{"id":123,"date":"2018-04-16T23:21:08","date_gmt":"2018-04-17T03:21:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/discoverpsychology2\/?post_type=chapter&#038;p=123"},"modified":"2018-04-16T23:21:08","modified_gmt":"2018-04-17T03:21:08","slug":"social-and-personality-development-in-childhood","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/discoverpsychology2\/chapter\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood\/","title":{"raw":"Social and Personality Development in Childhood","rendered":"Social and Personality Development in Childhood"},"content":{"raw":"<header id=\"abstract\">By <a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/authors\/ross-thompson\" rel=\"author\">Ross Thompson<\/a><p class=\"text-muted\">University of California, Davis\n\n<\/header><section><p class=\"lead\">Childhood social and personality development emerges through the interaction of social influences, biological maturation, and the child\u2019s representations of the social world and the self. This interaction is illustrated in a discussion of the influence of significant relationships, the development of social understanding, the growth of personality, and the development of social and emotional competence in childhood.\n\n<\/section><nav class=\"navbar noba-navbar-action\" role=\"toolbar\"><a class=\"btn btn-hollow btn-hollow-inverse btn-download navbar-btn pull-right download-module\" href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/module-editions\/2151\/download\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"fontello \">\ue812<span class=\"sr-only\">PDF<\/span><\/span> <span>Download<\/span><\/a><div class=\"navbar-header\"><\/div><div class=\"collapse navbar-collapse\" id=\"noba-navbar-action\"><div class=\"collapse-wrapper\"><ul class=\"nav navbar-nav\"><li><a class=\"share share-facebook\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer\/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fnoba.to%2Fgdqm6zvc\"><img alt=\"Share on Facebook\" height=\"42\" src=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/assets\/social\/share\/facebook@2x-14b7f010fdaab7751eaff49c702d45851296a56967f4fbdc12170671bf594d7f.png\" title=\"Share on Facebook\" width=\"42\"><\/a><\/li><li><a class=\"share share-twitter\" href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnoba.to%2Fgdqm6zvc&amp;text=This%20is%20the%20future%20of%20textbooks%3A%C2%A0Social%20and%20Personality%20Development%20in%20Childhood\"><img alt=\"Share on Twitter\" height=\"42\" src=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/assets\/social\/share\/twitter@2x-f5c62500fccc964637cab4e89196b7c44e7ef64b8654ee123dfd48448232bd52.png\" title=\"Share on Twitter\" width=\"42\"><\/a><\/li><li><a class=\"share share-google-plus\" href=\"https:\/\/plus.google.com\/share?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnoba.to%2Fgdqm6zvc\"><img alt=\"Share on Google Plus\" height=\"42\" src=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/assets\/social\/share\/google-plus@2x-49d3d8b3e6c5378a839977af10e546595592cdd567ba44fb611c4468b6309829.png\" title=\"Share on Google Plus\" width=\"42\"><\/a><\/li><li><a class=\"share share-email\" href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#modal-email_37\"><img alt=\"Share via Email\" height=\"42\" src=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/assets\/social\/share\/email@2x-a8982d45249ff3b3e437d1f1125dd1faf1e5649f091e9c7eabfb1a8a1a3c4521.png\" title=\"Share via Email\" width=\"42\"><\/a><\/li><\/ul><form class=\"navbar-form navbar-left share share-url\"><label class=\"sr-only\">Share this URL<\/label><\/form><\/div><\/div><\/nav><section id=\"tags\"><ul class=\"tags\"><li><a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/browse-content?tags=58\">Attachment<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/browse-content?tags=223\">Conscience<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/browse-content?tags=222\">Emotional development<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/browse-content?tags=218\">Parenting<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/browse-content?tags=219\">Peer<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/browse-content?tags=221\">Temperament<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/browse-content?tags=220\">Theory of mind<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/section><section><h2 id=\"learning-objectives\">Learning Objectives<\/h2><ul><li>Provide specific examples of how the interaction of social experience, biological maturation, and the child\u2019s representations of experience and the self provide the basis for growth in social and personality development.<\/li><li>Describe the significant contributions of parent\u2013child and peer relationships to the development of social skills and personality in childhood.<\/li><li>Explain how achievements in social understanding occur in childhood. Moreover, do scientists believe that infants and young children are egocentric?<\/li><li>Describe the association of temperament with personality development.<\/li><li>Explain what is \u201csocial and emotional competence\u201c and provide some examples of how it develops in childhood.<\/li><\/ul><\/section><section class=\"content\"><h1 id=\"introduction\">Introduction<\/h1>\u201cHow have I become the kind of person I am today?\u201d Every adult ponders this question from time to time. The answers that readily come to mind include the influences of parents, peers, temperament, a moral compass, a strong sense of self, and sometimes critical life experiences such as parental divorce. Social and personality development encompasses these and many other influences on the growth of the person. In addition, it addresses questions that are at the heart of understanding how we develop as unique people. How much are we products of nature or nurture? How enduring are the influences of early experiences? The study of social and personality development offers perspective on these and other issues, often by showing how complex and multifaceted are the influences on developing children, and thus the intricate processes that have made you the person you are today (<a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#reference-18\" title=\"\">Thompson, 2006a<\/a>).\n\n<figure><img src=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/images\/shared\/images\/000\/002\/357\/original.jpg\" alt=\"A group of young adult friends stand together on a staircase.\" title=\"A group of young adult friends stand together on a staircase.\"><figcaption>Humans are inherently social creatures. Mostly, we work, play, and live together in groups. [Image: The Daring Librarian, https:\/\/goo.gl\/LmA2pS, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0, https:\/\/goo.gl\/Toc0ZF]<\/figcaption><\/figure>Understanding social and personality development requires looking at children from three perspectives that interact to shape development. The first is the social context in which each child lives, especially the relationships that provide security, guidance, and knowledge. The second is biological maturation that supports developing social and emotional competencies and underlies temperamental individuality. The third is children\u2019s developing representations of themselves and the social world. Social and personality development is best understood as the continuous interaction between these social, biological, and representational aspects of psychological development.\n\n<h1 id=\"relationships\">Relationships<\/h1>This interaction can be observed in the development of the earliest relationships between infants and their parents in the first year. Virtually all infants living in normal circumstances develop strong emotional attachments to those who care for them. Psychologists believe that the development of these attachments is as biologically natural as learning to walk and not simply a byproduct of the parents\u2019 provision of food or warmth. Rather, attachments have evolved in humans because they promote children\u2019s motivation to stay close to those who care for them and, as a consequence, to benefit from the learning, security, guidance, warmth, and affirmation that close relationships provide (<a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#reference-4\" title=\"\">Cassidy, 2008<\/a>).\n\n<figure><img src=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/images\/shared\/images\/000\/002\/358\/original.jpg\" alt=\"A mother looks lovingly at her son as she holds him in her arms and kisses him on the cheek.\" title=\"A mother looks lovingly at her son as she holds him in her arms and kisses him on the cheek.\"><figcaption>One of the first and most important relationships is between mothers and infants. The quality of this relationship has an effect on later psychological and social development. [Image: Premnath Thirumalaisamy, https:\/\/goo.gl\/66BROf, CC BY-NC 2.0, https:\/\/goo.gl\/FIlc2e]<\/figcaption><\/figure>Although nearly all infants develop emotional attachments to their caregivers--parents, relatives, nannies-- their sense of security in those attachments varies. Infants become <em>securely<\/em> attached when their parents respond sensitively to them, reinforcing the infants\u2019 confidence that their parents will provide support when needed. Infants become <em>insecurely<\/em> attached when care is inconsistent or neglectful; these infants tend to respond avoidantly, resistantly, or in a disorganized manner (<a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#reference-2\" title=\"\">Belsky &amp; Pasco Fearon, 2008<\/a>). Such insecure attachments are not necessarily the result of deliberately bad parenting but are often a byproduct of circumstances. For example, an overworked single mother may find herself overstressed and fatigued at the end of the day, making fully-involved childcare very difficult. In other cases, some parents are simply poorly emotionally equipped to take on the responsibility of caring for a child.\n\nThe different behaviors of securely- and insecurely-attached infants can be observed especially when the infant needs the caregiver\u2019s support. To assess the nature of attachment, researchers use a standard laboratory procedure called the \u201cStrange Situation,\u201d which involves brief separations from the caregiver (e.g., mother) (<a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#reference-17\" title=\"\">Solomon &amp; George, 2008<\/a>). In the Strange Situation, the caregiver is instructed to leave the child to play alone in a room for a short time, then return and greet the child while researchers observe the child\u2019s response. Depending on the child\u2019s level of attachment, he or she may reject the parent, cling to the parent, or simply welcome the parent\u2014or, in some instances, react with an agitated combination of responses.\n\nInfants can be securely or insecurely attached with mothers, fathers, and other regular caregivers, and they can differ in their security with different people. The <a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#vocabulary-security-of-attachment\" title=\"\">security of attachment<\/a> is an important cornerstone of social and personality development, because infants and young children who are securely attached have been found to develop stronger friendships with peers, more advanced emotional understanding and early conscience development, and more positive self-concepts, compared with insecurely attached children (<a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#reference-20\" title=\"\">Thompson, 2008<\/a>). This is consistent with attachment theory\u2019s premise that experiences of care, resulting in secure or insecure attachments, shape young children\u2019s developing concepts of the self, as well as what people are like, and how to interact with them.