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HN 501 CHAPTER 5:

The Emerging Self and Socialization in the Early Years “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the real me, after all?” Philosophers, poets, wicked stepmothers, and ordinary human beings have pondered versions of this question ever since the ancient Greeks advised, “Know thyself.” The search for self embodies within it many of the profound questions at the heart of the human condition: What is the nature of human consciousness? Are we the same or different across situations and over time? How do people come to understand and accept who they are? Modern cultures, as we have noted, are not the first to express interest in these matters. Nonetheless, critics have raised concerns that the level of attention directed toward the self has increased in recent decades. Note the amount of press devoted to the ideas of self-concept, self-esteem, self-enhancement, and self-actualization, and you might agree that we have become downright self-centered! Those of us in the helping professions are no exception to this trend. Even a cursory review of the professional literature in clinical and educational fields reveals an intense interest in topics related to the self. Therapeutic approaches that emphasize self-development are very common. Educational institutions struggle to incorporate self-development into their more traditional academic objectives. Popular magazines are saturated with advice about self-concept and self-esteem. All together, the pieces add up to a crazy quilt: part folklore, part research, part anecdote, and part good intention. Our task in this chapter is to unscramble some of this information and present the self in its developmental context. Helpers need to understand the research findings in this critically important area lest they assume that all of our popular, contemporary notions about self-development are valid. For example, the postmodern focus on individualism might convey the idea that the self is truly independent and autonomous when, in fact, it is largely a product of social interaction. Bowlby (e.g., 1969/1982) suggested that working models of the self develop in concert with working models of attachment figures. Erikson (1950/1963) developed the idea that when others respond sensitively to their needs, children develop concepts of themselves as valuable. Cultural groups differ in their emphasis on an autonomous self. So self-development, despite our Western predilection for thinking of the self as independent, occurs in interaction with others and is influenced by culture and context. In this chapter, we will describe the earliest roots of self-development from a Western scientific perspective and emphasize the importance of parenting to this process. As we will see, the role of caretakers is of major significance in the development of many of the processes related to the self. We will also take a look at cultural approaches to specific parenting behaviors, such as discipline. THE SELF-SYSTEM: TRADITIONAL CONCEPTIONS The self and its development are complicated, abstract topics. Writers still grapple with the question of what constitutes a self. In their search for answers, theorists and researchers need to account for the fact that selves are multifaceted and possess elements of both stability and change. If you have ever said that you are not the same person that you were some time ago, you can understand this point. Recently, writers have begun to use the term self-system to replace “self,” because the latter seems too unidimensional (see Damon & Hart, 1988). The self-system includes aspects related to the self, such as self-concept, self-regulation, and self-esteem. The notion of an independent entity called “self” is such a deeply embedded concept in Western psychology that we tend to take it for granted. Therefore, it may be surprising to learn that the psychologies of other cultures (e.g., Buddhist psychology) take a decidedly different view. In Buddhist psychology, mind and matter change continually, and this impermanence is influenced by surrounding conditions (Bodhi, 1999). The Buddhist concept of “no-self” (anatta) does not imply that our conventional use of “self” is not helpful or that you and I are not real in some way. Rather, it emphasizes the transient nature of our phenomenological experience as human beings. The self is constantly being constructed in the moment-to-moment flow of experience. This insight is at the core of recent therapies that offer ways to alleviate the suffering that can come from our human tendency to protect and defend reified concepts about ourselves (see Olendzki, 2010). The view of “no-self” is quite different from that of classic Western psychology, which assumes a relatively permanent construct that can be studied over time. We will begin our look at the nature of the self-system within Western psychology with a brief description of the classic work of James, Cooley, and Mead. William James (1890) made a distinction between the “I” and the “Me,” a distinction that is still used productively in contemporary research about the self. That part of the self called “I” refers to the I-Self/self-as-subject, as active agent, or as the knower. It is that part of the self that experiences a sense of subjective self-awareness. The part called “Me” is that part of the self that is the object of self or others’ observations, or in other words, the part that is known. One might think of the “Me” part of the self (Me-Self) as the Me-Self/self-concept. Implicit in James’s traditional construction of selfhood is the idea that the self is multidimensional. Freud (1956) once wrote that a person could be construed as a whole “cast of characters.” Interestingly, this view of the multiplicity of selves was rejected by a number of influential writers in the first half of the 20th century. Gergen (1971) described the emphasis placed on the importance of maintaining a unified, coherent self by important therapists and scholars such as Horney (1950), Jung (1928), Maslow (1954), and Rogers (1951). Considerable recent evidence, however, has not supported the view of the unified self but has demonstrated that individuals vary across situations, that they may possess conflicting self-ideas that speak with different voices at different times, and that the self-concept differentiates with maturity. A basic feature of the self, then, is that it incorporates both the private and the more public sides of our nature, accommodating our ability to keep our own counsel and still be known to others by virtue of our interactions with them. Recently, writers have developed alternative ways of categorizing the classic “I–Me” distinction. Among these are Lewis’s (1994) subjective and objective self-awareness, Case’s (1991) implicit and explicit self, and Neisser’s (1993) ecological and remembered self. All the newer contrasts share the original distinction between the self as knower and the self as known. Furthermore, there is consensus between classic and contemporary theorists that the “I” self emerges first. What specifically does the “I” comprise? James proposed that this is the side of the self that experiences continuity over time. Even though we all grow and change, we know we embody core elements of the same “self” throughout our lifetime. The “I” also recognizes the distinctiveness of the self as a person compared to other persons. You know where you end and the person sitting next to you begins. Finally, the “I” reflects agency or is that part of the self that engages in self-directed activity, self-control, and contemplation of the “Me.” With time, these elements will be explored and further consolidated in the adolescent search for identity. The “Me” includes all those attributes that are used to define the self and that make up the self-concept. In James’s typology, these are the “material self,” the “social self,” and the “spiritual self,” ranked in that order of importance from lowest to highest. The material self encompasses a person’s physical characteristics and material possessions. The social self includes her social standing, her reputation, and those personal characteristics that are recognized by others, such as gregariousness or stubbornness. The spiritual self, viewed by James as the most precious, incorporates her qualities of character, beliefs, and personal values. Self-concept, as defined here, is distinct from self-esteem. The former is a description of personal attributes. The latter is one’s evaluation of these attributes, or the positive or negative valence associated with those attributes. Valence refers to the affective value of a characteristic, either good, bad, or neutral. James believed that self-esteem is more than just the measure of accomplishments. Rather, he believed that it depends upon the number of successes we enjoy relative to our aspirations, or, in his terminology, pretensions. Pretensions are goals that we choose to meet for ourselves because of their personal importance. For example, if it is highly important to you to be popular and socially active, the lack of a date for an important New Year’s Eve party can be a real blow to your self-esteem. However, if you really care more about earning enough money to become rich at an early age, you might consider working overtime on New Year’s Eve to be highly congruent with your aspirations. Your dateless condition is less damaging to your self-esteem. Failures or even successes in areas that are relatively unimportant to us may be discounted and will have less effect on self-esteem. If James provided ideas about the structure of the self that resonate with contemporary theorizing, Charles Cooley (1902) introduced a developmental perspective that describes how interactions with others help construct the self-system. Using his now-famous metaphor of the “looking-glass self,” Cooley described the process of self-development as one that originates from observing the reflected appraisals of others, primarily attachment figures. Cooley hypothesized that this process consists of three steps. As we interact with others, we first imagine how we must appear to the other person on a certain dimension, such as intelligence. Then, we interpret or imagine how that other person evaluates us on that certain dimension. Finally, we experience some emotional response to that perceived evaluation. The resulting interpretation and its affective valence constitute a building block for constructing self-knowledge. So it is that our self-representations are shaped and given affective valences by the significant people in our life. Let’s consider a simplified example of a young child’s display of affection for a parent. A 4-year-old girl approaches her father to give him a hug. The father, preoccupied with a pressing business matter, looks annoyed by the interruption. He gives her a quick hug and returns to his work. If this type of sequence is repeated on a regular basis across various situations, the child may come to develop a “self-idea” that she is bothersome and not important enough to interrupt her father’s work. She may begin to construct a vague impression of herself as unappealing or possibly too emotionally expressive or dependent. Because the child perceives the emotion and interprets her father’s response as impatient and irritated, her view of the event includes a self-appraisal—presumably that she is irritating—that is incorporated into her self-system. With repeated experience, the youngster comes to regard herself in certain ways by looking at the mirror of her parent’s view of her, warped though that mirror might be. The emotional valence associated with this aspect of the child’s self-image can be unpleasant or uncomfortable. This self-representation may serve as a standard for her behavior in social interactions (e.g., in her willingness to express her need for attention and affection from others) and inform her sense of right and wrong. Now imagine this same little girl in another family. She interrupts her father to give him a hug, and he beams, expressing evident satisfaction in his daughter’s affectionate nature. This child’s self-concept is likely to include a positively valenced sense of being emotionally expressive. The same child and the same behavior could lead to different social responses in different families, setting the child’s developing sense of self, relationships, and morality on a different pathway. Thus early attachment and parenting interactions have been viewed as instrumental in the development of individual differences in self-concept (Sroufe, 1996). Although the development of the self is obviously influenced by many factors and is extraordinarily complex, Cooley believed that it was largely the product of social influences. Recent researchers have investigated the possibility that the sequence Cooley proposed can also operate in reverse order, namely that a positive appraisal of oneself can generate positive interpretations of others’ appraisals. George Herbert Mead (1934) expanded on Cooley’s work, enlarging the scope of influence to include the role of language and society in shaping the self-system. He held that the self-idea, or self-concept, becomes internalized or “generalized” through repeated interactions with others of the same cultural group. The individual adopts the perspective of others who share the same societal perspective, producing a kind of ecological self (Neisser, 1993). An example of this phenomenon is provided by Markus and Kitayama (1991), who found cultural differences in preferred ways of viewing the self. In their study, Japanese were more likely to describe themselves by emphasizing their affiliations, such as family membership, whereas Americans used self-descriptors that emphasized their individuality. Children not only adopt descriptive information about the self from their cultural milieu, they also incorporate those standards, rules, and goals that their family and their culture have determined to be appropriate ways of behaving and thinking (Stipek, Recchia, & McClintic, 1992). Note the parallels between Mead’s approach and Vygotsky’s (see Chapter 3). These classic formulations of the self as multidimensional, as influenced by the reflected appraisals of significant others, and as shaped by the cultural milieu, provide a foundation for current Western thinking about the self-system. You may have noticed that conceptions of self and of morality overlap in these models. Damon and Hart (1992) have noted: Children cannot know themselves without some sense of the other. Nor can they forge their self-identities without an awareness of their own values. Moreover, at all developmental periods, social activities derive from—and in turn shape—judgments about the self, other, and morality. In these and many other ways, self-understanding, social interaction, and morality are intertwined in a developing psychological system that grows and changes throughout the life span. (p. 421) Self-understanding is one of the key building blocks of personality, social, and moral development. How does this mysterious self begin? In the next section, we will review the earliest stages of developing self-awareness. THE EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF THE SELF-SYSTEM The Beginnings of the “I” and the “Me” Settling on a time that marks the beginning of the self is a difficult task because various aspects of the self emerge at different rates and may be identified differently depending upon one’s theoretical viewpoint. A child’s ability to describe herself as “smart” or “funny” will not be apparent until several years after birth. Does this mean there is no sense of self until the time when she can recognize and articulate her personal characteristics? Most contemporary developmentalists would disagree with this idea. In general, the development of self is viewed as a gradually unfolding process, beginning at birth and lasting throughout life. Even adults continue to grow and change, thus experiencing self-development. However, the adult sense of self is far more differentiated than that of the infant, or even that of the articulate preschooler. What are the competencies of the infant that make self-development possible? How do these competencies interact with the social relationships that ultimately give birth to the self as a manifestation of personal consciousness? Precursors of Self-Awareness in Infancy—the “Pre-Self” We might say that the newborn’s capacities for rudimentary information processing and social bonding provide the building material out of which the self is born. For example, one early competency is the infant’s capacity for imitation. As we saw in Chapter 3, babies can imitate the facial gestures of adults a few days after birth (Meltzoff, 1990). When a baby imitates an adult opening and closing his mouth, she is detecting, at least at a behavioral level, similarity between herself and the adult model. Meltzoff argues that such early imitative skills are precursors of the older child’s ability to draw parallels between her own and another person’s mind or feelings. A sensitive caregiver responds to this infant’s signals, allowing the child to take control of the meal. This type of behavior encourages development of a strong sense of an autonomous self. As we saw in Chapter 4, from birth through the first half year of life, the infant is primarily engaged in the business of regulating physiological and emotional states, largely in the context of infant–caregiver interactions. Young infants have limited power to regulate a caregiver’s responses, and so it is primarily the caregiver’s responsibility to scaffold interactions, providing the sensitive care that allows for the establishment of routines. Meltzoff (1990) argues that from the regularity and reliability of caregiver–infant interactions babies extract notions of “self-invariance” and “other invariance,” which precede self-awareness. We might say that the infant comes to possess a pre-self, composed of early inklings of the permanence of her body, its separateness from others, and the rhythms of interpersonal connections. Gradually, over the second half year, the infant assumes more control in signaling the caregiver to provide for her needs. The regularity with which the caregiver is available and sensitive or unavailable and insensitive is stored in memory in what Stern (1985) calls representations of interactions (RIGs). These are “procedural” representations or schemata—preverbal, unconscious, and a kind of sensorimotor memory. They are patterns generalized from the repetitive nature of caregiver–infant interactions. When the infant’s attempts to exert some control over caregiver contingencies are successful, she is thought to experience a budding sense of mastery or self-efficacy (Bandura, 1990). She takes pleasure in expressing the agentic “I.” Imagine the lesson learned by an infant who, when she coos and babbles, regularly attracts the smiles and responsive vocalizations of her caregivers. This baby’s world, in some small way, begins to come under her control. She might encode the message, “When I am upset or need attention, my parent responds and takes care of me.” Again, the infant does not represent these ideas linguistically, but rather encodes these kinds of organized sequences as procedural models or patterns of the self-in-relationship. Affective responses, such as feelings of love and relief, also become associated with these memories. The infant’s self-system is under construction. As the infant approaches the end of the 1st year, other cognitive and affective developments point to an increasing sense of self as separate from the caretaker. We saw in Chapter 4 that by about 8 to 10 months infants display separation anxiety, signaling the formation of an attachment to the primary caregiver. For example, they might show distress even at an impending separation from an attachment figure, perhaps by looking anxiously at the door when the babysitter arrives. Many babies cry and cling to a departing caregiver. These behaviors serve to maintain proximity, and they demonstrate the infant’s recognition that the caregiver is separate from herself. Attachment theorists like Bowlby assume that the attachment between infant and caregiver gives rise to a sense of security and optimism in an infant, what Erikson described as a burgeoning trust in others and an early sense of self-worth. From this perspective, when the 1-year-old begins to use the caregiver as a secure base from which to explore the environment, we are seeing the emergence of a kind of preliminary sense of self-worth. Once again, the infant’s self-development evolves from her experience in relationships. We also saw in the last chapter that late in the 1st year, caregivers’ facial expressions influence infants’ reactions to situations, such as their willingness to cross a visual cliff (Campos, Barrett, Lamb, Goldsmith, & Sternberg, 1983; Klinnert, 1984). Social referencing—the baby’s adjustment of reactions depending on feedback provided by a caregiver—also implies recognition of the separateness of the other. This phenomenon is thought to be a source of information for the self-system, providing the baby with a context in which she begins to differentiate experience of the self from experience of the other and from the combined experience of the “we” (Emde & Buchsbaum, 1990). Social referencing demonstrates how transactional the self-development process really is. The child uses the caregiver’s emotions to discern meaning in events