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106 Social Development Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

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Social development is a crucial aspect of human life that influences how individuals interact with others, develop relationships, and contribute to society. It encompasses a wide range of topics, from interpersonal communication and social skills to cultural identity and social justice. If you are tasked with writing an essay on social development, here are 106 topic ideas and examples to get you started:

The impact of social media on social development
The role of family in social development
How peer pressure influences social development
The importance of empathy in social development
Cultural differences in social development
The effects of bullying on social development
Gender stereotypes and social development
The influence of technology on social development
Social skills training for children with autism
The role of education in social development
Socialization and social development
The impact of poverty on social development
Social identity and self-esteem
The effects of social isolation on social development
The role of parenting in social development
Social cognition and social development
The impact of trauma on social development
The role of peer relationships in social development
The effects of social comparison on social development
Social support and social development
The impact of discrimination on social development
Social behavior and social development
The role of technology in social development
Social skills training for individuals with social anxiety
The effects of social exclusion on social development
Social networks and social development
The influence of media on social development
The role of community in social development
Social identity and group membership
The impact of social norms on social development
Social skills training for individuals with ADHD
The effects of social pressure on social development
Social relationships and social development
The role of culture in social development
Social identity and social comparison
The impact of social media on social skills
Social support and mental health
The effects of social media on self-esteem
Social identity and social status
The role of socialization in social development
Social cognition and social behavior
The impact of social comparison on self-esteem
Social support and resilience
The effects of social media on body image
Social identity and social influence
The role of social networks in social development
Social skills training for individuals with social phobia
The impact of social media on relationships
Social support and well-being
The effects of social comparison on body image
Social identity and social change
The role of socialization in identity formation
Social cognition and social influence
The impact of social media on mental health
Social support and coping strategies
The effects of social comparison on relationships
Social identity and social power
The role of social networks in identity development
Social skills training for individuals with social communication disorder
The impact of social media on socialization
Social support and social capital
The effects of social comparison on well-being
Social identity and social responsibility
The role of socialization in moral development
Social cognition and social justice
The impact of social media on social activism
Social support and social inclusion
The effects of social comparison on social cohesion
Social identity and social equality
The role of social networks in social capital
Social skills training for individuals with social difficulties
The impact of social media on social change
Social support and social integration
Social identity and social diversity
The role of socialization in social transformation
Social cognition and social responsibility
The impact of social media on social progress
Social support and social engagement
The effects of social comparison on social harmony
Social identity and social cohesion
The role of social networks in social inclusion
Social skills training for individuals with social challenges
The impact of social media on social cohesion
Social support and social connection
Social identity and social interaction
The role of socialization in social cohesion
Social cognition and social harmony
The impact of social media on social relationships
Social support and social bonding
The effects of social comparison on social integration
Social identity and social networking
The role of social networks in social interaction
Social skills training for individuals with social barriers
The impact of social media on social bonding
Social support and social networking
The effects of social comparison on social engagement
Social identity and social communication
The role of socialization in social networking
Social cognition and social bonding
The impact of social media on social interaction
Social support and social communication
The effects of social comparison on social networking
Social identity and social barriers
The role of social networks in social bonding

These topic ideas and examples can serve as a starting point for your essay on social development. Choose a topic that interests you and delve deeper into the subject to create a well-researched and insightful piece. Remember to support your arguments with evidence and examples to make your essay more compelling and persuasive. Good luck with your writing!

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Essay on Social Development: Sample Essays for Students in 100, 200, and 300 Words

Updated on
Feb 15, 2024

Essay on Social Development: Social development entails enhancing the quality of life for all members of society to enable them to achieve their utmost potential. The prosperity of a community is intertwined with the welfare of each individual. Social development involves dedicating resources to empower individuals. It necessitates eliminating obstacles to ensure that every citizen can pursue their aspirations with assurance and respect. Also, it helps each person gravitate towards self-reliance.

Essay on Social Development in 100 words

Over time, humans go through a lot of developmental stages. One of the most important ones is social development. It helps students develop a sense of self-perception, which helps them expand their academic and social prospects. This will directly affect how students learn, and how they overcome any obstacles that may befall them and will help them in getting success in the classroom.

