Psy 5130 Week 3 Journal & Assignment

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IS SOCIO-EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT CORRELATED WITH COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT AMONG CHILDREN?

Kerem Coskun Meral Coskun

Artvin Coruh Universitesi Merkez, Turkey

The present study aims to investigate correlation between develop- ment of socio-emotional skills and transition from intellectual reality to visual reality. Therefore, it was designed in correlational research. Research sample included 120 primary school children. Data was collected through Facial Emotion Recognition and Empathy Test (FERET), and a rating scale developed by the researchers. Findings of the research indicated that correlation coefficient between the vari- ables is .56. Furthermore, linear regression model explains .31 of the variance. Findings of the research are going to be discussed through Piaget’s moral development theory and Luquet’s theory.

Key Words: Cognitive development, social-emotional development, primary school children

Introduction Seminal theories have been developed in

order to understand child development. Piag- et is one of the most influential person who developed cognitive and moral development theories for children. Piaget developed a mor- al development theory which explains devel- opment of moral judgment among children. Piaget’s moral development theory deals with moral development through reciprocity, obli- gation, social interaction and transformation. Piaget’s moral development theory consists of two stages as heteronomous morality and autonomous morality. In heteronomous morality children know their duties and re- sponsibilities but don’t see them as social arrangement as regulation of human interac- tions. They assume social rules are fixed like natural laws and same for everyone. Children with heteronomous morality cannot manage their behaviours through personal judgment.

As children grow older, they interact more with others. Social interactions make them more adept in understanding morality and help them take others’ view point. In auton- omous morality stage, they come to be aware of that moral rules are mutual agreements and arrangements between individuals. Children who are in autonomous morality, follow mor- al rules through their self-constructed convic- tions (Piaget, 1932; Rest, 1979).

Egocentrism and lack of decentering are obstacles of moral judgment for children. According to Piaget (1965), young children centering on object, are unable to shift their attention from one aspect of an object to another. This disadvantage underlies preop- erational and concrete operational children’s egocentric thought and inability in moral judgment. In communication child with egocentric thought fails take others’ point of view into account (Rubin & Schneider, 1973).

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Moreover, the child, who cannot decenter, fails to think reciprocal, interpersonal aspect of moral situations to solve moral conflict (Lee, 1971).

Cognitive skills are one of the skills to ad- just social and physical environment. Luquet theory influenced Piaget and Piaget used theoretical backgrounds of Luquet theory to develop his cognitive development theory. Luquet (1913) proposed a theory in which children drawing is explained with their cog- nitive characteristics. His theory deals with children drawing in five stages as fortuitous realism (18 months to 2 years), failed realism (2 to 3 years), symbolic realism (3 to 4 years old), intellectual realism (5 to 7 years old), and visual realism (8 years and older). Chil- dren make their first scribbles and acquire coordination between eye and hand in for- tuitous realism. In failed realism children’s’ scribbles become more recognizable whereas they have lack of coordinating their drawing. Children come to draw details of object in relationships and their drawings are simple in nature in symbolic realism. Intellectual real- ism children’s drawings reflect some element which they know to exist although it is not possible to see. Visual realism is the stage at which children can apply perspective rules on their drawings, draw from a particular view- point, and use their perceptions. Eng (1957) and Luquet (1913) proposed that children draw based on what they know rather than what they see. Luquet (1913) claimed that conceptual knowledge is more dominant over perceptual knowledge among children whose age is 8 to 9 years. Those children are inclined to depict object that is impossible to view.

Purpose of the Research: Facial emotion recognition plays pivotal role in social inter- action. Therefore, facial emotion is one of the socio-emotional skills. Empathy, another concept of socio-emotional skills, is defined as emotional response based on recognition of emotions. Facial emotion recognition is

component of the empathy skill. Empathy and facial emotion recognition are pro-social behaviours. Therefore, empathy also contains skill of taking others’ point of view.

There are several researches about emo- tion, regulation and moral development (Eisenberg, 2000), development of moral emotions and moral development (Malti & Ongley, 2014), relationship between empathy and moral reasoning (Berenguer, 2010), asso- ciation between empathy and moral judgment (Kalliopuska, 1983), role of empathy in social reasoning in youth (Paciello, Fida, Cerniglia, Tramontano, & Cole, 2013), However, there are very few studies that aim to investigate relationship between cognitive development and socio-emotional skills in the context of moral reasoning.

Method Research Design: The present study

aimed to reveal correlation between so- cial-emotional development and cognitive development, compose a model between the two domains of development. Therefore, it was designed in correlational research.

Participants: Convenience sampling strategy was used due to financial, time con- straints and impossibility of list and randomly assignment. Sample of the study consisted of primary school children. 30 of them were 7 years old, 30 of them were at the age of 8, 30 of them of them were 9 years old, and 30 of them were 10 years old.