and to intuit information about the self. The 12-month-old infant does not recognize himself in the mirror, but the 19-month-old shows she knows that the image is her own reflection. Campos, Campos, and Barrett (1989) have suggested that when caregivers communicate consistent emotional signals about environmental events, certain pervasive emotional dispositions are created. These processes can have far-reaching effects: “Can I trust other people? Is it safe to take risks?” These emotional dispositions constitute a part of the “value system” of a family or a culture. Furthermore, these authors note that emotional signaling by caregivers may affect the process of emotion regulation and emotional self-knowledge well beyond infancy. For example, a child growing up in an emotional climate marked by parental anger and blame might “read” and internalize the parents’ emotional messages as shame and guilt, concluding that she is shameful (Zahn-Waxler & Kochanska, 1990). The Emergence of Self-Awareness and Self-Concept Certain cognitive advances in the 2nd year seem to play important roles in the development of the self-system. For example, the toddler’s capacity for establishing joint reference with another supports the early development of a theory of mind. Imagine that the father of a 15-month-old girl tries to get the toddler to look at a kitten that has just walked into the room. The father points to the kitten, looks at the child, smiles broadly and says, “cat.” This sequence is repeated until the child, following the direction of her father’s gaze, spies the cat and looks back at him with a big grin. She and her father are sharing the same point of reference. Jointly attending to the pet, in this case, may encourage a beginning understanding of “mind,” of private experience that is sometimes shared. The toddler’s sense of herself as a separate person is enhanced. Note, as well, that the affective part of the experience can also be shared. The toddler and her caregiver both delight in the kitten’s appearance. A benchmark event occurs in self-development roughly around the age of 18 months, perhaps supported by an emerging capacity for mental representation (see Chapter 3). Up to this time, human infants do not show self-recognition when they view themselves in a mirror. Self-recognition is typically manifested by the observer’s display of self-directed behavior upon viewing her reflection. Reasoning that self-directed behavior signals the presence of objective self-awareness, Lewis and his colleagues used a mirror recognition technique to study infants and children (e.g., Lewis & Michalson, 1983). The researchers placed the children in front of a mirror after marking their faces with a spot of rouge. Toddlers often showed mark-directed behavior, such as touching their faces, averting their gaze, and then turning back to look again. No children younger than 15 months had this reaction, and all children in the 24-month-old group displayed it. Between 15 months and 2 years children also began to distinguish their own images from those of age mates on videotapes (see Suddendorf, Simcock, & Nielsen, 2007). Across many studies, findings suggest that self-recognition is universally acquired late in the 2nd year of life (e.g., Courage, Edison, & Howe, 2004). A recent investigation using brain imaging with toddlers indicates that its emergence is linked to maturation of one cortical area—the juncture of the parietal and temporal lobes—that is also activated in adults during self-recognition tasks (Lewis & Carmody, 2008). This toddler recognizes that the image in the mirror is her own reflection, a milestone in self-recognition. The timing of self-recognition shows some variability among children from different cultures. In a study of German, Camaroon and urban and rural Indians, children from cultures that emphasized autonomous socialization goals like independence achieved mirror self-recognition a little earlier than those growing up in cultures that had more relational goals like interdependence. The authors proposed that earlier self-recognition was related to more distal face-to-face interactions with infants through which infants begin to understand themselves as independent agents. Caregivers in relational cultures tended to engage in more proximal body contact and less frequent face-to-face games. Despite these modest differences in age of acquisition, the test was found to be a good predictor of self-recognition across cultures (Kartner, Keller, Chaudhary, & Yovsi, 2012). For children whose development is delayed, as in the case of children with Down syndrome, self-recognition occurs whenever they achieve a developmental level of approximately 2 years (Kopp & Wyer, 1994). Comparison studies of maltreated and non-maltreated children show no differences in the timing of self-recognition (Schneider-Rosen & Cicchetti, 1984, 1991). These studies also suggest that self-evaluation, or self-esteem, begins to emerge along with self-recognition. Maltreated children show considerably more negative or neutral affect when seeing their faces in the mirror than do non-maltreated children, who display more positive affect. Self-recognition is a clear signal that a child has begun to formulate a conscious concept of self. Roughly after the child’s second birthday, an increase in language skills makes possible further elaboration of the self-concept or “Me-self.” Children begin to describe themselves as “a boy” or “a girl” or as “big” or “little,” and they begin to use appropriate personal pronouns to refer to themselves (e.g., Lewis & Ramsay, 2004). These achievements mark a watershed in the development of the self-concept, and caregivers make important contributions by virtue of the labels they apply to children. Parental statements such as “You are a big girl” can now be stored in a child’s semantic memory as part of her self-knowledge (e.g., Nelson, 1993a). Caregivers’ descriptions can be neutral and objective (such as the child’s name or personal pronoun) or evaluative and subjective (such as “pretty” or “good”), and these appear not to be differentiated by young children according to their objectivity or subjectivity. Stipek, Gralinski, and Kopp (1990) reported that toddlers appear to believe both objective and subjective claims about themselves, apparently because the claims come from an authoritative source. In other words, young children cannot discount the negative part of the parental evaluation “bad girl” as due to parental bias or temporary bad mood. When self-description begins, maltreated children use fewer words to describe their feelings than do non-maltreated children, despite comparable performance on measures of receptive language ability (e.g., Beeghly & Cicchetti, 1994). The authors conclude that these results, together with the less-positive affective responses maltreated children display on the self-recognition task, are early indicators of poor self-esteem and of the influence of caregivers’ words and deeds on children’s earliest self-evaluations. In fact, maltreatment generally seems to blunt the development of self-awareness, especially children’s awareness of their inner thoughts and feelings (see Harter, 2006). As toddlers become preschoolers, their self-concepts become more and more differentiated and complex. For example, as early as 3 years of age, children can correctly identify their race, ethnicity, and skin color (Katz & Zalk, 1974). In general, children from minority groups tend to develop racial awareness faster than do nonminorities. A study by Feinman and Entwhistle (1976) demonstrated that young African American children outperform other children in their ability to discriminate colors of faces, suggesting the early influence of race on perception. Ramsey and Myers (1990) also found that race is one of the primary dimensions children refer to when describing people. Unfortunately, many early studies of preschool children found evidence for a pro-white bias among children from minority groups (see Banks, 1976; Beuf, 1977; Spencer, 1982). Typically, these early studies involved questioning young children about their preferences for, and identification with, dolls that represent their own ethnic or racial group and that represent the majority culture (Clark & Clark, 1939). Overall, young children tended to perceive a white doll as possessing more positive attributes, and some researchers have interpreted these findings to be early predictors of identity formation problems or misidentification among minority group children. However, subsequent studies of African-American children have found that a pro-white bias may coexist with high levels of personal self-esteem (Powell, 1985). Spencer and Markstrom-Adams (1990), after reviewing this body of work, conclude that these dissonant results reflect the child’s cognitive awareness of social stereotypes, but not necessarily a self-esteem deficit. In other words, young children from minority groups may be somewhat more attuned to society’s valuing of white culture without necessarily devaluing themselves or their cultural heritage. A more recent computerized version of the original doll study used cartoon characters with several variations in skin tone rather than the original black- or white–skinned dolls. Preschooler participants were less likely to declare any preference for skin tone when shown the array of characters, possibly suggesting their greater exposure to individuals with many skin colors. However, when asked to select either a black or white character to be their “best friend,” there was a trend for young African-American children to choose the white character (Jordan & Hernandez-Reif, 2009). Additional research is needed to better understand the reasons for these results. Consistent with their level of cognitive development, preschoolers generally describe themselves in concrete, physical terms, such as “little” or “strong,” whereas older children and adolescents employ more abstract words. As children mature, they become more skilled at identifying various aspects of themselves. For example, a 7-year-old might describe herself as helpful, a good soccer player, and smart in reading but not in math. As we shall see in a later chapter, the self-concept continues to become more differentiated with age. In summary, the self-system begins to develop in earliest infancy. There are many precursors to a conscious concept of self in the 1st year, a kind of procedural knowledge of the self in action and interaction, or “pre-self.” But awareness of self as a distinct entity begins with self-recognition in the 2nd year and is followed by explicit self-description in the 3rd year. Self-evaluation or self-esteem is evident as soon as toddlers show signs of self-recognition. See Table 5.1 for a summary of the early phases of self-development. TABLE 5.1 Phases of Self-Development AGE DEVELOPING ASPECTS OF SELF MANIFESTATIONS 0–6 months Pre-Self Beginnings of “self-invariance” and “other invariance” embedded in infant–caregiver interactions 6–12 months Intentional or Agentic Self or “I” Intentional signaling of caregiver; social referencing; shared referents; beginning self-efficacy; using caregiver as secure base (beginning self-worth and trust) 12–24 months Objective Self or “Me” Self-recognition; early self-control; early self-esteem (feelings of autonomy) 24–60 months Self-Monitoring Self Self-description; self-conscious emotions; self-regulation Throughout infancy and beyond, the self-system is a joint construction of child, caregiver, and cultural and family milieu. We have described some ways in which caregiver–infant interactions seem to contribute to the development of the self. Later in this chapter, we will discuss in greater detail how parenting in the toddler and preschool years contributes to child outcomes, including the development of the self-system. Roots of Self-Control and Self-Regulation Up to now, we have described the emerging “I” and “Me.” Now we turn our attention to another important dimension of the developing self-system, self-control or behavior regulation and self-regulation. Self-control refers to two things: first, the child’s ability to stop herself from performing a proscribed act, as when a toddler can pull her hand back from the cookie jar after being told “No cookies before dinner”; and second, her ability to make herself perform an act that she may not feel much like doing, such as giving Aunt Matilda a required kiss on the cheek. According to Kopp (1982), self-regulation is a more advanced and flexible version of self-control: the ability to comply with a request, to initiate and cease activities according to situational demands, to modulate the intensity, frequency, and duration of verbal and motor acts in social and educational settings, to postpone acting upon a desired object or goal, and to generate socially approved behavior in the absence of external monitors. (pp. 199–200) Professionals regularly deal with problems involving self-regulation in one form or another. The preschooler who throws tantrums in school, the rebellious adolescent who runs away from home, the young adult who repeatedly loses jobs because she fails to show up on time, all may be examples of difficulties in this area. Many other factors contribute to such adjustment problems; however, they all reflect some lack of compliance with specific requests or rules. Obviously, achieving self-regulation is a rather formidable task for a mischievous toddler or even for a sophisticated high schooler! Even though this may sound like the accomplishment that many parents of tempestuous 2-year-olds long for, it is not realistic to expect a child to be able to master her behavior and emotions in every circumstance. The movement from dyadic emotion regulation to self-regulation of behavior and emotion, permitting harmonious interchange with the social environment, is a painstaking, complex, and long-term process (Thompson, 2006). The Importance of Emotion Regulation It is absolutely essential to recognize that emotion regulation underlies any ability to control behaviors. In fact, the earliest developmental task of infancy is to establish physiological balance, or control over fluctuating levels of arousal. The affective tension that the infant experiences when her homeostatic “set point” has been altered through hunger, pain, or too much stimulation motivates her to return to a more balanced state. Unable to manage this on her own, the infant signals the caregiver, whose soothing attentions function as critical ingredients in the development of the affect-regulation system. When the toddler or preschooler experiences periods of high arousal or distress, the sensitive caregiver steps in once again to help the child regain some affective control or to shore up the boundaries of the self. As we have emphasized in Chapter 4, good caregiving in infancy and beyond involves scaffolding the child’s developing ability to regulate both emotional and behavioral expression. The Early Progress of Behavior Regulation How does behavior regulation come into being? It depends on two major cognitive and emotional advances that emerge in tandem with objective self-awareness or self-recognition: first, representational thought, and second, emotional response to wrongdoing. Recall from our discussion of Piagetian theory that children around 18 months of age can use a symbol to stand in for an object. Toddlers hear, understand, and store structures such as “Don’t jump on the furniture,” which might be a manifestation of a broader value that property should not be damaged, or “Share your candy with your sister,” a version of “Do unto others.” This cognitive machinery allows children to construct internalized representations of standards for everyday behavior (Kopp & Wyer, 1994). These standards or rules might differ somewhat according to the child’s family and culture, but every cultural group maintains them and provides sanctions for their violation (Lewis, 1993). Along with the basic capacity for mental representation, many other cognitive skills contribute to the learning of standards: ability to focus attention, comprehension of caregiver requests, procedural knowledge of rules, and generalization of rules across situations. As these abilities are sharpened in the 2nd year, toddlers begin the process of internalizing rules and prohibitions (Emde, Biringen, Clyman, & Oppenheim, 1991). Obviously, an infant cannot comply with social conventions precisely because she has no comprehension of them. A baby may be prevented from engaging in some activity by external parental displays of control, as when a mother whisks her adventurous 10-month-old away from the edge of a swimming pool. But a 2-year-old who has the requisite level of cognitive maturity to understand and remember some rules, as well as the motivation to comply, begins to show signs of inhibiting her own behavior in such situations. The growth of emotions often linked to violations of standards for everyday behavior appears to begin late in the 2nd year. Called social or self-conscious emotions, shame, embarrassment, guilt, and pride take their place in the child’s emotional repertoire after objective self-awareness, or self-recognition, has been attained (Lewis, 2000). These emotions are different from the emotions of infancy because they require the ability to consider the self as separate from others and as the subject of others’ judgments. Between the ages of 2 and 3, young children often display emotional responses to their wrongdoing and mistakes, suggesting that they have begun to evaluate themselves in ways that they expect to be evaluated by others (Kagan, 1981). At 18 months, a child might take notice of her rule violation but without any discernable emotional response. Consider, for example, the toddler who spills milk on the floor. She may say “Uh oh!” and giggle or point to the spill without much concern. Later, rule breaking becomes associated with some negative affect. This same youngster at 3 may experience a sense of embarrassment, evaluate herself as “bad,” and try to hide the evidence (see Saarni, Campos, Camras, & Witherington, 2006). The capacity for emotional response to wrongdoing is an important milestone, long considered to be the beginning of conscience development (Sears, Maccoby, & Levin, 1957). Although not yet a reflection of full-fledged conscience, the child’s emotional responses to rule violations are linked to what she perceives her parents’ reactions might be, and these perceptions shape her developing sense of morality (Emde, Johnson, & Easterbrooks, 1987). But do all social emotions produce positive moral results? Recent research on shame and guilt have shown that these social emotions can have very different consequences. Despite conventional wisdom that feeling guilty should be avoided, guilt can have adaptive consequences. Feelings of guilt have been associated with increases in other-directed empathy, positive reparative action, constructive problem solving, and low defensiveness and anger. Shame, on the other hand, is linked to hiding or denying wrongdoing, elevated levels of proinflammatory cytokines, heightened self-focus, blaming other people or situations, displaced aggression, externalizing behavior, low self-esteem, and a range of psychiatric disorders (see Tangney, Stuewig, & Mashek, 2007 for a review). As a means of making sense of transgression, children and adults who experience guilt might reason “I did a bad thing” whereas the inner script for those who experience shame might be “I am a bad person.” The use of shaming as a way of disciplining children (telling child he/she should be ashamed of him/herself) has been linked to anxiety disorders in a cross-cultural study of children and parents in China, India, Italy, Kenya, Philippines, and Thailand (Gershoff, Grogan-Kaylor, Lansford, Chang, Zelli, & Deater-Deckard, 2010). EARLY SOCIALIZATION: PARENTING AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SELF-SYSTEM Theorists from Cooley (1902) to Bowlby (e.g., 1969/1982) and Erikson (1950/1963) have assumed that many parts of the self-system grow out of our social interactions. As we saw in the last chapter, the available data do suggest that our earliest relationships create a trajectory for the development of self-concept and self-esteem. For example, when babies are securely attached to their mothers, they tend to be appropriately independent as 4-year-olds and to be self-confident and socially skilled as 10-year-olds (e.g., Sroufe, Egeland, Carlson, & Collins, 2005; see Thompson, 2006, for a review). We know that early caregiving quality can make an important contribution to the quality of babies’ attachments. Infants are likely to become securely attached to caregivers who respond promptly and consistently to crying, who react appropriately to babies’ facial expressions, eye contact and other signals, who handle their infants sensitively, and who hold them often during the 1st year, providing the contact comfort that helps infants modulate their emotions. Such caregiving requires patience and a child-centered approach that can be difficult for any parent sometimes, but is especially challenging if the baby has a difficult temperament or other special needs or if the parent is stressed or depressed. But the effort and self-sacrifice required for parents to create a “good fit,” as Thomas and Chess (1977) described it, between their caregiving and a baby’s needs does appear to contribute to attachment quality and to the direction that self-knowledge and self-evaluation will take. This process continues after infancy, as the description of self-development in the last section indicates. In this section, we will take a close look at parent–child relationships in the toddler and preschool years. We will focus especially on the characteristics of parenting that may be most conducive to helping young children to develop positive self-esteem and adaptive self-regulatory mechanisms. As the infant becomes a toddler, gaining cognitive, communicative, and motor skills, there are new challenges for parents trying to be sensitive and responsive, to create a good fit between their care and the child’s needs. First, caregivers are faced with the need to grant some autonomy to the child. As toddlers become capable of doing more on their own, they are motivated to practice and expand their growing competencies. The strong dependency that characterizes young babies is gradually replaced by a capacity and need for independent action. Erikson theorized that toddlers’ emerging feelings of worth are benefited when they can use their growing skills to function at least somewhat autonomously, whether it is by feeding themselves or by buttoning their own buttons, or more subtly, by saying “NO!”