The Development of the Person: Social Understanding, Relationships, Conscience, Self

““Conversations” ranging from social referencing exchanges to extended discussions of the child’s own and others’ mental states are examples of this type of process that evolves over time (Adrian, Clemente, & Villanueva, 2007; Chouinard, 2007; Mundy & Sigman, 2006; Thompson, 2006).”

“…to be especially valuable in fostering prosocial and altruistic behavior because of the salience of emotions and the likelihood that thinking and talking about them will enhance children's awareness and understanding of their own and others' needs and desires (Brown & Dunn, 1991; Thompson, 2006).”

“…and future adaptive and maladaptive developmental outcomes (Belsky & Nezworski, 1988; Brumariu & Kerns, 2010; DeKlyen & Greenberg, 2008; Fearon, Bakermans-Kranenburg, van IJzendoorn, Lapsley, & Roisman, 2010; Sroufe, 1996, 2005; Thompson, 2006, 2008; Weinfield, Sroufe, Egeland, & Carlson, 2008).”

“…(including persistence, compliance, and sociability) while other researchers have simply focused on the relationships between parental quality and desirable outcomes for children (e.g., Kochanska, Aksan, Knaack, & Rhines, 2004; Lamb & Lewis, 2011; Raikes & Thompson, 2005; Thompson, 2006).”

“Attachment, psychoanalytic, and family theorists have emphasized the importance of the parent–child relationship in developing children’s trust and a sense of identity, and have drawn attention to the importance of age-related transitions in developmental capabilities (Sroufe &Waters, 1977; Thompson, 2006).”

“Attachment theorists maintain that the quality of extrafamilial relationships, particularly with peers, is directly influenced by the experiences of attachment with their caretakers [26].”

“…of central importance to children’s early cognitive, social, and personality development, but also have lasting influence on long-term outcomes, including social skills, emotion regulation, conscience development, trust in others, and general psychological well-being (see review by Thompson, 2006).”

“caregiver as a ‘secure base’ (Bowlby, 1969) from which to explore the world and learn independence in times when they feel safe to branch out (Thompson, 2006).”

“Maternal sensitivity is a core element of responsive parenting that contributes not only to attachment security but also to greater social and cognitive competence in children (e.g., Bornstein & Tamis- LeMonda, 1997; Rogoff, 1990; see Laible & Thompson, 2007, for a review).”

“Although the current findings are meaningful, and infant attachment organization at the end of the first year of life is an important predictor of child developmental outcomes (Thompson, 2006), children as well as their environments continue to change and evolve.”

“One such positive socialization force, secure attachment, has been broadly associated with adap tive development, whereas insecurity has been often seen as a risk factor for antisocial and disrup tive behavior problems (Bretherton, Golby, & Cho, 1997; Shaw & Bell, 1993; Shaw & Vondra, 1995; Thompson, 2006; van IJzendo…”

“Emotion understanding, given its robust associations with EMST, is one logical pathway (de Rosnay and Hughes, 2006; Thompson, 2006).”

“Generally, when studied in early childhood, attachment stability has been mostly studied for Strange Situation classifications over a relatively limited period of time (Thompson, 2006).”

“More socially competent children (i.e., individuals with social understanding, social effectiveness, and social skills; Saarni, Campos, Camras, & Witherington, 2006; Thompson, 2006) typically possess a larger repertoire of strategies for dealing with peer conflict and are able to adapt more flexibly to stressors (Bren…”

“Through consistent, warm, and supportive interactions with a caregiver, a child is thought to develop an internal working model that consists of positive views of the self; that is, the child will develop a view of self as important and worthy of love (Thompson, 2006).”

“…P. B. Baltes & Staudinger, 2000; Bluck & Habermas, 2001; McAdams, 1990), such a phenomenon is likely to involve abilities and experiences related to emotional competence and the self-concept that only become fully accessible and more available in middle to late adolescence (e.g., Thompson, 2006).”

“Attachment theorists generally believe that attachment experiences impact the quality of children’s and adolescents’ extra-familial social relations, particularly their relations with peers (Berlin & Cassidy, 1999; Thompson, 2006).”

“The evolution of self is a major task of childhood, as children learn to distinguish between self and others in infancy, separate from caregivers in toddlerhood, and engage in sibling and peer relationships in early and middle childhood (Harter 2003, 2006; Thompson 2006).”

“Classic psychological theory posits the importance of social group membership in shaping individual identity (Erikson, 1968; Thompson, 2006), and expectancy-value theory also suggests that individuals’ stereotype endorsement will be related to their self-perceptions (Eccles et al.”

“In other words, through consistent, warm, and supportive interactions with a caregiver, a child is thought to develop an internal working model that consists of positive views of the self (Thompson, 2006).”

“…54:11 (2013), pp 1223–1230 doi:10.1111/jcpp.12093 scholars have called attention to the need to consider how children’s biologically based temperamental characteristics may moderate the continuity of attachment security across development (Fraley, 2002; Thompson, 2006; Waters et al., 2000).”

