CFD 1220 Lecture Notes - Lecture 33: Language Development, Empathic Concern
24 Oct 2018
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CHAPTER 10 OUTLINE
I. ERIKSON’S THEORY: INITIATIVE VERSUS GUILT (pp. 357–358)
A. Erikson viewed initiative versus guilt as the psychological conflict of the preschool
years.
1. This conflict is resolved positively through social experiences that foster a healthy
sense of initiative and through development of a superego, or conscience, that is
not overly strict.
2. Play permits preschoolers to try new skills and to cooperate with other children.
B. The negative outcome of early childhood is an overly strict superego that causes
children to feel too much guilt.
II. SELF-UNDERSTANDING (pp. 358–361)
A. Language development enables children to talk about their own subjective experience
of being.
B. As self-awareness strengthens, children begin to develop a self-concept.
C. Foundations of Self-Concept (pp. 358–359)
1. Preschoolers’ self-concepts largely consist of observable characteristics.
2. By age 3½, children also describe themselves in terms of typical emotions and
attitudes, and by age 5, they have a sense of their own personality traits.
3. A warm, sensitive parent–child relationship seems to foster a more positive,
coherent early self-concept.
4. Elaborative reminiscing that focuses on young children’s internal states plays an
important role in early self-concept development.
5. As early as age 2, parents use narratives of past events to impart rules, standards
for behavior, and evaluative information about the child.
6. Cultural values play a role in how parents tell narratives about their child.
7. As they talk about personally significant events and as their cognitive skills
advance, preschoolers come to view themselves as persisting over time.
D. Emergence of Self-Esteem (pp. 359–361)
1. Self-esteem is the aspect of self-concept that involves judgments about our own
worth and the feelings associated with those judgments.
2. These evaluations of our own competencies affect our emotional experiences,
future behavior, and long-term psychological adjustment.
3. By age 4, preschoolers have several self-judgments—for example, about learning
things well in school, making friends, getting along with parents, and treating
others kindly.
4. High self-esteem contributes to preschoolers’ initiative as they master new skills;
children who anticipate disapproval give up easily when faced with a challenge.
III. EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT (pp. 361–365)
A. Gains in representation, language, and self-concept support emotional development in
early childhood.
B. Between ages 2 and 6, children gain in emotional competence.
1. Emotional competence includes emotional understanding and emotional self-
regulation.
2. It also includes gains in self-conscious emotions and empathy, which contribute to
children’s developing sense of morality.
C. Understanding Emotion (pp. 361–362)
1. Preschoolers use their expanding vocabulary for talking about emotions to reflect
on their own and others’ behavior.
2. Cognitive Development and Emotional Understanding
a. Preschoolers have an impressive ability to interpret, predict, and change