—that is, refusing to do what someone else requires (see Table 1.1 in Chapter 1). Thus, although the earliest feelings of worth grow out of an infant’s trust in others to meet all her needs, those feelings of worth grow in the toddler years when the child begins to experience self-sufficiency, or autonomy, a sense that “I can do it myself.” Second, also because the child’s behavioral and cognitive skills are growing, the caregiver must begin to socialize the child, that is, to prepare the child to be a competent member of society. This includes limiting some behaviors and demanding others, so that the child will be safe (“No, you cannot climb on the counter”) and so that she will learn the standards of her culture and behave in ways that are conventionally acceptable (“You must wear clothes”). Socialization pressure requires discipline, when parents limit or demand behavior using techniques that either exert or require control. Parents generally impose more discipline on the child as they perceive her to be more and more capable of self-control. When parents tell a child to do, or not to do, something, they are depending on the child’s ability to initiate or to stop her own actions. As we saw earlier, the only way to make an infant do, or not do, something is to rely on physically moving or restraining the child. Parents do a lot of that with infants, but they rely more and more on controlling by request or command during early childhood, as the requisite abilities (such as representational and comprehension skills) grow. Thus, caregiver–child relationships are reorganized in the postinfancy period, with the additions of children’s autonomy seeking, on one hand, and parents’ imposition of discipline, on the other hand. What are the important features of this more complex relationship between parent and child? What role does the parent–child relationship play in the child’s developing self-system? Let’s begin by examining what research indicates are the most important dimensions or features of a parent’s behavior in this relationship. The Dimensions of Parenting Style Studies of parenting after infancy have a long history and have produced many complicated findings. Remarkably, researchers from very different theoretical traditions have repeatedly identified two major dimensions or aspects of parents’ behavior that seem to characterize the quality of parenting. These can be thought of as the primary contributors to what is called parenting style (for reviews see Baumrind, 1989, 1993; Bugental & Grusec, 2006; Darling & Steinberg, 1993; Maccoby & Martin, 1983; Parke & Buriel, 2006). This caregiver shows both warmth and demandingness as she guides the children through the resolution of a dispute. The guidelines she provides for sharing will help the children develop their own self-control. The Warmth Dimension—Parental Responsiveness In the postinfancy period, parents continue to create an emotional climate for their children. Contributing to a positive climate is warmth dimension (parental responsiveness): listening to the child, being involved and interested in the child’s activities, accepting the child, making positive attributions toward the child, being “tuned in” and supportive (e.g., Baumrind, 1989; Dix, Stewart, Gershoff, & Day, 2007). In essence, high levels of warmth with toddlers and older children are comparable to high levels of responsive, sensitive care with infants. But some of the child’s needs have changed. With toddlers, as we have seen, autonomy needs begin to be important, and responsive parents accept these needs, acquiescing when possible to their children’s reasonable demands for autonomy (Baumrind, 1993). So, when 25-month-old Amanda begins to insist that she can dress herself, her mother tries to accommodate her by setting aside extra time for the morning dressing ritual. She also ignores the inconvenience and the sometimes strange-looking outcomes and gives Amanda positive messages about the process: “You’re getting to be such a big girl to put on your own clothes!” Her attitude is child centered, sidelining parental needs (for time, convenience, and coordinated outfits) to meet Amanda’s developmental needs. Some parents create a more negative emotional climate. Their behavior is often parent centered: they show little responsiveness to their children’s concerns and are unlikely to do things just to meet those concerns. They may even make hostile attributions when children’s needs are out of line with their own. When 20-month-old Jessie wants to feed herself her morning cereal, for example, at first her mother ignores her. When Jessie insists, her mother attends to her demands by making negative attributions, such as “You’ll just make a mess” and “Why do you always make things so hard in the morning?” When Jessie accidentally spills the milk, her mother responds in frustration, “I told you that you couldn’t do it yourself!” We have seen that sensitive, responsive mother care in infancy promotes secure attachments. Likewise, mothers’ warmth and responsiveness with their toddlers help maintain secure attachments and increase the likelihood that toddlers will be cooperative when mothers place demands on them (e.g., Dix et al., 2007; National Institute of Child Health and Human Development [NICHD], 1998). For example, toddlers’ compliance with their mothers has been observed in toy cleanup tasks and in a situation where mothers designate some attractive toys as “off limits.” The most enthusiastically compliant toddlers are those who are securely attached to their mothers (according to a separate assessment), and whose mothers maintain a warm, positive emotional climate throughout the sessions (Kochanska, 1995; Kochanska, Aksan, & Koenig, 1995). The Control Dimension—Parental Demandingness The second major dimension of parenting style is the control dimension (parental demandingness). If parental responsiveness means that parents sometimes acquiesce to their children’s demands, parental demandingness leads parents to impose discipline. Demanding parents require their children to curb some of their behaviors and insist that they perform other behaviors that are suitable to their level of maturity (sometimes called maturity demands). Demanding parents impose standards and rules and enforce them. Interestingly, this dimension of parenting can be either child centered or parent centered. If the parent’s concern is the development of self-control necessary for children to feel secure, to behave in ways that gain social acceptance, and to become skillful at social give and take, then discipline has a child focus. If the parents’ concerns—for example, for quiet, or convenience, or orderliness, and so on—are primary, then discipline has a parent focus. Of course, parents’ disciplinary motives may sometimes combine both kinds of concerns, and the same parents may shift their focus depending on the given situation. For example, Hastings and Grusec (1998) found that parents expressed more parent-centered concerns (such as wanting to be in control) when disciplining their children in public, but more child-centered concerns (such as teaching a child not to give up easily) in private interactions. The control dimension refers to parents’ behavioral control of their children, which as you will see, is an important element of responsible parenting. This must be distinguished from psychological control, which refers to a kind of intrusiveness and interference on the part of parents (e.g., Barber Stolz, & Olsen, 2005; Bugental & Grusec, 2006). The latter often involves criticizing and/or derogating the child and leaving the child without choices. Psychological control has more to do with the emotional climate a parent creates (the warmth dimension) than it does with demandingness. Four Parenting Styles We can describe four basic parenting styles, or constellations of parenting characteristics, as shown in Table 5.2, by combining and crossing the positive and negative poles of parental responsiveness and demandingness (Maccoby & Martin, 1983). As you will see, these styles are often predictive of child characteristics (e.g., Baumrind, 1989, 1993). The Authoritative Style Parents with an authoritative style are both highly responsive and highly demanding. So, they create a positive emotional climate for their children, promoting autonomy and supporting assertiveness and individuality. At the same time these parents accept responsibility for socializing their children by expecting mature behavior and setting and enforcing clear standards. Other qualities also tend to be part of this constellation. These parents are often openly affectionate; they encourage two-way communication with their children (that is, they genuinely listen and pay attention as well as talking themselves). Their communications about expectations and standards are usually clear and come with explanations that go beyond “You do it because I said so” to statements that help children make sense of their parents’ demands. Thus, they are strong on behavioral control, but do not use psychological control. TABLE 5.2 Parenting Dimensions and Parenting Styles   PARENTAL WARMTH   ACCEPTING, RESPONSIVE, CHILD-CENTERED REJECTING, UNRESPONSIVE, PARENT-CENTERED Parental Demandingness:     Demanding, Controlling Authoritative Style Authoritarian Style Undemanding, Not Controlling Permissive Style Neglecting-Uninvolved Style Source: Maccoby, E. E., & Martin, J. A. (1983). Socialization in the context of the family. In P. H. Mussin & E. M. Hetherington, Handbook of child psychology vol. 4 (4th ed., pp. 1–101). Copyright © 1983. Reproduced with permission of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Parents who create a positive emotional climate promote autonomy and elicit cooperation from their children. The Authoritarian Style Authoritarian parents are low on responsiveness, but highly demanding. Thus they do not create a positive emotional climate nor encourage children’s individualistic strivings or assertiveness, but they do tend to exercise considerable control, making maturity demands and requiring conformity to rules. In addition, other qualities tend to be characteristic of authoritarian parents. First, authoritarian parents usually communicate less effectively with their children than authoritative parents. Their communications are more one-sided (“I say what will happen; you listen”). They express less affection. And their control tends to be more restrictive, meaning that they tend to restrict their children’s emotional expressiveness and other self-assertive behaviors. That is, they tend to exercise not just behavioral but also psychological control. They also are more likely to exercise control by using power assertion (see the section on parenting practices below) and are less likely to provide explanations that go beyond “Because I said so.” The Permissive Style Permissive parents are moderately to highly responsive to their children, but low on demandingness. Thus, they exercise less behavioral control than other parents, putting fewer maturity demands on their children, especially with regard to expressions of anger and aggressive behavior. They are more nurturing and affectionate than authoritarian parents, but usually not as nurturant as authoritative parents. The Neglecting–Uninvolved Style Some parents are both low on responsiveness and low on demandingness, so that they actually invest little time or attention in a child and are largely parent centered in their concerns. Like permissive parents, neglecting–uninvolved parents seem to neglect their responsibility to socialize the child, but they also express less affection and are not likely to be responsive to their children’s needs, perhaps even expressing hostility or making negative attributions to their children. When they do impose limits on their children, they tend to use power assertive techniques and little explanation. Parenting Style and Child Outcomes Through the long history of research on parenting, small but significant correlations have been found between parenting style, on one hand, and children’s typical behaviors, on the other. Briefly, authoritative parenting has been associated with many positive outcomes in young children: adaptability, competence and achievement, good social skills and peer acceptance, and low levels of antisocial or aggressive behavior. Of particular interest to us in this chapter, authoritative parenting seems to promote positive self-development, especially high self-esteem and the capacity for self-regulation. The children of authoritarian parents are more likely to be irritable and conflicted, showing signs of both anxiety and anger. They are conforming (self- controlled) with authority figures, but are not socially skillful and are susceptible to being bullied (e.g., Ladd & Ladd, 1998). They tend to have low self-esteem, and although they exhibit self-control with authorities, they may lack self-regulation when they believe that authorities are not monitoring them. Permissive parents are more likely to have children who exhibit uncontrolled, impulsive behavior and low levels of self-reliance. They are low on cognitive competence and social agency, and high on aggression, especially in family interactions. In some studies they have had high self-esteem, apparently when parents exhibit high levels of warmth, but many studies suggest that warmth combined with demandingness is more certain to be associated with self-esteem (see Maccoby & Martin, 1983). Finally, the children of neglecting/uninvolved parents are likely to be impulsive, to show high levels of both externalizing problems (e.g., aggressiveness) and internalizing problems (e.g., depression), and to have low self-esteem. Be cautious in interpreting these relationships between parenting style and child outcomes. The strength of the associations is modest, cueing us that many factors interact with parenting and modify its effects. Researchers have begun to identify a multiplicity of interacting factors, which we will discuss in a later section of this chapter. (See Collins, Maccoby, Steinberg, Hetherington, and Bornstein, 2000, for further discussion.) Parenting Practices: Methods of Control Thus far, we have looked at parenting style—parents’ combined responsiveness and demandingness—as a source of children’s behavior and self-development. Another aspect of parenting concerns the method of control parents choose when they attempt to exercise control. Researchers have identified three categories of control method: power assertion, love withdrawal, and induction. Power assertion can involve physical punishment or the threat of physical punishment, ranging from spanking on the buttocks to harsh beating with objects. Or, it can involve withdrawal of privileges, from mild forms (such as time-out procedures with toddlers, see Box 5.1), to severe denial (e.g., withholding meals). Power assertion is usually effective for the immediate control of behavior. Children often show self-control when they feel threatened. But there can be unwanted side effects. Harsh or severe power assertion has been linked to high levels of anger and anxiety in children, and children whose parents use harsh, punitive practices tend to be more aggressive than other children (e.g., Baumrind, 2001; Strassberg, Pettit, Gregory, & Bates, 1994; Straus & Gelles, 1990; Straus, Sugarman, & Giles-Sims, 1997; Straus & Yodanis, 1996). New research on the effects of “milder” forms of physical discipline (e.g., spanking) will be reviewed later in this chapter. The parents in this family appear to use power assertion as their method of controlling a teen that they find rebellious and difficult. Would you expect that they used a similar discipline style when the girl was younger, and that they use the same style with their younger children? If a child is accustomed to power assertive control, what happens when the threat is removed (e.g., Mom or Dad is not present or unlikely to find out)? Does the child engage in self-regulation? In other words, will she regulate her own behavior because she is committed to an internalized set of standards? There are conflicting data on this issue. On the whole, power assertion does not seem to be particularly effective in promoting self-regulation. Interestingly, milder forms of power assertion are more effective than harsher forms. But the picture is complex and cannot be fully understood without considering other factors, such as child temperament, culture, and overall parenting style. We will return to this issue later. Box 5.1: Effective Ways to Use Time-Out In many Dennis the Menace cartoons, Dennis sits in a pint-sized chair, hugging his teddy bear, facing into a corner, banished for some infraction. Dennis’s parents use time-out as a disciplinary procedure: During a short span of time, Dennis is required to discontinue his involvement in ongoing activities to quietly sit somewhere apart. The technique involves mild power assertion and is suitable for use with toddlers and preschoolers. There is no pain involved, but time-out gets the attention of young children. Requiring a child to sit in a corner is one approach, but you can choose any place that separates the child from the action, while keeping her in a safe place that is within calling distance. Do not choose a spot where the child might be overwhelmed by feelings of isolation. The purpose of time-out is to eliminate the rewards of misbehavior, not to frighten a child. Indeed, it will work even if the “place apart” is in the midst of things. For example, in one day care center, the time-out chair is in the middle of a busy classroom so that the teachers can keep an eye on the offender. For the children, just being confined to the chair is sufficiently aversive to be effective. Hamilton (1993) offers a number of pointers for using time-out effectively. To start, it helps to choose just two or three target behaviors that need to be changed. Reserve time-out for behaviors that are important to control because of safety, such as climbing on the kitchen counter, or because they are antisocial and hurtful, such as hitting or biting. Explain to the child which behaviors will lead to time-out, why they are unacceptable, and what alternative behaviors would be acceptable. It works best if children know the rules in advance so that what will lead to time-out is clear. (Don’t forget to provide some positive attention for those more acceptable behaviors.) Don’t use time-out for behaviors that have not been previously identified as inappropriate, and when the time-out is over, follow up with a reminder of your reasons for restricting this behavior. Remember, mild power assertion combined with induction can be very effective. Although Dennis the Menace is allowed to have a teddy bear in time-out, it is more consistent to eliminate access to toys, television, and attention from others. Don’t expect everything to go smoothly right from the start. At first a child may refuse to stay in time-out, or she may repeat the offending behavior just to test your resolve. If the child won’t stay in time-out, make it very brief—a minute or so—and hold the child in place, turning your face away to create the condition of no attention. Then make eye contact and praise the child for staying in time-out. Stick it out—it will pay off. Time-out needs only to be long enough to get the point across. The younger the child, the less time is appropriate. One rule of thumb is 1 or 2 minutes for each year of age, so that the maximum time-out for a 2-year-old would be 4 minutes. Longer times are likely to become so aversive that they could defeat the purpose of simply getting the child’s attention and creating an opportunity for her to think over her behavior. Time-out when well-implemented is an effective disciplinary strategy with young children. Time-out, like most effective discipline, requires putting aside what you are doing to attend to the misbehavior when it happens. It can be inconvenient, but immediacy is important to help young children make the right connection between their behavior and its consequences. Similarly, consistency is essential. When a parent’s responses are unreliable, it is difficult for a child to learn what the rules are. Just how consistent can a parent be? There are going to be times when you simply cannot follow up on a misbehavior. But most times