Instruments: Facial Emotion Recogni- tion and Empathy Test (FERET) was used to assess participant children’s facial emotion recognition and empathy as socio-emotional skills. The FERET consists of 6 items. The FERET’s internal consistency coefficient is 82. Participant children’s cognitive skills were evaluated through a rating scale of child drawing developed by the researchers.

Process: All data collection and all pro- cedures were followed in the same order

Socio-Emotional Development Correlated with Cognitive Development / 129

in order to norm data collection. First the FERET was given away to the students and they responded the items on the FERET. After the FERET was completed, drawing sample was displayed through a computer and pro- jection device. They were asked to draw what they saw. After they had finished drawing the data collection process was ended.

Findings

Table 1:Correlation between Socio-emo- tional Skills and Cognitive Characteristics

Variables N r p

Cognitive Characteristics 120 .56* .00**Socio-Emotional Skills

* Two-Tailed; **p < .01.

Correlation between socio-emotional skills and cognitive characteristics was found as .56. Findings in the Table 1 revealed that there is positive, medium and significant correlation between the research variables (r=.56; p<01). Moreover, regression analysis was carried out in order to create a model based on the variables Results of the regres- sions analysis were indicated on the Table 2.

Regression model, based on the correla- tion between cognitive characteristics and socio-emotional skills, was observed to fit modestly to the data (R2= .31). This finding indicates that cognitive characteristic of the participant students predicts socio-emotional skills score from the FERET. B coefficient for the scores of socio-emotional skills was found as 6.79. B coefficient revealed that if cogni- tive characteristic increases, socio-emotional skills from the FERET rises by 6.79 points

Discussion Result of the study reveals that cognitive

development characteristics of the participant students modestly predict their socio-emo- tional skills. In other words, better cognitive development characteristics leads to better socio-emotional skills. Luquet (1913) em- phasized that children with better cognitive development can draw based on what they see rather than what they know. Drawing of the participant children were assessed by examin- ing appropriateness in terms of colours, pro- portion between the objects, location of the objects, perspective rules (usage of sky and ground lines) direction of the objects, similar- ity of the objects, and emotional expression of the object. Cognitive development charac- teristics of the participant children were iden- tified through their drawing and evaluated by Luquet’s principles. In the study the children who drew the sample drawing without caring the sample drawing features, was evaluated as intellectual realism period children because of the fact that they portrayed through their con- ceptual knowledge rather than perceptional features of the sample drawing. On the other hand the children who depicted the sample drawing by taking perceptional features of the sample drawing into consideration, was eval- uated as visual realism period children.

It was observed in the study that visual re- alism children scored better from the FERET than intellectual realism children did. Piaget (1950) and Rest (1979) stressed that better cognitive development makes children more adept in moral reasoning. Better cognitive development characteristics may have helped them perform better in the FERET whereas poor cognitive development characteristics

Table 2: Results of Regression Analysis

Variables B Std. Error β t p r R2 ∆R2 F

Cognitive Characteristics -47.09 13.42 .51 -3.50 .00 .56 .31 .31 50.00Socio-Emotional Skills 6.79 .96 .51 7.07 .00

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may have led to poor performance in the FERET. Lee (1971), and found that the chil- dren who fail to decentre, have lack of solving moral conflict. In the study it was found that intellectual realism period children, whose cognitive development characteristics are not as good as visual realism period children, poorly performed in progression of emotional and social information task in the FERET. Re- sult of the study confirms Lee (1971), Piaget (1965), and Rest (1979).

There is close relation between Piaget’s cognitive and moral development theories and Luquet’s theory. Intellectual realism pe- riod children are dominated by conceptual knowledge rather than perceptual knowledge, so they draw based on what they known about the object, being drawn whereas visual realism period children can draw based on what they see. In Piaget’s terms, intellectual realism period children have inability to shift attention from conceptual knowledge, fail to decentre, and are under impact of egocentric thought. This disadvantage of the intellectu- al realism period children with egocentric thought make them poor in moral reasoning.

Conclusion It was concluded that socio-emotional

development and cognitive development are modestly correlated. Cognitive development helps children to develop in socio-emotional domain in which children need to process information related to facial emotion rec- ognition and empathy skills. Findings of the research indicate that there is medium interaction between cognitive development and affective development so improvement in cognitive domain leads to improvement social-emotional development. Therefore, primary school teachers and parents addresses cognitive development and social-emotional development together.

Acknowledgement: This study was presented at the 42nd Asso-

ciation for Moral Education Annual Confer- ence, which was held at Harvard University Graduate School of Education, 8-11 Decem- ber 2016.

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