PART 4: PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 11: PERSONALITY DEV…
Getting Started
Personality Development in
Childhood and Adolescence
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Copyright © 2007 Allyn & Bacon
Mayer’s Personality: A Systems Approach
PART 4: PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 11: PERSONALITY DEV…
Getting Started
Topics
• What Is Personality Development?
• Do Infants Have Personality?
• How Does the Young Child’s Personality
Develop?
• What Are the Challenges of Middle
Childhood?
• What Are Adolescents Doing?
Copyright © 2007 Allyn & Bacon
Mayer’s Personality: A Systems Approach
PART 4: PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 11: PERSONALITY DEV…
What Is Personality Development?
Stage Theories
• Erik H. Erikson’s Stage Theory of Development
• Development is psychosocial: The person
develops along paths expected by society
– Early development is in the home.
– Development as a youth must meet the expectations
of schools and community groups
– Later development in community, at work, with newly
formed family
• Eight Stages of Development
© Copyright 2006 Allyn & Bacon
Mayer’s Personality: A Systems Approach
PART 4: PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 11: PERSONALITY DEV…
What Is Personality Development?
Stage Theories
Stages 1-3 of Erikson’s Eight Stages
Stage and Age:
Personal
Social
Trust—Basic Mistrust Infant explores securely or feels
Infancy
insecure and unsafe
Family
Autonomy—Shame
and Doubt
Ages 2-3
Toddler begins to control things
around him/her, toilet training,
feeding, etc.
Family
Initiative—Guilt
5-7 years
Develop plans and goals within
the and outside the family; integrated within right and wrong
Family
© Copyright 2006 Allyn & Bacon
Mayer’s Personality: A Systems Approach
PART 4: PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 11: PERSONALITY DEV…
What Is Personality Development?
Stage Theories
Stages 4 and 5 of Erikson’s Eight Stages
Stage and Age:
Personal
Social
Industry—Inferiority
Middle School Age
Becoming competent vs. feeling
inertia
Grade
School
Identity--Role
Confusion
Puberty
Choosing school; friends; majors; Senior Year
vs. unable to choose
High School
College
© Copyright 2006 Allyn & Bacon
Mayer’s Personality: A Systems Approach
PART 4: PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 11: PERSONALITY DEV…
What Is Personality Development?
Stage Theories
Stages 6 through 8 of Erikson’s Eight Stages
Stage and Age:
Personal
Social
Intimacy vs.
Isolation
Young Adulthod
Generativity vs.
Stagnation
Adulthood
Forming intimate relationships
versus existing alone and in
isolation
Creation of a new family;
contributing to society vs.
repeating life on a day-to-day
basis with little growth and
giving
Positive sense of self as
giving, productive vs. inability
to accept his or her life
Occupations;
organizations
Ego Integrity vs.
Despair
Maturity
© Copyright 2006 Allyn & Bacon
Mayer’s Personality: A Systems Approach
Occupation;
family
Family;
occupation;
institutions
PART 4: PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 11: PERSONALITY DEV…
Do Infants Have a Personality?
The Infant’s Challenge
•
•
•
•
Buzzing, blooming confusion? Not hardly
Facial recognition virtually from birth
6-10 weeks: Social smile
15-18 months: Self-recognition in mirror
© Copyright 2006 Allyn & Bacon
Mayer’s Personality: A Systems Approach
PART 4: PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 11: PERSONALITY DEV…
Do Infants Have a Personality?
Infant Temperament
• Easy Child
–
–
–
–
Rhythmic in hunger, sleep-wake, excretion
Positive approach to others
Low or mild intensity of reactions
Positive mood
• Difficult Child
–
–
–
–
Irregular in hunger, sleep-wake, excretion
Withdrawal from others
High intensity of reactions
Negative mood
© Copyright 2006 Allyn & Bacon
Mayer’s Personality: A Systems Approach
PART 4: PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 11: PERSONALITY DEV…
Do Infants Have a Personality?
Attachment Patterns
• Secure Attachment
– Mother accurate and sympathetic about infant feeling
– Infants enjoy mother; tolerate her absence
– Mother is comforting, dependable figure
• Anxious Resistant Attachment
–
–
–
–
Mothers attend inconsistently to infant
Infants have difficulty tolerating being apart from mother
Infants are tentative at reunion; unsure
Mothers (and others) are unpredictable and not always comforting
• Anxious-Avoidant Attachment
– Mothers seem uninterested in their infants, and rebuff them consistently
– Infant does not seek out caretaker
– Deny importance of contact
© Copyright 2006 Allyn & Bacon
Mayer’s Personality: A Systems Approach
PART 4: PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 11: PERSONALITY DEV…
How Does the Young Child’s Personality Develop?
Self Concept
• 2 ½ - 5 years
• Infantile amnesia lifts
– Children have no cognitive organization of memories before
about 3 years of age
– Now, sustained memories are laid down that form the basis of
the person’s life story
• 3, 4, & 5 year-olds were ushered from a daycare center
when a popcorn maker caught fire (Pillemer, Picariello &
Pruett (1995).
