of disequilibrium.?Prenatal Development? Prenatal developmentPrenatal development refers to the process in which a baby develops from a single cell after conception into an embryo and later a foetus.The process of prenatal development occurs in?three main stages.The first?two weeks after conception are known as the?germinal stage; the third through eighth week are known as the?embryonic?period?and the time from the ninth week until birth is known as the?fetal period.Environmental influencesNormal development may be disrupted by early environmental influences; individual that survive have to cope with the damaging consequences.Because the prenatal environment is the mother's body, virtually everything that affects her well-being, from her?diet to her moods, may alter her unborn child's and influences its growth.Nutrition and Maternal Weight- Pregnant women typically need 300 to 500 additional calories a day, including extra protein.- Women of normal weight who gain 25 to 35 pounds are less likely to have birth complications or to bear babies whose weight at birth is dangerously low.- Either overweight or underweight can be risky.??Malnutrition- Prenatal malnutrition may have long-range effects.- Children whose mothers had low vitamin D levels late in pregnancy had low bone mineral content at age 9, potentially increasing their of osteoporosis in later life.- Malnourished women who take dietary supplements while pregnant tend to have bigger, healthier, and more active and more visually alert infants.The use of medication and drugs- Practically everything an expectant mother takes in makes its way to the uterus.- Drugs may cross the placenta just as oxygen, carbon dioxide and water do.- Vulnerability is greatest in the first few months of gestation, when development is most rapid.- Some problems resulting from prenatal exposure to drugs can be treated if the presence of a drug can be detected early. HYPERLINK "" Neonatal phase and Infancy?NEONATAL PHASEThe neonatal phase refers to the period between birth and when the baby is four weeks old.New research has shown that development during the neonatal phase is more advanced than was initially thought and also far more significant from a psychological point of view.The new-born child is physically speaking not very attractive.The bodily proportions of the new-born are markedly different from those of an adult.PERCEPTIONVision. The neonatal is equipped with a functional and complete vision systemNew-born babies already blink their eyes in bright light and most will follow a moving light, however the visual is not yet fully developed.The muscles that control the eye lenses are still underdeveloped, with result that the eye are not able to focus on objects at differing distances.The neonate can distinguish between her mother’s face and that of a stranger as early as two weeks and in some cases even within the first week after birth.Hearing. During the first two weeks the auditory canal is still filled with amniotic fluid.Until this fluid has evaporates or been absorbed gradually the sound are relatively faint to the baby.A major aural adjustment takes place because during the prenatal stage, sound was conducted through water and after birth it is conducted through air.Smell. New- born do not only perceive smells often stimulate sucking motions in babies while unpleasant smells cause babies to distort their faces and turn their heads away.Neonates can distinguish their mother’s breast from another woman’s breast by smell.Taste. Neonates’ sense of taste is not very sensitive however they can distinguish various strong flavours.Neonates and infants can detect tastes from their mother’s milk which might familiarise them with the common foods in their families.Pain.?Historically it was though that neonates have insufficient neurological development to experience painSLEEPING AND DREAMINGNeonatal sleep between 17 and 20 hours a day.They are awake and quiet for two to three hours every day, awake and active for one or two hours and cry, fidget for the rest of the time that they are awake, anything from one to four hours.Researchers have begun to show increasing interest in the sleeping dream cycle of neonates.REM sleep is associated with dreaming and is detected by means of the electroencephalograph (EGG).Neonates spend about half of their sleeping time in REM sleep.Feeding?FEEDINGFeeding time vary from neonate to neonate, the frequency can vary from 8 to 4 times a day and the intervals from 1half to 5 hours.There are advantages for breast-feeding:The antibodies in breast milk provide the baby with vital protection against a variety of diseases such as intestinal, respiratory illnesses and allergic reactions.The nutrients in mother’s milk stimulate brain growth and myelination of the axons of neurons, while the cow’s milk primarily stimulates muscle growth.Breast milk is more easily digested by the baby.Breast-fed infants gain less weight.Sucking the mother’s nipple instead of an artificial nipple helps to avoid malocclusion.Malocclusion is a condition in which the upper and lower jaws do not meet properly.It also protects against tooth decay due to sweet liquid remaining in the mouths of infants who fall asleep while sucking on a bottle.The iron contained in breast milk is much more easily absorbed by the baby’s system.Breast-fed infants accept new solid food more easily than bottle-fed infants because of their greater experience with a variety of flavours which pass from the maternal diet into the mother’s