Teachers play a crucial role in social development as their actions help sculpt how students treat others. They can create a positive environment where everyone feels respected. This will not only help students learn social skills, but they will also learn to respect others.

Also Read: Essay on Athletics in 100, 200, 300 Words for Students

Essay on Social Development in 200 words

Social development can be defined as the different changes in the social as well as emotional skills all through the life of an individual including childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. There are a lot of factors that have an impact on the social development of a child. There are a lot of factors that can shape social development such as parents, peer pressure, etc. Children who can interact with others easily can have more confidence and higher self-esteem. This will in turn have a positive impact on their mental well-being.

Social development also plays a crucial role in the development of language. Those children who engage in social interaction at an early stage have better language skills . They can communicate better and express themselves properly. They are also able to form friends easily which can lead to their social identities being formed easily. One way of adding to the positive development of personal capabilities is to encourage sharing as well as cooperation among the students. By helping the students develop such concepts we are encouraging them to understand different emotions such as empathy, responsibility, etc.

Thus, social development is a very important aspect that should be given proper attention because it can lead to a lot of positive impact on children making them positive individuals.

Essay on Social Development in 300 words

Social development is a very crucial aspect of one’s life. Especially in the years of early development, it plays an important role in shaping the personalities and future relations of a child. This includes learning to communicate properly and to share. For parents, it is very important to understand the value of social development for their child’s overall development.

In the early childhood year, social development is a gradual process that helps a child understand how to interact with others and develop a sense of self concerning others. Social development includes communication, conflict resolution, empathy, etc. These are the skills that help understand one’s own emotions along with those of others and a child build meaningful relations and navigate the social world around them. Social development lays the foundation of cognitive development as well.

Benefits of Social Development

The benefits to social development are as follows:

It helps in improving the learning abilities of children. Strong social skills make them more engaged in the learning process. Hence, they can perform better in their academics.
Social development helps in building self-esteem. Good social skills will automatically result in high self-esteem. This in turn will have a positive impact on mental health.
Social development helps in developing a positive attitude towards the situations of life. Children become more optimistic and thus have a positive mindset.

Ways to Encourage Social Development

One of the best ways to encourage social development is by fostering positive relationships. This can include interacting with others, engaging in social activities, etc. Better communication can also help in better social development after all use of language is an important way of communicating and expressing oneself. Also, promoting positive interactions can contribute to better social development.

Social development should not be neglected because. It is that aspect of life that in itself, includes a lot of valuable skills. Those skills not only teach how to be social, but they also help an individual to form a unique personality.

Also Read: ✍️Essay on Humanity in 100 to 300 Words

Deepansh Gautam

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What is Social Development? Meaning, Types, Examples, Theories

To examines social change in society, social development is a broad notion that studies the overall transformation of people or groups through purposefully initiated policies.

It should be highlighted that development and change are distinct concepts; unlike the latter, the former refers to a change that is intended or wanted. In this sense, we can assert that while not every type of change is development, every development is a type of change.

Moreover, there are even different notions of development. For example, there could be a socio-cultural dimension of development and even an economic dimension to it.

However, when we talk about Social Development, we tend to emphasise the qualitative aspect of change in the social structures and processes. Each and every society is made up of certain cultural values, norms, traditions, customs, culture, etc. all of which must be carefully analysed to examine the social development of a society.

In this view, social development studies and deals with the production and perpetuation of social and economic inequalities, the moral development of society’s most vulnerable people, the provision of proper housing and sanitary facilities, and the general expansion of other social welfare amenities, etc.

