Chapter 3

Educational Psychology
Fourteenth Edition
Cluster 3
The Self, Social, and
Moral Development
Copyright © 2019, 2016, 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Learning Objectives
3.1 Describe general trends, group differences, and
challenges in physical development through childhood and
adolescence.
3.2 Discuss how the components of Bronfenbrenner’s
bioecological model influence development, especially the
impact of families, parenting styles, peers, and teachers.
3.3 Describe general trends and group differences in the
development of identity and self-concept.
3.4 Explain theories of moral development including those of
Kohlberg, Gilligan, Nucci, and Haidt, and discuss how
teachers can deal with one moral challenge for students—
cheating.

Outline
• Physical Development
• Bronfenbrenner: The Social Context for Development
• Identity and Self-Concept
• Understanding Others and Moral Development
• Personal/Social Development: Lessons for Teachers

Physical Development: Young
Children
• Gross-motor skill development: Growth of large muscles
– Brains integrate information about movements
– Improve balance; run, jump, and throw
– Change from toddling to smooth walking
• Fine-motor skills: Coordination of small movements
– Need to work with large paintbrushes and Legos, fat
pencils and crayons, large paper, soft clay and
playdough
– Developing hand preference (genetically based)
▪ 90% prefer right hand by age 5
▪ 10% prefer left hand (more boys than girls)

Physical Development: Elementary
School Years
• Steady physical development
– Tremendous variation among children
– Become taller, leaner, stronger during these years
– Better able to master sports and play games
• Girls may be as large as or larger than boys
– Girls 11-14 on average taller, heavier than same-age
boys

Physical Development: Adolescent
Years
• Puberty, beginning of sexual maturity
– Series of changes in the body
– Menarche for girls around 12 or 13 on average
▪ Earlier for African American girls
– Spermarche for boys around 12 to 14 on average
• Height differences
– Girls reach final height around age 15 or 16
– Boys reach final height around age 19
– Maximum height reached earlier for African American
and Latino/a adolescents
– Maximum height reached later for Asian America

Early and Later Maturing
• Wide range for timing of “normal” maturation rates
• Emotional difficulties associated with early maturing girls
– Depression, anxiety, lower achievement in school,
drug/alcohol abuse, unplanned pregnancy, eating disorders
– Powerful social influences such as early dating
• Fewer problems for later maturing girls
• Popularity plus problems associated with early maturing boys
– More delinquent behavior, greater risk for depression
– Early sexual activity, drug/alcohol abuse, eating disorders
• Later maturing boys: creative, tolerant, perceptive in adulthood

Guidelines: Dealing with Physical
Differences in the Classroom
• Address differences without calling attention to variations
– Seat smaller students to see/participate
– Vary sports/games to use all types of skills
– Forbid use of nicknames based on physical traits
– Accommodate left-handedness
• Help students access facts about physical development
– Stories in literature, science projects, school’s sex education
• Accept adolescents’ concerns about appearance, opposite sex
– End-of-class time to socialize
– Adolescent issues linked to curriculum when appropriate

Play, Recess, and Physical Activity
• Essential to social and cognitive development at all ages
– Babies: Act on environment, pounding, throwing
– Preschoolers: Make-believe, games with rules
– Elementary: More complex, creative, cooperative
– Adolescents: Games/sports for physical/social development
• Cultural differences in playmates, toys, value of play
• Exercise and recess: Academic, social, physical benefits
– Especially needed for students with ADHD
• Inclusive athletics accommodate students with disabilities

Challenges in Physical Development
• Child obesity, growing problem in US
– 18% of children ages 6 to 11
– Concerns: Diabetes, bone/joint strain, respiratory
problems
– Interacting causes: Poor diet, genetics, lack of exercise
• Eating disorders—physical and psychological problems
– Binge eating: Uncontrolled eating, large quantities
– Bulimia nervosa: Binge eating, purging to avoid weight
gain
– Anorexia nervosa: Self-starvation (1% U.S. population)
– Eating disorders usually require professional help

Guidelines: Supporting Positive Body
Images
• Listen to adolescents talk about their health; be attentive
– Provide facts about healthy weight loss, diets
• Ask questions about body image concerns, eating habits
– Ask about diets, healthy eating
• Make available resources regarding body image issues
– Encourage conversations with you, parents,
professionals
– Use curriculum-related approaches

Bronfenbrenner: The Social Context
for Development
• Context: Total situation that surrounds/interacts with one’s
thoughts, feelings, actions to shape development/learning
• External context: Families, schools, groups, programs, policies
• Bioecological model: Nested social and cultural contexts
– Microsystem: Family, friends, teachers, school activities
– Mesosystem: Interactions among microsystem elements
– Exosystem: Social settings that affect child
– Macrosystem: Larger society, its laws, customs, values
– Chronosystem: Time period of one’s development
• All parts interact, influence, shape development

