Story of Psychology - Morton Hunt [250]
For well over half a century, developmentalists have been using a variety of techniques to gather evidence about the processes of human social development. Clipboard on knee and stopwatch in hand, they have observed babies and toddlers at home and in nurseries, preschoolers and schoolchildren on playgrounds and in classrooms; interviewed parents and plied them with questionnaires; recorded and analyzed volumes of child conversations; told children the beginnings of stories and asked what they thought happened next; designed hundreds of experimental situations to measure the level of social development at different ages; and calculated the correlations between blood hormone levels and sex-typed behavior.
From all this (and much more) they have gleaned a mass of findings. Some lend support to the psychoanalytic view of development, others to the social-learning view, others to the cognitive-developmental view, others to the cultural psychology view, and, finally, still others to the evolutionary psychology perspective. We need not sort them out but merely glance at a sample of the more interesting highlights.
Turn taking: The earliest lessons in social behavior are learned in the family, where in addition to the fundamental one of trusting another human being, infants learn the lesson, crucial to social relationships, of taking turns when communicating. Parents talk to the infant, wait until the infant responds with a sound or smile, and then talk again; the infant senses the pattern and, by the age of toddlerhood, even before uttering a word, will carry on with another toddler in turn-taking fashion. In the following bit of dialogue from a study of this process, Bernie, thirteen months old, has been watching Larry, fifteen months, mouthing a toy. He finally “speaks”:
BERNIE: Da…da.
LARRY:(Laughs very slightly as he continues to look)
BERNIE: Da.
LARRY:(Laughs more heartily this time)
The same sequence is repeated five more times. Then Larry looks away and offers an adult a toy. Bernie pursues him.
BERNIE:(Waving both hands and looking directly at Larry) Da!
LARRY:(Looks back at Bernie and laughs again)
After nine more such interchanges, Bernie gives up and toddles away.82
Play: The developmentalists L. Alan Sroufe and Robert G. Cooper saw play as the “laboratory” where the child learns new skills and practices old ones.83 Infants cannot play together; that requires emotional and cognitive skills that take two to three years to develop. Two toddlers, put close together, usually just stare at each other, watch each other play, or play side by side. But by three or thereabouts they begin to play together (not necessarily at the same game), and by five they play cooperatively.84
In play, toddlers and preschoolers learn the first lessons in self-control. They discover that aggression is not tolerated by adult onlookers, and may cause the other child to retaliate or refuse to be a playmate. They learn sharing, albeit with some difficulty. They develop preferences for certain other playmates which, by four, turn into friendships marked by mutuality and commitment.85
By three or four they begin learning rules of play and the rudiments of right and wrong in play with older children: “Three strikes and you’re out”—and a tantrum won’t get you any more, but may well get you expelled from the game.86
At about the same time they become more skillful at lying and concealing any facial expression or tone of voice that would give them away. This, one research team claims, is often a direct result of training by parents (“Remember to thank Grandmother for the sweater even though you wanted a toy”).87
Role playing: Sroufe and Cooper have also called play the “social workshop” in which children try out roles alone and with other children. They often play