milk.Breast milk is sterile and available at the correct temperature.It is also more economical than bottle-feeding.Breast-feeding is recommended for up to six months of age.INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCESEvery person is unique.These individual differences ca be observed during the prenatal phase.Neonates differ in muscle tone, the speed at which they move their limbs, the way in which they approach the nipple and suck, their sensitivity to light, sound, touch, their irritability, sleeping patterns and manner of crying.INFANCYInfancy is a critical and dangerous as well as a challenging stage.It is critical because the foundation for various behavioural patterns is laid during this period.It is dangerous because fatal accidents often occur as a result of the baby’s inability to foresee the possible consequences of his or her behaviour.It is challenging because of the increasing drive towards independence.COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENTIn two years infants progress from reflexive responding such as grasping objects because they are in their reach or visually or auditory stimulation to actively using objects in a constructive way e.g building a tower.They increasingly understand objects and start using symbols such as words and gestures.Piaget’s view of the first two yearsPiaget has made the greatest contribution to our knowledge of infant cognition.Piaget divides the cognitive development of children into four stages.The sensorimotor stageSensorimotor refers to infants who obtain their information through sensory input and motor activities.This means that infants gradually develop the ability to coordinate information e.g seeing something and reaching out to touch it.According to Piaget early cognitive development largely occurs through circular reaction.During circular reaction an infant learns to repeat pleasurable or interesting situation that were discovered by chance previously.Cognitive skills in the sensorimotor stageIt is important to note that?object permanence?develop during the sensorimotor stage.Object permanence refers to the understanding that object continue to exist when they cannot be seen anymore.According to Piaget this development is acquired gradually during the sensorimotor stage.Another major achievement during the sensorimotor sub stage 4 is the development of imitation.Imitation is the ability to copy somebody else’s behaviour.Imitation enables infants to add significantly to their repertoire of behaviour.They are now able to form mental image of something they perceive e.g. they will imitate facial expression of their mothers.A more developed form of imitation that develops during sub stage 6 is?deferred imitation.Deferred imitation refers to infants’ ability to imitate behaviour after they have been exposed to it.According to Piaget deferred imitation develops from the infants increasing ability to form a mental picture of the behaviour performed by the other persons.Cognitive Development?EVALUATING PIAGET'S VIEWPOINTResearchers agree with Piaget's view of the sequence of cognitive development but the most widely accepted criticism against Piaget's theory is that he underestimates the infant's cognitive abilities.- Piaget's sample was too small and thus not representative- He observed only his own three children.- His methods were too simplistic.- Although he was probably an excellent observer, he did not have the innovative research methods and statistical techniques for more reliable measures that are available today.- Measurement of brain activity was not available.- Piaget was correct in his assumption that an increase in brain networks and functions at ages two four and six years and at adolescence and those children are eager RMATION PROCESSING?- Information processing theorists use the computer as a model to demonstrate how information is processed that is through input, memory, programmes, calculation and output.- ? Babies initially use reflexive reactions to elicit a reaction from their environment but as they grow older, they become more goal orientated and would reach for a bottle or their mother.- Information processing theorists are particularly interested in the analysis of complex task.- Information processing researchers use sensitive technology as well as the infant's habituation and visual and auditory processing abilities to explore infants' information-processing capacities.Memory- Memory refers to the acquisition, storing and retrieval of information.- Memory is an important aspect of our daily functioning.- Memory categorised in terms of the time frame in which memories are retained.-?Short-term memory?refers to the temporary storage of immediate information and thus includes the working memory which is involved in aspect such as learning.- The capacity of the short-term memory as well as the duration of memory retention is limited.-?Long term memory?refers to the permanent or semi-permanent storage of episodic, semantic and procedural memory.- Memory is generally tested by recognition or recall.- Memory is clearly a very important aspect of cognition development.- The researcher used innovative operant conditioning techniques by attaching a ribbon from a mobile to an infant's leg.- The infant quickly learned that there is a relation between kicking her leg and making the mobile move.- This resulted in the baby repeatedly kicking her leg in order to make the mobile move.- To assess the infant's?memory capabilities the mobile was removed and then brought back later.