you can, if you make it a priority and if you are careful to use time-out for just a few important behaviors. Suppose, for example, that you are teaching your 4-year-old, Jenny, not to hit her baby brother. In the middle of your grocery shopping, sure enough Jenny hauls off and whacks him. Immediately, tell Jenny what’s wrong with this picture: “Jenny, you know that hitting is not okay. It hurts and it makes people cry, and we don’t hit in our family, ever! You have to go to time-out for that.” Pick up the baby, grab Jenny’s hand, leave the cart, and head for the car. In the car, put Jenny in the back seat and sit in the front with the baby. Say clearly, “You are in time-out,” and face forward for the designated time. At the end, explain the rule again, tell Jenny that time-out is over, and head back to the shopping cart. In other words, if at all possible, improvise. (No car? Stand silently on the sidewalk for the time-out period.) There are bound to be situations that make immediate and full follow-through impossible. You could have been in the middle of checking out your groceries, for example. But if your usual response is swift and sure, your efforts will pay off. Love withdrawal—such as a parent’s withdrawing attention or affection, expressing disappointment or disillusionment with a child, turning away from a child, cutting off verbal or emotional contact, or enforcing separations—is rarely used alone by parents, but when it is used, it seems to generate high anxiety and is more effective in eliciting immediate compliance than any other method. As with power assertion, there is little evidence that the compliance that love withdrawal generates is anything but short term (Maccoby & Martin, 1983). Use of love withdrawal is often characteristic of parents who exercise psychological control over their children (Bugental & Grusec, 2006). Induction refers to parents’ use of explanation: giving reasons for rules (“If everybody touched the paintings they would soon be very dirty from fingerprints”) and appealing to children’s desires to be grown-up (“Big girls don’t take toys away from babies”). “Other-oriented” explanations seem to be especially powerful in promoting empathy (“When you hit people, it hurts them and makes them sad”). Using induction seems to be the most effective way to promote the internalization of rules, so that children regulate their own behavior by the standards they have learned regardless of whether authorities are present and whether immediate consequences are likely. For example, Laible and Thompson (2002) observed mothers with their 30-month-olds in contexts where conflicts were likely to arise. These were a clean-up task and a “frustration task” where children had only a too-difficult puzzle to play with while their mothers were busy and while other more interesting toys were off-limits. The more mothers used inductive control strategies, like justification (“We can’t touch those toys because they might break”), and the less they used more punitive or aggravating control strategies, like threats, teasing, and harsh commands, the more likely their children were to exercise self-control in a resistance to temptation task 6 months later. Many studies have found that the same parents may use one practice on some occasions and another in other situations, and sometimes parents use multiple practices in the same disciplinary episode (e.g., Hastings & Grusec, 1998; Kuczynski, 1984). But most parents favor using one type of practice more than the others, and when they do, their primary practice is somewhat predictive of certain child outcomes. But, much as we found with rearing practices in infancy, such as breast versus bottle feeding, particular practices may be less important than the overall quality of the parent–child relationship. For toddlers and older children, the meaning that the child attributes to parents’ practices is likely to be important and appears to be tied to the emotional climate established by parenting style (Darling & Steinberg, 1993; Grusec & Goodnow, 1994). In particular, when parents are warm and responsive, their children are more likely to comply with parental demands (e.g., NICHD, 1998). Parenting style, then, affects how effective a parenting practice will be with a child (Darling & Steinberg, 1993). As it happens, certain practices tend to be combined with certain parenting styles. Authoritative parents, for example, are often characterized by extensive use of induction, regardless of what other practices they might sometimes use. The children of authoritative parents are likely to show higher levels of competence, self-esteem, and self-regulation than children exposed to other parenting styles. But what might happen if parents who show most of the qualities of an authoritative style—especially high responsiveness and high demandingness—were to use primarily power assertion to enforce their demands? In the next section, we will consider how parenting style interacts with practice for different children and in different cultural contexts, focusing on what we are learning about how these factors interact in the early phases of self-development, during the toddler and early preschool years. We will revisit these issues in later chapters when we describe self-regulatory and moral development in older children and adolescents. Moderators of Parenting and Parenting Effectiveness Authoritative parents seem to get the best results from their children, but are their behaviors really having any influence? Both developmentalists (e.g., Scarr, 1993) and popular writers (e.g., Harris, 1998) have asked whether we are wrong to assume that correlations between parenting and child outcomes imply that parenting style and practice are actually causing children’s behavior. Several other possibilities exist. First, the shared biological inheritance of parents and children might account for both the parental and the child characteristics measured in these studies (Scarr, 1993, 1997). For example, the same genetic endowment that makes parents affectionate and responsive might produce children who are cooperative and good-natured. Second, children’s predispositions and temperaments may actually cause parents’ behaviors rather than vice versa. For example, perhaps children who are “naturally” sunny and compliant usually elicit authoritative parenting, but hostile, negative children usually elicit more authoritarian or neglectful parenting behaviors. Overall, although controversy persists on these issues, most researchers and clinicians take a multidimensional approach to the question of direction of effects in children’s social development (e.g., Bell & Chapman, 1986; Collins et al., 2000). That means that multiple causes are thought to be interacting, mutually modifying one another. As in Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological model, proximal processes— reciprocal interactions between the child and the people and things that surround the child—as well as distal processes, such as genes and culture, are all playing a role (e.g., Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006; Lerner, Rothbaum, Boulos, & Castellino, 2002). In this section, we will consider two important factors in the multidimensional mix: the child’s temperament and the broader cultural environment. The Child’s Temperament, Parenting, and Child Outcomes Recall that in infancy, both parents and infants contribute to the quality of the caregiving relationship. It is harder for mothers to be sensitive and responsive to a baby with a difficult temperament, for example. But when mothers are highly responsive during infancy, the good fit they create between their caregiving and the baby’s needs supports the development of a secure attachment even for babies with difficult temperaments. When mothers are not able to create a good fit, the type of insecure attachment that emerges often seems to be at least partly influenced by the baby’s temperament (e.g., Kochanska, 1998). With toddlers and preschoolers, temperament and other child characteristics continue to contribute to the quality of the parent–child relationship. Children’s typical behaviors can affect both parenting style and the particular disciplinary practices that parents are most likely to use. Bell and Chapman (1986) reviewed 14 studies that demonstrated the influence of children on parents. Many of these studies were at least partly experimental, with adults (usually parents) reacting to, or interacting with, children who were not their own, in situations created by the researchers. The studies examined adults’ responses to children’s dependence versus independence behaviors, their tendencies to be aggressive or to withdraw, and their responsiveness to adults (e.g., tendencies to smile, chat, imitate, and so on). For example, in one of these studies, Marcus (1975, 1976) showed parents videotapes of a child actor solving a puzzle. The child in the film behaved either dependently (e.g., seeking help, like, “Would this piece go better here or here?”) or independently. The adults’ reactions were more directive with the dependent than with the independent child. Stevens-Long (1973) examined parents’ reactions to unrelated children’s aggressive, uncooperative behavior or to anxious, withdrawn behavior. The adults were more likely to command or ignore the more aggressive children, but to verbally help or reward the more depressive children. Bell and Harper (1977) found that adults used more power assertive behaviors with socially unresponsive girls and more inductive behaviors with girls who were highly responsive. All of these studies demonstrate that adults’ reactions are moderated by the characteristics or behaviors of the particular child with whom they are interacting. Studies such as these, along with research on parents with their own children, began to paint a picture of a multilayered, complex interactive system between parent and child. The child’s characteristics are likely to affect the parent’s behavior, and the parent’s style and practices affect the child’s behavior. But other factors modify parents’ and childrens’ effects on each other. The degree to which the child affects the parent’s practices and beliefs depends in part on the parent’s initial attitudes toward children and child rearing, as well as the parent’s emotional state and ability to manage stress. For example, parents who have child-centered rather than adult-centered concerns are able to be more supportive and responsive to their youngsters. Parents’ emotional states influence how child centered they are likely to be. Depressive mothers report fewer child-oriented positive emotions and concerns than nondepressive mothers (Dix, Gershoff, Maunier, & Miller, 2004). Similarly, as we saw in the last chapter, parents’ own relationship histories and their working models of attachment are likely to influence how they respond to their children and how well they adapt to their children’s characteristics. Children’s Differential Susceptibility to Parenting Strategies One illustration of the interactive complexities we have been describing is that children show differential susceptibility to different rearing approaches, depending on their early temperament characteristics (e.g., Belsky, 2005). Several studies now demonstrate that difficult, negatively reactive infants and toddlers are often more affected by parenting style—both positive and negative parenting behaviors—than children with easy temperaments (e.g., Bradley & Corwyn, 2008; van Zeijl et al., 2007; see also Kochanska, Aksan, & Joy, 2007). Let’s consider the tendency to display aggressive behavior. Children who have difficult temperaments are more likely than children with easy temperaments to show inappropriate levels of aggression with peers and/or adults (Zahn-Waxler, Iannotti, Cummings, & Denham, 1990). But how aggressive they become is more closely linked to parents’ disciplinary and interactive style than it is for children with easy temperaments. For youngsters with difficult temperaments, insensitive, negative parent behaviors (e.g., frowning, criticizing, yelling, being physically intrusive) appear to increase proneness to aggression, whereas sensitive, positive discipline (e.g., being affectionate, praising, using distraction) decreases proneness to aggression. For youngsters with easy temperaments, even those who seem prone to aggression, parenting differences do not have as much effect as they do for children with difficult temperaments. That is, aggressive tendencies are not moderated substantially by parenting practices (Bradley & Corwyn, 2008; van Zeijl et al., 2007; see also Rubin, Hastings, Chen, Stewart, & McNichol, 1998). The Cultural Context, Parenting, and Child Outcomes Just as children’s characteristics can affect parenting and outcomes, cultural factors, such as the race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic class of the family, can moderate parenting practices and may even alter their effects. The preceding sections have made a strong case for the benefits of authoritative parenting, but most of the supportive research findings have come from U.S. majority samples. Does parenting differ in other parts of the world, and are these styles effective for other populations? No doubt about it, culture affects parenting. At its core, culture dynamically shapes values, self-regulation and behavior, and cultures could not continue to exist without some means of transmitting their values and worldviews to younger members. Through socialization, cultures transmit methods of coping with and adapting to specific challenges, a process that fosters resilience in children and youth (Garcia Coll, 1990). Studying the effects of culture on parenting is a task that is nothing less than daunting. Remember that what we call “culture” is essentially embedded within the environment at every level of the ecological system, from the immediate family to the larger society and its institutions. This is culture in the broadest sense of the term, and it’s sometimes difficult to avoid essentializing groups and conflating culture with geography, SES, or race. Researchers often paint with a relatively broad brush in order to capture key qualities that make one culture different from another, because, in reality, there is wide individual variation within groups (Gibbons, 1998). For example, “Hispanic” or “Latino” culture, broadly construed, reflects Mexican, Puerto-Rican, South American, Dominican, Spanish, and other group influences. “European American” culture includes British, Irish, Italian, German, French, Polish and other influences. So it’s important to remember that these labels are generalizations that attempt to capture common underlying dimensions. When you consider all the labels writers have used to distinguish cultures, such as individualistic-collectivist, developing-developed, East-West, rural-metropolitan, immigrant-acculturated, native-non-native, majority-minority, and so forth, you can see what they are up against. TABLE 5.3 Parenting Values and Effects Across Five Cultures CULTURAL GROUPS TRADITIONAL VALUE ORIENTATION TRADITIONALLY IMPORTANT VALUES POSSIBLE EFFECTS ON PARENTING African American Communalism Individualism, Importance of kinship relationships, Unity, Creativity, Cooperation, Authenticity, Awareness of racial disparities and discrimination Authoritarian (No-nonsense) parenting; Unilateral decisions made by one parent; Egalitarian family structure European American Independence Autonomy, Individualism Authoritative; Egalitarian family structure Latino American Collectivism Interdependence, Familism, Respeto, Personalismo, Machismo, Marianismo Authoritarian; Patriarchal family structure; High Parental warmth Native American Collectivism Interdependence, Value of Nature, Harmony, Balance, Extended Family, Respect for elders, Cooperation, Sharing Permissive; Patriarchal and Matriarchal Structures Asian-American Collectivism Interdependence; Filial piety, Guan & Chiao shun, Amae, Conformity, Obedience, Avoiding loss of face, Humility/Modesty Authoritarian; Structural and managerial parental involvement; Patriarchal family structure Key: Communalism: Emphasis on social bonds and mutual interdependence as well as individuality that contributes to the good of the group. Familism: A sense of loyalty, solidarity, and identification with family and community. Respeto: Respect for experience of others and deference to authority. Personalismo: Preference for warm, courteous, and personal interactions with others over more formal interactions. Machismo: Traditional gender value for males; emphasis on the masculine role of defending, protecting, and caring for family but sometimes interpreted as dominance and sexual bravado. Marianismo: Traditional gender value for females: emphasis on the feminine role of self-sacrifice, virtue, and caring (using the Virgin Mary as a role model). Filial piety: Moral obligation to respect, honor, and care for parents; considered to be a key value in intergenerational relationships. Guan and Chiao Shun: Duty to train or govern children in a loving way for their benefit. Amae: Characterized within a relationship by the mutual indulgence of each member’s needs for love and affection; parental indulgence of children’s needs to promote harmony in the relationship. Source: Based on Yasui, M. & Dishion, T. J. (2007). The ethnic context of child and adolescent problem behavior: Implications for child and family interventions. Clinical Child and Family Review, 10, 137–179. Source: Boykin, A. W., Ellison, C. M., Albury, A., & Jagers, R. J. (1997). Communalism: Conceptualization and measurement of an Afrocultural social orientation. Journal of Black Studies, 27, 409–441. Source: Marin, G. (1993). Influence of acculturation on familialism and self-identification among Hispanics. In M. E. Bernal & G. P. Knight (Eds.), Ethnic identity: Formation and transmission among Hispanics and other minorities (pp. 181–196). Albany, NY: SUNY. Source: Altarriba, J. & Bauer, L. M. (1998). Counseling the Hispanic client: Cuban Americans, Mexican Americans, and Puerto Ricans. Journal of Counseling and Development, 76, 389–396. Source: Ojeda, L., Flores, L.Y., Meza, R.R., & Morales, A. (2011). Culturally competent qualitative research with Latino immigrants. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, 33, 184–203. Source: Torres, J. B., Solberg, S. H., & Carlstrom, M.S. (2002). The myth of sameness among Latino men and their machismo. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 72, 163–181. Source: Castillo, L. G. (2010). Construction and initial validation of the Marianismo Beliefs Scale. Counselling Psychology Quarterly, 23, 163–175. Source: Hwang, K.-K. (1999). Filial piety and loyalty: Two types of social identification in Confucianism. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 2, 163–183. Source: Chao, R. K. (1994). Beyond parental control and authoritarian parenting style: Understanding: Chinese parenting through the cultural notion of training. Child Development, 65, 1111–1120. Source: Rothbaum, F., Kakinuma, M., Nagaoka, R., & Azuma, H. (2007). Attachment and amae: Parent–child closeness in the United States and Japan. