3.6 Social-Emotional Development Across the Lifespan

Explain how social development relates to behavior and mental processes. UNIT 3 Development and Learning

• The ecological systems theory explores how the social environment influences development. The five systems in this theory are as follows:
• Research has identified different parenting styles of caregivers, including authoritarian, authoritative, and permissive. Cultural differences exist in the ways these parenting styles affect outcomes in caregivers and children.
• Research has identified different attachment styles demonstrated by infants and children, which vary by culture. The types of attachment infants and children display include secure and insecure (avoidant, anxious, and disorganized). T emperament is related to how children attach to caregivers.
  • i. Separation anxiety occurs when children express heightened anxiety or fear when away from a caregiver or in the presence of a stranger.
  • ii. Studies with monkeys demonstrate the importance of comfort over food in attachment.
• Developmental psychologists study how peer relationships develop over time.
  • i. Children engage with peers via play (parallel and pretend).
  • ii. Adolescents gradually rely more on peer relationships as they age. As adolescents interact with peers, they demonstrate a type of egocentrism that is often demonstrated via the imaginary audience and the personal fable.
• Developmental psychologists study how adults develop socially over time.
  • i. Culture plays a role in determining when adulthood begins and when major life events occur (social clock). Some cultures allow for a time of emerging adulthood as a transition from adolescence to adulthood.
  • ii. Relationships with other adults result in adults forming families or family-like relationships that should provide mutual support and care. Childhood attachment styles can affect how adults form attachments to other adults.
• The stage theory of psychosocial development, which was a reconceptualization of the psychosexual theory, proposes that people must resolve psychosocial conflicts at each stage of the lifespan. The stages are as follows:
  • Exclusion: The psychosexual stage theory of development is outside of the scope of the AP Psychology Exam.
• The experience of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) has effects on relationships people form throughout the lifespan. Sociocultural differences exist in what is considered an ACE and how ACEs affect outcomes people may experience.
• Adolescents develop a sense of identity for who they will be as an adult through the processes of achievement, diffusion, foreclosure, and moratorium. Identity development also includes processes for developing identities such as racial/ethnic identity, gender identity, sexual orientation, religious identity, occupational identity, and familial identity, often through considering possible selves.