– 7 years later, 4 & 5-year-olds clearly remembered the event
– 3 years old mistakenly recalled where they were
© Copyright 2006 Allyn & Bacon
Mayer’s Personality: A Systems Approach
PART 4: PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 11: PERSONALITY DEV…
How Does the Young Child’s Personality Develop?
Changes in Temperament
• In Infancy, a “Big Three” of temperament
are:
– Positivity
– Negativity, and
– Cuddliness
• In Young Children, Self-Control replaces
Cuddliness
– Important in social interactions, meal-time,
having friends, toilet training
© Copyright 2006 Allyn & Bacon
Mayer’s Personality: A Systems Approach
CHAPTER 11: PERSONALITY DEV…
PART 4: PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT
How Does the Young Child’s Personality Develop?
Parents and the Family Context
Styles of Parenting
(modified from Maccoby & Martin, 1983)
Nurturance
Control
© Copyright 2006 Allyn & Bacon
Responsive,
child-centered
Rejecting,
Parent-centered
Demanding,
High on control
Authoritative
Authoritarian
Undemanding,
Low on control
Permissive
Uninvolved
Mayer’s Personality: A Systems Approach
PART 4: PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 11: PERSONALITY DEV…
How Does the Young Child’s Personality Develop?
Birth Order
• Sulloway (1996)
– First-born children may identify most closely with
parents
– As they grow, tend to be more conservative and to
uphold society as it stands
– In one study:
• 83 scientist siblings (brothers, sisters, or brothers and
sisters),
• Both on record regarding an innovative scientific theory
• First-borns supported innovation 50% of the time
• Later-borns supported innovation 85% of the time
© Copyright 2006 Allyn & Bacon
Mayer’s Personality: A Systems Approach
PART 4: PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 11: PERSONALITY DEV…
How Does the Young Child’s Personality Develop?
The Gendered World
• Sex and Gender
– Sexual development diverges for the male and female fetus at 9 weeks
– Upon birth, most children can be identified as one or the other sex
– Social understandings of gender also come into play
• Children were studied in 90 nations on an International Survey.
– Example; “One of these people is emotional. They cry when something
good happens as well as when everything goes wrong. Which is the
emotional person?”
– The pointed to male or female figure
– Children indicate women more than men in response to the question by
5-years
• By Five Years of Age
– Children play in same sex groups (through to adolescence)
– Children take care to choose toys and television shows preferred by
other members of their sex
© Copyright 2006 Allyn & Bacon
Mayer’s Personality: A Systems Approach
PART 4: PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 11: PERSONALITY DEV…
What Are the Challenges of Middle Childhood?
Self Concept
• The child increasing focuses on life tasks
– Doing well in school
• If industry fails, individual may feel inferior
– Making friends
• If relationships fail, child may be victimized
• Begins thinking about adult relationships
and occupations
© Copyright 2006 Allyn & Bacon
Mayer’s Personality: A Systems Approach
CHAPTER 11: PERSONALITY DEV…
PART 4: PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT
What Are the Challenges of Middle Childhood?
From Temperament to the Big Five Traits
Dimensions
of Temperament
The Big Five Traits
Extrav.
Neurot.
Open
Consc.
Agree.
Surgency
.59
-.08
.40
.10
.30
Neg. Affect
-.16
.49
-.17
-.16
.03
Sensitivity
.19
.19
.54
.15
.20
Paying attention
.09
-.34
.21
.44
-.04
© Copyright 2006 Allyn & Bacon
Mayer’s Personality: A Systems Approach
PART 4: PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 11: PERSONALITY DEV…
What Are the Challenges of Middle Childhood?
Friendship Patterns
• Children rely very much on their friendships
– Some children are far more socially skilled and have more
successful relationships
– Other children gradually become isolated
• This can be teased out in the “entry” situation, in which
children are asked to join a dyad of children already at
play.
• What will they do?
– Skilled children take on roles relevant to the dyad: “Oh, you are
superman and batman? I’ll be spiderman”
– Unskilled children speak in unrelated terms: “Oh, okay, my mom
is taking me to a restaurant today.”
© Copyright 2006 Allyn & Bacon
Mayer’s Personality: A Systems Approach
PART 4: PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 11: PERSONALITY DEV…
What Are Adolescents Doing?
Sex and Gender
• Adolescence begins with the sexual maturation
of puberty
– For girls,
• vagina, uterus, and ovaries mature
• menarche, the first menstrual cycle, occurs
• Assume a more rounded appearance; breasts mature
– For boys,
• testes and penis mature
• Shoulders broaden
• Facial hair grows; Childhood fat tissue change to muscle
© Copyright 2006 Allyn & Bacon
Mayer’s Personality: A Systems Approach
PART 4: PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 11: PERSONALITY DEV…
What Are Adolescents Doing?