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 38, 465–486. Despite these difficulties, some underlying cultural structures and values that are particularly salient to parenting have been identified. These structures and values may help to explain observed differences in parenting practices, such as discipline, across cultures. Table 5.3 offers several examples of traditional cultural values, reviewed by Yasui and Dishion (2007), thought to influence parenting from five major ethnic groups in the United States. Definitions for less commonly used words (in italics) are provided as well. The need for parents to set limits is a critical part of the socialization process, and different patterns of discipline have been observed across different cultural groups. European American parents who tend to employ authoritative methods often use nondirective or inductive disciplinary practices—offering suggestions, making polite requests, distracting a child, giving explanations, and so on. These practices are related to beneficial child outcomes such as empathy and prosocial behavior in their children. But some cross-cultural researchers find other patterns of associations between parents’ warmth and disciplinary practices. In one study (Harwood, Schoelmerich, Schulze, and Gonzalez, 1999), no difference between Puerto Rican American and European American mothers were found in maternal warmth as they interacted with their 12- to 15-month-olds. Both European American and Puerto Rican American mothers tended to be affectionate and committed to providing a supportive emotional climate for their toddlers. But the Puerto Rican mothers were more directive and more likely to issue commands than to give children choices or opportunities to express their desires. Consistent with other research on European Americans, the Anglo mothers were more likely to let their toddlers try to do things for themselves and were more likely to make suggestions than to issue commands. These differences in mothers’ behavior were consistent with their long-term goals. Puerto Rican mothers appeared to be more concerned about “sociocentric” or relational outcomes, focusing more on wanting children to recognize their obligations and their connectedness to others. The Anglo mothers appeared to emphasize “individualization” or autonomy as a long-term socialization goal, valuing assertiveness and self-reliance. In traditional cultures emphasizing interdependence (see Table 5.3), parents typically use high levels of control with children and minimize choice, placing a greater value on obedience training. This may serve the goal of teaching children to subjugate their own needs to the collective good (see Chen & French, 2008; Rudy & Grusec, 2006). Generally, higher rates of authoritarian parenting practices, including power assertion, are found among African-American, Asian-American, and Hispanic-American groups possibly due to different parenting goals. Earlier research speculated that the authoritarian style found in these families benefitted children because it prepared them for the experience of the world they might encounter even while it was disadvantageous for European-American groups. Let’s look at the way this question has evolved in research. Disciplinary practices that involve severe physical punishments (inflicting bodily injury by beating, kicking, punching, scalding, and so on) are consistently associated with problematic child outcomes, such as aggressive behavior, emotion dysregulation, attention problems, conduct disorders, and depression (see Cicchetti & Toth, 2006) and are not considered normative, regardless of culture. While there is little disagreement about the deleterious effects of maltreatment, the issue of corporal punishment (e.g., hitting, spanking, and paddling) in schools and homes has been more contentious. Corporal punishment has been defined by Straus (1994) as “the use of physical force with the intention of causing a child to experience pain, but not injury, for the purpose of correction or control of the child’s behavior’’ (p. 4). As research on abuse and its effects has become more refined, a growing body of evidence has accumulated to reveal the potential harm in less extreme forms of punishment. In a large early study of mother–child pairs, Straus and his colleagues (1997) asked mothers how often they had spanked their child in the last week when the children were between ages 6 and 9. The researchers measured children’s antisocial behavior then and over the course of the next 2 years. More frequent spanking at the first assessment predicted increases in the children’s antisocial behavior over the next 2 years. This was true regardless of the family’s social class, ethnicity, the child’s gender, or maternal warmth. (See Gershoff, 2002, for a meta-analytic review of similar research.) As we have stated, however, some studies of power assertive discipline have shown culture-specific differences. In European-American samples, there is a linear relationship between amount and harshness of physical discipline and children’s aggressive behavior. The more severe the punishment, the more aggressive children are likely to be. For African-American children, this relationship was found in some earlier studies (e.g., Aucoin, Frick, & Bodin, 2006), but a number of researchers either reported no association between corporal punishment and aggressiveness in children (e.g., Baumrind, 1993; Deater-Deckard, Dodge, Bates, & Pettit, 1996), or they found based on parent report that corporal punishment is related to less aggressive outcomes (Lansford, Deater-Deckard, Dodge, Bates, & Pettit, 2004). What might account for these findings? One possibility advanced is that normativeness reduces negative impact. In other words, if children expect to be disciplined in a certain way (spanking, etc.), then they may perceive spanking as normal, and possibly even as a manifestation of parental care. A recent study (Gershoff et al., 2010) found some evidence that children’s’ perception of the normativeness of punishment moderated outcomes in a sample of families from China, India, Italy, Kenya, Philippines, and Thailand. Remember that a moderating influence would affect how strongly certain types of disciplinary techniques were associated with adverse outcomes. Normativeness diminished the deleterious outcomes of yelling and corporal punishment, but only by a bit. These particular forms of discipline were always related to greater levels of aggression in all cultural groups, despite this moderation. Another explanation may be that the long-term effects of punishment are moderated by the warmth, affection and responsiveness of the parent who is doling out the discipline. Several large studies of American children support this idea (e.g., Aucoin et al., 2006; McLoyd & Smith, 2002). McLoyd and Smith looked at outcomes across a 6-year period in nearly 2,000 American children. Once again, for all children, African American, European American, and Hispanic, amount of spanking in the home predicted the level of children’s externalizing behavior over time. But mothers’ emotional support of their children moderated this link in all three groups. You may be wondering what “spanking” means in some of these studies. Most often, data is collected on the frequency of spanking incidents, but not on how it’s done. In response to Baumrind’s (2002) argument that “ordinary” spanking (done with an open hand less than once a week) would not be associated with problems related to more severe discipline (e.g., frequent spanking, spanking with objects), 585 families were followed over several years to explore the effects of different forms of spanking (Lansford, Wager, Bates, Pettit, & Dodge, 2012). Some support for Baumrind’s argument came from maternal self-reports indicating no differences in externalizing behavior between not-spanked and mildly (with a hand less than once per week) spanked children compared to the harshly spanked group. However, over 50% of mothers initially reporting mild spanking admitted using objects to spank later on. Findings indicated that mild spanking, compared to no-spanking, increased the probability that discipline would escalate into harsher forms in the following year by 50%. In other words, the majority of mothers who spanked continued to do so, and the majority of these mothers used objects to spank their children. Recently, a large nationally representative sample of over 11,000 children from White/Non-Hispanic (64%), Hispanic (19%), Black/Non-Hispanic (12%), and Asian (5%) families were studied at kindergarten and again at third grade (Gershoff, 2008; Gershoff, Lansford, Sexton, Davis-Kean, & Sameroff, 2012). Two independent sources of data were provided by parents and teachers, an improvement over studies that relied solely on parents as informants. Teachers reported on children’s externalizing behaviors (arguing, fighting, getting angry) and mothers responded to questions such as: About how many times, if any, have you spanked your child over the past week. Number of times was coded using a 0 (no spanking) or 1 (ever spanked) to 6 (five spanking incidents or more during the prior week). The research focused on spanking and excluded harsher disciplinary methods known to correlate with adverse outcomes. Overall, spanking was shown to be a popular method of discipline. At the kindergarten interview, 27% of all mothers reported spanking their children in the previous week, and 80% reported that they had used spanking at some time. Highest rates of spanking during the previous week were reported by Black mothers at kindergarten (40%) and 3rd grade (23%) interviews. At kindergarten, spanking during the previous week was reported by 28% of Hispanic, 24% of White and 23% of Asian mothers. At third grade, spanking was reported by 23% of Black, 21% of Asian, 14% of White, and 13% of Hispanic mothers. After controlling for initial group differences in frequency, spanking was found to predict the same increases in children’s externalizing behaviors for White, Black, Hispanic, and Asian American groups. In findings similar to those in the previously described study (Lansford et al., 2012), these results demonstrated a downward spiral. More spanking strengthened a pattern of coercive interaction processes in the families (see Chapter 7 for information on coercive family processes). Associations between corporal punishment and later mental disorders were recently reported in the largest representative study to date (Afifi, Mota, Dasiewicz, MacMillan, & Sareen, 2012). Close to 35,000 U.S. adult males and females from the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions were interviewed by trained investigators. For purposes of analysis, a distinction was made between maltreatment and “harsh physical punishment.” Maltreated individuals, defined as those who reported physical abuse (burning, injury), extreme neglect (going without clothes or food), sexual abuse or witnessing violence, were excluded from this study. Harsh physical punishment, which was the variable of interest, was defined as either being pushed, shoved, slapped, or hit by a parent or someone living in the home at least once during childhood. Findings indicated that the incidence of a lifetime mental disorder (all mood disorders, all anxiety disorders, drug abuse or dependence disorders, and several personality disorders) was significantly associated with harsh physical punishment as defined above, even after controlling for initial level of family dysfunction and other demographic variables. Interestingly, the odds of harsh physical punishment increased as families’ income and educational levels increased. Although the size of the relationship was relatively modest, the implications are great when viewed from a public health perspective. The authors concluded that the rates of mental disorders could be reduced 2 to 7 percent by eliminating harsh physical punishment. Social interactive experiences contribute to children’s developing self-systems. CONSCIENCE: THE BEGINNINGS OF A MORAL SELF You can see that research on parenting supports the many theories of self-development that emphasize the importance of social interactive experiences in the development of the self-system. Parenting style especially has been found to correlate with children’s self-esteem—how worthy and competent children feel—and it appears to be linked to self-confidence in social interaction. Children whose parents are child centered, responsive, and warm tend to show high levels of self-esteem, and they are likely to be skillful in social interaction, as evidenced by peer acceptance and teacher ratings of social competence. These findings suggest that Erikson (1950/1963) may have been on the right track when he argued that after initial feelings of worth are laid down in late infancy, these feelings will be reworked by the child as she changes. For example, as toddlers become more capable of self-sufficiency, they acquire needs, such as autonomy and control needs, that sensitive, responsive caregivers accommodate. If a toddler’s needs are met in a positive, affirming way, the child will go beyond having global feelings of worth and will acquire more differentiated feelings of competency. Box 5.2: Popular Views of Parenting: What Should We Believe? Child-rearing “experts” abound in today’s society, each touting his or her own set of certainties about how to raise good or happy or successful kids. Popular beliefs about effective parenting have varied from one historical era to another, and, like today, even within each era there has been wide divergence among the kinds of advice that parents could confront. Consider these two wildly different suggestions. The first is from an Infant Care bulletin published by the U.S. Department of Labor in 1914, a tract heavily influenced by animal studies of associationism. It seems insensitive to the emotional needs of both the child and the parent, emphasizing routine over all else: A properly trained baby is not allowed to learn bad habits. It is a regrettable fact that the few minutes of play that the father has when he gets home at night, which is often almost the only time he has with the child, may result in nervous disturbance of the baby and upset his regular habits . . . much of the play that is indulged in is more or less harmful. (As quoted in Lomax, Kagan, & Rosenkrantz, 1978, p. 130) In contrast, the second example, from a Parents Magazine article in 1950, is based on a misinterpretation of Freudian ideas and seems remarkably overindulgent of children’s emotional excesses, with no regard for control. As described in Lomax et al.: mothers were told that they must learn to face and accept all types of emotional outbursts on the part of their children, so that the children would not become fearful of their own feelings. . . . “we should feel suspicious of ourselves when we react strongly to something as absurdly simple, for example, as a child calling us names.” (p. 66) Ironically, as Lomax et al. note, Freud actually expected that parents would set limits on their children’s antisocial behaviors. Today, some self-styled “experts” advocate a “return” to authoritarian parenting from earliest childhood, reacting to what they perceive as overly permissive trends (Bolotin, 1999). These “traditionalists” encourage parents not to be child centered. John Rosemond, for example, exhorts parents to make their marriage the focus of attention. Children, he argues, acquire self-esteem from successfully facing hardship and frustration. Give them a lot of responsibility for household chores, and punish all disobedience with unpleasant, memorable consequences. He has expressed disdain for parents who place a high priority on having a “warm and fuzzy” relationship with their children (Rosemond, 1991). Gary and Anne Marie Ezzo, a former pastor and his wife, advocate “biblical principles” for families, among which they include: expecting immediate obedience to first-time directions or commands; feeding babies on a schedule and expecting them to sleep through the night when they are 8 weeks old; potty training by 18 to 24 months, with children accountable for their own cleanup of toilet “accidents” by 30 months; and the use of corporal punishment, starting with hand swatting or squeezing in infancy and moving to spanking with something that creates “a sting” by 18 months (Ezzo & Buckman, 1995, 1999). What is especially notable in the advice of these and other “traditionalists” is their lack of concern for what researchers describe as the “warmth factor”: parental responsiveness to children’s needs, high levels of expressed affection, and willingness to listen and explain. Their emphasis is clearly on the “control factor” alone: take care of the child’s need for discipline and all else will follow. They also ignore data indicating that mild power assertion is often more effective than severe forms and that the children of parents who use physical punishment tend to be physically aggressive themselves. What is a parent to do, and how can a helper help guide inexperienced or dissatisfied parents as they struggle to sort through the confusing array of advice? The most valuable guidance a counselor can offer is advice informed by research. From research reviewed in this and other chapters on social development, it is clear that parents have an abiding influence on their children’s development, although outcomes are the product of many interacting factors, including temperament differences among children and family and cultural context. It is also clear that both parental warmth and control are important. Awareness of such information can help parents evaluate the suggestions they encounter. For example, is it true, as Rosemond argues, that self-esteem is a product of accomplishments that include overcoming hardship? It sounds sensible, but the data indicate that the picture is much more complex. Parents’ responsiveness and sensitivity to children’s individual and developmental needs are core elements of successful parenting. Making children do things that are too difficult for them is insensitive—in such a case, hardship seems unlikely to lead to anything but frustration and a sense of defeat or abandonment for the child. Rigid age formulas are therefore a risky business. For example, many 2-year-olds may be ready to potty train quickly, but some are not. Many 8-week-olds probably cannot sleep through the night, because they get too hungry or because their neurological systems are too immature to maintain such a routine. But when parental demands are embedded in a context of warmth, so that they are appropriately keyed to the child’s emerging skills, and when children feel safe expressing their own feelings and concerns, high levels of demandingness do indeed seem to be associated with feelings of competence and self-confidence. Authoritative, not authoritarian, parenting has the best track record. Parenting appears to contribute to other aspects of the developing self-system as well. In particular, parenting style and practice are related to children’s self-regulation, including the child’s ability to “generate socially approved behavior in the absence of external monitors” (Kopp, 1982, p. 200). This last ability is assumed to be a function of internalization, the process by which children adopt adults’ standards and rules as their own. Internalization, in turn, is associated with the development of conscience, feelings of discomfort or distress when the violation of a rule is contemplated or carried out. Internalization and conscience formation are both aspects of the broader topic of moral development and will be discussed again in later chapters as we look at the course of moral development in older children, adolescents, and adults. At this point, let’s take a closer look at the complex connections among early parenting, the beginnings of self-regulation, and the associated processes of internalization and conscience formation. We have already noted that children can begin to learn self-control when they can understand and remember adults’ behavioral commands—when statements such as “No cookies before dinner” have meaning for them—certainly during their 2nd year. At about age 2, children often begin to show signs of emotional distress if a standard is violated (see Kochanska, Gross, Lin & Nichols, 2002; Thompson, Meyer, & McGinley, 2006) and soon after they can show strong reactions if they are tempted to break a prohibition (Emde & Buchsbaum, 1990). At the same time, toddlers begin to offer comfort to others in distress (e.g., Zahn-Waxler & Radke-Yarrow, 1982). Two aspects of parenting seem to promote these processes. First, parents’ warmth and responsiveness facilitate compliance (self-control) and promote the development of concern for others (Maccoby & Martin, 1983). Sensitive, responsive parents seem to establish a cooperative, mutually responsive relationship with their toddlers—an ongoing secure attachment—and toddlers tend to be eager to maintain such relationships (e.g., Aksan, Kochanska, & Ortman, 2006). Second, children’s anxiety or emotional arousal seems to play a role in their willingness to comply and in the internalization of standards (e.g., Kochanska et al., 2007). Hoffman (1983) proposed that a parent’s discipline causes a child to feel anxious arousal. He proposed that mild arousal helps the child pay attention but is not really upsetting. When a child is aroused enough to take notice, but not to be especially fearful, she is likely to notice, to try to understand, and to remember the parent’s “socialization message.” She may attribute her own compliance with the rule to her acceptance of it, which is a step toward internalization of the rule. But if the child experiences intense arousal during a disciplinary episode, she may pay more attention to concerns other than the socialization message. She might notice, and later remember, how scared she is, for example, of her parent’s loud and angry voice, and then attribute her compliance to these factors rather than to the standard or rule that could have been learned. Hoffman’s ideas help explain why mild power assertion is more effective for long-term internalization of rules than harsh power assertion—the minimum sufficiency principle. His views are also consistent with findings that induction—parents’ use of explanation and reasoning—is helpful for internalization. Children are more likely to remember and accept rules they can understand. If anxious arousal is an important ingredient in how children respond to their parents’ discipline, individual differences among children in how easily their anxiety is aroused should also be important. In other words, temperament differences among toddlers should influence the early development of conscience. For fearful children, gentle discipline that deemphasizes power and emphasizes requests and reasoning should be sufficiently arousing to produce optimal effects. But what about children who are not easily aroused—who seem almost fearless? Do they need harsh discipline to be sufficiently aroused to pay attention? To find out, Kochanska (1995) studied 2-year-olds’ committed compliance, that is, their eager and enthusiastic willingness to go along with their mothers’ requests. Committed compliance in 2-year-olds is predictive of measures of internalization and conscience in the later preschool period (Kochanska, Aksan, and Koenig, 1995). Kochanska found that toddlers’ fearfulness is indeed an important ingredient in the effectiveness of mothers’ discipline. Highly fearful children, as expected, showed the most committed compliance if their mothers used gentle discipline. Harsh discipline was not as effective. However, neither gentle nor harsh discipline was more effective in promoting compliance for the most fearless toddlers! For them, only the security of their attachment to their mothers made a difference. Securely