\n\nAs children mature, parent-child relationships naturally change. Preschool and grade-school children are more capable, have their own preferences, and sometimes refuse or seek to compromise with parental expectations. This can lead to greater parent-child conflict, and how conflict is managed by parents further shapes the quality of parent-child relationships. In general, children develop greater competence and self-confidence when parents have high (but reasonable) expectations for children\u2019s behavior, communicate well with them, are warm and responsive, and use reasoning (rather than coercion) as preferred responses to children\u2019s misbehavior. This kind of parenting style has been described as <a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#vocabulary-authoritative\" title=\"\">authoritative<\/a> (<a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#reference-1\" title=\"\">Baumrind, 2013<\/a>). Authoritative parents are supportive and show interest in their kids\u2019 activities but are not overbearing and allow them to make constructive mistakes. By contrast, some less-constructive parent-child relationships result from authoritarian, uninvolved, or permissive parenting styles (see Table 1).\n\n<figure><img src=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/images\/shared\/images\/000\/000\/298\/original.jpg\" alt=\"Table summarizes key aspects of the four parenting styles discussed in the preceding paragraphs.\" title=\"Table summarizes key aspects of the four parenting styles discussed in the preceding paragraphs.\"><figcaption>Table 1: Comparison of Four Parenting Styles<\/figcaption><\/figure>Parental roles in relation to their children change in other ways, too. Parents increasingly become mediators (or gatekeepers) of their children\u2019s involvement with peers and activities outside the family. Their communication and practice of values contributes to children\u2019s academic achievement, moral development, and activity preferences. As children reach adolescence, the parent-child relationship increasingly becomes one of \u201ccoregulation,\u201d in which both the parent(s) and the child recognizes the child\u2019s growing competence and autonomy, and together they rebalance authority relations. We often see evidence of this as parents start accommodating their teenage kids\u2019 sense of independence by allowing them to get cars, jobs, attend parties, and stay out later.\n\nFamily relationships are significantly affected by conditions outside the home. For instance, the<a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#vocabulary-family-stress-model\" title=\"\">Family Stress Model<\/a> describes how financial difficulties are associated with parents\u2019 depressed moods, which in turn lead to marital problems and poor parenting that contributes to poorer child adjustment (<a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#reference-6\" title=\"\">Conger, Conger, &amp; Martin, 2010<\/a>). Within the home, parental marital difficulty or divorce affects more than half the children growing up today in the United States. Divorce is typically associated with economic stresses for children and parents, the renegotiation of parent-child relationships (with one parent typically as primary custodian and the other assuming a visiting relationship), and many other significant adjustments for children. Divorce is often regarded by children as a sad turning point in their lives, although for most it is not associated with long-term problems of adjustment (<a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#reference-7\" title=\"\">Emery, 1999<\/a>).\n\n<h2 id=\"peer-relationships\">Peer Relationships<\/h2><figure><img src=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/images\/shared\/images\/000\/002\/359\/original.jpg\" alt=\"A sad looking girl stands in the foreground as a group of her classmates stands behind looking at her and whispering behind their hands.\" title=\"A sad looking girl stands in the foreground as a group of her classmates stands behind looking at her and whispering behind their hands.\"><figcaption>Peer relationships are particularly important for children. They can be supportive but also challenging. Peer rejection may lead to behavioral problems later in life. [Image: Twentyfour Students, https:\/\/goo.gl\/3IS2gV, CC BY-SA 2.0, https:\/\/goo.gl\/jSSrcO]<\/figcaption><\/figure>Parent-child relationships are not the only significant relationships in a child\u2019s life. Peer relationships are also important. Social interaction with another child who is similar in age, skills, and knowledge provokes the development of many social skills that are valuable for the rest of life (<a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#reference-3\" title=\"\">Bukowski, Buhrmester, &amp; Underwood, 2011<\/a>). In peer relationships, children learn how to initiate and maintain social interactions with other children. They learn skills for managing conflict, such as turn-taking, compromise, and bargaining. Play also involves the mutual, sometimes complex, coordination of goals, actions, and understanding. For example, as infants, children get their first encounter with sharing (of each other\u2019s toys); during pretend play as preschoolers they create narratives together, choose roles, and collaborate to act out their stories; and in primary school, they may join a sports team, learning to work together and support each other emotionally and strategically toward a common goal. Through these experiences, children develop friendships that provide additional sources of security and support to those provided by their parents.\n\nHowever, peer relationships can be challenging as well as supportive (<a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#reference-15\" title=\"\">Rubin, Coplan, Chen, Bowker, &amp; McDonald, 2011<\/a>). Being accepted by other children is an important source of affirmation and self-esteem, but peer rejection can foreshadow later behavior problems (especially when children are rejected due to aggressive behavior). With increasing age, children confront the challenges of bullying, peer victimization, and managing conformity pressures. Social comparison with peers is an important means by which children evaluate their skills, knowledge, and personal qualities, but it may cause them to feel that they do not measure up well against others. For example, a boy who is not athletic may feel unworthy of his football-playing peers and revert to shy behavior, isolating himself and avoiding conversation. Conversely, an athlete who doesn\u2019t \u201cget\u201d Shakespeare may feel embarrassed and avoid reading altogether. Also, with the approach of adolescence, peer relationships become focused on psychological intimacy, involving personal disclosure, vulnerability, and loyalty (or its betrayal)\u2014which significantly affects a child\u2019s outlook on the world. Each of these aspects of peer relationships requires developing very different social and emotional skills than those that emerge in parent-child relationships. They also illustrate the many ways that peer relationships influence the growth of personality and self-concept.\n\n<h1 id=\"social-understanding\">Social Understanding<\/h1>As we have seen, children\u2019s experience of relationships at home and the peer group contributes to an expanding repertoire of social and emotional skills and also to broadened social understanding. In these relationships, children develop expectations for specific people (leading, for example, to secure or insecure attachments to parents), understanding of how to interact with adults and peers, and developing self-concept based on how others respond to them. These relationships are also significant forums for emotional development.\n\nRemarkably, young children begin developing social understanding very early in life. Before the end of the first year, infants are aware that other people have perceptions, feelings, and other mental states that affect their behavior, and which are different from the child\u2019s own mental states. This can be readily observed in a process called <a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#vocabulary-social-referencing\" title=\"\">social referencing<\/a>, in which an infant looks to the mother\u2019s face when confronted with an unfamiliar person or situation (<a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#reference-8\" title=\"\">Feinman, 1992<\/a>). If the mother looks calm and reassuring, the infant responds positively as if the situation is safe. If the mother looks fearful or distressed, the infant is likely to respond with wariness or distress because the mother\u2019s expression signals danger. In a remarkably insightful manner, therefore, infants show an awareness that even though they are uncertain about the unfamiliar situation, their mother is not, and that by \u201creading\u201d the emotion in her face, infants can learn about whether the circumstance is safe or dangerous, and how to respond.\n\nAlthough developmental scientists used to believe that infants are egocentric\u2014that is, focused on their own perceptions and experience\u2014they now realize that the opposite is true. Infants are aware at an early stage that people have different mental states, and this motivates them to try to figure out what others are feeling, intending, wanting, and thinking, and how these mental states affect their behavior. They are beginning, in other words, to develop a <a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#vocabulary-theory-of-mind\" title=\"\">theory of mind<\/a>, and although their understanding of mental states begins very simply, it rapidly expands (<a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#reference-23\" title=\"\">Wellman, 2011<\/a>). For example, if an 18-month-old watches an adult try repeatedly to drop a necklace into a cup but inexplicably fail each time, they will immediately put the necklace into the cup themselves\u2014thus completing what the adult intended, but failed, to do. In doing so, they reveal their awareness of the intentions underlying the adult\u2019s behavior (<a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#reference-13\" title=\"\">Meltzoff, 1995<\/a>). Carefully designed experimental studies show that by late in the preschool years, young children understand that another\u2019s beliefs can be mistaken rather than correct, that memories can affect how you feel, and that one\u2019s emotions can be hidden from others (<a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#reference-23\" title=\"\">Wellman, 2011<\/a>). Social understanding grows significantly as children\u2019s theory of mind develops.\n\nHow do these achievements in social understanding occur? One answer is that young children are remarkably sensitive observers of other people, making connections between their emotional expressions, words, and behavior to derive simple inferences about mental states (e.g., concluding, for example, that what Mommy is looking at is in her mind) (<a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#reference-9\" title=\"\">Gopnik, Meltzoff, &amp; Kuhl, 2001<\/a>). This is especially likely to occur in relationships with people whom the child knows well, consistent with the ideas of attachment theory discussed above. Growing language skills give young children words with which to represent these mental states (e.g., \u201cmad,\u201d \u201cwants\u201d) and talk about them with others. Thus in conversation with their parents about everyday experiences, children learn much about people\u2019s mental states from how adults talk about them (\u201cYour sister was sad because she thought Daddy was coming home.