Families
• Child’s first context for development, beginning before birth
• Various family structures: 1-parent, 2-parent, blended, extended
• Various parenting styles (based on Baumrind research)
– Authoritative: High in warmth, control, expectations
▪ Children likely to do well in school, be happy
– Authoritarian: Low warmth, autonomy; high control, punishment
▪ Children more likely to feel guilty, depressed
– Permissive: High warmth, low control, few rules
▪ Children likely to have trouble interacting with peers
– Rejecting/Neglecting/Uninvolved: Low in warmth, control; uncaring
▪ Children likely immature, lonely, at risk for abuse

Culture and Parenting
• Single model of parenting not applicable to all cultures
– Differences in cultural values affect parenting styles
– Baumrind research fits middle-class European
Americans
• Asian parenting characterized by “training” style
• Authoritarian style perceived differently by inner-city
families
• Latino parenting characterized by adult authority and
caring; authoritarian style not perceived as low in warmth

Attachment
• Forming an emotional bond with another person
• First attachment—between child and parent or caregiver
• Implications for relationship formations throughout life
• Secure attachments: Child more confident to explore
– Less teacher-dependent, socially competent
• Insecure attachments: Child fearful, sad, anxious, or angry
• Divorce and implications from negative effects on child
– Disrupt child’s life (relocate, change schools, leave
friends)
– First two years after divorce most difficult
– Problems in school, lose/gain weight, trouble sleeping

Guidelines: Helping Children of
Divorce
• Note sudden changes, indications of problems at home
– Fatigue, stomach pain, headaches, inattention
• Talk to individual student about attitude/behavior changes
• Avoid stereotypes about happy homes
• Help student maintain self-esteem
– Don’t take their anger personally
• Find out what resources your school provides
• Be sensitive to both parents’ rights to information
• Problems when child moves between two households
– Child may leave books, assignments behind

Peers and Friendships
• Children develop within peer groups
• Cliques: Small groups, friendship based
– Usually same sex, age, interests, activities
– Serve emotional, security needs; stable social context
• Crowds: Large, less intimate, loosely organized affiliations
– Shared interests, activities, attitudes, reputations
– Jocks, brains, nerds, druggies, goths, populars, loners
• Peer cultures: Groups with own rules/norms
– Influence matters of style/socializing, but not morals
• Friendships: Central to students’ lives at every age
– May be stable/positive or unstable/negative influences

Popularity Categories and Causes of
Rejection
1. Popular prosocial or antisocial
– Prosocial: Academically, socially competent
– Antisocial: Often athletic, aggressive boys, defy adult authority
2. Rejected aggressive or withdrawn
– Aggressive: Low self-control, hyperactive/impulsive
– Withdrawn: Timid, socially awkward, often bullied
3. Controversial: Hostile in some situations, prosocial in others
4. Neglected: Well adjusted, socially competent, shy but happy
Rejection: Result of being too different from the norm
Problems: Emotional, physical, behavioral, academic
– Long-lasting effects into adulthood; may become aggressive

Aggression
Types of aggression:
1. Instrumental: Act to claim object/privilege, get what you want
– Not intended to harm, but may lead to harm
2. Hostile: Direct action to hurt someone; unprovoked
3. Overt: Hostile threats, physical attacks
4. Relational: Verbal attacks, actions to harm social relationships
– More common among girls
5. Cyber: Rumors/threats terrorize peers via e-mail/social media
Children don’t “outgrow” aggressive behaviors
Intervene early; teach conflict management strategies

Media, Modeling, and Aggression
• TV: Source of aggressive models
– Some violence in 82% of programs in U.S.
– Clear evidence: Media violence increases aggressive
behavior
• Reduce aggression by stressing 3 points about TV
– Most people don’t behave aggressively as seen on TV
– TV violence is not real
– Most people resolve conflicts without violence
• Playing violent video games increases aggressive behavior
– Effects seen clearly in younger children

Guidelines: Dealing with Aggression
and Encouraging Cooperation
• Present yourself as a nonaggressive model
• Provide space, enough resources for each student
– Avoid highly competitive activities, evaluations
• Do not allow students to profit from aggressive behaviors
– Comfort victim, ignore aggressor, then punish
aggressor
• Teach positive social behaviors
– Incorporate lessons with morals, social ethics
• Provide ways to learn tolerance and cooperation
• Be informed about video games students currently play

Reaching Every Student: Teacher
Support
• Teachers/school provide predictable structure, stability
• Qualities students want to find in their teachers
– Positive, caring interpersonal relationships with students
– Maintaining appropriate authority, organized classroom
– Innovative, creative, good motivators, make learning fun
• Academic caring: High, reasonable expectations; help students
reach goals
• Personal caring: Interested in students, respectful, humorous,
willing to listen
– Never give up on students

