Chapter 4

Social and emotional

development
Lee Farrington-Flint
 Chapter 4 Social and emotional development

Chapter 4 Social and emotional

development
This chapter considers how children’s interactions with other people,
from their earliest days, affect their experiences and development. It
focuses on close relationships and how these affect children’s sense of
themselves and of others:
First relationships. Early interactions between infants and their carers
are crucial for the development of a strong emotional bond, or
‘attachment’, and children’s later psychological development.
Relationships with peers. Through middle to late childhood, many
types of social interaction with peers promote social and emotional
development.
Self, identity and understanding others. Children develop an early
sense of self and identity. Much of this is learned from those around
them although there is also a developmental aspect to the timing of
this learning. It encompasses gender, nationality and ‘race’/ethnicity as
well as other identities.
Furthermore, by about three to five years of age, children develop a
‘theory of mind’ or the ability to understand that other people see the
world differently from ourselves. This is the start of allowing for more
complex social interactions.
The chapter draws largely on research and theory from child
psychology. It also starts to look at the family, a theme that will
continue in Chapter 5.

79
An introduction to childhood studies and child psychology

Learning outcomes
When you have studied this chapter, you should be able to:

. discuss the nature of children’s first relationships

. explain how early interactions can shape children’s emotional
development
. define how these early interactions can help form attachments
. identify how children develop a sense of self and an
understanding of others
. discuss the importance of peer relationships and peer
acceptance.

Introduction
The first year of life is a time of rapid change. Children begin to
acquire new skills and gain a better understanding of the social world
around them. First relationships, especially with primary caregivers, are
crucial for development and for infants to learn about their social
world. Although infants are born with rather limited capabilities, they
actively engage in developing early relationships and have an innate set
of capacities to do so. Over time, these early social relationships
become extended to include a wider range of individuals, usually
including other key caregivers as well as grandparents, siblings and
peers. Some children may also experience caregiving from people
beyond the family, such as foster carers or childminders. These
relationships are central to ensuring a child’s healthy social and
emotional development, and can influence social relationships in later
childhood.
In this chapter we will focus on exploring how different social
relationships can influence the lives of children and young people. This
chapter will briefly introduce the child’s first relationships and the
importance of establishing those relationships for promoting secure
attachment bonds. The later sections will then begin to consider
children’s social and emotional development by exploring not only how
they develop a sense of ‘self ’ but also how they come to be able to
communicate with others. The importance of forming social

80
 Chapter 4 Social and emotional development

relationships with peers will also be considered. Throughout the

chapter, you will explore the changing nature of children’s social
interactions throughout childhood and understand how these different
forms of interaction can promote social and emotional development
throughout infancy, childhood and adolescence.

First relationships
Chapter 3 described the influential suggestion, which came from the
writings of the seventeenth-century British philosopher John Locke
(1632–1704), that children were born as a blank slate or ‘empty vessel’
with no innate ideas or knowledge about the world. Certainly, infants
rely on parents and other caregivers to meet their primary needs to
ensure survival. However, the way in which we viewed infancy,
especially during the first months of life, underwent significant shifts in
the twentieth century, not least with growing scientific evidence that
infants enter the world with innate capabilities that enable them to
develop early social relationships.
Note that these important early relationships can develop with any key
caregiver. However, due to the gendered nature of caregiving practices
in many societies, psychological research has often focused on the role
of the mother. Research has shown that, from a young age, infants are
able to recognise and respond to familiar faces and familiar voices and
to engage in early social interaction. For instance, infants are born
recognising their own mother’s voice and will very soon after birth
prefer to look at their own mother’s face rather than any other
woman’s (Grossmann, 2010). It is suggested that in this sense young
infants are biologically predisposed to interact with others and this, in
part, may be due to the strong primary need for food, warmth and
protection. When an infant cries this provides a strong emotional
signal to the caregiver that the child requires, for example, physical
comfort from a change of nappy, or sustenance, or warmth and
affection. Caregivers need to be highly sensitive to these behavioural
signals and respond to the needs of the newborn.
Social development is fundamentally important, not just for children’s
social relationships but also for their cognitive and even physical
development, and researchers have been astonished by the impact of
early social deprivation on children’s language and psychological
development, even when physical needs have been met
(Gerhardt, 2006).