\u201d) (<a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#reference-19\" title=\"\">Thompson, 2006b<\/a>). Developing social understanding is, in other words, based on children\u2019s everyday interactions with others and their careful interpretations of what they see and hear. There are also some scientists who believe that infants are biologically prepared to perceive people in a special way, as organisms with an internal mental life, and this facilitates their interpretation of people\u2019s behavior with reference to those mental states (<a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#reference-12\" title=\"\">Leslie, 1994<\/a>).\n\n<h1 id=\"personality\">Personality<\/h1><figure><img src=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/images\/shared\/images\/000\/000\/592\/original.jpg\" alt=\"A father and son smile and shout after finishing an exciting race called The Color Run. Both are covered from head to toe in many shades of brightly colored powder.\" title=\"A father and son smile and shout after finishing an exciting race called The Color Run. Both are covered from head to toe in many shades of brightly colored powder.\"><figcaption>Although a child's temperament is partly determined by genetics, environmental influences also contribute to shaping personality. Positive personality development is supported by a \"good fit\" between a child's natural temperament, environment and experiences. [Image: Thomas Hawk, https:\/\/goo.gl\/2So40O, CC BY-NC 2.0, https:\/\/goo.gl\/FIlc2e]<\/figcaption><\/figure>Parents look into the faces of their newborn infants and wonder, \u201cWhat kind of person will this child will become?\u201d They scrutinize their baby\u2019s preferences, characteristics, and responses for clues of a developing personality. They are quite right to do so, because temperament is a foundation for personality growth. But<a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#vocabulary-temperament\" title=\"\">temperament<\/a> (defined as early-emerging differences in reactivity and self-regulation) is not the whole story. Although temperament is biologically based, it interacts with the influence of experience from the moment of birth (if not before) to shape personality (<a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#reference-14\" title=\"\">Rothbart, 2011<\/a>). Temperamental dispositions are affected, for example, by the support level of parental care. More generally, personality is shaped by the <a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#vocabulary-goodness-of-fit\" title=\"\">goodness of fit<\/a> between the child\u2019s temperamental qualities and characteristics of the environment (<a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#reference-5\" title=\"\">Chess &amp; Thomas, 1999<\/a>). For example, an adventurous child whose parents regularly take her on weekend hiking and fishing trips would be a good \u201cfit\u201d to her lifestyle, supporting personality growth. Personality is the result, therefore, of the continuous interplay between biological disposition and experience, as is true for many other aspects of social and personality development.\n\nPersonality develops from temperament in other ways (<a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#reference-22\" title=\"\">Thompson, Winer, &amp; Goodvin, 2010<\/a>). As children mature biologically, temperamental characteristics emerge and change over time. A newborn is not capable of much self-control, but as brain-based capacities for self-control advance, temperamental changes in self-regulation become more apparent. For example, a newborn who cries frequently doesn\u2019t necessarily have a grumpy personality; over time, with sufficient parental support and increased sense of security, the child might be less likely to cry.\n\nIn addition, personality is made up of many other features besides temperament. Children\u2019s developing self-concept, their motivations to achieve or to socialize, their values and goals, their coping styles, their sense of responsibility and conscientiousness, and many other qualities are encompassed into personality. These qualities are influenced by biological dispositions, but even more by the child\u2019s experiences with others, particularly in close relationships, that guide the growth of individual characteristics.\n\nIndeed, personality development begins with the biological foundations of temperament but becomes increasingly elaborated, extended, and refined over time. The newborn that parents gazed upon thus becomes an adult with a personality of depth and nuance.\n\n<h1 id=\"social-and-emotional-competence\">Social and Emotional Competence<\/h1>Social and personality development is built from the social, biological, and representational influences discussed above. These influences result in important developmental outcomes that matter to children, parents, and society: a young adult\u2019s capacity to engage in socially constructive actions (helping, caring, sharing with others), to curb hostile or aggressive impulses, to live according to meaningful moral values, to develop a healthy identity and sense of self, and to develop talents and achieve success in using them. These are some of the developmental outcomes that denote social and emotional competence.\n\nThese achievements of social and personality development derive from the interaction of many social, biological, and representational influences. Consider, for example, the development of conscience, which is an early foundation for moral development. <a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#vocabulary-conscience\" title=\"\">Conscience<\/a> consists of the cognitive, emotional, and social influences that cause young children to create and act consistently with internal standards of conduct (<a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#reference-10\" title=\"\">Kochanska, 2002<\/a>). Conscience emerges from young children\u2019s experiences with parents, particularly in the development of a mutually responsive relationship that motivates young children to respond constructively to the parents\u2019 requests and expectations. Biologically based temperament is involved, as some children are temperamentally more capable of motivated self-regulation (a quality called<a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#vocabulary-effortful-control\" title=\"\">effortful control<\/a>) than are others, while some children are dispositionally more prone to the fear and anxiety that parental disapproval can evoke. Conscience development grows through a good fit between the child\u2019s temperamental qualities and how parents communicate and reinforce behavioral expectations. Moreover, as an illustration of the interaction of genes and experience, one research group found that young children with a particular gene allele (the 5-HTTLPR) were low on measures of conscience development when they had previously experienced unresponsive maternal care, but children with the same allele growing up with responsive care showed strong later performance on conscience measures (<a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#reference-11\" title=\"\">Kochanska, Kim, Barry, &amp; Philibert, 2011<\/a>).\n\nConscience development also expands as young children begin to represent moral values and think of themselves as moral beings. By the end of the preschool years, for example, young children develop a \u201cmoral self\u201d by which they think of themselves as people who want to do the right thing, who feel badly after misbehaving, and who feel uncomfortable when others misbehave. In the development of conscience, young children become more socially and emotionally competent in a manner that provides a foundation for later moral conduct (<a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#reference-21\" title=\"\">Thompson, 2012<\/a>).\n\n<figure><img src=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/images\/shared\/images\/000\/002\/360\/original.jpg\" alt=\"A brother and sister stand side by side. He is dressed in a camouflage military uniform and is holding a toy gun. She is dressed in a pretty pink princess dress.\" title=\"A brother and sister stand side by side. He is dressed in a camouflage military uniform and is holding a toy gun. She is dressed in a pretty pink princess dress.\"><figcaption>Social influences such as cultural norms impact children's interests, dress, style of speech and even life aspirations. [Image: Amanda Westmont, https:\/\/goo.gl\/ntS5qx, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0, https:\/\/goo.gl\/Toc0ZF]<\/figcaption><\/figure>The development of gender and gender identity is likewise an interaction among social, biological, and representational influences (<a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#reference-16\" title=\"\">Ruble, Martin, &amp; Berenbaum, 2006<\/a>). Young children learn about gender from parents, peers, and others in society, and develop their own conceptions of the attributes associated with maleness or femaleness (called <a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#vocabulary-gender-schemas\" title=\"\">gender schemas<\/a>). They also negotiate biological transitions (such as puberty) that cause their sense of themselves and their sexual identity to mature.\n\nEach of these examples of the growth of social and emotional competence illustrates not only the interaction of social, biological, and representational influences, but also how their development unfolds over an extended period. Early influences are important, but not determinative, because the capabilities required for mature moral conduct, gender identity, and other outcomes continue to develop throughout childhood, adolescence, and even the adult years.\n\n<h1 id=\"conclusion\">Conclusion<\/h1>As the preceding sentence suggests, social and personality development continues through adolescence and the adult years, and it is influenced by the same constellation of social, biological, and representational influences discussed for childhood. Changing social relationships and roles, biological maturation and (much later) decline, and how the individual represents experience and the self continue to form the bases for development throughout life. In this respect, when an adult looks forward rather than retrospectively to ask, \u201cwhat kind of person am I becoming?\u201d\u2014a similarly fascinating, complex, multifaceted interaction of developmental processes lies ahead.\n\n<\/section><section><h2 id=\"adaptive-learning\">Take a Quiz<\/h2><form id=\"adaptive-learning-form\" action=\"https:\/\/cerego.com\/lti\/study\/743982\" method=\"post\" target=\"ceregoIframe\"><\/form>Testing yourself regularly is one of the most effective ways to strengthen your learning. Frequent testing helps you identify what you know and don\u2019t know so you can allocate your study time wisely. It also helps you retain information in memory for longer periods of time.\n\nBelow you\u2019ll find a 20-item quiz covering the main concepts found in this module. We suggest you start by learning 10 items. When the first session is complete you can either learn the final 10 items in a new session, review items from the first session, or return later.\n\n<strong>To begin the quiz, click the \"Start Learning\" button.<\/strong> You can return to this quiz anytime to refresh your knowledge.\n\n\n\n<\/section><section><h2 id=\"outside-resources\">Outside Resources<\/h2><dl class=\"noba-chapter-resources\"><dt>Web: Center for the Developing Child, Harvard University<\/dt><dd><a href=\"http:\/\/developingchild.harvard.edu\/\">http:\/\/developingchild.harvard.edu<\/a><\/dd><dt>Web: Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning<\/dt><dd><a href=\"http:\/\/casel.org\/\">http:\/\/casel.org<\/a><\/dd><\/dl><\/section><section><h2 id=\"discussion-questions\">Discussion Questions<\/h2><ol><li>If parent\u2013child relationships naturally change as the child matures, would you expect that the security of attachment might also change over time? What reasons would account for your expectation?