attached, fearless toddlers tended to show committed compliance, but insecurely attached, fearless toddlers were much less likely to do so. And, as expected, committed compliance at age 2 was predictive of moral development at 4 ½ years (Kochanska et al., 2007). We see again that children’s temperaments make them differentially susceptible to parenting behaviors, helping to explain why correlations between parenting behaviors and child outcomes tend to be moderate. Parenting clearly is important, but it works somewhat differently with different children. To clarify Kochanska’s findings, imagine a 2-year-old, Joel, who tends to be more fearful than the other children in his play group. For example, he holds back and ducks his head when a supervising adult offers him a turn to ride the new “race car” at the neighborhood playground, even though many of the other children are clamoring for a turn. When Joel’s mother encourages him gently to participate in a cleanup session, explaining how much help it would be, he is quite cooperative. She tells an observer that she never “yells” at him because he gets so upset that it is counterproductive. José’s mother, on the other hand, says that her son seems unfazed by yelling. José does not seem to be afraid of anything. He can’t wait for his turn to ride the new race car, and the fact that the supervising adult is a stranger is of no concern to him. Fortunately, José and his mother seem to share a warm relationship, and José, too, cooperates enthusiastically when his mother asks him to help with the cleanup. Andrew, another toddler in the play group, seems a lot like José in his fearlessness. He is panting to ride the race car and to try all the toys on the playground, and he marches right up to the supervising adult, asking for help. But there seems to be very little warmth between him and his mother, and when she asks him to help out with cleanup, he ignores her. Even when she gives him a shove and speaks sharply to him, he only halfheartedly moves to pick up a toy and abandons the cleanup effort almost immediately. In sum, parenting influences the development of the self-system in early childhood. Which aspects of parenting will be influential depends in part on the particular child. For the development of self-regulation, the quality of attachment, grounded in warm, responsive caregiving, may be all-important for some children. For others, particular parenting practices (methods of control) also play an important role. Applications Because the stages of infancy and early childhood have long been viewed as important ones for later socioemotional development, it is worthwhile to attempt to link theories of early attachment, self-development, and parenting into a framework that provides a working knowledge for counselors. Crittendon’s (1994, 1997) insightful theoretical formulation is a good starting point because it knits together these three topics and attempts to explain the effects of sensitive and insensitive parenting on children as they get older. Building a Self Through the Attachment Relationship In Crittendon’s view, attachment classifications are linked to operant conditioning processes. Securely attached infants and toddlers receive predictable, soothing care when their physiological needs, fear, aggression, excitement, or anxiety threaten to overwhelm their capacity for homeostatic regulation. These children learn that expressions of their positive as well as their negative feelings (anxiety, distress, and anger) are acceptable because they will be tolerated by a caregiver who accepts and helps them. In other words, they are positively reinforced for expressing both positive and negative feelings. Let’s consider an example that might apply to adult students. Imagine a time when you were close to despair because of all the work you had to do. You had a number of responsibilities to complete at your job, you had family obligations to attend to, and your professors were being unreasonably demanding about their assignments! On top of everything, you felt tired and on the verge of getting your annual cold. Your level of crankiness increased significantly, suggesting that you were starting to lose some emotional control. Now imagine that some loving person in your life approached you, and instead of telling you to “grow up,” was able to see through the irritability to the anxieties underneath. This person offered to help shoulder some of your burdens. Emotionally you experienced what amounts to a sigh of relief. You were able to function much better with the support, and your sense of yourself as a valuable and loved person increased greatly. In this supportive context, you would probably be even more receptive to constructive suggestions about how you might schedule your time to improve your situation. Although this example is not a strict analogy to early experience, young children have special needs for caregiver support to help them regulate their emotions and internalize positively valenced self-understanding. Crittendon believes that secure reciprocity with a caregiver allows the child to be open to both cognitive and affective experiences, gradually building procedural models of the self as competent to communicate with the caretaker, able to manage affect with the caretaker’s reliable help, and able to accept and express both positive and negative parts of the self. Essentially, the positive message the secure child encodes is that she is a valuable and loved person even when she’s not being particularly grown up. Crittendon believes that these repeated dyadic patterns of attachment are encoded as procedural memories that serve as precursors to the mature self. The Emotionally Constricted Self In contrast, insecure-avoidant infants who learn that displays of distress elicit rejection, punishment, or withdrawal become conditioned to inhibition of affect. These infants are, in fact, punished for their emotional displays, so these children come to actively avoid or block out perceptions that arouse their feelings because of the aversive consequences. Crittendon and DiLalla (1988) have reported that even very young children who have been severely abused actively block out information about their own feelings and demonstrate false affect—that is, affect that is superficially positive and incongruent with true feelings. Consistent with the general assumption of attachment theory, this pattern of avoidance is adaptive for an early nonresponsive caregiving environment but may have significantly negative consequences for later functioning. A highly defended or “false self” (Kernberg, 1976; Miller, 1981; Winnicott, 1965) may result from the inhibition of affect because the child distorts or mistrusts the evidence of her feelings. This situation effectively reduces the information that the young child can access in constructing the self. The message the child encodes is that feeling anger or distress is unacceptable and should be avoided because the expression of these feelings distances the caregiver, emotionally if not physically. The child views the self as able to communicate with caregivers only if her own emotional needs are kept in check. Positive aspects of the self may be expressed, but negative aspects, such as emotional neediness, need to be repressed. Avoidant children who have learned that emotional expression can be dangerous take on the responsibility of their own emotion regulation without seeking caregiver help. They function defensively to keep the caregiver “close but not too close” (Crittendon, 1994, p. 95). To cope with this style of parenting, they learn a style of relating that involves repressing emotions that might anger or distance their more authoritarian caregivers. Negative affect (feelings of distress, sadness, anger) is not well integrated into the self-system, and a false self develops that is biased in favor of its “good” parts and against its more shameful ones. These avoidant or defended children may appear self-reliant to their parents, who may not be very responsive to their children’s feelings anyway. In extreme circumstances, these children may demonstrate what Bowlby called compulsive caregiving. This is the pattern of taking emotional care of a caregiver. A pattern of compulsive self-sufficiency represents an opposite yet equally unhealthy result. These children are at risk because they appear so self-possessed. A closer look reveals their self-evaluations to be based on others’ negative appraisals, including shaming for their expressions of dependency or needs for closeness. Parents of these children can be helped to develop the nurturant side of authoritative parenting by using some of the attachment-related approaches described in earlier chapters. Children’s sense of themselves as valuable and worthy of care is strongly shaped by the responsiveness of adults throughout the early years of development. The Emotionally Volatile Self Insecure-anxious infants learn that their displays of distress elicit unpredictable results, sometimes positive and sometimes negative. They essentially lack a method of communicating with the caregiver that works reliably, possibly because of inconsistent or sometimes neglectful parenting. Consequently, they experience the “anxiety of unresolvable arousal in which desire for the attachment figure, distress at her absence, and aggression toward her are all felt concurrently” (Crittendon, 1994, p. 93). Their model of themselves becomes one of incompetence with respect to communicating with a caregiver. Ultimately these children learn they can trust neither their affect nor their cognitions. However, they may learn that escalation of affect often works best in getting their caregivers’ attention. These children might develop highly coercive strategies (aggressiveness or tantrums) and very coy behaviors (disarming manipulation) to maintain proximity. The self incorporates messages that reflect its ineffectiveness in communicating its needs to caregivers. Their aggressive behavior threatens the caregiver (“You must listen to me!”), whereas their coy behavior disarms (“Please don’t get angry at me”). This pattern has been hypothesized to represent the child’s attempts to cope with an unpredictable and inconsistent parental environment. Parents of these children might describe them as “out of control.” Not all noncompliant child behavior problems are due to early insecure attachments, however. Children may discover, as they become more independent and more verbal, that coercion works well in getting them what they want. Patterson (1982; see also Reid, Patterson, & Snyder, 2002), who studied the development of defiance in children, maintains that an intermittent (or inconsistent) schedule of reinforcement sustains the coercive child’s behavior problems. A pattern of negative reinforcement, when the cessation of a stimulus increases the frequency of some behavioral response, follows the child’s display of intense negativity or misbehavior. For example, a parent might tell her 4-year-old to go upstairs because it is time to go to bed. The little boy, detesting this interruption of his play time, begins to whine. The parent repeats her command several more times only to be met by continued resistance. The parent’s patience begins to thin and she escalates into threats, which, according to Patterson’s research, are usually not carried out. Instead, the parent appeases the child out of guilt or exasperation. The parent gives up and the child’s noncompliance is reinforced. This pattern strengthens the child’s coercive interaction style, which with time and repetition can become the predominant mode of communication. Ironically, Patterson believes that coercive children do not really want parents to give in. Instead, they crave the predictability that derives from knowing what their limits are and the security of knowing that parents will enforce them. Coercive children, however, need help developing a communication style that expresses their needs more directly so that caregivers will understand and respond appropriately. If left unchecked, child noncompliance can be a significant risk factor for later maladaptive outcomes, such as peer rejection and aggression. In such situations, some parent training is generally a very good idea. Why Train Parents? Parent training (PT; Patterson, Chamberlain, & Reid, 1982), or parent management training (PMT; Brestan & Eyberg, 1998), has the distinction of being one of a relative handful of therapies deemed efficacious for children (Kazdin, 2003). Studies have shown that PT is more effective in reducing noncompliance and promoting prosocial behavior, especially for children ages 4 through 8, than alternatives such as family therapy, relationship therapy, or play therapy (Feldman & Kazdin, 1995). The term efficacious is applied to therapies that have demonstrated empirical support. This is very good news, given the protective power of authoritative parenting to reduce risks for many concurrent or later disorders and its ability to greatly improve positive outcomes for children (Steinberg & Avenevoli, 2000). Authoritative parenting enhances security of attachment and provides children with a positive context in which to learn socialization skills. Difficulties with child behavior and discipline are frequently reported referral problems for helpers. Even if these problems are a rather more intense version of normal developmental strains and even if they never materialize into more significant problems, the burdens on families who are trying to cope with them can be great. Parent training can substantially strengthen the limit-setting side of authoritativeness, improve the quality of life in the home, and reduce stress for parents who must grapple with children’s noncompliance. In some cases, an added parent management component can make a good therapeutic program even better. For example, in the case of treatments for ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), a multimodal treatment that included medication and behavioral (including parent management) treatment demonstrated an advantage over medication alone for children with comorbid conditions (anxiety or conduct problems), for children with more highly educated mothers, for members of minority groups, and for families who learned to improve their discipline techniques via this training (as cited in Arnold et al., 2004). The principles involved in parent management training have also been effectively adapted to classroom management for teachers. Parent training is successful, no doubt, because it has a strong theoretical rationale. It draws on a set of well-established principles from operant conditioning and social learning theory that can be used in individual counseling, group counseling, psychoeducation, and consultation. The empirically supported benefits that accrue to PT, however, have been documented in outcome studies that involve sustained work with a parent or couple over the course of several sessions. Moore and Patterson (2003) note that a typical course of treatment takes an average of 20 hours of professional time. Whereas benefits of well-delivered programs can be great, they are most effective for families with young children. Given the developmental needs of older children and adolescents, training for their parents should take into consideration adolescents’ need for some measure of personal control and autonomy by incorporating skills in decision making and negotiation into the counseling. How Does Parent Training Work? Effective parent training programs incorporate a few essential elements (Kazdin, 1991; Moore & Patterson, 2003). These programs are directed toward parents or guardians; children are not directly involved in treatment. An exception to this is treatment with adolescents, which typically does require the adolescent’s participation. Parents are taught to observe and define their children’s noncompliance in behavioral terms. They are instructed to note their own part in interaction cycles that reward and sustain noncompliance. The most problematic behaviors and their prosocial opposites are identified. Basic principles of learning theory, such as reinforcement, shaping, mild punishment, generalization, and so on, are taught to parents, used to illustrate the nature of parent–child interactions, and applied in contingent ways to achieve the goals of treatment. These principles provide the basis for therapeutic change. Parents (with professional’s help) put these ideas to the test at home. Target behaviors that parents wish to modify are identified, skills are practiced in sessions using role-play, modeling, therapist feedback, and discussion. These techniques are then employed in the home, and the results of the new behavior management strategies are recorded, reviewed, and further developed during subsequent sessions. In parent training, parents are encouraged to set limits using basic principles of learning theory, such as reinforcing desired behaviors with allowance money. This counselor encourages the parent to put the ideas to a real test, over several months and perhaps with some modification. Parent management approaches depend upon the careful application of behavioral principles. Therefore, the therapist who uses this modality needs to understand behavioral terms correctly, must be precise about selecting and defining target behaviors, and must be able to identify contingencies that increase or decrease behavior. One method involves asking parents to identify two to four of the child’s behaviors that are most problematic. This is often supplemented by the use of more formal observational assessment tools. Moore and Patterson (2003) report that a typical initial concern can be defined as “minding” versus “not minding.” Once the parents are helped to notice the context wherein the “not-minding” occurs, principles like positive reinforcement (using tangible objects or the very powerful attention of parents), mild punishments (like time-out or restriction of privileges), and shaping (rewarding closer and closer approximations of “minding” with social praise) can be incorporated into some contingency management system. Contingency management involves presenting and withdrawing reinforcers and punishments in a systematic and consistent way to effect behavioral change. The linchpin of these approaches is the mindful use of positive reinforcement, a particularly potent response from parents when it comes in the form of warm encouragement, acceptance, and attention. A correct understanding of concepts like negative reinforcement, which is central to understanding the coercion cycle (Patterson, 1982) and which is distinct from the concept of punishment, is particularly important as well. Daily documentation of progress can be a useful part of the program, helping parents become more consistent in their use of techniques. Recently, new interventions that address the emotional regulation and balance of the parent have been explored as a means of promoting parenting quality. We know that the presence, warmth, and listening skills of the parent are particularly important influences on the health of their relationships with their children. Parents who are stressed, distracted, or emotionally unavailable, especially when this is a chronic pattern, tend to undermine the quality of relationships and foster children’s dysregulation. Recent work in mindful parenting interventions have shown promise to improve parenting quality because of the nature of the attention they cultivate. Mindfulness practice can have an impact on relationships because it supports loving attention and helps reduce parental stress. In improving parents’ own emotion regulation, all too common in distressed parent–child relationships, child behaviors can improve (Bogels, Lehtonen, & Restifo, 2010; Duncan, Coatsworth, & Greenberg, 2009). We will have more to say about mindfulness in Chapter 14. Forewarned Is Forearmed Higher rates of noncompliance appear to occur at certain times throughout the day (7:30 a.m., 11:30 a.m., 5:30 p.m., and 8:30 p.m.; Goodenough, 1931, as cited in Moore and Patterson, 2003). Consider this scene in the Arnold family. Mom, whose shift at work ends at 5:00 p.m., has just returned from the babysitter’s house with her 6-year-old twins. Both children are hungry and tired from a long day at school. Yvonne needs help with a homework project. Kenney has a Cub Scout meeting at 6:30 and needs to find some items for the pack’s activity. As their mother struggles to put together a meal, the children become more intense in their demands for her attention. Pretty soon, they are fighting with each other. She yells at them to stop, but this only makes matters worse. Yvonne ends up in tears and Kenney runs to his room. No one feels like eating dinner. What makes scenes like this one so recognizable to so many people? The rates of noncompliance rise when several factors intersect: changes in biological states, a spike in demands for compliance, and simultaneous transitions that are occurring for all members of the system (parents and children). Because these are predictable, the use of contingency management skills, especially positive encouragement, and establishment of consistent routines can help parents navigate these flash points more successfully. What About Spanking? Current research is blurring what was once considered a bright line between corporal punishment and abuse, painting a picture of a slippery slope between mild corporal punishment and harsher forms of discipline (Gershoff, 2008). This may be the