Teachers and Child Abuse
• Teacher responsibility to report suspected abuse to principal,
school psychologist/social worker
– Must understand your state’s laws, your responsibility
– Definition of abuse can include neglect, improper care
• Know indicators of child abuse (list of a few)
– Physical abuse: Bruises, bite marks, bald spots, burns,
unexplained fractures, lacerations, behavioral extremes,
frequent absence
– Physical neglect: Abandonment, unattended medical needs,
hunger, poor hygiene, fatigue, absences
– Sexual abuse: Difficulty walking/sitting, genital pain,
pregnancy, chronic depression, promiscuity, peer problems

Society and Media
• 88% of adolescents age 13-17 have access to cell phone
• Check phones on average over 100 times per day
– Pressure to respond quickly
• Interference with school, classroom focus, homework
• Challenges for teachers

Identity and Self-Concept
• Identity: General sense of self; own beliefs, emotions, values,
commitments, attitudes
– Different from all other people
– Same individual over time
• Erik Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development
– Development viewed as interdependent series of stages
– Each stage with a developmental crisis
– Each crisis requiring resolution in preparation for next stage
– Each crisis resolved productively or unproductively
• Psychosocial theory emphasizes emergence of self, search for
identity, individual’s relationships, role of culture

Erikson’s Eight Stages of Psychosocial
Development
1. Trust versus mistrust (birth to 12/18 months) Develop trust w/caregiver
2. Autonomy versus shame (18 months to 3 years) Develop physical skills
3. Initiative versus guilt (3 to 6 years) Develop independence, initiative
4. Industry versus inferiority (6 to 12 years) Learn new skills
5. Identity versus role confusion (adolescence) Achieve identity in
occupation, gender roles, politics, religion
6. Intimacy versus isolation (young adulthood) Develop intimacy
7. Generativity versus stagnation (middle adulthood) Satisfy/support
next generation
8. Ego integrity versus despair (late adulthood) Accept one’s life

The Preschool Years: Trust, Autonomy,
and Initiative
• Already resolved stages of trust versus mistrust and autonomy versus
shame/doubt
• Initiative: More assertive, taking more initiative
– Begin new activities and explore new directions
– Undertake, plan, and attack a task
• Challenge: Show zest for activity and limit impulsivity
• Adults provide supervision without interference

Elementary and Middle School Years:
Industry Versus Inferiority
• Industry—Eagerness to engage in productive work
• Rapidly progressing cognitive development
• Spending weekdays at school, expanding trust and autonomy
• Recognizing relationship between persevering and achieving
• Growing sense of competence, moving between worlds of
home, neighborhood, school, group activities, friends
– Face being compared to other children, risk failure/inferiority
• Transition to middle school and increased focus on grades,
academic performance
– More impersonal relations, numerous teachers

Guidelines: Encouraging Initiative
and Industry
• Encourage making and acting on choices; provide choices
• Ensure experiences of success for each child
– Teach skills in small steps; avoid competitive games
• Encourage make-believe with a wide variety of roles
• Tolerate accidents, mistakes; teach clean-up, repair, redo
• Help students set and work toward realistic goals
• Let students show independence, take responsibility
– Delegate tasks; alternate among students
• Support discouraged students; recognize improvements

Adolescence: The Search for Identity
• Two processes in achieving mature identity (Who am I?)
– Exploration: Try alternative beliefs, values, behaviors
– Commitment: Choose beliefs (religion, politics and such)
• James Marcia’s four categories of identity status
– Identity achievement: Strong sense of commitment to life
choices after considering alternatives
– Moratorium: Explore but struggle; suspend choices
– Foreclosure: Accept parent choices w/o considering options
– Diffusion: Confused about who one is, what one wants
▪ Reach no conclusions (uncentered)
• Technology both hinders and helps with identity formation

Racial and Ethnic Identity
• Bicultural identity for students from ethnic/racial groups
– Multidimensional identity (country of heritage + American)
• Black racial identity, consciousness: Process of becoming Black
• Nigrescence model (William Cross) and its five stages
– Pre-encounter: Ignore race, feel neutral about it; may feel
self-hate
– Encounter: Attuned to own Blackness, realize race matters
– Immersion/Emersion: Transition in response to
discrimination, eager to understand racial heritage
– Internalization: Secure racial identity, firmly connected
– Internalization-Commitment: Commitment to Black affairs
• Racial and ethnic pride important part of stable identity