81
An introduction to childhood studies and child psychology

Psychological research has focused on the role of caregivers (usually

researching mothers) and their ability to establish a warm, comforting,
secure relationship with their babies. Caregivers’ sensitivity to the
infant’s needs is considered a crucial aspect of good parenting. Mothers
and other primary caregivers tend to show a strong desire to
communicate with their young infants, and intuitively react to an
infant’s behavioural signals such as crying. Sensitive parenting involves
being able to identify what an infant needs. Is a baby crying from
overstimulation, or from boredom? From hunger or tiredness?
Learning to answer these needs is a process, and a carer-child pair
build a relationship over time: the infant learns to trust the carer to
meet their needs; the carer learns how to do so with this child.
Parenting in early childhood begins with physical, affectionate
behaviours (cuddling, feeding) but also engaging in social signals, for
example by smiling, hiding their face or using exaggerated expressions
to evoke some kind of response from the infant and to initiate
interactions. Often these interactions are guided by a particular form of
speech. Parents in many countries use a special form of speech called
‘motherese’ or ‘parentese’ to talk to their infants, what most people
recognise as ‘baby talk’ (Bornstein, 2013). Motherese/parentese tends
to exaggerate the intonation and length of words and include a lot of
repetition. Research has shown that this sort of speech can help young
infants develop language, as it helps them understand how parts of
their native language fit together, a difficult task when trying to
decipher fast adult speech that leaves little space between words and
sounds. However, it should be noted that this is not universal, and
infants also learn speech in cultures where there is little adaptation of
this kind.
Parents’ behaviours are thought to be crucial to ensuring that early
social relationships are developed with their babies, and infants become
sensitive to their carer’s tone of voice, facial and body movements and
timing and rhythm of emotional expressions. Infants generally respond
well to warmth and positivity, and are also sensitive to negative
interactions, such as hostility, a harsh tone or hostile ways of speaking.
Psychologists often refer to these fine-grained interactions between two
individuals as ‘dyadic’ interactions. This is because they are not just
established or maintained by the parent; it is more of a two-way
process. It is clear that infants are born with a readiness to relate and a
willingness to take an active role in establishing these early interactions.
An infant will often interact with the caregiver and actively seek social

82
 Chapter 4 Social and emotional development

stimulation during the periods of alertness, such as smiling, making

vocalisations and touching. Subtle complexities of the infant’s
behaviour may also include closing the eyes, turning the head and
looking away to regulate the flow of interaction (Bornstein, 2013).

Figure 1 Close proximity and physical contact between infant and mother
are often considered important for developing a strong emotional bond

We also know that the caregiver and the infant contribute equally to
the quality of these dyadic interactions. Important features of these
early caregiver–infant interactions often include mutuality, reciprocity,
engagement and affective sharing. This is one way in which infants
learn about the basis of communication. Turn-taking in conversations
is an important aspect of establishing early social relationships and
over time the type and frequency of infants’ face-to-face greetings
change from reactive forms of interaction (responding solely to
gestures or speech) to more proactive forms (such as initiating an
interaction with the mother). One way to think about these early
relationships is to see them as a series of reciprocal interactions that
occur between the child, the caregiver and their environment
(Sameroff, 2009).

83
An introduction to childhood studies and child psychology

Key points
. Early interactions between infant and primary carer(s) are crucial for
a child’s social and emotional development.
. Infants are born with a readiness to relate to others.
. Early relationships can develop through a series of verbal and non-
verbal forms of parent–infant interactions.
. Relationships can often be seen as a series of causal interactions
between the infant and the parent.
. The two-way process between caregiver and infant illustrates the
importance of communication and children’s agency.

Forming attachments
An infant’s very survival depends on the presence of some other
person who can provide the basic needs of warmth, shelter and food
that infants are unable to provide for themselves. However, attachment
theory has provided one of the best theoretical and most influential
accounts for understanding that infant–caregiver relationships have
value beyond physical sustenance. John Bowlby, a British psychiatrist,
was one of the first to highlight the importance of the relationship that
infants have with their primary caregivers. His theory of attachment
was influenced by his early experiences working during the 1930s with
boys who had adjustment problems (Bowlby, 1969). He began to
formulate his idea that disruption to the maternal bond during early
childhood is detrimental to later adjustment in childhood. He
suggested that under normal circumstances, young children form
strong mutual attachments with their primary caregivers, which provide
a strong sense of physical and emotional security. Bowlby believed that
a strong, healthy attachment is based on a long-term, stable
relationship, and at first believed that a single maternal attachment
figure was the best way of achieving this. However, he later believed
that although early attachments are usually formed with the mother,
attachments could also be formed with other prominent individuals
within the infant’s immediate environment.
According to Bowlby (1969), attachment is a deep and enduring
emotional bond that connects one person to another. It is
characterised by specific behaviours, such as children seeking closeness