reality, unfortunately, because most of the corporal punishment meted out by adults is not done in a particularly calm, loving, or reflective way. The use and severity of corporal punishment tend to escalate over time, and most episodes of physical abuse occur in the context of child discipline (Durrant & Ensom, 2012). Although parents spank because they believe it is an effective way to control their children’s aggressive and noncompliant behavior, the results from research clearly show the opposite to be true. While power assertion can be effective for short-term control of children’s behavior, it is related to more externalizing and a higher incidence of mental disorders in the long run for all cultures studied. It also appears to have little influence on the goals that parents want most to achieve with discipline—the development of self-regulation and morality. Parents who physically punish their children “may be conveying the message that the use of force is a justifiable way in which to solve conflicts” (Bugental & Grusec, 2006, p. 402). The finding by Lansford et al. (2005) that in countries where corporal punishment is expected and accepted, children tend to score high on measures of aggression (even when they themselves have not experienced corporal punishment), suggests that typical strategies for child rearing may be read by children as indicators of acceptable behavior in other contexts. The growing consensus from research in this area has attracted a high level of international attention. In 1989, the United Nations recognized children’s right to protection from physical and psychological violence, including spanking, through the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (United Nations, 1989). This multinational treaty has been signed and ratified by 192 countries. Currently, six countries have not ratified this document, including Somalia, Palestine, the United States, Taiwan, Western Sahara, and Vatican City (which has no child population). The United States has signed but has not yet ratified this document ([no longer online] endcorporalpunishment.org/). The American Academy of Pediatrics (1998) strongly advises against corporal punishment of any kind. A large group of national organizations in Canada have joined together (Durrant, Ensom, & the Coalition on Physical Punishment of Children and Youth, 2004) to promote the message that physical punishment is ineffective and only serves to threaten children’s well-being. The solution most experts advise is parent education and the provision of alternative strategies for child discipline, but this cannot occur in a vacuum. Studies have long shown that conditions of economic and social stress in families burden caregivers and undermine the quality of their parenting (Conger & Elder, 1994). Combined efforts to support families economically and educationally may have the best chance of reducing caregiver stress and promoting more positive discipline practices. Also, efforts that educate with sensitivity to cultural context are necessary. The evidence suggests that “any efforts to reduce both spanking and externalizing behaviors would need to target Blacks, Whites, Hispanics and Asian Americans. While the approaches would likely vary by cultural group, the message would be the same—spanking children is not associated with better behavior over time” (Gershoff et al., 2012, p. 843). The Flexible Work of Parenting It would be incorrect to assume that the quality of the early attachment relationship will automatically be transformed into a complementary pattern of parent–child relationships in early childhood. That is, it is not necessarily the case that every securely attached baby becomes a securely attached preschooler, and so forth. But, as our discussion of parenting style in the toddler and preschool years illustrates, the elements of sensitive parenting that characterize the infancy period are not much different from those that are right for preschoolers. The specific parenting behaviors might change, but the underlying requirement to be psychologically available and sensitive to the child’s developmental needs and capabilities remains the same. For the most part, messages about the self-in-relationship that the child has internalized become the foundation for more mature interactions. Cicchetti and Toth (1994) believe that the negative adolescent and adult self-views that undergird many psychological disorders stem from insults to the self experienced during childhood. Consequently, clinicians need to apply primary prevention strategies to strengthen early parent–child relationships. As children get older, they should be provided with experiences that allow for the growth of mastery, autonomy, and self-efficacy. Parent education and discussion groups can be helpful forums for parents in which to gain support for their strengths and to learn about the developmental needs of toddlers and preschoolers. Parents sometimes construe insensitive parenting to mean actions that are mean or rejecting. But intrusive interference, such as picking up the child to give her a hug when she is absorbed in an activity, or arbitrarily restricting a child’s mobility, may also be insensitive to the child’s needs if done repeatedly. Of particular relevance to self-concept development is educating parents about the implications of their language when conversing with their children. Insulting or insensitive remarks, particularly those intended to shame the child, should be avoided lest they become part of the young child’s self-concept. The growth of a healthy self-system depends upon an environment that provides the child with love and limits appropriate to her developmental level. When the proximal environment is distorted, as is the environment of defended and coercive children, youngsters will make adaptations. However, their adaptations will come with a cost to the development of a child’s true self. Fostering the growth of the authentic self in infancy and early childhood sets the child on a developmental pathway that will support healthy functioning at every stage thereafter. Summary The Self-System: Traditional Western Conceptions Some traditional theorists viewed the self-system as multidimensional. William James, for example, distinguished between the self-as-subject, as active agent or “I”, and the self-concept, the object of our own observations and evaluations, or the “Me.” The “I” is continuously experienced, is distinguished from others, and is an agent of action. The “Me” consists of personal attributes, the material (or physical), social, and spiritual characteristics of self. Self-esteem, the evaluation of one’s attributes, can be good, bad, or neutral. The valence assigned to one’s own attributes depends on the number of successes we enjoy relative to our aspirations. James Cooley introduced a developmental perspective into theorizing about the self. Self-representations are constructed from our interactions with others, especially caregivers. We build a looking-glass self that reflects our view of how others see us. George Herbert Mead added that language and society contribute to shaping the self-system. There are culturally determined differences in people’s preferred ways of viewing themselves. For example, Japanese emphasize affiliations in their self-descriptions, whereas Americans emphasize more individualistic qualities. The Early Development of the Self-System The pre-self that develops in infancy begins with early inklings of one’s body permanence and separateness from others that are derived from the regularity and reliability of infant–caregiver interactions. Procedural representations of interactions are established and may promote a budding sense of mastery by the second half of the 1st year, if babies’ behavior controls caregiving responses. A sense of self as self-in-relationship begins to emerge. By the end of the 1st year, separation distress signals the baby’s deepening understanding that the other is separate. Additional indicators include the baby’s tendency to explore more readily in the presence of a familiar caregiver. If the caregiver provides a secure base, the baby in a sense has the self-worth or confidence to explore. Social referencing also implies recognition of separateness. All of these indicators of a growing sense of the self as separate emerge from and depend on the baby’s relationship to others. Toddlers in the second year engage in joint reference, suggesting the earliest inkling that some separate experiences are shared—the first sign of a sense of mind. Self-recognition is demonstrated as early as 15 months in tests of mirror recognition. It is a strong indicator that children are forming a self-concept, or a “Me.” After the second birthday, children begin to use self-descriptive words. Self-evaluation or self-esteem advances with self-recognition, with abused children showing signs of poorer self-esteem than non-maltreated children from the beginnings of mirror recognition. Gradually, more differentiated self-descriptions emerge, with preschoolers describing more concrete characteristics, such as “little,” and older children beginning to refer to more abstract, less obvious qualities, such as “funny.” Self-control and self-regulation are dependent on the development of the emotion regulation that begins in infancy. The attentions of a caregiver when an infant is aroused (e.g., hungry) help the baby return to a more comfortable emotional state. The interaction process gives a baby outside assistance with affective control. The caregiving relationship is the context in which the infant’s own capacity for emotion regulation develops. Behavior regulation begins in the 2nd year when toddlers achieve objective self-recognition. The simultaneous emergence of symbolic or representational thought and other cognitive skills allow the child to begin learning and storing rules or standards of conduct. By late in the 2nd year, self-conscious emotions emerge, such as embarrassment or guilt, emotions that require awareness of self and of others’ judgments. Between 2 and 3, children showsuch emotions when they realize they have broken a rule or made a mistake. Once these capacities are in place, self-regulation can begin. How its development proceeds depends on many factors, especially social-ization processes. Early Socialization: Parenting and the Development of the Self-System As the infant becomes a toddler, her needs shift from total dependency to growing independence, and the parent–child relationship reorganizes such that sensitive responsive caregiving begins to include efforts to socialize the child—to shape or control the child’s autonomous action, so that she remains safe and behaves in culturally appropriate ways. Two dimensions of parenting style, parents’ approach to caring for and disciplining their children, are important. First is warmth or parental responsiveness, which includes affection, acceptance, involvement and interest, and so on. Second is control or parental demandingness, the degree to which parents impose and enforce standards of conduct. Four parenting styles can be described, crossing the positive and negative poles of the two dimensions. Authoritative parents are high on warmth and on demandingness. Authoritarian parents are low on warmth but high on demandingness. Permissive parents are high or moderate on warmth but low on demandingness, and neglecting or uninvolved parents are low on both dimensions. Authoritative parenting is associated with the most positive outcomes in child development, including adaptability, competence, good social relations, low levels of antisocial behavior, high self-esteem, and good self-regulation. The correlations between parenting styles and outcomes are significant but moderate, indicating that such outcomes are also influenced by other factors, not just parenting style. Parents use a variety of methods of control. Power assertion, which involves either physical punishment or withdrawal of privileges, tends to be effective for immediate control of behavior, but may not have longer term benefits, and harsher forms can have some negative side effects, such as increased aggressiveness in children. Love withdrawal generates high anxiety and elicits immediate compliance, but seems to have few effects on long-term self-regulation. Induction, providing explanations and emphasizing benefits to the child and to others, seems most effective for promoting internalization of rules and longer-term self-regulation. Are parenting practices actually having an effect, or are there other reasons why parenting is correlated with child outcomes? For example, could it be that the correlation is the result of shared inheritance of traits between parents and children? Data support a multidimensional approach. Parenting, genetics, child temperament, and other factors all contribute to child outcomes. Parenting practices are partly the result of child characteristics, such as temperament traits. For example, adults are more directive with dependent than with independent children. Also, the effectiveness of different parenting practices is partly a function of a child’s temperament. For example, toddler boys with difficult temperaments respond with high levels of aggressiveness when parents use physically intrusive control methods, whereas boys with easy temperaments do not. The broader cultural context seems to have an influence on parenting practices and may have an impact on their effectiveness. For example, Puerto Rican American mothers emphasize sociocentric goals with their young children, whereas European American mothers focus more on individualization. Some parenting practices may have different meaning, and therefore different outcomes, depending on ethnicity and culture. The traditional values of various cultures have shaped the ways they parent and discipline their children. Corporal punishment, which inflicts pain on children in order to control behavior, has been shown to predict increases in later externalizing behavior and mental disorders. This finding generally holds up across cultural groups. When cultural influences exist, they tend to moderate the link between corporal punishments and aggression, but not change the direction of effects. Conscience: The Beginnings of a Moral Self Parenting affects the developing self-system in many ways. Children’s self-esteem is related to their parents’ warmth and responsiveness. Children’s self-regulation is associated with parenting style and practice. A child’s ability to monitor her own behavior even in the absence of authority figures is considered a function of internalization, that is, the degree to which she has adopted standards and rules as her own. Internalization is associated with conscience, feeling distress when one violates a rule. Children are more cooperative and compliant when they share a warm, responsive relationship with a parent. Their compliance can also be related to anxious arousal. Hoffman argued that mild arousal can help children pay attention to a rule, but doesn’t make them so anxious that they pay attention only to how afraid they are. This is consistent with the finding that mild power assertion practices are more likely to lead to children’s internalization of rules and long-term compliance than strong or severe power assertion practices. Further, Hoffman’s ideas help explain why children who have fearful temperaments respond best to gentle discipline, but children who are fearless are unfazed by either gentle or harsh disciplinary practices. The most important determiner of compliance for fearless children is the warmth of their relationship to the parent. Case Study Terry and Bill, married for 5 years, are a Black couple who live in a small suburban community. Terry graduated from high school and worked as a receptionist before her marriage to Bill, a communications company manager. Because both of them believed that mothers should stay at home with young children, Terry quit her job when she had her first child, who is now an intense and active 4-year-old daughter named Dawn. Both parents were very attentive to their daughter and enjoyed caring for and playing with her when she was a baby. As Dawn got older, she became more active and assertive. When Dawn fussed, resisted, or showed frustration, Terry was patient and affectionate with her. She was able to coax Dawn out of her bad temper by making up little games that Dawn enjoyed. Both Terry and Bill liked Dawn’s spirited personality. Because her parents wanted her to have access to playmates, Dawn attended a church-related program for toddlers and preschoolers three mornings a week. When Dawn was 3 years old, Terry gave birth to the couple’s second child, a son named Darren. Soon after the baby’s birth, the family learned that Darren had a congenital heart problem that would require ongoing medical treatment and a specific regimen of care at home. Darren was an irritable baby. He fussed for long periods and was very difficult for Terry to soothe. Because of Darren’s need for medical care and the limitations of Bill’s medical insurance, the couple soon found themselves in financial difficulty. Bill began to take on overtime work at the company to subsidize some of the bills and was away from the home several nights a week and part of each weekend. Terry found the care of two demanding young children and the worries about money to be increasingly more stressful. She was always tired and seemed to have less patience with her family. whereas she once had the leisure time to read to Dawn, to take her for walks, and to help her master tasks that proved frustrating, Terry now had to shift her attention to the care of her medically fragile infant. Because Dawn looked so grown-up compared to the vulnerable newborn, Terry began to perceive her daughter as able to do many things for herself. When Dawn demonstrated her neediness by clinging or whining, Terry became abrupt and demanded that Dawn stop. Many battles revolved around Terry’s new rule that Dawn have a nap or “quiet time” each afternoon so that mother and baby could get some rest. One day, Dawn’s preschool teacher, Mrs. Adams, asked to speak with Terry. Mrs. Adams noted that Dawn’s behavior was becoming a problem in the morning preschool sessions. Dawn had begun throwing toys when she became upset and often refused to cooperate in group activities. Terry was greatly embarrassed to hear about her daughter’s misbehavior. Dawn was the only Black child in the small class, and her mother wondered if this was part of the problem. When Terry got home, she put her tearful, clinging daughter in her room for time-out for being bad at school. She loved Dawn, but she could not tolerate this kind of behavior, especially when Darren needed so much of her time. She began to wonder if she and Bill had spoiled their daughter. Terry feared that Dawn would have problems when it came time for her to enter kindergarten if they didn’t take a strong stand with her now. Discussion Questions Explain Dawn’s behavior from an attachment point of view. How would you describe Dawn’s attachment history? Describe Terry’s parenting style. Has the style changed? What suggestions would you make to Terry and Bill about handling this problem? What are some of the contextual influences on Dawn’s behavior? Practice Using What you Have Learned In the Pearson etext, apply these ideas to working with others. Video Exercise Journal Questions How would you describe your parents’ parenting style? What kinds of discipline were used in your family? What would you advise other parents about disciplining their children? How would you describe the impact of cultural changes (such as the use of cellphones, texting, computers, social media, etc.) on caregiver behaviors? In your experience, does their use make it more or less difficult to pay attention to young children with full awareness, acceptance and presence? Identify a cultural value from your family of origin and describe how this value was reflected in your experience as a family member. If your experience included different or contrasting values and expectations (e.g., from parents, step-parents, etc.), reflect on that as well. What do you believe is the relationship between your early self-development and your later self-esteem? Key concepts self-system (p. 169) “I-self” or self-as-subject (p. 169) “Me-self” or self-concept (p. 169) self-esteem (p. 170) “looking-glass self” (p. 170) pre-self (p. 172) representations of interactions (RIGs) (p. 172) social referencing (p. 173) self-recognition (p. 173) self-control or behavior regulation (p. 176) self-regulation (p. 176) self-conscious emotions (p. 177) socialize (p. 179) discipline (p. 179) warmth dimension (parental responsiveness) (p. 179) child centered (p. 179) parent centered (p. 179) control dimension (parental demandingness) (p. 180) maturity demands (p. 180) parenting styles (p. 180) authoritative style (p. 180) authoritarian style (p. 181) permissive style (p. 181) neglecting–uninvolved style (p. 181) externalizing problems (p. 182) internalizing problems (p. 182) method of control (p. 182) power assertion (p. 182) love withdrawal (p. 182) induction (p. 182) time-out (p. 183) differential susceptibility (p. 186) internalization (p. 192) conscience (p. 192) anxious arousal (p. 192) minimum sufficiency principle (p. 192) committed compliance (p. 192) compulsive caregiving (p. 194) compulsive self-sufficiency (p. 194) negative reinforcement (p. 195) ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) (p. 195) contingency management system (p. 196)