- The goal was to determine whether the infant was able to recognise?the mobile and to remember to kick to make it move- Two month-old babies still remember how to make the mobile move after one or two days;?three month-old remember for about a week; and six months old for about two weeks.- Older babies could remember better 18 months old infants could still remember the train task after almost thirteen weeks.- Some researchers found that three day old infants could remember stimuli presented two minutes earlier.- By the age of three to six months they could recognise stimuli after days or even weeks.- The amount of information that babies can retain in their visual recognition memory also increases in the first year.- Older babies prefer more complex stimuli such as those with more lines, part or patterns than younger babies do.- Infants' visual recognition memory seems to be related to various cognitive measures, including IQ scores in the later childhood.?- Babies as young as nine months exhibit recall memory.-During the second year of life, recall memory becomes more stable and longer in duration.LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT- The acquisition of language?is one of the most fascinating and significant development task a child has to master.- The use of?sounds to create words and the arrangement of words into grammatically correct sentences is seemingly done effortlessly.- As far as vocabulary is concerned, babies as young as nine months of age already possess an elementary receptive vocabulary.- The learning of words during the first six months of productive language is relatively slow. HYPERLINK "" Early child development?COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENTCognitive development is a field of study in neuroscience and psychology focusing on a child’s development in terms of information processing, conceptual resources, perceptual skill, language learning and other aspects of brain development.It refers to the development of the ability to think and reason.Piaget’s theory: The preoperational stage.Piaget used the term operation to indicate an action or mental representation carried out through logical thinking.Preoperational thinking refers to logical thinking which implies that they are not yet ready to engage in logical mental operations.The preoperational stage lasts from the stage of two to the age of seven? and is generally subdivided into the symbolic period and the intuitive period.? Advances of preoperational thoughtA major development during this stage involves symbolic or mental representation.Several kinds of representation such as deferred imitation, symbolic play and spoken language are apparent in children.Immature aspects of preoperational thoughtAccording to Piaget the main impediments to logical thinking are perceptual centration, irreversibility, egocentrism, animism and transduction reasoning.Evaluation of Piaget’s viewCurrent research findings do not support Piaget’s portrayal of young children as being as animistic, illogical or egocentric.Studies of children’s emotional development and theory of mind also revealed that many pre-schoolers are able to display empathy and awareness of how other people feel.Researchers have also indicated that children’s number concept and ability to classify develop much earlier than Piaget indicated.Neo-PiagetiansNeo-Piagetians have challenged Piaget’s claim that clearly defined cognitive structures associated with distinct stages play a major role in determining children’s problem-solving abilities.Fischer agrees that cognitive development is an action –based, self-regulating and constructive process, he disagrees that there is a generalised competence or cognitive structure.Fischer also emphasises environmental support, such as a helpful parent in cognitive development.?The child as theoristChildren’s theories are usually called na?ve theories because, unlike real scientific theories, they are not created by specialists and are not evaluated by formal researchers’According to the core knowledge hypothesis children are born with very basic knowledge of the world.??Personality Development?Racial and ethnic identity. Cultural context play an important role in the early development of infant and young children.. It also indicated that children's development is understood best through everyday cultural practice, their interactions and the multiple relationships that develop within their ecological developmental niches. The term race is a socio-political construct and is used to describe observable difference in individuals such as their skin colour or other visible physical differences.. Ethnicity is used to describe one's cultural background which is typically associated with a specific group.Social development. Social development in the pre-school years involves changes in pre-school interaction and relationships with others.. Family relationship continues to play a crucial role but from age two peers become increasingly influential.? Family relationships. Family relationship constitute the most influential factors in early childhood.Siblings relationship. Sibling’s relationship play an important role from parents and peers in socialisation.. The correlation between the quality of sibling relationship and peer relationship also seem to exist.Peer relationships. The development of friendship with peers is one of the important aspect of pre-schooler's social development.? HYPERLINK "" Vygotsky' sociocultural theory?Vygotsky's