84
 Chapter 4 Social and emotional development

with the attachment figure when upset or threatened and the adult’s
ability to respond sensitively and appropriately to the child’s emotional
needs. Bowlby made a clear distinction between two forms of
attachment – secure and insecure – that have an influence on how
infants and children develop and grow both socially and emotionally.
According to Bowlby, children who are securely attached to their
primary caregiver use this as a secure base for exploration and a safe
figure to return to in times of distress. This theory provides an
explanation of how the parent–child relationship emerges and
influences development, particularly a child’s later social, emotional and
psychological development.
Almost all children will form attachments, whether secure or otherwise.
Mary Ainsworth and colleagues (1978) carried out influential empirical
research on attachment theory by looking at the types of attachment-
related behaviours that occur across infancy and childhood by mothers
and children. Following her observations of many children within the
UK and Uganda, Ainsworth formed the conclusion that, irrespective of
culture, all children show similar patterns of reaction on separation and
reunion with the mother, depending on whether they were securely or
insecurely attached. This led her to develop a classification of different
attachment formations and their accompanying behaviours for securely
and insecurely attached infants. Ainsworth used laboratory
observations, known as the ‘strange situation’ procedure, to assess the
kinds of behaviours and emotional reactions shown by infants and
young children after a series of events, such as separation and reunion
with the mother or a stranger entering the room. She concluded that
sensitive care was the crucial factor in allowing a secure attachment to
form.
In considering the quality and nature of these attachment relationships
between the young infant and the primary caregiver, it is important to
consider the wider social and cultural contexts that can shape these
relationships. For instance, across cultures children lead very different
lives and their parents have very different ideas or expectations of
childhood and the nature of adult–child relationships. In Western
societies we tend to observe intense, high-quality exchanges between
caregivers and infants, which include cuddling, singing or talking in an
attempt to provide stimulation and encourage social exchanges.
However, Schieffelin and Ochs (1986) remind us that these types of
interactions are dependent on cultural assumptions and ideologies.
Among Kaluli mothers in Papua New Guinea, for example, infants are

85
An introduction to childhood studies and child psychology

not viewed as mutual partners in these one-to-one exchanges, but are

often held facing outwards with mothers rarely establishing any form
of interaction at all; it is members of the community who are
responsible for interacting with the infant. So while a Western
psychologist might interpret these as low-quality interactions between
the mother and her infant, they may not be detrimental to the child’s
emotional development but simply indicative of different cultural child-
rearing practices.

Figure 2 A woman from the Samburu people with her infant. Different
cultures have different cultural ideologies with regard to parenting

A range of factors affects how attachment relationships develop and

these may include, for example, parental attitudes, changes in family
structure, and the caregiver’s mental state, as well as differences in
cultural norms over child-rearing practices. Mothers of children
classified as securely attached show higher levels of sensitivity, warmth
and acceptance, and emotional openness, but there are some parents
who struggle to develop this maternal sensitive responding to their
child.
This can have a long-term effect on the nature of a child’s social and
emotional development, as the case study below illustrates. At the same
time, it is important to bear in mind that children experience change
over time and an attachment ‘status’ may change in later years.

86
 Chapter 4 Social and emotional development

Maternal responsiveness to infants

We often assume that parents, particularly mothers, find the birth of
their newborn child a wondrous occasion, one that they have been
expecting and something that brings a ‘bundle of joy’. For many
mothers a newborn child provides a positive experience. However,
for others it can be a time of anxiety and lead to the onset of
postnatal depression. Postnatal depression is often thought to
affect around 10 to 15 per cent of new mothers and results in a
range of symptoms which can include feelings of helplessness and
despair, low mood, irrational anxiety and sleep disturbance. For
many, these symptoms often disappear six to eight weeks after
childbirth, while for others they may persist well after the child’s first
birthday. So what are the effects on the child?
Research carried out by Lynne Murray and colleagues
(Murray, 1992) has focused on the effects of maternal postnatal
depression on children’s early attachments and their emotional
relationship with the mother. Across a number of experimental
studies spanning 20 years, Murray and colleagues identified a
number of consistent findings regarding the possible long-term
consequences of mothers’ postnatal depression on children’s
psychological development. Following up a large cohort of children
over the first two years of life, she noticed long-term consequences
which included behavioural problems, difficulties eating and
sleeping and problems in forming their own attachments to other
adults, including fathers, siblings and peers. These behaviours also
continued in mid childhood and persisted over time. The general
finding from Murray’s work was quite striking: that postnatal
depression, even when this lasted for a relatively short period of
time, can have long-term consequences on the child’s social,
emotional and psychological development. Although the effects are
greater for boys than girls, children often require additional support
to overcome these behavioural, emotional and social problems.
However, not every child will inevitably develop poor social and
emotional skills. A range of factors other than postnatal maternal
depression, including other caregivers’ involvement, separation,
divorce and other changes in the family unit, remains important in
influencing the nature of the mother–infant attachment. So while
maternal postnatal depression can be one influence on the
development of secure early attachments, it is important to
recognise that other factors also play a role.