HN 501

CHAPTER 5

:

The Emerging Self and Socialization in the Early Years “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the real

me, after all?” Philosophers, poets, wicked stepmothers, and ordinary human beings have pondered

versions of this question ever since the ancient

Greeks advised, “Know thyself.” The search for self

embodies within it many of the profound questions at the heart of the human condition: What is the

nature of human consciousness? Are we the same or different across situations and over time? How

do peopl

e come to understand and accept who they are? Modern cultures, as we have noted, are

not the first to express interest in these matters. Nonetheless, critics have raised concerns that the

level of attention directed toward the self has increased in recent

decades. Note the amount of press

devoted to the ideas of self

-

concept, self

-

esteem, self

-

enhancement, and self

-

actualization, and you

might agree that we have become downright self

-

centered! Those of us in the helping professions

are no exception to this

trend. Even a cursory review of the professional literature in clinical and

educational fields reveals an intense interest in topics related to the self. Therapeutic approaches

that emphasize self

-

development are very common. Educational institutions strug

gle to incorporate

self

-

development into their more traditional academic objectives. Popular magazines are saturated

with advice about self

-

concept and self

-

esteem. All together, the pieces add up to a crazy quilt: part

folklore, part research, part anecdo

te, and part good intention. Our task in this chapter is to

unscramble some of this information and present the self in its developmental context. Helpers need

to understand the research findings in this critically important area lest they assume that all

of our

popular, contemporary notions about self

-

development are valid. For example, the postmodern focus

on individualism might convey the idea that the self is truly independent and autonomous when, in

fact, it is largely a product of social interaction.

Bowlby (e.g., 1969/1982) suggested that working

models of the self develop in concert with working models of attachment figures. Erikson

(1950/1963) developed the idea that when others respond sensitively to their needs, children

develop concepts of themse

lves as valuable. Cultural groups differ in their emphasis on an

autonomous self. So self

-

development, despite our Western predilection for thinking of the self as

independent, occurs in interaction with others and is influenced by culture and context. In

this

chapter, we will describe the earliest roots of self

-

development from a Western scientific perspective

and emphasize the importance of parenting to this process. As we will see, the role of caretakers is

of major significance in the development of man

y of the processes related to the self. We will also

take a look at cultural approaches to specific parenting behaviors, such as discipline. THE SELF

-

SYSTEM: TRADITIONAL CONCEPTIONS The self and its development are complicated, abstract

topics. Writers sti

ll grapple with the question of what constitutes a self. In their search for answers,

theorists and researchers need to account for the fact that selves are multifaceted and possess

elements of both stability and change. If you have ever said that you are

not the same person that

you were some time ago, you can understand this point. Recently, writers have begun to use the

term self

-

system to replace “self,” because the latter seems too unidimensional (see Damon & Hart,

1988). The self

-

system includes aspec

ts related to the self, such as self

-

concept, self

-

regulation, and

self

-

esteem. The notion of an independent entity called “self” is such a deeply embedded concept in

Western psychology that we tend to take it for granted. Therefore, it may be surprising t

o learn that

the psychologies of other cultures (e.g., Buddhist psychology) take a decidedly different view. In

Buddhist psychology, mind and matter change continually, and this impermanence is influenced by

surrounding conditions (Bodhi, 1999). The Buddhi

st concept of “no

-

self” (anatta) does not imply that

our conventional use of “self” is not helpful or that you and I are not real in some way. Rather, it

emphasizes the transient nature of our phenomenological experience as human beings. The self is

consta

ntly being constructed in the moment

-

to

-

moment flow of experience. This insight is at the core

of recent therapies that offer ways to alleviate the suffering that can come from our human tendency

to protect and defend reified concepts about ourselves (see

Olendzki, 2010). The view of “no

-

self” is

quite different from that of classic Western psychology, which assumes a relatively permanent

HN 501 CHAPTER 5:

The Emerging Self and Socialization in the Early Years “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the real

me, after all?” Philosophers, poets, wicked stepmothers, and ordinary human beings have pondered

versions of this question ever since the ancient Greeks advised, “Know thyself.” The search for self

embodies within it many of the profound questions at the heart of the human condition: What is the

nature of human consciousness? Are we the same or different across situations and over time? How

do people come to understand and accept who they are? Modern cultures, as we have noted, are

not the first to express interest in these matters. Nonetheless, critics have raised concerns that the

level of attention directed toward the self has increased in recent decades. Note the amount of press

devoted to the ideas of self-concept, self-esteem, self-enhancement, and self-actualization, and you

might agree that we have become downright self-centered! Those of us in the helping professions

are no exception to this trend. Even a cursory review of the professional literature in clinical and

educational fields reveals an intense interest in topics related to the self. Therapeutic approaches

that emphasize self-development are very common. Educational institutions struggle to incorporate

self-development into their more traditional academic objectives. Popular magazines are saturated

with advice about self-concept and self-esteem. All together, the pieces add up to a crazy quilt: part

folklore, part research, part anecdote, and part good intention. Our task in this chapter is to

unscramble some of this information and present the self in its developmental context. Helpers need

to understand the research findings in this critically important area lest they assume that all of our

popular, contemporary notions about self-development are valid. For example, the postmodern focus

on individualism might convey the idea that the self is truly independent and autonomous when, in

fact, it is largely a product of social interaction. Bowlby (e.g., 1969/1982) suggested that working

models of the self develop in concert with working models of attachment figures. Erikson

(1950/1963) developed the idea that when others respond sensitively to their needs, children

develop concepts of themselves as valuable. Cultural groups differ in their emphasis on an

autonomous self. So self-development, despite our Western predilection for thinking of the self as

independent, occurs in interaction with others and is influenced by culture and context. In this

chapter, we will describe the earliest roots of self-development from a Western scientific perspective

and emphasize the importance of parenting to this process. As we will see, the role of caretakers is

of major significance in the development of many of the processes related to the self. We will also

take a look at cultural approaches to specific parenting behaviors, such as discipline. THE SELF-

SYSTEM: TRADITIONAL CONCEPTIONS The self and its development are complicated, abstract

topics. Writers still grapple with the question of what constitutes a self. In their search for answers,

theorists and researchers need to account for the fact that selves are multifaceted and possess

elements of both stability and change. If you have ever said that you are not the same person that

you were some time ago, you can understand this point. Recently, writers have begun to use the

term self-system to replace “self,” because the latter seems too unidimensional (see Damon & Hart,

1988). The self-system includes aspects related to the self, such as self-concept, self-regulation, and

self-esteem. The notion of an independent entity called “self” is such a deeply embedded concept in

Western psychology that we tend to take it for granted. Therefore, it may be surprising to learn that

the psychologies of other cultures (e.g., Buddhist psychology) take a decidedly different view. In

Buddhist psychology, mind and matter change continually, and this impermanence is influenced by

surrounding conditions (Bodhi, 1999). The Buddhist concept of “no-self” (anatta) does not imply that

our conventional use of “self” is not helpful or that you and I are not real in some way. Rather, it

emphasizes the transient nature of our phenomenological experience as human beings. The self is

constantly being constructed in the moment-to-moment flow of experience. This insight is at the core

of recent therapies that offer ways to alleviate the suffering that can come from our human tendency

to protect and defend reified concepts about ourselves (see Olendzki, 2010). The view of “no-self” is

quite different from that of classic Western psychology, which assumes a relatively permanent