<\/li><li>In what ways does a child\u2019s developing theory of mind resemble how scientists create, refine, and use theories in their work? In other words, would it be appropriate to think of children as informal scientists in their development of social understanding?<\/li><li>If there is a poor goodness of fit between a child\u2019s temperament and characteristics of parental care, what can be done to create a better match? Provide a specific example of how this might occur.<\/li><li>What are the contributions that parents offer to the development of social and emotional competence in children? Answer this question again with respect to peer contributions.<\/li><\/ol><\/section><section><h2 id=\"vocabulary\">Vocabulary<\/h2><dl class=\"noba-chapter-vocabulary\"><dt id=\"vocabulary-authoritative\">Authoritative<\/dt><dd>A parenting style characterized by high (but reasonable) expectations for children\u2019s behavior, good communication, warmth and nurturance, and the use of reasoning (rather than coercion) as preferred responses to children\u2019s misbehavior.<\/dd><dt id=\"vocabulary-conscience\">Conscience<\/dt><dd>The cognitive, emotional, and social influences that cause young children to create and act consistently with internal standards of conduct.<\/dd><dt id=\"vocabulary-effortful-control\">Effortful control<\/dt><dd>A temperament quality that enables children to be more successful in motivated self-regulation.<\/dd><dt id=\"vocabulary-family-stress-model\">Family Stress Model<\/dt><dd>A description of the negative effects of family financial difficulty on child adjustment through the effects of economic stress on parents\u2019 depressed mood, increased marital problems, and poor parenting.<\/dd><dt id=\"vocabulary-gender-schemas\">Gender schemas<\/dt><dd>Organized beliefs and expectations about maleness and femaleness that guide children\u2019s thinking about gender.<\/dd><dt id=\"vocabulary-goodness-of-fit\">Goodness of fit<\/dt><dd>The match or synchrony between a child\u2019s temperament and characteristics of parental care that contributes to positive or negative personality development. A good \u201cfit\u201d means that parents have accommodated to the child\u2019s temperamental attributes, and this contributes to positive personality growth and better adjustment.<\/dd><dt id=\"vocabulary-security-of-attachment\">Security of attachment<\/dt><dd>An infant\u2019s confidence in the sensitivity and responsiveness of a caregiver, especially when he or she is needed. Infants can be securely attached or insecurely attached.<\/dd><dt id=\"vocabulary-social-referencing\">Social referencing<\/dt><dd>The process by which one individual consults another\u2019s emotional expressions to determine how to evaluate and respond to circumstances that are ambiguous or uncertain.<\/dd><dt id=\"vocabulary-temperament\">Temperament<\/dt><dd>Early emerging differences in reactivity and self-regulation, which constitutes a foundation for personality development.<\/dd><dt id=\"vocabulary-theory-of-mind\">Theory of mind<\/dt><dd>Children\u2019s growing understanding of the mental states that affect people\u2019s behavior.<\/dd><\/dl><\/section><section><h2 id=\"references\">References<\/h2><ul class=\"noba-chapter-references\"><li id=\"reference-1\">Baumrind, D. (2013). Authoritative parenting revisited: History and current status. In R. E. Larzelere, A. Sheffield, &amp; A. W. Harrist (Eds.), <em>Authoritative parenting: Synthesizing nurturance and discipline for optimal child development<\/em> (pp. 11\u201334). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.<\/li><li id=\"reference-2\">Belsky, J., &amp; Pasco Fearon, R. M. (2008). Precursors of attachment security. In J. Cassidy &amp; P. R. Shaver (Eds.), <em>Handbook of attachment: Theory, research, and clinical applications<\/em> (2nd ed., pp. 295\u2013316). New York, NY: Guilford.<\/li><li id=\"reference-3\">Bukowski, W. M., Buhrmester, D., &amp; Underwood, M. K. (2011). Peer relations as a developmental context. In M. K. Underwood &amp; L. H. Rosen (Eds.), <em>Social development<\/em>(pp. 153\u2013179). New York, NY: Guilford<\/li><li id=\"reference-4\">Cassidy, J. (2008). The nature of the child\u2019s ties. In J. Cassidy &amp; P. R. Shaver (Eds.), <em>Handbook of attachment: Theory, research, and clinical applications<\/em> (2nd ed., pp. 3\u201322). New York, NY: Guilford.<\/li><li id=\"reference-5\">Chess, S., &amp; Thomas, A. (1999). <em>Goodness of fit: Clinical applications from infancy through adult life<\/em>. New York, NY: Brunner-Mazel\/Taylor &amp; Francis.<\/li><li id=\"reference-6\">Conger, R. D., Conger, K. J., &amp; Martin, M. J. (2010). Socioeconomic status, family processes, and individual development. <em>Journal of Marriage and Family, 72<\/em>, 685\u2013704<\/li><li id=\"reference-7\">Emery, R. E. (1999). <em>Marriage, divorce, and children\u2019s adjustment<\/em> (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.<\/li><li id=\"reference-8\">Feinman, S. (Ed.) (1992). <em>Social referencing and the social construction of reality in infancy<\/em>. New York, NY: Plenum.<\/li><li id=\"reference-9\">Gopnik, A., Meltzoff, A. N., &amp; Kuhl, P. K. (2001). <em>The scientist in the crib<\/em>. New York, NY: HarperCollins.<\/li><li id=\"reference-10\">Kochanska, G. (2002). Mutually responsive orientation between mothers and their young children: A context for the early development of conscience. <em>Current Directions in Psychological Science<\/em>, 11, 191\u2013195.<\/li><li id=\"reference-11\">Kochanska, G., Kim, S., Barry, R. A., &amp; Philibert, R. A. (2011). Children\u2019s genotypes interact with maternal responsive care in predicting children\u2019s competence: Diathesis-stress or differential susceptibility? <em>Development and Psychopathology, 23<\/em>, 605-616.<\/li><li id=\"reference-12\">Leslie, A. M. (1994). ToMM, ToBy, and agency: Core architecture and domain specificity in cognition and culture. In L. Hirschfeld &amp; S. Gelman (Eds.), <em>Mapping the mind: Domain specificity in cognition and culture<\/em> (pp. 119-148). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.<\/li><li id=\"reference-13\">Meltzoff, A. N. (1995). Understanding the intentions of others: Re-enactment of intended acts by 18-month-old children. <em>Developmental Psychology, 31<\/em>, 838-850.<\/li><li id=\"reference-14\">Rothbart, M. K. (2011). <em>Becoming who we are: Temperament and personality in development<\/em>. New York, NY: Guilford.<\/li><li id=\"reference-15\">Rubin, K. H., Coplan, R., Chen, X., Bowker, J., &amp; McDonald, K. L. (2011). Peer relationships in childhood. In M. Bornstein &amp; M. E. Lamb (Eds.), <em>Developmental science: An advanced textbook <\/em>(6th ed. pp. 519\u2013570). New York, NY: Psychology Press\/Taylor &amp; Francis.<\/li><li id=\"reference-16\">Ruble, D. N., Martin, C., &amp; Berenbaum, S. (2006). Gender development. In W. Damon &amp; R. M. Lerner (Series Eds.) &amp; N. Eisenberg (Vol. Ed.), <em>Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 3. Social, emotional, and personality development<\/em> (6th ed., pp. 858\u2013932). New York, NY: Wiley.<\/li><li id=\"reference-17\">Solomon, J., &amp; George, C. (2008). The measurement of attachment security and related constructs in infancy and early childhood. In J. Cassidy &amp; P. R. Shaver (Eds.), <em>Handbook of attachment: Theory, research, and clinical applications<\/em> (2nd ed., pp. 383\u2013416). New York, NY: Guilford.<\/li><li id=\"reference-21\">Thompson, R. A. (2012). Whither the preconventional child? Toward a life-span moral development theory. <em>Child Development Perspectives<\/em>, 6, 423\u2013429.<\/li><li id=\"reference-20\">Thompson, R. A. (2008). Early attachment and later development: Familiar questions, new answers. In J. Cassidy &amp; P. R. Shaver (Eds.), <em>Handbook of attachment: Theory, research, and clinical applications<\/em> (2nd ed., pp. 348\u2013365). New York, NY: Guilford.<\/li><li id=\"reference-18\">Thompson, R. A. (2006a). Conversation and developing understanding: Introduction to the special issue. <em>Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 52<\/em>, 1\u201316.<\/li><li id=\"reference-19\">Thompson, R. A. (2006b). The development of the person: Social understanding, relationships, self, conscience. In W. Damon &amp; R. M. Lerner (Series Eds.) &amp; N. Eisenberg (Vol. Ed.), <em>Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 3. Social, emotional, and personality development<\/em> (6th ed., pp. 24\u201398). New York, NY: Wiley.<\/li><li id=\"reference-22\">Thompson, R. A., Winer, A. C., &amp; Goodvin, R. (2010). The individual child: Temperament, emotion, self, and personality. In M. Bornstein &amp; M. E. Lamb (Eds.), <em>Developmental science: An advanced textbook<\/em> (6th ed., pp. 423\u2013464). New York, NY: Psychology Press\/Taylor &amp; Francis.<\/li><li id=\"reference-23\">Wellman, H. M. (2011). Developing a theory of mind. In U. Goswami (Ed.), <em>Wiley-Blackwell handbook of childhood cognitive development<\/em> (2nd ed., pp. 258\u2013284). New York, NY: Wiley-Blackwell<\/li><\/ul><\/section><section><h2 id=\"authors\">Authors<\/h2><ul class=\"media-list\"><li class=\"media\"><img alt=\"\" class=\"media-object noba-author pull-right\" height=\"150\" src=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/images\/shared\/author_photos\/000\/000\/085\/large.jpg\" width=\"150\"><div class=\"media-body\"><div class=\"media-heading\">Ross Thompson<\/div>Ross A. Thompson is Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Davis. His research focuses on early social, emotional, and personality development, and the applications of this research to public policy concerning children and families. He has been recognized for his research contributions, teaching achievements, and public service.\n\n<\/div><\/li><\/ul><\/section><section><h2 id=\"license\">Creative Commons License<\/h2><small class=\"license\"><a class=\"marks\" href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-sa\/4.0\/deed.en_US\"><img alt=\"Creative Commons\" src=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/assets\/licensing\/cc-7e377801d36ddb6d62c1c06dd07858f400efd7284459955e0de47bdb796c8658.png\" title=\"Creative Commons\"><img alt=\"Attribution\" src=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/assets\/licensing\/by-9be0271defac0fba0df496e1e35b7cd2aeaed8630b22b935ce2ea51380c98cba.png\" title=\"Attribution\"><img alt=\"Non-Commerical\" src=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/assets\/licensing\/nc-1f33b73ce264f326ba55092ac717ed56b21800b76bbd849859eacf7d9319745f.png\" title=\"Non-Commerical\"><img alt=\"Share-Alike\" src=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/assets\/licensing\/sa-1725398b2ebf51d6d0165a63b36061120a047cceed2a5be57cf3f99ad65c3668.png\" title=\"Share-Alike\"><\/a><span class=\"title\">Social and Personality Development in Childhood<\/span> by <a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#authors\" rel=\"cc:attributionURL\">Ross Thompson<\/a> is licensed under a <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-sa\/4.0\/deed.en_US\" rel=\"license\">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License<\/a>. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available in our <a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/license-agreement\" rel=\"cc:morePermissions\">Licensing Agreement<\/a>.<\/small>\n\n<\/section><section><h2 id=\"apa\">How to cite this Noba module using APA Style<\/h2>Thompson, R. (2018). Social and personality development in childhood. In R. Biswas-Diener &amp; E. Diener (Eds), <i>Noba textbook series: Psychology.