sociocultural theoryHe criticised Piaget for lack of cultural influences in his theory and made this a central aspect of his own theory.He believed that these forces alone would not take children very far.Children also need the intellectual tools provided by their cultures to develop their kinds fully.Zone of proximal development?It refers to the difference between the level of performance a child may achieve when working independently and the higher level of performance when working under the guidance of more skilled adults.VygotsKy believed that working within a child's zone by giving him or her adult assistance allows him or her to respond to his or her environment in more competent ways and to achieve more than he/she might by him or herself.Language and thought?Vygotsky believed that language ability reflects almost every aspect of the child's thought while Paget suggested that cognitive development comes first which in turn makes language development possible.For Vygotsky language is potent instrument in structuring thought and regulating cognitive behaviour.Therefore thinking would be impossible without language.He emphasised that during early infancy, speech babbling doesn't involve thought and speech.Mechanism of redevelopment.For Vygotsky development follows a dialectical process of thesis, antithesis and synthesis.?The dialectical process often occurs when children interact with adults or peers that are more advance.Evaluation of Vygotsky's theory?He is probably the most important development theories to address the broader socio-historical context of development.His main theoretical contribution is the account of the relation between development and learning.???Middle childhood?Piaget's theory: concrete operational stageDuring the primary school years, children enter a new stage of cognitive development that is distinctly different from the previous stage.- Concrete operation stage spans ages 7 to 11 and signifies the stage in which children start using mental operations to solve problems and to reason.- Each operation has an inverse that may undo or reverse the effect of an operation.- The ability to understand hierarchies also rests on this ability to move both ways in thinking about relationships.- Concrete operational thinkers understand that if the transformation were reversed, the objects would be identical.- Children do not master all conservation types at the same time.- This means that they do not readily transfer what they have learned about one type of conservation to another type even though the underlying principles are the same.- Concrete operational thinking is much more powerful than pre-operational thinking.- According to Piaget, pre-operational children are egocentric, centred?in their thinking and confuse appearance with reality.- Concrete operational thinking is a major cognitive advance but it has its own limits.- Piaget maintained that the mastery of skills such as conservation depends on neurological maturation and adaptation to the environment and is not tied to cultural experience.- Piaget's descriptions of the changes that occur during middle childhood have generally held up well.- Cross-cultural studies support a progression from the rigid, illogical thinking of younger children, to the flexible, logical thinking of older children.- Factors that seem to play a role in the attainment of Piagetian tasks are schooling, familiarity with the materials being manipulated and the education level of the parents.Development of information-processing skills- Information-processing theorists believe that developmental change occurs in several important forms, rather than through a single mechanism such as equilibration.Memory?is central to information-processing skills.- Working memory improves markedly during middle childhood.- The phonological loop plays an important role in tasks such as learning to read, understanding language and acquiring vocabulary.-?Processing speed refers to the speed with which individuals carry out cognitive processes.- It plays a role in cognitive development during childhood and gradually increases with age.- Processing speed is also critical when a specific number of actions must be completed within a flexible period.?Knowledge base.?Children acquire literacy and numeracy skills, historical and geographical facts and information about animals, plants and planets to name only a few areas.- Information is acquired not only through formal schooling but also through the media and everyday life.Higher order cognitive tasks?include reasoning, decision-making, problem solving and thinking as well as academic skills such as reading writing and arithmetic.?Language Development?Self-understanding: The development of self-concept and self-esteem- Several developments in self-understanding take place in middle childhood.- Children start describing themselves in terms of psychological traits.- They also start to compare their own characteristics with those of their peers?- They also increasingly speculate about the cause of their own strengths and weaknesses.- During middle childhood children look to more people for information about themselves as they enter a wider range of setting in school and community.- As children move into childhood, they receive much more feedback about their performance in different activities compared with that of younger children.- Self-esteem differentiates and becomes more realistic.- During middle childhood, children develop quite separate judgements about academic and sport skills, physical appearance, social acceptance, friendship and relationship with parents.