Sex and Gender
• With rapid physical maturation:
– The child now looks much different
– Often feels all eyes are on her or him
– Reconcile inner and outer self
– A new sense of identity emerges
© Copyright 2006 Allyn & Bacon
Mayer’s Personality: A Systems Approach
PART 4: PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 11: PERSONALITY DEV…
What Are Adolescents Doing?
Sex and Gender
Adolescent Women, Men, and Sexual Desire
Men
Women
Peer
groups
Often encourage sexual
experimentation; often
positive attitudes
toward casual sex
Often concerned with image
among friends; often try to
restrain one another’s sexual
activity
Desired
Sexual
Partners
Average men desire 18 Average women desire 4 to 5
or more sexual partners sexual partners over their
over their lives
lives
Thoughts Struggle with thoughts,
of sex
often distracted,
disturbed.
© Copyright 2006 Allyn & Bacon
Mayer’s Personality: A Systems Approach
Struggle with thoughts, but
not as badly as men
PART 4: PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 11: PERSONALITY DEV…
What Are Adolescents Doing?
Sex and Gender
Adolescent Women, Men, and Personality Traits
Men
Women
Aggression
Are higher than women Are lower than men in self-rated
in self-rated aggression aggression and lower in
and aggressive
aggressive behavior
behavior
Thing
versus
Person
Are “Thing” oriented:
cars, electronics,
houses
Are “People” oriented:
relationships, connections
Depression
Rates of depression
are similar to women
before puberty
Rates of depression rise
relative to men after puberty
© Copyright 2006 Allyn & Bacon
Mayer’s Personality: A Systems Approach
PART 4: PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 11: PERSONALITY DEV…
What Are Adolescents Doing?
Establishing Identity
• Identity
– Who one is
– Group memberships
– Beliefs that guide life
• Identity Crisis (Erik H. Erikson)
– Inability to assemble an identity
– Drifting
– Possible serious psychological crisis
• Concept further developed by Marcia
© Copyright 2006 Allyn & Bacon
Mayer’s Personality: A Systems Approach
CHAPTER 11: PERSONALITY DEV…
PART 4: PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT
What Are Adolescents Doing?
Marcia’s Concept of Identity Status
Commitment
Low
SelfExploration
© Copyright 2006 Allyn & Bacon
High
High
Moratorium:
Prolonged
exploration
Achievement:
Finding a right
Identity
Low
Diffusion:
Unfocussed,
Unconcerned
Foreclosure:
Influenced by
someone else
Mayer’s Personality: A Systems Approach
PART 4: PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 11: PERSONALITY DEV…
What Are Adolescents Doing?
Case of Identity Diffusion
• Kathy moved from her home in Ohio to the University of
Chicago (Littwin, 1986, p. 49, 61-62). Unfortunately during
her first years there, her financial aid was cut off. To make
ends meet, she took three jobs: a research assistant to a
professor, a departmental assistant in the philosophy
department, and a cashier in a near by health food restaurant.
It was the latter of the three jobs she enjoyed the most as it
enabled her to deal with people in an off-campus
environment. As time went on, she became focused on
matters other than school and dropped out in her fifth year
without a degree…
• She felt tired and depressed concerning her experiences, and
decided to move to New York. By coincidence, the professor
she worked with at the University of Chicago was starting a
business in New York, and he hired her to assist with the
organization’s computers. (cont.)
© Copyright 2006 Allyn & Bacon
Mayer’s Personality: A Systems Approach
PART 4: PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 11: PERSONALITY DEV…
What Are Adolescents Doing?
Case of Identity Diffusion (Cont.)
• She did well at this, despite a lack of training, and began to earn
a respectable salary. At the same time, she didn’t like the
values of the Wall Street firm, or what she was doing, so, after a
supervisor commented negatively on her informal dress, she
quit, and collected unemployment for five months. By now,
Kathy was 25 years old, she appeared drawn, uncertainly,
toward a number of different possible futures, including finishing
school and entering a Ph.D. program in history, doing New Age
dance therapy, writing, public policy research, and yet, was
uncertain about doing any of them. Kathy seemed less involved
in exploring than in a somewhat chaotic maneuvering among a
variety of uncertain possibilities.
© Copyright 2006 Allyn & Bacon
Mayer’s Personality: A Systems Approach
PART 4: PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 11: PERSONALITY DEV…
What Are Adolescents Doing?
Establishing Identity
• Outcomes
– Little is known, really
– Josselson (1996)
• Among 30 women, those with identity achievement
– Were able to move ahead in 30’s and 40’s in a clearer
fashion
– Better sense of meaning
– Better coping with setbacks
© Copyright 2006 Allyn & Bacon
Mayer’s Personality: A Systems Approach
PART 4: PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 11: PERSONALITY DEV…
What Are Adolescents Doing?
~end of Chapter 11~
© Copyright 2006 Allyn & Bacon
Mayer’s Personality: A Systems Approach