<\/i> Champaign, IL: DEF publishers. DOI:<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nobaproject.com\/\">nobaproject.com<\/a>\n\n<\/section>","rendered":"<header id=\"abstract\">By <a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/authors\/ross-thompson\" rel=\"author\">Ross Thompson<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"text-muted\">University of California, Davis<\/p>\n<\/header>\n<section>\n<p class=\"lead\">Childhood social and personality development emerges through the interaction of social influences, biological maturation, and the child\u2019s representations of the social world and the self. This interaction is illustrated in a discussion of the influence of significant relationships, the development of social understanding, the growth of personality, and the development of social and emotional competence in childhood.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<nav class=\"navbar noba-navbar-action\" role=\"toolbar\"><a class=\"btn btn-hollow btn-hollow-inverse btn-download navbar-btn pull-right download-module\" href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/module-editions\/2151\/download\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"fontello\">\ue812<span class=\"sr-only\">PDF<\/span><\/span> <span>Download<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"navbar-header\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"collapse navbar-collapse\" id=\"noba-navbar-action\">\n<div class=\"collapse-wrapper\">\n<ul class=\"nav navbar-nav\">\n<li><a class=\"share share-facebook\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer\/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fnoba.to%2Fgdqm6zvc\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Share on Facebook\" height=\"42\" src=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/assets\/social\/share\/facebook@2x-14b7f010fdaab7751eaff49c702d45851296a56967f4fbdc12170671bf594d7f.png\" title=\"Share on Facebook\" width=\"42\" \/><\/a><\/li>\n<li><a class=\"share share-twitter\" href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnoba.to%2Fgdqm6zvc&amp;text=This%20is%20the%20future%20of%20textbooks%3A%C2%A0Social%20and%20Personality%20Development%20in%20Childhood\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Share on Twitter\" height=\"42\" src=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/assets\/social\/share\/twitter@2x-f5c62500fccc964637cab4e89196b7c44e7ef64b8654ee123dfd48448232bd52.png\" title=\"Share on Twitter\" width=\"42\" \/><\/a><\/li>\n<li><a class=\"share share-google-plus\" href=\"https:\/\/plus.google.com\/share?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnoba.to%2Fgdqm6zvc\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Share on Google Plus\" height=\"42\" src=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/assets\/social\/share\/google-plus@2x-49d3d8b3e6c5378a839977af10e546595592cdd567ba44fb611c4468b6309829.png\" title=\"Share on Google Plus\" width=\"42\" \/><\/a><\/li>\n<li><a class=\"share share-email\" href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#modal-email_37\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Share via Email\" height=\"42\" src=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/assets\/social\/share\/email@2x-a8982d45249ff3b3e437d1f1125dd1faf1e5649f091e9c7eabfb1a8a1a3c4521.png\" title=\"Share via Email\" width=\"42\" \/><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<form class=\"navbar-form navbar-left share share-url\" action=\"action\">\n<div><label class=\"sr-only\">Share this URL<\/label><\/div>\n<\/form>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/nav>\n<section id=\"tags\">\n<ul class=\"tags\">\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/browse-content?tags=58\">Attachment<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/browse-content?tags=223\">Conscience<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/browse-content?tags=222\">Emotional development<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/browse-content?tags=218\">Parenting<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/browse-content?tags=219\">Peer<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/browse-content?tags=221\">Temperament<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/browse-content?tags=220\">Theory of mind<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/section>\n<section>\n<h2 id=\"learning-objectives\">Learning Objectives<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Provide specific examples of how the interaction of social experience, biological maturation, and the child\u2019s representations of experience and the self provide the basis for growth in social and personality development.<\/li>\n<li>Describe the significant contributions of parent\u2013child and peer relationships to the development of social skills and personality in childhood.<\/li>\n<li>Explain how achievements in social understanding occur in childhood. Moreover, do scientists believe that infants and young children are egocentric?<\/li>\n<li>Describe the association of temperament with personality development.<\/li>\n<li>Explain what is \u201csocial and emotional competence\u201c and provide some examples of how it develops in childhood.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/section>\n<section class=\"content\">\n<h1 id=\"introduction\">Introduction<\/h1>\n<p>\u201cHow have I become the kind of person I am today?\u201d Every adult ponders this question from time to time. The answers that readily come to mind include the influences of parents, peers, temperament, a moral compass, a strong sense of self, and sometimes critical life experiences such as parental divorce. Social and personality development encompasses these and many other influences on the growth of the person. In addition, it addresses questions that are at the heart of understanding how we develop as unique people. How much are we products of nature or nurture? How enduring are the influences of early experiences? The study of social and personality development offers perspective on these and other issues, often by showing how complex and multifaceted are the influences on developing children, and thus the intricate processes that have made you the person you are today (<a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#reference-18\" title=\"\">Thompson, 2006a<\/a>).<\/p>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/images\/shared\/images\/000\/002\/357\/original.jpg\" alt=\"A group of young adult friends stand together on a staircase.\" title=\"A group of young adult friends stand together on a staircase.\" \/><figcaption>Humans are inherently social creatures. Mostly, we work, play, and live together in groups. [Image: The Daring Librarian, https:\/\/goo.gl\/LmA2pS, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0, https:\/\/goo.gl\/Toc0ZF]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Understanding social and personality development requires looking at children from three perspectives that interact to shape development. The first is the social context in which each child lives, especially the relationships that provide security, guidance, and knowledge. The second is biological maturation that supports developing social and emotional competencies and underlies temperamental individuality. The third is children\u2019s developing representations of themselves and the social world. Social and personality development is best understood as the continuous interaction between these social, biological, and representational aspects of psychological development.<\/p>\n<h1 id=\"relationships\">Relationships<\/h1>\n<p>This interaction can be observed in the development of the earliest relationships between infants and their parents in the first year. Virtually all infants living in normal circumstances develop strong emotional attachments to those who care for them. Psychologists believe that the development of these attachments is as biologically natural as learning to walk and not simply a byproduct of the parents\u2019 provision of food or warmth. Rather, attachments have evolved in humans because they promote children\u2019s motivation to stay close to those who care for them and, as a consequence, to benefit from the learning, security, guidance, warmth, and affirmation that close relationships provide (<a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#reference-4\" title=\"\">Cassidy, 2008<\/a>).<\/p>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/images\/shared\/images\/000\/002\/358\/original.jpg\" alt=\"A mother looks lovingly at her son as she holds him in her arms and kisses him on the cheek.\" title=\"A mother looks lovingly at her son as she holds him in her arms and kisses him on the cheek.\" \/><figcaption>One of the first and most important relationships is between mothers and infants. The quality of this relationship has an effect on later psychological and social development. [Image: Premnath Thirumalaisamy, https:\/\/goo.gl\/66BROf, CC BY-NC 2.0, https:\/\/goo.gl\/FIlc2e]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Although nearly all infants develop emotional attachments to their caregivers&#8211;parents, relatives, nannies&#8211; their sense of security in those attachments varies. Infants become <em>securely<\/em> attached when their parents respond sensitively to them, reinforcing the infants\u2019 confidence that their parents will provide support when needed. Infants become <em>insecurely<\/em> attached when care is inconsistent or neglectful; these infants tend to respond avoidantly, resistantly, or in a disorganized manner (<a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#reference-2\" title=\"\">Belsky &amp; Pasco Fearon, 2008<\/a>). Such insecure attachments are not necessarily the result of deliberately bad parenting but are often a byproduct of circumstances. For example, an overworked single mother may find herself overstressed and fatigued at the end of the day, making fully-involved childcare very difficult. In other cases, some parents are simply poorly emotionally equipped to take on the responsibility of caring for a child.<\/p>\n<p>The different behaviors of securely- and insecurely-attached infants can be observed especially when the infant needs the caregiver\u2019s support. To assess the nature of attachment, researchers use a standard laboratory procedure called the \u201cStrange Situation,\u201d which involves brief separations from the caregiver (e.g., mother) (<a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#reference-17\" title=\"\">Solomon &amp; George, 2008<\/a>). In the Strange Situation, the caregiver is instructed to leave the child to play alone in a room for a short time, then return and greet the child while researchers observe the child\u2019s response. Depending on the child\u2019s level of attachment, he or she may reject the parent, cling to the parent, or simply welcome the parent\u2014or, in some instances, react with an agitated combination of responses.<\/p>\n<p>Infants can be securely or insecurely attached with mothers, fathers, and other regular caregivers, and they can differ in their security with different people. The <a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#vocabulary-security-of-attachment\" title=\"\">security of attachment<\/a> is an important cornerstone of social and personality development, because infants and young children who are securely attached have been found to develop stronger friendships with peers, more advanced emotional understanding and early conscience development, and more positive self-concepts, compared with insecurely attached children (<a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#reference-20\" title=\"\">Thompson, 2008<\/a>). This is consistent with attachment theory\u2019s premise that experiences of care, resulting in secure or insecure attachments, shape young children\u2019s developing concepts of the self, as well as what people are like, and how to interact with them.