Interpersonal Behaviors

Interpersonal Behaviors at Different Ages

Infancy (Birth – 2)

• Begin with attachments to parents and other caregivers

• Infants in child care settings or at home with other small children often extend their early social skills to other children

• Toddlers may offer one another toys and imitate one another, creating a shared focus

• In the second year, developing language skills permit increasingly sustained and meaningful exchanges

Early Childhood (Ages 2 – 6)

• Children increasingly interact with age-mates, particularly in the context of play activities

• Mildred Parten (1932) observed the behaviors of 2 – to 5-year-old-children who attended preschool at the University of Minnesota

• She identified six categories of behavior in preschoolers, five of which involve play

Parten’s Behavior Categories

• Unoccupied Behavior à children fail to engage in an activity or interact with another individual

• Solitary Play à children sit absorbed with their own playthings

• Onlooker Behavior à Children watch others who are engaged in play activities but make no social overtures

Parten’s Behavior Categories

• Parallel Play à Children play quietly side by side, they do not talk much to one another

• Associative Play à Children play together, sharing objects and talking a little

• Cooperative Play à Children actively coordinated their activities, keeping an interaction ongoing

Evaluation of Parten’s categories

• Parten concluded that children progress through a defined sequence of play. Becoming more social as they progress

• Research suggest that children do become increasingly interactive and cooperative as they grow older.

• Younger and older preschoolers alike exhibit, at different times, all five categories of play.

• Later forms do not completely replace earlier ones.

Early Childhood (Ages 2 – 6), Con’t

Cooperative play was rightly placed as an advanced state, during it children:

• Children learn more about others people’s perspectives

• Children learn how to coordinate their actions and perspectives

• Children learn how to ask for what they want

• Children develop strategies for resolving conflict

Play and Its Functions

• Most social interchanges with peers occur in play settings, and children spend more of their time outside of school playing with friends than they spend in any other activity.

• Play facilitates cognitive development

• It permits children to explore their environment, learn about things in that environment, and solve problems

Play and Its Functions, Con’t

• Play advances the child’s social development

• Particularly in fantasy play, through acting out roles, children learn to understand others and to practice roles they will assume as they get older

• Play permits children to solve some of their emotional problems and to learn to cope with anxiety and inner conflicts in a nonthreatening situation

Play, Fantasy, and Social Competence

• In play, children can discover the world without risk

• Children learn not only to make use of their own fantasies but to act them out and to act in the fantasies of their peers

• Children can learn behaviors that are appropriate to each play situation in a relatively risk-free situation

Play, Fantasy, and Social Competence
Pretend Play

• Research has shown that pretend play is often social, not only solitary

• Pretend play often focuses on adult behavior that is part of everyday responsibilities

Play, Fantasy, and Social Competence
Pretend Play – Cultural Differences

• Mother-child pretend play is rare in Mexican villages, siblings are primary partners here

• Korean American children stressed themes that revolved around everyday activities, used more polite requests, were more likely to describe their partner’s actions, used more statements of agreement, and were more likely to ask for confirmation of their own action

Play, Fantasy, and Social Competence
Pretend Play – Cultural Differences

• European American children put much more emphasis on themes of danger in the environment, use more directive statements in which they told their partners what to do, were more likely to describe their own actions and to add elements to a partner's statement, and were more likely to refuse or ignore a partner’s suggestion, refuse to share toys, or prohibit a partner from taking part in the play

Early Childhood

• Pretend play initially appears about halfway through the second year, although some children begin as early as 12 months of age

• By age 3, children’s pretend play becomes more complex, cooperative, and dramatic play in which children share symbolic meanings.

• 4 ½ year olds have longer play sequences and more easily negotiate roles, ruled, and themes of their pretend play

Play, Fantasy, and Social Competence
Pretend Play

• Pretend play peeks around 6 years of age when it involves highly coordinated fantasies, rapid transitions between multiple roles, and unique transformations of objects and situations

• Domestic fantasy play begins to decline in the school years as children play more structured games

Peers, Play, and Pathology

• Emotionally troubled children tend to be rigid in their play patterns and to show disruptions in their play.

• That is because these children often have trouble maintaining a theme or idea for an extended period, their pretend play may be choppy and discontinuous

• Children who experience anxiety and other emotional disturbance tend to engage in play that is age inappropriate and to be unpopular with peers

Middle Childhood (6-10)

• Life becomes more social in middle childhood.

• At age 6-12, children spend 40% of their waking time with peers. Twice as much as early childhood.

• Children become attuned to other people’s psychological characteristics (e.g. personalities emotions etc.)

Middle childhood (cont.)

• They also come to understand that in the company of peers certain ways of behaving are acceptable and others are not.

• They also become more concern about equitably resolving conflicts and preserving friendships.

Middle childhood (cont.)

• Most children discover at this age that strategies such as sulking, threatening and hitting rarely work.

• When teachers and parents are not hovering nearby most children tend to sort things out for themselves (both disagreements and choosing and directing activities)

Middle childhood (cont.)