87
An introduction to childhood studies and child psychology

Social relationships with other family members

In recent decades, fathers have become substantially more involved in
early child-rearing and are more likely to perform caregiver roles:
between 1965 and 2000 alone, fathers’ interactive engagement with
young children nearly doubled (Bureau et al., 2016). Although many
fathers are still not involved in primary caregiving, play has been
identified as the most important context where fathers and children
interact: researchers have found that focusing too much on caregiving-
related behaviours when seeking to understand attachment means less
attention is paid to the role of other parental figures.
In a key study, attachment researchers Karin Grossmann and Klaus
Grossmann and colleagues (2002) explored how mothers’ and fathers’
sensitivity in play interactions were associated with later attachment in
the child. They examined to what extent parents were sensitive,
cooperative, and gently challenging of their child while playing with
them. They found that fathers’ play sensitivity when children were
toddlers was significantly linked to how children described their
relationships with their fathers when they were 10 and 16 years of age.
They concluded that the child’s long-term attachment representation is
not as well predicted by early infant–father security of attachment as it is
by fathers’ play sensitivity. This suggests that it is not only the
sensitivity and quality of very early caregiving that affects children’s
later relationships with caregivers, but also the kinds of play
interactions that parents engage with.
Subsequently, research exploring fathers’ roles in children’s early
experiences has begun to increase, as have explorations of other factors
such as both mothers’ and fathers’ ability to be sensitive to children’s
cues during play, such as being able to appreciate a child’s cues at
times of high excitement and emotional arousal (Bureau et al, 2016).
Here, studies find that both fathers’ and mothers’ sensitivity in high-
excitement contexts are associated with child attachment security. For
example, it is important for caregivers to understand cues that indicate
when high excitement is stimulating for a child and when it is
distressing. This indicates that both fathers and mothers of
preschoolers can be competent partners in playful, exciting situations
and those who are sensitive to their children’s emotional cues seem
more likely to have children who develop secure attachments.

88
 Chapter 4 Social and emotional development

But it is not just the mother and father who can support a child’s early
social and emotional development; there is evidence for a positive
influence of sibling relations on a child’s later adjustment and
psychological well-being (Kreppner and Lerner, 2013). Interactions
with siblings and other family members are also seen as a critical part
of developing social skills during mid to late childhood.

Figure 3 Siblings can provide a wealth of support and act as role models
for young children through the different ages of childhood

Such relationships are emotionally powerful and the quality of those

relationships typically remains relatively stable and consistent
throughout childhood and adolescence. Furthermore, relationships with
siblings provide a unique context for children to acquire new skills
because the types of interactions, relationships and forms of
communication may be different to those we see occurring with
parents. Sibling interactions offer a further context within which young
children can develop meaningful attachments and acquire a range of
social skills, including prosocial acts such as sharing and cooperation,
as well as becoming aware of the subtle negotiations required for social
interactions. Sibling conflict is also likely, depending on age differences
between siblings, and same-sex siblings tend to get into more conflict
and show more aggression than opposite-sex siblings. Nonetheless,
despite rivalry among siblings, older children know not only how to
upset, tease and irritate their siblings but also how to comfort and
support them, especially in difficult or stressful times (Boer, Dunn and
Dunn, 2013).

89
An introduction to childhood studies and child psychology

Key points
. Secure attachment is characterised by an enduring emotional bond
between infant and primary caregiver, which lasts over time.
. This early attachment can have a strong influence on a child’s later
social, emotional and psychological development.
. A lack of ‘sensitive parenting’, whether in caregiving or during play,
can affect the quality of these interactions and lead to insecure
attachment behaviours between infant and caregiver.
. Other caregivers and family members including siblings can have a
positive influence on children’s social adjustment and psychological
well-being.

Understanding emotions, ‘self’ and identity

Understanding their own emotions and the emotional reactions of
others forms an important part of children’s social awareness. Infants
regularly show facial expressions of sadness or happiness despite never
being taught such emotions; they appear to occur naturally and even
babies born congenitally blind will smile when they are happy, despite
never having seen a smile. In his book published in 1872, The
Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, Charles Darwin wrote
about his first scientific attempts at measuring emotional behaviours in
children by making systematic observations of the development of
emotional expressions in his own baby son. Drawing on observations,
and photographs from around the world, his book paved the way for
more scientific measures of human emotions. In later years, Ekman
and Friesen (1971) developed coding scales to rate facial expressions
and children’s emotional behaviours objectively. From his initial work,
and observations across different cultures including the USA, Brazil,
Japan and Papua New Guinea as well as native and non-native English-
speaking individuals, Ekman argued that certain emotional expressions,
such as happiness, sadness, disgust and joy, can be found across all
cultures. He introduced the idea that there may be basic emotions that
are ‘universal’, that is, emotions that can be shared by all people
regardless of where they live. This is a contested theory however as
non-Western accounts of basic emotions only partially overlap with
those identified by Ekman, and studies of emotions in other cultures