“…promote children’s emotional competence, whereas parents’ attitudes and behaviors communicating a lack of acceptance or dismissal of children’s emotional experiences impede the development of emotional capacities (e.g. Saarni et al., 2006; Thompson, 2006; Thompson, Laible, & Ontai, 2003).”

“Young children develop within the context of relationships both in and out of the home (Howes, 1999; Thompson, 2006).”

“Gradually, they proceed from a primarily “external” view of classroom expectations and standards—cooperating because adults expect them to—to an “internalized” desire to perceive themselves as cooperative and helpful (Kochanska 2002; Thompson 2006).”

“In fact, for an infant to develop an attachment to a caregiver, the caregiver must behave sensitively and responsively and be a consistent presence in the infant’s life over a period of time (Thompson, 2006).”

“…uthor M anuscript Parenting and Children’s Self-Concepts A prominent notion in theory and research on self-development is that the early self-concept is formed in the context of children’s intimate relationships with caregivers (Harter, 1998, 2006; Miller & Mangelsdorf, 2005; Thompson, 1998, 2006).”

“Thus, it impairs the ability to form responsive parent-child relationships, and hence children's willingness to cooperate actively with their parents and follow parental rules (Kochanska, 2002; Thompson, 2008).”

“Sensitive and supportive parenting may also strengthen the mother-child attachment, which improve child emotion regulation (ER) skills (Thompson 2006) and subsequent child behavior problems (Howse et al. 2003).”

“Emotional expression and regulation are evident very early in the life of the child, are central organizing constructs, and develop in conjunction with caregivers who manage infants’ affective states (R. A. Thompson, 2006).”

“As Thompson (2006) points out, the infant has the newly gained ability to wander away from the parent and engage in activities that are viewed by the parent as undesirable.”

“One of the most important theoretically driven hypotheses is the epigenetic view that the quality of children’s relationship with their primary caregiver, and in particular their attachment security, lays the groundwork for subsequent socioemotional development (Bowlby, 1969; Cassidy, 2008; Thompson, 2006).”

“(Fraley, 2002; Groh et al., 2014; Pinquart, Feuβner, & Ahnert, 2013; Thompson, 2006; Weinfield, Whaley, & Egeland, 2004), although stability has also been reported (Waters, Weinfield, & Hamilton, 2000).”

“…includes the associations found between early attachment security and measures of emotional health, self-esteem, agency and self-confidence, positive affect, ego resiliency and social competence in interactions with peers, teachers, camp counselors, romantic partners and others (Thompson 2007).”

“…which overall have supported reliable, albeit sometimes modest links (see De Wolff & van IJzendoorn, 1997; Goldsmith & Alansky, 1987; Lucassen et al., 2011; Pasco Fearon & Belsky, 2016; Thompson, 2006; van IJzendoorn & De Wolff, 1997; Verhage et al., 2016, for narrative and meta-analytic reviews).”

“Attachment theory suggests that warm, responsive parenting is the critical factor in producing securely attached children who, in turn, develop positive secure internal working models of their parents (Thompson, 2006).”

“These findings are consistent with the idea that the child's mental representations are based on early caregiving experiences and may constitute a bridge between early experience and the development of self and expectations that influence future behavior (Thompson, 2006).”

“…can provide direct coaching on how to regulate emotion (e.g., Gottman et al., 1997), provide reappraisals or reassessments of a distressing situation (Gross & Thompson, 2007), or state explicit expectations for appropriate emotional behavior (Thompson & Lagattuta, 2006; Thompson & Meyer, 2007).”

“Over time, these early social exchanges evolve into complex social interactions with others, and children’s interactional histories are a primary mechanism that leads to their social-emotional competence (Thompson, 2006).”

“Parent–child interactions, such as joint play, and parent–child discourse, such as reminiscing together, provide the child with a natural context in which to learn about the socioemotional world and the socialization process (Fivush, Haden, & Reese, 2006; Thompson, 2006).”

“Mendez, McDermott, and Fantuzzo (2002) and Thompson (2006) have proposed a formulation of psycho-social competence that includes self-regulation of attention, behavior and emotions, and language skills.”

“Further, equally extensive evidence has shown that a positive parent–child relationship fosters children’s attachment security, associated with adaptive regulation of emotion and constructive coping (DeKlyen and Greenberg 2008; Thompson 2006).”

“Attachment security with caregivers during infancy and toddlerhood lays the foundation for social expectations, autonomous behaviors, and regulatory competencies later in life (Thompson, 2006).”

“The absence of a positive attachment relationship is expected to impede the progression of positive hope development through the development of maladaptive working models related to present and future experiences (Rieger, 1993; Snyder, 2000; Thompson, 2006).”

“This multi-method, multi-informant, multi-assessment study addresses a key question of attachment theory: Does security mediate often-reported associations between early positive parent–child relationship and future adaptive outcomes (Haltigan, Roisman, & Fraley, 2013; Thompson, 2006)?”