• Rules are important at this age and have an immutable quality.

• Children learn a great deal by participating in rule based games.

• Occasional bickering aside children are motivated at this age to learn and abide by the rules of society.

Early Adolescence (10-14)

• Once children reach puberty they rely increasingly on their peer support for emotional support as well as recreation

• Many young adolescents, girls especially, begin to reveal their innermost thoughts to peers and occasionally to adults.

• Such disclosure is usually a key element of friendship.

Early Adolescence (10-14)

• Become increasingly self-conscious of what people might think of them.

• Overestimate other people’s interest in their appearance and behavior.

• Encourage peers to confirm – peer pressure.

• Internal motivation to fit in is probably more significant than peer pressure.

• Tendency to categorize people.

Early Adolescence (10-14)

• Seem to lead double lives. One type of behavior with family and another with peers.

• They have trouble reconciling these different sides and feel as if they are continually hiding their true self.

Late adolescence (14-18)

• Older adolescents spends almost half of their waking hours interacting with friends and classmates.

• Little time with adults and very little exclusive time with adults.

• Older adolescence try to combine their doubles selves into an adult identity.

• They often use their peers as a forum for self exploration and self understanding.

Late adolescence (14-18)

• Increasing capacity for abstract thought allows them to the unique characteristics of people and they begin to separate people out as individuals rather than part of a group.

• Ties to specific groups dissipates.

• Hostilities soften

• Become more flexible about people with whom they associate.

• Social maturity yet a long time in coming.

Characteristics of Friendships at Different Ages

Infancy (Birth – 2)

• Infants sometimes smile at other infants and babble and gesture to them

• Toddlers respond differently to familiar and unfamiliar children

l They are more likely to make social overtures to children that they know

Early Childhood (Ages 2 – 6)

• Children are building on the rudimentary relationships of infancy

• They also enrich their social interactions through their language, fantasy, and play, especially with people they know well

• When 3 & 4 year olds interact with familiar peers they are more likely to offer social greetings and carry on a conversation, engage in more complex play, and exhibit betters social skills

Early Childhood (Ages 2 – 6), Con’t

• Early friendships also provide opportunities for disagreements, arguments, and even physical aggression

• Such disputes can be heated, but young children are motivated to solve them

• When they have disagreements with nonfriends, preschoolers often stand firm; when they have disagreements with friends they are more inclined to negotiate, compromise, or withdraw

Early Childhood (Ages 2 – 6), Con’t

• Young children seem to have different motives in their conflicts between friends and nonfriends

• From an unfamiliar child, they want their toys back and their dignity reaffirmed

• Although children may be angry with friends, they want to restore communication and good feelings

• They begin to learn to assert themselves while maintaining productive relationships

Middle Childhood (Ages 6 – 10)

• During the elementary school years, children continue to act differently with friends than with peers who are not friends

• With friends they are more likely to express their feelings and to understand the other persons emotional states

• In times of conflict, they strive to identify an equitable resolution and preserve the relationship

Middle Childhood (Ages 6 – 10), Con’t

• At this age friends develop a sense of loyalty to one another, and many of them use self-disclosure as a strategy for maintaining a friendship

• Friendships are more stable now

• Children become more deliberate in selecting their playmates and are usually attracted to peers who have similar interests and styles of behavior

Middle Childhood (Ages 6 – 10), Con’t

• Youngsters in this age range typically choose friends of their own sex, perhaps in part because same-sex peers are more likely to be behaviorally compatible.

Early Adolescence (Ages 10-14)

• Differences in relationships between friends and nonfriends intensify during early adolescence

• Many young adolescents let down their guard and reveal their weaknesses and vulnerabilities to close friends, even as they may try to maintain a demeanor of competence and self-confidence in front of most other age-mates

Early Adolescence (Ages 10-14), Con’t

• Gradually, young adolescents learn that friendships don’t have to be exclusive – that they are not necessarily jeopardized when one friend spends time with other people – and that friends are more likely to grow by having relationships with many individuals

Late Adolescence (Ages 14-18)

• Older adolescents tend to be quite selective in their choice of friends

• They tend to nurture relationships with a few friends that they keep for some time, perhaps throughout their lives, and having such friendships enhances their self-esteem

• Many friendships in late adolescence are enriched with self-disclosure, intimacy and loyalty

Late Adolescence (Ages 14-18), Con’t

• Older teenagers frequently turn to friends for emotional support in times of trouble or confusion, and they are likely to engage in lengthy discussions about personal problems and possible solutions

• Most children and adolescents interact regularly with, and clearly enjoy the company of, many peers besides their close friends.

Bibliography

• Junn, E.N. & Boyatzis, C. J. (2003). Child growth and development, tenth edition. New York: McGraw-Hill.

• McDevitt, T.M. & Ormrod, J.E.(2004). Child development: Educating and working with children and adolescents. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.

• Hetherington, E.M. & Parke, R.D. (2003). Child psychology: A contemporary viewpoint, updated fifth edition. New York: McGraw-Hill.