- The development of self-efficacy begins early as infants learn that they can exert influence on their environment.- Initially parents, caregivers and other family members provide children with feedback on their effectiveness.- As they reach school age, the school environment provides valuable feedback in forming their self-efficacy.- Children learn through daily experience with peers and teachers that they are good at some things and not so good at others.Emotional development- In middle childhood, children's growing cognitive understanding of events and emotions increasingly influences their emotional reaction.- Children's developing emotional skills contribute to their ability to use emotions more intelligently.- Emotional intelligence is a form of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one's own and others' feelings and emotions, to discriminate between them and to use this information to guide one's thinking and actions.- Parents are the primary educators in emotional intelligence but they often lack the ability to cope with the intense negative feelings of their children.- Children's feelings are frequently ignored because parents often see children as less rational and experienced.- As children enter school teachers become increasingly important agents in emotion regulation.- It is therefore important that both parents and teachers should be emotionally intelligent themselves in order to raise emotionally intelligent children.- They have to be aware and in control of their own feelings and nonverbal communication.- Parents and teachers should be good role models regarding the recognition and expression of emotions at all times.- Listening, paying attention and respecting a child's emotions are valuable skill in emotional training.?Theories of cognitive development?A Constructive perspective:The constructive perspective assumes that individuals must continually interpret or make sense of all experience.- Piaget assumed that people not only actively construct what they know of the world, but they also organise this understanding in qualitatively different ways with age which results in distinctly different stages of thought.A?Componential approach- The componential approach refers to the breaking down of the thinking process into various components.- Information -processing approach is an example of componential approach.- Adolescents' attentional abilities are better adapted to the changing of a task.- This include selective attention a well as divided attention.- Selective attention is especially important in the problem solving process, since one of the first steps in the solving of a problem is to decide on which aspect to focus.- Adolescents exhibit an increased speed of information processing which combine with greater awareness and control of an increased knowledge base produces a more efficient form of thinking than during childhood.- Both short-term and long-term memory improves substantially between childhood and adolescence.- The effectiveness of long-term memory is largely enhanced due to the greater experience and increased knowledge base during adolescence.-?Metacognition?expands leading to new insight into effective strategies for acquiring information and solving problems.- Cognitive self-regulation?improves yielding better moment-by-moment monitoring, evaluation and redirection thinking.- According to?Sternberg?people of all ages use the same components in cognitive functioning but spend different amounts of time on each.- For example adolescents spend proportionately more time encoding items than doing any of the other steps than younger children.-?Sternberg?also indicates that with age people tend to spend much more time planning how to solve a problem than actually doing it.The psychometric approachThe psychometric approach focuses on individual differences in the general abilities that contribute to intelligence.-?Howard Gardner defines intelligence in terms of one's ability to solve problems as they arise, but the rage of problems that he accepts as legitimate for studying intelligence is much broader than it at is for other theorists and researchers.-?Gardner?recognised?eight multiple intelligences: logical-mathematical, intrapersonal, linguistic, spatial, bodily-kinaesthetic, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal and naturalist intelligences.-?Gardner?argues that existing measures of intelligence are limited because they place logical-mathematical and linguistic abilities on a pedestal above other abilities.Practical cognition- Cognitive development in adolescence functions as an organisational core that affects all areas of thinking no matter what the topic.- Cognitive development therefore affects a wide range of other aspect of development from family relations and friendship, to school performance and risky behaviour.Implications for the classroom- Adolescents' cognitive development prepare them for new challenges in the classroom.- Adolescents can gather facts to support or oppose principle, generate a range of possible alternatives for any situation, think in abstractions and test their thoughts against inner logic.- These abilities set them apart from younger children and make new forms of learning possible in the classroom.- For example adolescents' systematic approach to problems lends itself especially well to science.- Adolescents' advances in cognitive development can also affect their study skills.