90
 Chapter 4 Social and emotional development

suggest that assuming a simple ‘universal’ set exists misrepresents the

experience of others (Cassaniti and Menon, 2017).
Still, the ability to tune in to different emotional states and to
recognise expressions among those around them appears to be a basis
for children to learn about themselves. An awareness of different
emotional states often occurs relatively early within infancy. From
around only 10 weeks of age, many different facial expressions and
emotions, such as happiness, sadness, fear and anger, are expressed
within the mother–infant dyad, and young infants respond very quickly
to the mother’s interactions through smiling, giggling or crying
(Bretherton, 2010).
The next steps are to develop emotional competence and to recognise
emotions in others. The term ‘emotional competence’ generally refers
to children’s ability to cope with their own emotions and with those of
other people around them. Joy, anger, surprise, interest, disgust,
distress, sadness and fear are identified as emotions that develop by the
age of 9 months onwards in some cultures. It is suggested that
children begin with an initial recognition of their own emotional states,
such as being happy, sad, upset or angry, before being able to regulate
or control those emotions in any given situation. The ability to regulate
their own emotions occurs through their ongoing social interactions
with others, such as parents, siblings and peers, and given that personal
relationships are often loaded with highly emotive content (for
example, happiness, sadness, anger, frustration), then these social
interactions allow children to become aware of the nature of emotions
as well as able to express them freely (see Figure 4).
The next step is learning how to regulate their own emotional
expressions when interacting with other individuals. Children come to
learn, for example, that it is entirely inappropriate to laugh at or taunt
another child who is sad or upset; or to pull faces at their mother
when being told off. These are all part of the cultural conventions of
social interactions that must be learned throughout childhood. Children
also come to realise that when we show signs of anger, disgust or
sadness, these expressions will have a direct (and sometimes indirect)
effect on other people; that our expressions provide quite clear
behavioural cues about our thoughts and feelings.

91
An introduction to childhood studies and child psychology

Figure 4 A child can express a range of different basic human emotions as

well as recognising the emotional states of other individuals

Through the recognition and regulation of different emotional states,

children become more aware of their own thoughts, feelings and
expressions and this takes them on a journey of self-discovery about
who they are and how they are feeling. This provides a growing self-
awareness and understanding of their own mind.
The most widely used experimental approach to test for early self-
awareness is the ‘rouge test’. The rouge test involves positioning young
children in front of a mirror, applying some rouge (red make-up) to
the child’s nose and observing the child’s reactions to their image in
the mirror. If the child attempts to remove the mark on their own
nose (rather than the image in the mirror) then they are believed to
demonstrate self-awareness, and this tends to occur at around 18 to 24
months of age (Damian and Robins, 2012). As children’s self-awareness
increases, they begin to insist on doing things themselves,
independently of others, and show a possessive attitude towards their
toys. By the age of 4 to 5 years children begin to develop an awareness
of their own competencies, especially when faced with other children
in different social situations.
As children develop a sense of their own competence, they begin to
develop a self-concept and a sense of identity. One obvious example of
a developing sense of identity is reflected in how children are aware of
different gender roles and the labels these roles assign to boys and
girls. For instance, by the age of 5 years, children can often
differentiate between males and females and deploy gender stereotypes

92
 Chapter 4 Social and emotional development

(‘boys should play with cars and girls should play with dolls’) and they
come to learn about their own cultural beliefs about gender (see
Chapter 12). Often children acquire gender-related prejudices or
stereotypes. But it’s not just gender that affects a child’s sense of
identity during middle childhood. There is also evidence that by the
age of 9 years children often see themselves as belonging to a
particular nationality and are able to assign to themselves the qualities
associated with a particular national identity (see Barrett, 2012). They
also begin to recognise their own ‘racial’ or ethnic background from as
early as the pre-school years and may come to absorb and reproduce
racist attitudes through their social interactions with others (see
Chapter 9).
The journey of self-discovery is complex and is guided not just by the
kinds of social interactions available, such as with family, siblings and
peers, but also by children’s exposure to different types of media,
including television, the internet and books, that represent the cultural
expectations of the particular time and place. As children grow and
develop, they form an understanding of the self and their own personal
identity and this is often associated with the child’s own development
of self-worth and self-esteem. There is also evidence that these early
emotional developments and growing personal identity provide the
building blocks for children’s psychological well-being.

Key points
. Children’s ability to recognise emotions and regulate their own
behaviours or emotional expressions are important for social
interactions.
. Children develop an early sense of self-identity.
. Throughout development, this awareness of self-identity extends to
include aspects of gender, nationality and ‘race’.
. Often the development of identity occurs through observational
learning and children’s exposure to media, television and books.