<\/p>\n<p>As children mature, parent-child relationships naturally change. Preschool and grade-school children are more capable, have their own preferences, and sometimes refuse or seek to compromise with parental expectations. This can lead to greater parent-child conflict, and how conflict is managed by parents further shapes the quality of parent-child relationships. In general, children develop greater competence and self-confidence when parents have high (but reasonable) expectations for children\u2019s behavior, communicate well with them, are warm and responsive, and use reasoning (rather than coercion) as preferred responses to children\u2019s misbehavior. This kind of parenting style has been described as <a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#vocabulary-authoritative\" title=\"\">authoritative<\/a> (<a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#reference-1\" title=\"\">Baumrind, 2013<\/a>). Authoritative parents are supportive and show interest in their kids\u2019 activities but are not overbearing and allow them to make constructive mistakes. By contrast, some less-constructive parent-child relationships result from authoritarian, uninvolved, or permissive parenting styles (see Table 1).<\/p>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/images\/shared\/images\/000\/000\/298\/original.jpg\" alt=\"Table summarizes key aspects of the four parenting styles discussed in the preceding paragraphs.\" title=\"Table summarizes key aspects of the four parenting styles discussed in the preceding paragraphs.\" \/><figcaption>Table 1: Comparison of Four Parenting Styles<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Parental roles in relation to their children change in other ways, too. Parents increasingly become mediators (or gatekeepers) of their children\u2019s involvement with peers and activities outside the family. Their communication and practice of values contributes to children\u2019s academic achievement, moral development, and activity preferences. As children reach adolescence, the parent-child relationship increasingly becomes one of \u201ccoregulation,\u201d in which both the parent(s) and the child recognizes the child\u2019s growing competence and autonomy, and together they rebalance authority relations. We often see evidence of this as parents start accommodating their teenage kids\u2019 sense of independence by allowing them to get cars, jobs, attend parties, and stay out later.<\/p>\n<p>Family relationships are significantly affected by conditions outside the home. For instance, the<a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#vocabulary-family-stress-model\" title=\"\">Family Stress Model<\/a> describes how financial difficulties are associated with parents\u2019 depressed moods, which in turn lead to marital problems and poor parenting that contributes to poorer child adjustment (<a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#reference-6\" title=\"\">Conger, Conger, &amp; Martin, 2010<\/a>). Within the home, parental marital difficulty or divorce affects more than half the children growing up today in the United States. Divorce is typically associated with economic stresses for children and parents, the renegotiation of parent-child relationships (with one parent typically as primary custodian and the other assuming a visiting relationship), and many other significant adjustments for children. Divorce is often regarded by children as a sad turning point in their lives, although for most it is not associated with long-term problems of adjustment (<a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#reference-7\" title=\"\">Emery, 1999<\/a>).<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"peer-relationships\">Peer Relationships<\/h2>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/images\/shared\/images\/000\/002\/359\/original.jpg\" alt=\"A sad looking girl stands in the foreground as a group of her classmates stands behind looking at her and whispering behind their hands.\" title=\"A sad looking girl stands in the foreground as a group of her classmates stands behind looking at her and whispering behind their hands.\" \/><figcaption>Peer relationships are particularly important for children. They can be supportive but also challenging. Peer rejection may lead to behavioral problems later in life. [Image: Twentyfour Students, https:\/\/goo.gl\/3IS2gV, CC BY-SA 2.0, https:\/\/goo.gl\/jSSrcO]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Parent-child relationships are not the only significant relationships in a child\u2019s life. Peer relationships are also important. Social interaction with another child who is similar in age, skills, and knowledge provokes the development of many social skills that are valuable for the rest of life (<a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#reference-3\" title=\"\">Bukowski, Buhrmester, &amp; Underwood, 2011<\/a>). In peer relationships, children learn how to initiate and maintain social interactions with other children. They learn skills for managing conflict, such as turn-taking, compromise, and bargaining. Play also involves the mutual, sometimes complex, coordination of goals, actions, and understanding. For example, as infants, children get their first encounter with sharing (of each other\u2019s toys); during pretend play as preschoolers they create narratives together, choose roles, and collaborate to act out their stories; and in primary school, they may join a sports team, learning to work together and support each other emotionally and strategically toward a common goal. Through these experiences, children develop friendships that provide additional sources of security and support to those provided by their parents.<\/p>\n<p>However, peer relationships can be challenging as well as supportive (<a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#reference-15\" title=\"\">Rubin, Coplan, Chen, Bowker, &amp; McDonald, 2011<\/a>). Being accepted by other children is an important source of affirmation and self-esteem, but peer rejection can foreshadow later behavior problems (especially when children are rejected due to aggressive behavior). With increasing age, children confront the challenges of bullying, peer victimization, and managing conformity pressures. Social comparison with peers is an important means by which children evaluate their skills, knowledge, and personal qualities, but it may cause them to feel that they do not measure up well against others. For example, a boy who is not athletic may feel unworthy of his football-playing peers and revert to shy behavior, isolating himself and avoiding conversation. Conversely, an athlete who doesn\u2019t \u201cget\u201d Shakespeare may feel embarrassed and avoid reading altogether. Also, with the approach of adolescence, peer relationships become focused on psychological intimacy, involving personal disclosure, vulnerability, and loyalty (or its betrayal)\u2014which significantly affects a child\u2019s outlook on the world. Each of these aspects of peer relationships requires developing very different social and emotional skills than those that emerge in parent-child relationships. They also illustrate the many ways that peer relationships influence the growth of personality and self-concept.<\/p>\n<h1 id=\"social-understanding\">Social Understanding<\/h1>\n<p>As we have seen, children\u2019s experience of relationships at home and the peer group contributes to an expanding repertoire of social and emotional skills and also to broadened social understanding. In these relationships, children develop expectations for specific people (leading, for example, to secure or insecure attachments to parents), understanding of how to interact with adults and peers, and developing self-concept based on how others respond to them. These relationships are also significant forums for emotional development.<\/p>\n<p>Remarkably, young children begin developing social understanding very early in life. Before the end of the first year, infants are aware that other people have perceptions, feelings, and other mental states that affect their behavior, and which are different from the child\u2019s own mental states. This can be readily observed in a process called <a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#vocabulary-social-referencing\" title=\"\">social referencing<\/a>, in which an infant looks to the mother\u2019s face when confronted with an unfamiliar person or situation (<a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#reference-8\" title=\"\">Feinman, 1992<\/a>). If the mother looks calm and reassuring, the infant responds positively as if the situation is safe. If the mother looks fearful or distressed, the infant is likely to respond with wariness or distress because the mother\u2019s expression signals danger. In a remarkably insightful manner, therefore, infants show an awareness that even though they are uncertain about the unfamiliar situation, their mother is not, and that by \u201creading\u201d the emotion in her face, infants can learn about whether the circumstance is safe or dangerous, and how to respond.<\/p>\n<p>Although developmental scientists used to believe that infants are egocentric\u2014that is, focused on their own perceptions and experience\u2014they now realize that the opposite is true. Infants are aware at an early stage that people have different mental states, and this motivates them to try to figure out what others are feeling, intending, wanting, and thinking, and how these mental states affect their behavior. They are beginning, in other words, to develop a <a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#vocabulary-theory-of-mind\" title=\"\">theory of mind<\/a>, and although their understanding of mental states begins very simply, it rapidly expands (<a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#reference-23\" title=\"\">Wellman, 2011<\/a>). For example, if an 18-month-old watches an adult try repeatedly to drop a necklace into a cup but inexplicably fail each time, they will immediately put the necklace into the cup themselves\u2014thus completing what the adult intended, but failed, to do. In doing so, they reveal their awareness of the intentions underlying the adult\u2019s behavior (<a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#reference-13\" title=\"\">Meltzoff, 1995<\/a>). Carefully designed experimental studies show that by late in the preschool years, young children understand that another\u2019s beliefs can be mistaken rather than correct, that memories can affect how you feel, and that one\u2019s emotions can be hidden from others (<a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#reference-23\" title=\"\">Wellman, 2011<\/a>). Social understanding grows significantly as children\u2019s theory of mind develops.<\/p>\n<p>How do these achievements in social understanding occur? One answer is that young children are remarkably sensitive observers of other people, making connections between their emotional expressions, words, and behavior to derive simple inferences about mental states (e.g., concluding, for example, that what Mommy is looking at is in her mind) (<a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#reference-9\" title=\"\">Gopnik, Meltzoff, &amp; Kuhl, 2001<\/a>). This is especially likely to occur in relationships with people whom the child knows well, consistent with the ideas of attachment theory discussed above. Growing language skills give young children words with which to represent these mental states (e.g., \u201cmad,\u201d \u201cwants\u201d) and talk about them with others. Thus in conversation with their parents about everyday experiences, children learn much about people\u2019s mental states from how adults talk about them (\u201cYour sister was sad because she thought Daddy was coming home.