Childhood and Socialization

Description

1. Watch the video clip and discuss Harlow’s experiment regarding attachment.

2. The video clip, below, illustrates social learning theory and how children learn through socialization and modeling. 

Explain how social learning theory can shape parent-child relationships.

3. What are some ways of each of Erikson’s developmental stages that inappropriate and ineffective caregiving by parents could impede a child’s psychosocial development and encourage the acquisition of an unhealthy attitude? 

4. Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory explains how individuals and families are affected by a variety of interacting environments in a bidirectional manner. Discuss Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory’s five levels.

Post 1

The monkey they had at the beginning was said to maybe die because he was in need of love. He only had a cheese cloth to hold onto and to comfort him. Harlow is studying love. The early social environment is between a mother and her child. The experiment provided a cloth mother and wire mother. The wire mother provides food and water (the basic essentials to live). The cloth mother just has cloth that provides comfort and the sense of a safe haven (nurturing). The monkey went to the wire mother to get food and water really quick, but went to the cloth mother shortly after and spent 18 hours with the cloth mother. Harlow created a scary situation to see where the monkey would turn to if he was frightened. The monkey went to the cloth mother where he felt comfort and love. If an infant monkey was raised alone with no mother, and was being scared, he stayed alone and stayed in his own little corner. The orphan monkey didn’t go to the wire or cloth mother. All in all, this experiment came to show that early environment and experience are crucial in developing correctly. If a person is raised alone with no parental figure in the critical time period, then when that person later grows up, the person may not be able to socialize or have healthy relationships with other people.

2. Bandura experimented on children ages of 3-5. He put an adult with a child in a room with a bobo doll. The adult began yelling and hitting the bobo doll for about 10 minutes. The experiment came to show that the children are modeling exactly what the adults did. The closest imitation was when the adult and child were the same sex. There was another group that had an adult play gently with the bobo doll. The children in that experiment played gently with no signs of violence with the bobo doll as well. Bandura came to the conclusion that if there was someone doing a violent action or behavior, you tend to imitate them. Bandura made another experiment two years later where children saw the same aggressive behavior, but through television. There was a version where the adult beat up the bobo doll. The second version was where the attacking adult was a cat. He got the same result and children imitated again. The social learning theory is that we can be influenced by others behavior. How we learn it also plays a big factor. This can shape a parent-child relationship because if children see their parents be responsive in an aggressive way then they will too. Children tend to be a mirror reflection of their parents.

3. This question has me a little confused. In infancy, children develop a trust vs. mistrust. This is when children are unsure or unaware of where they are. The second in early childhood they go through shame vs. doubt. This is the time where they should feel supported and feel good about what they are doing with the encouragement of their parents. In preschool they go through initiative vs. guilt. In the school age, they go through industry vs. inferiority. In adolescence they go through identity vs. role confusion. In young adulthood they go through intimacy vs. isolation. In middle adulthood they go through generativity vs. stagnation. In maturity, they go through ego integrity vs. despair.

4. There are 5 ecological systems. The first one being the microsystem. The microsystem is the one in direct contact with the person and closest to them. An example would be a parent, friend, school, or work. Microsystems are bi-directional. The second ecological system is the mesosystem. The mesosystem is when parents and teachers have communication with each other and still manage to influence the main person (the child). They are all connected to each other and work together. The third ecological system is the exosystem. The exosystem doesn’t involve the person directly, but still affects them. An example of this is when a child’s parent loses their job. The child has no say or choice on the decision. The fourth ecological system is the macrosystem. The macrosystem usually affects the child indirectly. It can have to do with policies, values, and be a part of the culture. The fifth ecological system is the chronosystem. The cahronosystem is the timing of an event during a persons’ development. Time can be an influence because of historic events, such as terrorist attacks and world wars. A child who was born 5-10 years ago has more technology knowledge than someone who was born 25 years ago. 

Post 2

The studying monkeys better understand human relationships. Harlow believes using science that he could find love. Harlow mentioned that he could find love and intimacy with the infant and mother. The relationship between the child and the mother, what Harlow calls an early social environment could hold the key to explain their behavior throughout life. As Harlow does the experiment with monkeys they bring in a cloth mother and a wire mother. The cloth mother in this experience doesn’t provide anything and the wire mother provides things. Throughout the video the monkey chose the cloth mother because he feels more protected and comfortable with the cloth mother. It also shows how comfortable they could be with someone that doesn’t provide anything to them. Harlow showed how an infant can be damaged from inside when they grow up without a mother. Children who grow up with no mother tend to have a tough life as they grow.

2. Social learning theory can shape parent child relationships by being strongly influenced by other people’s behaviors. But it is also clear that the way they learn changes as they mature. As people grow up there are other things that can tempt people’s behavior. People develop a capacity to reflect what they say, people develop empathy. In the video,the children imitate what the adult does. In the video it shows an adult beating up the doll with no weapons just her hands. As they put a kid in the room to beat up the doll there is a kid that picks up a hammer to start beating up the doll. As they switch off kids they start to use their hands but they are beating up the doll as if they are angry towards it. Children can be capable of doing any weapon to harm someone. As parents we might not know how our child is feeling since they don’t know how to express themselves. The only way some children might be able to express themselves is by hurting someone else.

3.Erikson’s talks about eight stages and each stage has its own development theme. Those stages are called stages of psychosocial development. For example he has preschool (initiative vs. guilt), school age (industry vs. inferiority), adolescents (identity vs.role confusion) This theory stated that development happens throughout the lifespan between the birth and their death and not throughout only childhood, infancy and adolescence.

4. Bronfenbrenner ecological systems are microsystem, mesosystem, ecosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem. Microsystem has to do with direct contact with the child in their immediate environment. Mesosystem has to do with the interaction between the child parents and their teachers and also how they are doing in school with their peers and siblings. Ecosystem has to do with the neighborhood, their parents workplace, parents friends and mass media. Macrosystem is about their culture. How they may influence their beliefs and perceptions about events in their life. Finally but not least chronosystem is based on the environmental changes that occurred over their lifetime which can influence their development