Development of interpersonal relationships
Inhoudsopgave
Lecture 1: Early social life............................................................................................................................... 2
Lecture 2: Parent-child relationship (24 okt)................................................................................................... 6
Lecture 3: How parents affect children’s social lives (29 okt).........................................................................10
Lecture 4: Online and offline peer-relations in childhood and adolescence (31 okt).......................................14
Lecture 5: Negative peer-relations in childhood & adolescence (5 nov).........................................................19
Lecture 6: Changes in peer relations in adolescence – popularity and influence processes (7 nov).................23
Lecture 7: The parent-child relationship in adolescence (12 nov guest).........................................................27
Lecture 8: Peer-relations in early and young adulthood (21 nov)...................................................................30
Lecture 9: Romantic relationships (19+21 nov).............................................................................................33
Lecture 11 (guest): Relationships in old age (26 nov)....................................................................................38
Lecture 12: Social relations and health across development (28 nov)............................................................42
Lecture Q&A................................................................................................................................................ 45
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,Lecture 1: Early social life
- Hay, D.F., Caplan, M., & Nash, A. (2018). Chapter 11: The beginnings of peer relations. In W.M.
Bukowski, B.P. Laursen, & K.H. Rubin (Eds.) Handbook of peer interactions, relationships, and
groups, Second Edition (pp. 200-222).
We have the need to belong! Interpersonal attachment is also related with...
� Mental health
� Physical health
� Social health
Questions about early peer relations
1. Are infants truly social?
Social psychologists: NO!
Social information processing model (children don’t have this yet)
- When individuals encounter a social situation, they go to a series of steps
o Encoding cues: focus attention
o Interpretation of cues
o Clarification of goals -> be social or step back
o Response access / construction
o Response decision
o Behavioral enactment
Psychoanalytics: NO!
- 0-1 year: oral phase
- 1-4 year: anal phase
- Only mother is relevant
o Freud: id, ego, superego
o Child doesn’t have the consciousness
Attachment theorists: ONLY with primary caregiver!
- 0-3 months: social smile
- 4-6 months: start of attachment
- 7-8 months: monotropic attachment
o Styles: secure, avoidant, ambivalent,
disorganized
o Bowlby: 2-dimensional model
Social learning theories: parents matter, peers matter later
Cognitive developmental theorists: YES >4
- Piaget: 4 stages
o Sensorimotor stage 0-2
o Preoperational stage 2-6
o Concrete operational stage 6-12
o Formal operational stage >12
- Child is exploring the environment
- >4 years old: child can imitate others... Social!
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,Classical evolutionary theorists: YES, but only towards kin
- Family selection, because it helps the genes of the family to survive
Modern evolutionary theorists: YES, towards own group
- Reciprocal altruism = understanding that prosocial behavior comes back to you in a good way
Social systems theorists: YES!!!
Attachment is really important with parents, but also grandparents, peers and partners.
Summary
- Classical theories:
o Infants are not capable of true social interactions
o Later relationships are derived from relationships with primary caregivers
o Peers start to matter later in development
- Modern theories
o Children are biologically wired to pay attention to others besides primary care-givers
o The entire social system influences a child
o Early peer relations can be important for development as well.
2. How does the focus on other humans develop?
Focus on other humans
- Scrambled faces paradigm
o The more scrambled a face was, the less the child turns his head/eyes to follow the
face
o 3th month: child doesn’t rotate when face is spread out!
o Older infants focus attention also on other objects
- Responses to strangers
o Left line: infants smiling
o Down line: distance
Smile more to infants than adolescents
Infants are oriented to other individuals
Infants are more excited when they see someone of their age
- Imitation: start around 2 years old (Piaget)
o 14 months old peer can be trained as a model: use certain objects (put bracelet into
a cup) -> when will the infant imitate?
o Can be after 5 minutes, but still after 2 days?
Differences between Parents (15m) or Peers (24m)!
o Younger kids imitate familiar actions from peers, new actions from parents. This is
due to trust!
Summary:
Earlier courses: Infants are drawn to their primary caregivers, oftentime their mother. But....
3
, o Newly borns are drawn to human faces
o Infants seem to be more excited when seeing kids / infants than adults
o Infants can model behavior and imitate others’ behaviors
o In some cases, especially for kids aged 2 and over, peer models are imitated more
strongly than adult models
3. What characterizes early peer relationships?
Prosocial exchange
- Responses to distress
o Newborns: cry in response to other cries
o 8 months: Gaze (eyes) – physical response (touch peer) – affect (see emotion) – self-
distress (experience emotion)
o 2 years: problem-solving, aggression, amusement. Individual differences start!
- Sharing
o 12 months: affiliative sharing
o 18 months: share when asked
o 24 months: share spontaneous! Reciprocate sharing, predicted by sensitivity to
distress. BUT: non-sharing is also very frequent!
o 48 months: sharing increases further, related to TOM
TOM = theory of mind
- Cooperation
o Becomes much better after 27 months! E.g. pull the handle together
Conflict
- This is functional! Conflict over toys starts around 1 year
o 1 year: solve conflict by physical force
o 2 year: also use verbal means
o Kids avoid conflict, especially hard hits. Retaliation (wraak) in conflict occurs
o Gender differences start around age 3
Dyadic peer relations
- Peer preference: gender, type of play, motor development (e.g. both crawling)
o Stability in like/dislike increases around ages 3-4
- Unique characteristics of dyadic relations:
o At 6 months, differences in touching between dyads. Not long-lasting!
o Actor, partner and relationship effects
Actor effects: how a person behaves to others
Partner effects: how a person elicits behavior from others
Relationship effects: the unique element of each relation
Group relations = triadic relations
- Infancy: by nonverbal exchanges
- 6 months: shared meaning
- Age 2: many triadic relations
o Status and dominance: important! This is from 11-15 months old.
o Group can be an attachment figure
4. What is needed for interactions with peers to develop?
Prerequisites
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