Self-Concept
• Individual’s knowledge/beliefs about self
• Structure of self-concept: Multidimensional (academic,
nonacademic areas)
• Self-concept evolving through constant self-evaluation
– Young children: Often positive, optimistic self-concepts
– Older students: Less optimistic, more realistic (constant
internal and external comparisons)
• Self-concept linked to wide range of accomplishments
– Correlation between success and self-concept in an
academic area
– Influences course selection in school and future path

Sex Differences in Self-Concept of
Academic Competence
• Boys and girls in 1st grade
– Comparable perceptions of abilities in language arts
– Boys felt more competent in math and sports
• Beliefs about competence decreased across the grades
• Generally, girls feel more able in reading, close friendships
• Generally, boys feel more able in math and athletics
• Ethnic groups (except African American), boys more
confident in math/science
• Self-beliefs reciprocally related to achievement—each
affecting the other

Self-Esteem
• Overall judgment of one’s self-worth
• Evaluative dimension of self-concept
• Determined by our success in tasks/goals we value
• School efforts to improve students’ self-esteem
– Special programs, curricula, cooperative settings
• Problems with self-esteem movement
– Too much praise, regardless of actual accomplishments
– Tendency to avoid constructive criticism
– No impact on school achievement
• Positives about self-esteem movement
– Practices that allow authentic participation, cooperation
– Increased initiative, better coping skills

Understanding Others and Moral
Development
• Theory of mind: Understanding that other people are
people too, with their own minds, thoughts, feelings,
beliefs
• By age 2, sense of one’s own intentions
• Later develop ability to assess intentional/unintentional
actions of others
• Increase in perspective-taking ability
– Supports understanding that others have different
feelings and experiences
– Fosters cooperation, moral development, tolerance

Moral Development: Kohlberg’s
Stages of Moral Reasoning
• Preconventional: Judgment based on person’s own needs
– Stage 1: Obedience orientation: Obey rules, avoid punishment
– Stage 2: Rewards/exchange: Personal needs determine
right/wrong
• Conventional: Take into account laws, society’s expectations
– Stage 3: Relationship: Be nice, please others
– Stage 4: Law/Order: Obey laws/authority; maintain social system
• Postconventional: Abstract judgments, principles of justice
– Stage 5: Social contract: Greatest good for greatest number
– Stage 6: Universal ethical principles: Human dignity, social justice
Weakness: Bias toward Western male values, individualism

Moral Judgments, Social
Conventions, and Personal Choices
• Criticism of Kohlberg’s stages: Overlook personal choice
• Nucci’s explanation of moral development covers all 3 domains
– Moral judgments: Justice and fairness, human rights/welfare
– Social conventions: Agreed-upon rules, ways to do things
– Personal choices: Individual preferences, private issues
• Moral domain issues: Justice, welfare/compassion
– Distributive justice: Dividing materials/privileges fairly
– Develops from equality to merit to benevolence
• Conventional domain issues: Societal norms, accepting change
– Develops from moral realism (absolute) to morality of
cooperation to acceptance of change

Implications for Teachers
• Integrate academic content with development in 3 domains
(moral judgment, social conventions, personal choice)
• Create moral climate in your classroom
– Establish mutual respect, warmth, consistent
application of rules
– Respond to student behaviors in ways appropriate to
the domain of the behavior—moral or conventional
– Let children sort out their personal choices
• Recognize how cultural distinctions influence moral
reasoning

Beyond Reasoning: Haidt’s Social
Intuitionist Model of Moral Psychology
• Moral choices involve more than reasoning
• Three key principles in Haidt’s model:
1. Intuition comes first, reasoning second
2. More to morality than fairness and harm (4 foundations)
▪ Loyalty/betrayal: Self-sacrifice for group’s good
▪ Authority/subversion: Respect for legitimate authority
▪ Sanctity/degradation: Living noble, clean life
▪ Liberty/oppression: Resistance to domination
3. Morality binds and blinds
▪ Bound by group’s moral values, blind to others’ moral
beliefs

Moral Behavior and the Example of
Cheating
• Three influences on moral behavior
– Modeling: Child exposed to models of moral beliefs/behaviors
– Internalization: Child adopts beliefs/behaviors as own
– Self-concept: Child integrates moral values into sense of self
• Academic cheating based on decisions about goals, abilities, and
costs
– Focused on performance goals
– Feel low self-efficacy for task
– Believe they won’t get caught
• Prevent cheating: Avoid high-pressure situations, prepare students for
assessments, focus on learning not grades, enforce policies and
monitor testing

Personal/Social Development:
Lessons for Teachers
• Authoritative teachers and clear requirements support
students whose parents are divorcing
• Students’ self-concepts are increasingly differentiated over
time
• Teachers can support students’ quest for meaningful
identity
• Teachers can guide rejected students to develop social
skills, resolve conflicts, cope with aggression
• Teachers/schools discourage cheating by avoiding
conditions that prompt cheating

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