- Adolescents who have trouble monitoring their own performance can be taught to do so.- The effect of schooling is also noticeable in children's language development.- Schooling can bring about fundamental changes in conceptual structure.Self-esteem?Self-esteem- Self-esteem refers to the way a person views and evaluates him or her sel.- It also refers to the degree in which a person values him or herself.- During adolescence, the self-esteem has to be modified even further, as several dimensions are added which need to be evaluated.- These new dimensions include their changing physical appearance, sexuality, changes in their social relationships, romantic relationships?and in choosing careers.- During middle childhood, when children start comparing themselves with others their self-esteem declines somewhat and becomes more realistic as they evaluate their physical, cognitive and social abilities.- During early adolescence, when the growth spurt, pubertal changes and cognitive and social changes occur and adolescents most likely have to adjust to a high school environment, they are incline to experience a temporary decline in their self-esteem.- As they adjust to their physical, cognitive and social changes, their feelings of self-worth are restored.- Some scholars have identified different aspect of the self-esteem: The?baseline self-esteem?and?barometric self-esteem.-?Baseline self-esteem?is the stable, enduring sense of worth and well-being a person has.- Person with high baseline self-esteem evaluate themselves positively on most days, although they may have an occasional bad day when they feel incompetent and self-critical.- Person with low baseline self-esteem tend to have a poor opinion of themselves, even though they have days when things go right.-?Barometric self-esteem?is the fluctuating sense of worth and well-being people have as they respond to different thoughts, experience and interactions in the course of a day.- Adults and pre-adolescents also experience barometric self-esteem, but not with the same intensity as adolescents.- Across socio-economic status and ethnic groups, adolescents with mostly favourable self-esteem profiles tend to be well adjusted, sociable and conscientious.- In contrast, low self-esteem in all areas is linked to adjusted difficulties.Personality development??Adaptive functioning- Baltes and Baltes identify three processes that together make up an effective strategy of?maximising?adaptive functioning over the course of development:?selection,?optimisation?and compensation.- Selection refers to identifying ones' goal, committing to them and limiting oneself to a smaller number of task from all of the available options.- Optimisation refers to directing one's effort, energy time and other resources towards one's chosen goals.- Compensation involves efforts directed at overcoming limitations or lack of resources.The psychoanalytic perspective- Freud believed that the post-pubertal years constitute the last stage of personality development.- Both adults and adolescents are in the last stage of what Freud called the genital stage.- During this stage psychosexual maturity is reached.- According to Freud, the primary task of the genital stage is to channel the libido into a healthy sexual relationship.- From Freud's perspective, marriage and procreation represent healthy adjustments to the genital stage- However fixation at earlier stages could undermine the achievement of this goal.- Erikson believed that establishing is particularly important, since due to the dramatic developments in adolescence, the child's early sense of identity becomes partly unglued.James Marcia's theory: The formulation of identity statuses- Marcia distinguished various identity statuses or ways in which the identity crisis during adolescence may be resolved.- The identity status of adolescents is determined according to the crises they have already worked through and by the degree and kind of commitment to these choices.Culture and self- Cultures that promote an independent, individualistic self also promote and encourage reflection about the self.- In such cultures it is seen to be good thing to think about yourself, to consider who you are as an independent person and think highly of yourself.- In collective cultures the interests of the group- the family, the kinship group, the ethnic group, the nation and the religious institution are supposed to come first, before the needs of the individual.?Emotions- Adolescents are often described as being more emotionally unstable than younger children that they often have emotional outbursts and that they are inclined towards intense mood swings.- These changes are often related to the hormonal changes in adolescence.- The emotional changes could be also be attributed to cognitive and environmental factors.- Teenager's mood can be influenced by many factors: problems with friend, peer pressure.- Parents and other adults can promote the emotional growth of teenagers by being sensitive, giving children opportunities to talk about their emotions and providing an atmosphere of trust in dealing?with their emotions.Self-consciousness and self-focusing- Adolescents become less egocentric than younger children as they learn to take the perspective of others.- Adolescents' ability to reflect on their own thoughts combined with the physical and psychological changes that they are undergoing mean that they start to think more about themselves.- Piaget believed that a new form of egocentrism accompanies this stage.