\u201d) (<a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#reference-19\" title=\"\">Thompson, 2006b<\/a>). Developing social understanding is, in other words, based on children\u2019s everyday interactions with others and their careful interpretations of what they see and hear. There are also some scientists who believe that infants are biologically prepared to perceive people in a special way, as organisms with an internal mental life, and this facilitates their interpretation of people\u2019s behavior with reference to those mental states (<a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#reference-12\" title=\"\">Leslie, 1994<\/a>).<\/p>\n<h1 id=\"personality\">Personality<\/h1>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/images\/shared\/images\/000\/000\/592\/original.jpg\" alt=\"A father and son smile and shout after finishing an exciting race called The Color Run. Both are covered from head to toe in many shades of brightly colored powder.\" title=\"A father and son smile and shout after finishing an exciting race called The Color Run. Both are covered from head to toe in many shades of brightly colored powder.\" \/><figcaption>Although a child&#8217;s temperament is partly determined by genetics, environmental influences also contribute to shaping personality. Positive personality development is supported by a &#8220;good fit&#8221; between a child&#8217;s natural temperament, environment and experiences. [Image: Thomas Hawk, https:\/\/goo.gl\/2So40O, CC BY-NC 2.0, https:\/\/goo.gl\/FIlc2e]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Parents look into the faces of their newborn infants and wonder, \u201cWhat kind of person will this child will become?\u201d They scrutinize their baby\u2019s preferences, characteristics, and responses for clues of a developing personality. They are quite right to do so, because temperament is a foundation for personality growth. But<a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#vocabulary-temperament\" title=\"\">temperament<\/a> (defined as early-emerging differences in reactivity and self-regulation) is not the whole story. Although temperament is biologically based, it interacts with the influence of experience from the moment of birth (if not before) to shape personality (<a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#reference-14\" title=\"\">Rothbart, 2011<\/a>). Temperamental dispositions are affected, for example, by the support level of parental care. More generally, personality is shaped by the <a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#vocabulary-goodness-of-fit\" title=\"\">goodness of fit<\/a> between the child\u2019s temperamental qualities and characteristics of the environment (<a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#reference-5\" title=\"\">Chess &amp; Thomas, 1999<\/a>). For example, an adventurous child whose parents regularly take her on weekend hiking and fishing trips would be a good \u201cfit\u201d to her lifestyle, supporting personality growth. Personality is the result, therefore, of the continuous interplay between biological disposition and experience, as is true for many other aspects of social and personality development.<\/p>\n<p>Personality develops from temperament in other ways (<a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#reference-22\" title=\"\">Thompson, Winer, &amp; Goodvin, 2010<\/a>). As children mature biologically, temperamental characteristics emerge and change over time. A newborn is not capable of much self-control, but as brain-based capacities for self-control advance, temperamental changes in self-regulation become more apparent. For example, a newborn who cries frequently doesn\u2019t necessarily have a grumpy personality; over time, with sufficient parental support and increased sense of security, the child might be less likely to cry.<\/p>\n<p>In addition, personality is made up of many other features besides temperament. Children\u2019s developing self-concept, their motivations to achieve or to socialize, their values and goals, their coping styles, their sense of responsibility and conscientiousness, and many other qualities are encompassed into personality. These qualities are influenced by biological dispositions, but even more by the child\u2019s experiences with others, particularly in close relationships, that guide the growth of individual characteristics.<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, personality development begins with the biological foundations of temperament but becomes increasingly elaborated, extended, and refined over time. The newborn that parents gazed upon thus becomes an adult with a personality of depth and nuance.<\/p>\n<h1 id=\"social-and-emotional-competence\">Social and Emotional Competence<\/h1>\n<p>Social and personality development is built from the social, biological, and representational influences discussed above. These influences result in important developmental outcomes that matter to children, parents, and society: a young adult\u2019s capacity to engage in socially constructive actions (helping, caring, sharing with others), to curb hostile or aggressive impulses, to live according to meaningful moral values, to develop a healthy identity and sense of self, and to develop talents and achieve success in using them. These are some of the developmental outcomes that denote social and emotional competence.<\/p>\n<p>These achievements of social and personality development derive from the interaction of many social, biological, and representational influences. Consider, for example, the development of conscience, which is an early foundation for moral development. <a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#vocabulary-conscience\" title=\"\">Conscience<\/a> consists of the cognitive, emotional, and social influences that cause young children to create and act consistently with internal standards of conduct (<a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#reference-10\" title=\"\">Kochanska, 2002<\/a>). Conscience emerges from young children\u2019s experiences with parents, particularly in the development of a mutually responsive relationship that motivates young children to respond constructively to the parents\u2019 requests and expectations. Biologically based temperament is involved, as some children are temperamentally more capable of motivated self-regulation (a quality called<a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#vocabulary-effortful-control\" title=\"\">effortful control<\/a>) than are others, while some children are dispositionally more prone to the fear and anxiety that parental disapproval can evoke. Conscience development grows through a good fit between the child\u2019s temperamental qualities and how parents communicate and reinforce behavioral expectations. Moreover, as an illustration of the interaction of genes and experience, one research group found that young children with a particular gene allele (the 5-HTTLPR) were low on measures of conscience development when they had previously experienced unresponsive maternal care, but children with the same allele growing up with responsive care showed strong later performance on conscience measures (<a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#reference-11\" title=\"\">Kochanska, Kim, Barry, &amp; Philibert, 2011<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>Conscience development also expands as young children begin to represent moral values and think of themselves as moral beings. By the end of the preschool years, for example, young children develop a \u201cmoral self\u201d by which they think of themselves as people who want to do the right thing, who feel badly after misbehaving, and who feel uncomfortable when others misbehave. In the development of conscience, young children become more socially and emotionally competent in a manner that provides a foundation for later moral conduct (<a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#reference-21\" title=\"\">Thompson, 2012<\/a>).<\/p>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/images\/shared\/images\/000\/002\/360\/original.jpg\" alt=\"A brother and sister stand side by side. He is dressed in a camouflage military uniform and is holding a toy gun. She is dressed in a pretty pink princess dress.\" title=\"A brother and sister stand side by side. He is dressed in a camouflage military uniform and is holding a toy gun. She is dressed in a pretty pink princess dress.\" \/><figcaption>Social influences such as cultural norms impact children&#8217;s interests, dress, style of speech and even life aspirations. [Image: Amanda Westmont, https:\/\/goo.gl\/ntS5qx, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0, https:\/\/goo.gl\/Toc0ZF]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The development of gender and gender identity is likewise an interaction among social, biological, and representational influences (<a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#reference-16\" title=\"\">Ruble, Martin, &amp; Berenbaum, 2006<\/a>). Young children learn about gender from parents, peers, and others in society, and develop their own conceptions of the attributes associated with maleness or femaleness (called <a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#vocabulary-gender-schemas\" title=\"\">gender schemas<\/a>). They also negotiate biological transitions (such as puberty) that cause their sense of themselves and their sexual identity to mature.<\/p>\n<p>Each of these examples of the growth of social and emotional competence illustrates not only the interaction of social, biological, and representational influences, but also how their development unfolds over an extended period. Early influences are important, but not determinative, because the capabilities required for mature moral conduct, gender identity, and other outcomes continue to develop throughout childhood, adolescence, and even the adult years.<\/p>\n<h1 id=\"conclusion\">Conclusion<\/h1>\n<p>As the preceding sentence suggests, social and personality development continues through adolescence and the adult years, and it is influenced by the same constellation of social, biological, and representational influences discussed for childhood. Changing social relationships and roles, biological maturation and (much later) decline, and how the individual represents experience and the self continue to form the bases for development throughout life. In this respect, when an adult looks forward rather than retrospectively to ask, \u201cwhat kind of person am I becoming?\u201d\u2014a similarly fascinating, complex, multifaceted interaction of developmental processes lies ahead.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<section>\n<h2 id=\"adaptive-learning\">Take a Quiz<\/h2>\n<form id=\"adaptive-learning-form\" action=\"https:\/\/cerego.com\/lti\/study\/743982\" method=\"post\" target=\"ceregoIframe\"><\/form>\n<p>Testing yourself regularly is one of the most effective ways to strengthen your learning. Frequent testing helps you identify what you know and don\u2019t know so you can allocate your study time wisely. It also helps you retain information in memory for longer periods of time.<\/p>\n<p>Below you\u2019ll find a 20-item quiz covering the main concepts found in this module. We suggest you start by learning 10 items. When the first session is complete you can either learn the final 10 items in a new session, review items from the first session, or return later.<\/p>\n<p><strong>To begin the quiz, click the &#8220;Start Learning&#8221; button.<\/strong> You can return to this quiz anytime to refresh your knowledge.