93
An introduction to childhood studies and child psychology

Children’s understanding of others’ thoughts and

feelings
While children may show a growing awareness of their own minds, and
demonstrate an ability to regulate their own basic emotions, this does
not fully equip them with all the necessary skills to develop social
interactions with others. In order to form effective social interactions,
children need to learn that others have thoughts and feelings that may
be quite different from their own. What makes one child happy, for
example, may make another child sad, upset or even angry. This
knowledge that people may view the world differently, experience
different feelings and hold different ideas or beliefs to their own
provides the basis for forming good social relationships during mid
childhood.
Psychologists use the term ‘social cognition’ to describe how people
think about themselves and about others. One aspect of social
cognition involves recognising that other people have their own
emotions and react to situations differently. This is known as emotion
perception. Another is understanding that other people have different
points of view and intentions than our own. This is known as ‘theory
of mind’. When children begin to recognise that people view the world
in different ways, before or by the age of 5 years, they are thought to
have developed a theory of mind. They recognise that other people
may have a set of beliefs, desires or intentions that are quite different
from their own (Wellman, 2010). This ability to consider different
perspectives or recognise mental states in others is a difficult skill to
acquire.
Once young children reach this level of self-awareness, new emotions
like embarrassment, envy and empathy start to emerge and children are
able to think creatively, making the distinction between fiction and
reality and engaging in pretend or imaginative play. Not all children
develop this ability to infer the mental states of others, and children
with an autism spectrum disorder can exhibit a range of difficulties in
social interactions and in understanding others’ intentions and
expectations as well as in communicating their feelings and ideas to
others (Senju, 2012).
Children’s social interactions are also guided by their prosocial
behaviours. By definition, prosocial behaviours are those that are
intended to help others, such as giving, sharing, cooperating and

94
 Chapter 4 Social and emotional development

preventing harm, and occur quite early within development. For

instance, young infants will start to cry when they hear another baby
crying; and during the later childhood years children will share
resources such as food and toys with other children in an attempt to
build social networks or friendship groups (Grusec, 2011). However,
children sometimes find it difficult to show acts of kindness, and in the
preschool years, young children can show a possessive attitude towards
their own belongings, and can even gain enjoyment from other
people’s misfortunes. Engaging in social interactions with peers
therefore remains an important process in beginning to learn about
prosocial behaviours and acts of kindness.

Figure 5 Sharing and cooperation are important aspects of developing

prosocial behaviours

Acts of kindness and support are not only dependent on the child’s
age and social experience, but are also influenced by social and cultural
expectations. In a classic study on cultural differences in prosocial
behaviours, Whiting and Whiting (1975) provided a detailed account of
the development of prosocial behaviours among groups of children
between the ages of 3 and 11 years across six different cultures –
Kenya, Mexico, the Philippines, Japan, India and the United States.
Despite observing children showing prosocial acts, such as cooperation
and sharing, they found that cultural expectations had a strong
influence on the kinds of help or support offered by children. They
found that children from Kenya, Mexico and the Philippines were
more likely to offer help or support and make responsible suggestions
to others than those from Japan, India and the United States. In part,
this can be explained by the child-rearing practices of the time and the
different social and cultural ideologies.

95
An introduction to childhood studies and child psychology

Key points
. Social cognition addresses how people think about themselves and
about others.
. Before or by the age of 5 years children develop a theory of mind
and recognise that others may hold different intentions, beliefs and
desires from their own.
. Recognising the mental states and emotional states of others
enables more complex social interactions to occur throughout
childhood.
. Prosocial behaviour, such as giving, sharing and cooperating, is
mediated by cultural expectations and ideologies and children’s own
social experiences.

Social relationships among peers

There is little doubt that these early social relationships are important
to children’s psychological development and provide an opportunity for
them to acquire knowledge about themselves and others. These shared
experiences in early childhood become even more important when
children progress into middle childhood, at around 5 to 8 years, and
begin to form wider social networks with peers. Starting school for the
first time can be a challenging and emotional time for children and a
point at which they need to establish much wider social networks,
beyond those of the immediate family. Adjusting to new social
surroundings like school can be problematic and on average around
13–35 per cent of children experience some mild to moderate
difficulties in adjusting to school or forming new peer relationships.
Friendships are examples of other social relationships that develop in
later childhood, which are characterised by an emotional connection
between different individuals. Friendships may also involve playing out
powerful negative emotions such as anger and jealousy as well as
positive feelings of support and care. Although both boys and girls
develop relationships that are often characterised by intimacy and
companionship, the nature of these relationships varies according to
gender and learned behaviours. For instance, girls tend to have a
smaller group of closely interconnected peers as well as greater levels
of intimacy, while boys typically form much larger friendship groups, in
which it may be less acceptable to talk about emotions or show overt

96
 Chapter 4 Social and emotional development

empathy towards others. These features are often derived from

children’s constructions of masculinity and femininity in different
cultures and the growing pressure on individuals to perform and
behave according to the expected group norms. However, these are
generalisations and there are of course exceptions, with some boys
willing to express emotional closeness and intimacy among their
friends. Furthermore, social norms regarding expression of feelings and
acceptance of male expression of emotion vary culturally and over
time. Children need to acquire a range of social skills when interacting
with children and adults outside the family, especially developing
coping mechanisms to deal with peer pressure or bullying, which can
sometimes occur at school.