- According to Elkind adolescent egocentrism includes two distorted images of the relation between self and others. HYPERLINK "" Forming a group??Forming a group identity- Apart from forming a personal identity, the larger culture context also plays a role.- A personal identity indicates what one has in common with others and thus leads to a group identity or feelings of sameness and belonging to a group.- Forming an identity in culturally diverse country such as South Africa may be challenging.- Not only do adolescents have to come to terms with their own ethnicity and cultural ancestry, but they also have to accommodate?many other cultures,- A secure ethnic or cultural identity is generally associated with higher self-esteem, optimism, a sense of mastery over the ? ?environment and more positive attitudes towards one's ethnicity.- South Africa, adolescents are in contact with various cultures that differ in many respects, but they all have been subjected to socio-political changes?- They have all to form their identities in a society that is undergoing transformation.- South African-?ness is seen as an umbrella identity which may include other identities such as linguistic, religious and racial identities.- Earlier research indicate that South?Africans tend to identify themselves first by racial categories, ?followed ?by linguistic, religious, occupational and personal categories, but also simultaneously by an overarching South African identity.- According to the researchers these results may indicate longstanding cultural differences in collectivist versus individualistic orientations.- The researchers concluded that white South African youth foreclose their identities and do not develop mutuality in the broader South African Society, because they are numerically a minority?group?and feel socially devalued.?Self-conceptions: Adolescents' understanding?- Adolescents think of themselves differently than younger children do in a variety of ways.- The changes in self-understanding that occur during this stage are closely related to the changes in cognitive development, adolescents' conceptions of self also become more abstract and complex.- In adolescence, self-conception become even more trait-focused while these traits become more abstract,The actual self, possible self and false self- Abstraction in adolescents' self-conception is their ability to distinguish between and actual self or possible self.- The?ideal self?is the person the adolescent would like to be.- The?feared self?is the person the adolescent imagines it is possible to become, but dreads becoming.- Both kinds of possible selves require adolescents to think abstractly.- The second aspect of adolescent self-understanding is that it becomes more complex, especially from early to middle adolescence.- This reflect their formal operational cognitive ability to perceive multiple aspect of a situation or idea, they acquire the ability to describe themselves in contradiction ways.- A related aspect of the increasing complexity of self-conception is that adolescent become aware of the times when they exhibit a false self.- This is a self they present to others while realising it is not actually what they are thinking or feeling.- Even though they may dislike putting on a false self, they may find?it acceptable in situations where they want to impress someone or to conceal some aspect of the self they do not want others to see.Definition of Adolescence?Adolescence- Adolescence is a period of human growth that occurs between childhood and adulthood.- Adolescence begins at around age 10 and ends around age 21, it can be broken int three stages: Early adolescence, middle adolescence and late adolescence.Demarcation adolescence?- Adolescence has not always been regarded as a distinct period of the life span.- Depending on biological and socio-cultural factors, as well as on individual differences, the age at which adolescence as a separate developmental stage begins, varies from 11 to 13 years while the age at which it ends is between 17 and 21 years.A stormy phase- Adolescence is described as being characterised as specially by conflict with parents and other authority figures, moodiness and high risk behaviour.- They experience a stormy period that is biologically based.- Adolescences are viewed as being no worse than their parents were when they were young.- They are even seen as better informed and more idealistic, honest and tolerant towards others.The psychological effects of physical changes- Adolescence is acutely aware of the physical changes they experience.The age at which adolescents reach physical maturity affect their psychological development, especially when they reach maturity either much earlier or much later than the average expected age.- Adolescents who mature early are usually taller and heavier and develop primary and secondary sex characteristics much earlier than their peer group.- Adolescents who mature late are smaller and lighter and develop primary and secondary sex characteristics significantly later than their peer group.- Boys who mature early generally have certain characteristics in common.- They tend to be self-controlled, efficient, self-confident?and level-headed.- They have a better body image and higher self-esteem than boys who mature late.- Boys who mature late tend to be seen as less attractive, less well-balanced and more tense and anxious than boys who mature early.- Their academic achievement is poor.