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<section>\n<h2 id=\"outside-resources\">Outside Resources<\/h2>\n<dl class=\"noba-chapter-resources\">\n<dt>Web: Center for the Developing Child, Harvard University<\/dt>\n<dd><a href=\"http:\/\/developingchild.harvard.edu\/\">http:\/\/developingchild.harvard.edu<\/a><\/dd>\n<dt>Web: Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning<\/dt>\n<dd><a href=\"http:\/\/casel.org\/\">http:\/\/casel.org<\/a><\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/section>\n<section>\n<h2 id=\"discussion-questions\">Discussion Questions<\/h2>\n<ol>\n<li>If parent\u2013child relationships naturally change as the child matures, would you expect that the security of attachment might also change over time? What reasons would account for your expectation?<\/li>\n<li>In what ways does a child\u2019s developing theory of mind resemble how scientists create, refine, and use theories in their work? In other words, would it be appropriate to think of children as informal scientists in their development of social understanding?<\/li>\n<li>If there is a poor goodness of fit between a child\u2019s temperament and characteristics of parental care, what can be done to create a better match? Provide a specific example of how this might occur.<\/li>\n<li>What are the contributions that parents offer to the development of social and emotional competence in children? Answer this question again with respect to peer contributions.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/section>\n<section>\n<h2 id=\"vocabulary\">Vocabulary<\/h2>\n<dl class=\"noba-chapter-vocabulary\">\n<dt id=\"vocabulary-authoritative\">Authoritative<\/dt>\n<dd>A parenting style characterized by high (but reasonable) expectations for children\u2019s behavior, good communication, warmth and nurturance, and the use of reasoning (rather than coercion) as preferred responses to children\u2019s misbehavior.<\/dd>\n<dt id=\"vocabulary-conscience\">Conscience<\/dt>\n<dd>The cognitive, emotional, and social influences that cause young children to create and act consistently with internal standards of conduct.<\/dd>\n<dt id=\"vocabulary-effortful-control\">Effortful control<\/dt>\n<dd>A temperament quality that enables children to be more successful in motivated self-regulation.<\/dd>\n<dt id=\"vocabulary-family-stress-model\">Family Stress Model<\/dt>\n<dd>A description of the negative effects of family financial difficulty on child adjustment through the effects of economic stress on parents\u2019 depressed mood, increased marital problems, and poor parenting.<\/dd>\n<dt id=\"vocabulary-gender-schemas\">Gender schemas<\/dt>\n<dd>Organized beliefs and expectations about maleness and femaleness that guide children\u2019s thinking about gender.<\/dd>\n<dt id=\"vocabulary-goodness-of-fit\">Goodness of fit<\/dt>\n<dd>The match or synchrony between a child\u2019s temperament and characteristics of parental care that contributes to positive or negative personality development. A good \u201cfit\u201d means that parents have accommodated to the child\u2019s temperamental attributes, and this contributes to positive personality growth and better adjustment.<\/dd>\n<dt id=\"vocabulary-security-of-attachment\">Security of attachment<\/dt>\n<dd>An infant\u2019s confidence in the sensitivity and responsiveness of a caregiver, especially when he or she is needed. Infants can be securely attached or insecurely attached.<\/dd>\n<dt id=\"vocabulary-social-referencing\">Social referencing<\/dt>\n<dd>The process by which one individual consults another\u2019s emotional expressions to determine how to evaluate and respond to circumstances that are ambiguous or uncertain.<\/dd>\n<dt id=\"vocabulary-temperament\">Temperament<\/dt>\n<dd>Early emerging differences in reactivity and self-regulation, which constitutes a foundation for personality development.<\/dd>\n<dt id=\"vocabulary-theory-of-mind\">Theory of mind<\/dt>\n<dd>Children\u2019s growing understanding of the mental states that affect people\u2019s behavior.<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/section>\n<section>\n<h2 id=\"references\">References<\/h2>\n<ul class=\"noba-chapter-references\">\n<li id=\"reference-1\">Baumrind, D. (2013). Authoritative parenting revisited: History and current status. In R. E. Larzelere, A. Sheffield, &amp; A. W. Harrist (Eds.), <em>Authoritative parenting: Synthesizing nurturance and discipline for optimal child development<\/em> (pp. 11\u201334). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.<\/li>\n<li id=\"reference-2\">Belsky, J., &amp; Pasco Fearon, R. M. (2008). Precursors of attachment security. In J. Cassidy &amp; P. R. Shaver (Eds.), <em>Handbook of attachment: Theory, research, and clinical applications<\/em> (2nd ed., pp. 295\u2013316). New York, NY: Guilford.<\/li>\n<li id=\"reference-3\">Bukowski, W. M., Buhrmester, D., &amp; Underwood, M. K. (2011). Peer relations as a developmental context. In M. K. Underwood &amp; L. H. Rosen (Eds.), <em>Social development<\/em>(pp. 153\u2013179). New York, NY: Guilford<\/li>\n<li id=\"reference-4\">Cassidy, J. (2008). The nature of the child\u2019s ties. In J. Cassidy &amp; P. R. Shaver (Eds.), <em>Handbook of attachment: Theory, research, and clinical applications<\/em> (2nd ed., pp. 3\u201322). New York, NY: Guilford.<\/li>\n<li id=\"reference-5\">Chess, S., &amp; Thomas, A. (1999). <em>Goodness of fit: Clinical applications from infancy through adult life<\/em>. New York, NY: Brunner-Mazel\/Taylor &amp; Francis.<\/li>\n<li id=\"reference-6\">Conger, R. D., Conger, K. J., &amp; Martin, M. J. (2010). Socioeconomic status, family processes, and individual development. <em>Journal of Marriage and Family, 72<\/em>, 685\u2013704<\/li>\n<li id=\"reference-7\">Emery, R. E. (1999). <em>Marriage, divorce, and children\u2019s adjustment<\/em> (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.<\/li>\n<li id=\"reference-8\">Feinman, S. (Ed.) (1992). <em>Social referencing and the social construction of reality in infancy<\/em>. New York, NY: Plenum.<\/li>\n<li id=\"reference-9\">Gopnik, A., Meltzoff, A. N., &amp; Kuhl, P. K. (2001). <em>The scientist in the crib<\/em>. New York, NY: HarperCollins.<\/li>\n<li id=\"reference-10\">Kochanska, G. (2002). Mutually responsive orientation between mothers and their young children: A context for the early development of conscience. <em>Current Directions in Psychological Science<\/em>, 11, 191\u2013195.<\/li>\n<li id=\"reference-11\">Kochanska, G., Kim, S., Barry, R. A., &amp; Philibert, R. A. (2011). Children\u2019s genotypes interact with maternal responsive care in predicting children\u2019s competence: Diathesis-stress or differential susceptibility? <em>Development and Psychopathology, 23<\/em>, 605-616.<\/li>\n<li id=\"reference-12\">Leslie, A. M. (1994). ToMM, ToBy, and agency: Core architecture and domain specificity in cognition and culture. In L. Hirschfeld &amp; S. Gelman (Eds.), <em>Mapping the mind: Domain specificity in cognition and culture<\/em> (pp. 119-148). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.<\/li>\n<li id=\"reference-13\">Meltzoff, A. N. (1995). Understanding the intentions of others: Re-enactment of intended acts by 18-month-old children. <em>Developmental Psychology, 31<\/em>, 838-850.<\/li>\n<li id=\"reference-14\">Rothbart, M. K. (2011). <em>Becoming who we are: Temperament and personality in development<\/em>. New York, NY: Guilford.<\/li>\n<li id=\"reference-15\">Rubin, K. H., Coplan, R., Chen, X., Bowker, J., &amp; McDonald, K. L. (2011). Peer relationships in childhood. In M. Bornstein &amp; M. E. Lamb (Eds.), <em>Developmental science: An advanced textbook <\/em>(6th ed. pp. 519\u2013570). New York, NY: Psychology Press\/Taylor &amp; Francis.<\/li>\n<li id=\"reference-16\">Ruble, D. N., Martin, C., &amp; Berenbaum, S. (2006). Gender development. In W. Damon &amp; R. M. Lerner (Series Eds.) &amp; N. Eisenberg (Vol. Ed.), <em>Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 3. Social, emotional, and personality development<\/em> (6th ed., pp. 858\u2013932). 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Conversation and developing understanding: Introduction to the special issue. <em>Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 52<\/em>, 1\u201316.<\/li>\n<li id=\"reference-19\">Thompson, R. A. (2006b). The development of the person: Social understanding, relationships, self, conscience. In W. Damon &amp; R. M. Lerner (Series Eds.) &amp; N. Eisenberg (Vol. Ed.), <em>Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 3. Social, emotional, and personality development<\/em> (6th ed., pp. 24\u201398). New York, NY: Wiley.<\/li>\n<li id=\"reference-22\">Thompson, R. A., Winer, A. C., &amp; Goodvin, R. (2010). The individual child: Temperament, emotion, self, and personality. In M. Bornstein &amp; M. E. Lamb (Eds.), <em>Developmental science: An advanced textbook<\/em> (6th ed., pp. 423\u2013464). New York, NY: Psychology Press\/Taylor &amp; Francis.<\/li>\n<li id=\"reference-23\">Wellman, H. M. (2011). Developing a theory of mind. In U. Goswami (Ed.), <em>Wiley-Blackwell handbook of childhood cognitive development<\/em> (2nd ed., pp. 258\u2013284). New York, NY: Wiley-Blackwell<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/section>\n<section>\n<h2 id=\"authors\">Authors<\/h2>\n<ul class=\"media-list\">\n<li class=\"media\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" class=\"media-object noba-author pull-right\" height=\"150\" src=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/images\/shared\/author_photos\/000\/000\/085\/large.jpg\" width=\"150\" \/>\n<div class=\"media-body\">\n<div class=\"media-heading\">Ross Thompson<\/div>\n<p>Ross A. Thompson is Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Davis. His research focuses on early social, emotional, and personality development, and the applications of this research to public policy concerning children and families. He has been recognized for his research contributions, teaching achievements, and public service.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/section>\n<section>\n<h2 id=\"license\">Creative Commons License<\/h2>\n<p><small class=\"license\"><a class=\"marks\" href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-sa\/4.0\/deed.en_US\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Creative Commons\" src=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/assets\/licensing\/cc-7e377801d36ddb6d62c1c06dd07858f400efd7284459955e0de47bdb796c8658.png\" title=\"Creative Commons\" \/><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Attribution\" src=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/assets\/licensing\/by-9be0271defac0fba0df496e1e35b7cd2aeaed8630b22b935ce2ea51380c98cba.png\" title=\"Attribution\" \/><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Non-Commerical\" src=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/assets\/licensing\/nc-1f33b73ce264f326ba55092ac717ed56b21800b76bbd849859eacf7d9319745f.png\" title=\"Non-Commerical\" \/><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Share-Alike\" src=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/assets\/licensing\/sa-1725398b2ebf51d6d0165a63b36061120a047cceed2a5be57cf3f99ad65c3668.png\" title=\"Share-Alike\" \/><\/a><span class=\"title\">Social and Personality Development in Childhood<\/span> by <a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/modules\/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood#authors\" rel=\"cc:attributionURL\">Ross Thompson<\/a> is licensed under a <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-sa\/4.0\/deed.en_US\" rel=\"license\">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License<\/a>. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available in our <a href=\"http:\/\/nobaproject.com\/license-agreement\" rel=\"cc:morePermissions\">Licensing Agreement<\/a>.<\/small><\/p>\n<\/section>\n<section>\n<h2 id=\"apa\">How to cite this Noba module using APA Style<\/h2>\n<p>Thompson, R. (2018). Social and personality development in childhood. In R. Biswas-Diener &amp; E. Diener (Eds), <i>Noba textbook series: Psychology.<\/i> Champaign, IL: DEF publishers. 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