Figure 6 Some children struggle to be accepted by their peers in school

A further issue concerns status within social groups and peer

acceptance. Peer acceptance is different from friendship in that it is an
indicator of how an individual child is liked or disliked by a group.
There is evidence to suggest that the quality of the social interactions
with others at school can heavily influence whether children are liked
or disliked by their peers (Ladd et al., 1999). Many children struggle to
become popular, and may fail to reach the level of popularity that they
aspire to. They are often assigned labels by others, such as ‘nerd’,
‘geek’, ‘sporty’ or ‘popular’. These constructions are often heavily
mediated by popular culture and advertising as well as by social
expectations of popularity mediated by gender stereotypes. For
example, Swain (2004) carried out an ethnographic study which used
observations and interviews with boys aged between 10 and 11 years to
try to identify how popularity was achieved within the school context.

97
An introduction to childhood studies and child psychology

His findings revealed that for most boys, the important factor affecting
popularity and peer group status was their athletic ability and sporting
prowess. For many, football was often seen as a key feature of
maintaining a strong ‘heterosexual masculinity’ and one that held them
in high regard among their peers. Other indicators of popularity
included fashion and wearing certain clothes or trainers as well as
being dominant and outspoken. Overall, as Swain suggests, masculinity
is often linked to the status held within a particular peer group and
this is influenced by wider social pressures to behave in certain ways.
Psychologists have attempted to assess popularity using quantitative
approaches, such as ‘sociometric’ techniques. These provide measures
of a person’s social status within a group which are based on ratings
for answers to simple questions like ‘Who do you most play with?’ and
‘How much would you like to spend time with this child?’ as well as
observations of their interactions outside the classroom (Ladd
et al., 1999). Using these measures, psychologists have begun to
identify a number of distinct categories of status based on peer
acceptance, which include ‘popular’, ‘rejected’ or ‘neglected’. Each of
these three categories includes a set of naïve assumptions about
whether personality traits are externalised (such as happy, attractive,
aggressive, argumentative) or internalised (anxious, lonely, depressed).
Using this technique, psychologists have been able to identify who is
regarded as popular, what factors influence this popularity and how
peer group status can affect such ratings among different groups (see
the following box).

Prosocial behaviours and peer acceptance

Happy children are more likely to show prosocial behaviours, such
as helping others and sharing resources, and are also liked more
by their peers in school. So this raises a question about whether
there is a relationship between children’s ability to engage in
prosocial behaviours, such as acts of kindness, and their peer
acceptance.
Kristin Layous and colleagues (2012) developed an intervention to
assess this relationship directly. Children between 9 and 10 years
of age from 19 classrooms in Vancouver, Canada, participated in
an intervention study in which they were asked either to perform
three acts of kindness (for anyone they wished) or visit three places
(anywhere they wished). Examples of kind acts included ‘gave my

98
 Chapter 4 Social and emotional development

mum a hug’, ‘gave someone some of my lunch’, and ‘vacuumed the

floor’. Examples of locations visited included ‘shopping centre’, and
‘grandma’s house’.
Both before and after the four-week intervention period, all of the
children completed a life satisfaction and happiness scale (measure
of well-being), as well as nominating who they liked by answering
the question ‘would like to spend time with’ (a measure of peer
acceptance). These nominations of peers provided an indication of
who were the most and least liked at school and who the children
would like to spend more time with in the future. The results
showed that performing acts of kindness led to a positive effect in
terms of happiness and better life satisfaction in all the children
concerned. They also showed that those children who performed
acts of kindness (such as helping others or sharing resources)
were also deemed to be more popular with their peers. These
findings are quite clear in showing that the children who are kind to
others are likely to attract more friends than those who are less
kind.

Key points
. Social interaction with peers through middle to late childhood
promotes social and emotional development.
. Children form different types of relationship with peers during the
school years and this can influence their peer acceptance.
. Peer acceptance is an indicator of how much someone is liked or
disliked within a particular group.
. A child’s masculinity or femininity influences popularity and peer
group status.
. Sociometric techniques have been used by psychologists to assess
peer groups and popularity.

99
An introduction to childhood studies and child psychology

Conclusion
The development of social and emotional skills in young children is a
complex process and continues from infancy through to later
childhood. In this chapter you have considered the nature of children’s
early first relationships and how those caregiver–infant dyadic
interactions, whether through care or play, can provide important
building blocks for later social and emotional development. We know
that infants are born with a readiness to relate to others; they recognise
familiar faces and familiar voices from a very early age, and engaging
in reciprocal types of interaction allows for the development of secure
attachments to other individuals, who may include mothers, fathers and
siblings. Beyond early infancy, we have seen that children develop an
awareness of themselves as well as an understanding of the mental
states of others. The knowledge that other people hold different
desires and beliefs about the world (having a ‘theory of mind’) is an
important aspect of developing friendships and peer groups at school
and allows children to engage in more complex social relationships
beyond the family during mid to late childhood. In this sense, early
social and emotional development plays an important role throughout
the child’s life and continues to shape who they are and who they
become in future years.