- They are more attention seeking and regarded as more childish than their peers.- They are not popular with their peer group and seldom become leaders.- They tend to experience more feelings of guilt, inferiority, depression and rejection as well as general anxiety.- Girls who mature late are usually perceived as physically attractive, lively and sociable and are generally more popular than those mature early.- They also seem to have a more positive body image than girls who mature early.- Girls who reach physical maturity early are often attractive to older boys, but they are not always emotionally mature enough for the more intimate relationships associated with their physical appearance.- They often do not have much in common with their peers which may lead to social isolation. HYPERLINK "" Cognitive?Cognitive developmentSelf-consciousness and self-focusing- Adolescents' ability to reflect on their own thoughts combined with the physical and psychological changes that they are undergoing mean that they start to think more about themselves.- Piaget believed that a new form of egocentrism accompanies this stageThe inability to distinguish the abstract perspectives of self another.- According to Elkind, adolescent egocentrism includes two distorted images of the relation between self and others-the?imaginary audience?and the personal fable.- The imaginary audience is adolescents' belief that they are the focus of everyone else's attention.- The imaginary audience refers to the preoccupation with what you believe other people are thinking of you.- The?personal fable is an intense investment in one's own thoughts and feelings and a belief that these thoughts and feelings are unique.- Personal fable is built on the imaginary audience.- Personal fable is an inflated opinion of their own importance, the feeling that they are special and unique.- Personal fable and imaginary audience are strongest during the transition to formal operational thinking.- The imaginary audience and personal fable gradually decline as abstract reasoning becomes better established.- People of all ages experience what is known as an?optimistic bias, which is a tendency?to assume that accidents, diseases and other misfortunes are more likely to happen to others than to themselves.Planning and decision-making- Adolescents who think more analytically, handle cognitive task more effectively than they did when they were younger.- They are better at cognitive self-regulation?which means planning what to do first and what to do next , monitoring progress towards a goal and redirecting actions that prove unsuccessful.- When it comes to planning and decision-making in everyday life, young adolescents are often overwhelmed by the possibilities and available.Child-headed households- A child-headed households is a household in which all the members are younger than 18 years.- It refers to a situation where both parents are absent and children are compelled to take over the adults duties.- Different findings on the prevalence of child-headed households in South Africa have been reported.- A household could be classified as child-headed while relatives and neighbours may look after the children very well.- Other households on the other hand could receive almost no support.- ?A large number of biological orphaned children are living in better circumstances than many children with living parents.?Street children- Most of us encounter street children on a daily basis, children who stand begging at street corners.- There is virtually no country or city in the world where street children are not found.Poverty- Poverty is much more than only an insufficient income, lack of money and material needs.- It affects the physical and psychological development of a person.- In South Africa poverty affects more than 50% of the population.- Poor children tend to suffer more from a variety of health problems.- Children living in poverty are more exposed to parents who use harsh discipline rather than reasoning.- Poor children are more likely to develop social and emotional problems, which are already evident from an early age.- Poverty in childhood shows a correlation with poverty in adulthood.??Age-related reactions to traumaTrauma refers to an experience that is emotionally painful, distressing or shocking which often results in lasting mental and physical effects.- In children?may result from various events such as abuse, violence, loss of a parent, illness, injuries and natural disasters.- The reactions may differ from child to child.- Traumatised children may also show symptoms that differ significantly from one another.- Reactions of a traumatic event do not necessarily occur immediately after the event.- Children's reactions to trauma also vary according to age.Resilience- Resilience is the ability to cope with or recover from difficult or challenging life experience.- The factors that have been identified to strengthen resilience in children are divided into three?categories:Personal characteristics, Family characteristics, Community characteristics.The rights of a child- Children have been ill-treated, exploited and violated for centuries.- The fact that children need special protection and care is understandable.- Children are among the most vulnerable members of society and dependent on others such as their parents, families and the Government.- it is important to realise that knowledge of children's right is more than just being politically correct.?? ................
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