100
 Chapter 4 Social and emotional development

References
Ainsworth, M.D.S., Blehar, M.C., Waters, E. and Wall, S. (1978) Patterns of
Attachment: A Psychological Study of the Strange Situation, New Jersey,
Lawrence Erlbaum.
Barrett, M. (2012) ‘Beliefs about other countries’, in Byram, M. and Hu, A.
(eds), Routledge Encyclopedia of Language Teaching and Learning , 2nd edn,
London, Routledge, pp. 78–83.
Boer, F., Dunn, J. and Dunn, J.F. (eds) (2013) Children’s Sibling Relationships:
Developmental and Clinical Issues, London, Psychology Press.
Bornstein, M.H. (2013) ‘Mother–infant attunement’, in Legerstee, M., Haley,
D.W. and Bornstein, M.H. (eds) The Infant Mind: Origins of the Social Brain,
New York, Guilford Press, pp. 266–300.
Bowlby, J. (1969) Attachment and Loss, vol. 1: Attachment, New York, Basic
Books.
Bretherton, I. (2010) ‘Fathers in attachment theory and research: a review’,
Early Child Development and Care, vol. 180, no. 1/2, pp. 9–23.
Bureau, J-F. Martin, J., Yurkowski, K., Schmiedel, S., Quan, J., Moss, E.,
Deneault, A.-A. and Pallanca , D. (2017) ‘Correlates of child–father and child–
mother attachment in the preschool years’, Attachment & Human
Development. vol. 19, no. 2, pp. 130–150.
Cassaniti, J. I. and Menon, U. (2017) Universalism without Uniformity:
Explorations in Mind and Culture, Chicago, University of Chicago Press.
Damian, R.I. and Robins, R.W. (2012) ‘Investigations into the human self: a
naturalist perspective’, Social Cognition, vol. 30, special issue, pp. 431–48.
Darwin, C. (1872) The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals,
London, John Murray.
Ekman, P. and Friesen, W.V. (1971) ‘Constants across cultures in the face and
emotion’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 17, no. 2, pp. 124–9.
Gerhardt, S. (2006) ‘Why love matters: how affection shapes a baby’s brain’,
Infant Observation, vol. 9, no. 3, pp. 305–9.
Golombok, S. (2000) Parenting: What Really Counts?, London, Routledge.
Grossmann, K., Grossmann, K.E., Fremmer-Bombik, E., Kindler, H.,
Scheuerer-Englisch, H. and Zimmermann, P. (2002) ‘The Uniqueness of the
Child–Father Attachment Relationship: Fathers’ Sensitive and Challenging Play
as a Pivotal Variable in a 16-year Longitudinal Study’. Social Development, vol
11, no. 3, pp. 307–331.
Grossmann, T. (2010) ‘The development of emotion perception in face and
voice during infancy’, Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience, vol. 28,
pp. 219–36.

101
An introduction to childhood studies and child psychology

Grusec, J.E. (2011) ‘Domains of social knowledge and socialization theory’,

Human Development, vol. 54, no. 5, pp. 343–7.
Kreppner, K. and Lerner, R.M. (2013) Family Systems and Life-span
Development, London, Psychology Press.
Ladd, G.W., Birch, S.H. and Buhs, E.S. (1999) ‘Children’s social and scholastic
lives in kindergarten: related spheres of influence?’, Child Development, vol. 70,
no. 6, pp. 1373–400.
Layous, K., Nelson, S.K., Oberle, E., Schonert-Reichl, K.A. and Lyubomirsky,
S. (2012) ‘Kindness counts: prompting prosocial behavior in preadolescents
boosts peer acceptance and well-being’, PLoS one, vol. 7, no. 12, e51380.
Murray, L. (1992) ‘The impact of postnatal depression on infant
development’, Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, vol. 33, no. 3,
pp. 543–61.
Sameroff, A.J. (2009) The Transactional Model of Development: How Children
and Contexts Shape Each Other, Washington, DC, American Psychological
Association.
Schieffelin, B.B. and Ochs, E. (1986) ‘Language socialization’, Annual Review
of Anthropology, vol. 15, pp. 163–91.
Senju, A. (2012) ‘Spontaneous theory of mind and its absence in autism
spectrum disorders’, The Neuroscientist, vol. 18, no. 2, pp. 108–13.
Swain, J. (2004) ‘The resources and strategies that 10–11-year-old boys use to
construct masculinities in the school setting’, British Educational Research
Journal, vol. 30, no. 1, pp. 167–85.
Wellman, H.M. (2010) ‘Developing a theory of mind’, The Blackwell Handbook
of Childhood Cognitive Development, Oxford, Blackwell, pp. 258–84.
Whiting, B.B. and Whiting, J.W. (1975) Children of Six Cultures: A Psycho-
cultural Analysis, Oxford, Harvard University Press.

102