Different Approaches to Social Development:

Furthermore, we now have “ the sociology of development” to study different approaches to Social Development. Some of those approaches have been discussed below:

Development from the top: Top-down development, as it is called, in this developmental approach, the apex bodies of administration plan and formulate the development schemes. This approach, however, has numerous flaws, as it might fail to involve the beneficiaries directly.
Development from bottom: Bottom-Up approach, as it is called, unlike the first development approach, this second approach takes into consideration the needs of beneficiaries by giving them the opportunity to project their needs and requirements.
Sectoral development: The development of a specific sector of the economy, such as the agricultural or industrial sectors, is referred to as sectoral development. For example, post-independence Indian planners emphasised the expansion of Indian businesses.
Area development: When we try to shift our attention to some specific underdeveloped area or region, we are actually adopting an area development approach. For example, we might use this approach to improve the standards of living in rural communities in some particular areas.
Target group development: This approach focuses on some specific target groups, such as child labour, women, small farmers, etc. This method of development is perfectly demonstrated by the example of the reservation policy for SC/STs.

A Sociological Perspective on Social Development :

And if we take the Sociological perspective into the account, it offers a unique way of looking at the specific problems of Society. Sociological Imagination offers us a variety of angles to study a particular social problem or pattern. Within modern sociology, the functionalist, conflict, and interactionist perspectives are the three main schools of thought used to investigate human behaviour.

All those above-mentioned viewpoints have different takes on social development. In fact, different sociologists see the concept of development differently. For instance, Classical sociologist Emile Durkheim attempts to pinpoint the transition from a mechanical to an organic society,’ wherein mechanical solidarity has features of a simple society and organic solidarity has features of a more complex society. Whereas Conflict theorists such as Karl Marx, in his famous work, ‘Das Kapital’ study social development in relation to class struggle. For him, the Asiatic, Ancient, Feudal and Capitalist modes of production point toward social development. However, as per Marx, it will be the socialist and then communist mode of production which will bring us to the final stage of development. On similar grounds, Max Weber, in his seminal work, ‘Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism’ asserts as reasoning advances, a shift in the nature of capitalism is brought about. For him, societies grow from ‘traditional societies’ to modernizing economies,’ marking social development. Whereas interactionists such as George Herbert Mead, emphasise how interactions between people on a daily basis are central to the development of any particular society.

Additionally, the founding father of Sociology, Auguste Comte classified the entire developmental process under his theory of law into three stages namely, (1) the theological stage, (2) the metaphysical stage, and (3) the positive stage. The positive or scientific stage is where social development blossoms, as per Comte.

The different models that trace social development from a simple to a heterogeneous society were created by intellectuals like Herbert Spencer in response to Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species.

Furthermore, social development needs to be understood through people’s living standards. Human development is the most important aspect of social development. By drawing inspiration from Amartya Sen’s capacity approach, Mahbubul Haq first developed the human development method, which was later adopted by the United Nations Development Programme. (UNDP)

The six fundamental components of human development are equity, sustainability, productivity, empowerment, corporation, and security, as per the UNDP. The Human Development Indicator (HDI) however includes per capita income, education, and life expectancy as its core elements. (Raka, 2018)

Theories of Social Development and Underdeveloped:

There are various theories of development as well; the libertarian theory was the earliest and was influenced by Max Weber and Gunnar Myrdal.

Liberal Theory:

As indicated before, Weber argued that rationality contributes to the development of contemporary capitalist society in his magnum work, Protestant Ethics and Spirit of Capitalism.

Similarly, Gunnar Myrdal claimed in his well-known book ‘Asian Drama’ that structural change and the modernization process might elevate the spirit of development.

Socialist Theory:

The socialist theory of development, which was developed after World War II, contrasts with the capitalist theory of development. Instead, the core of this theory is the state’s ownership of property and other means of production for the benefit of the entire population. Marxism had an impact on this theory, which is frequently criticised for being too idealistic to be practical. The Nehruvian approach, also known as the mixed approach to development, which was adopted in the Indian context, had a significant impact on this model of development.

Gandhian Theory:

The Gandhian idea or model of development could also be taken into consideration, in which Mahatma Gandhi prioritised 1) one’s own development over material prosperity, and 2) the expansion of rural or village-based industries. Gandhi’s concept, however, was created and refined expressly for India.

Feminist Theory:

However, feminist theorists have a very different perspective on the idea of development. These theorists attempt to explain the entire development process in relation to gender by focusing on gender and development. To better comprehend the social development process of the most marginalised members of society, they aim to concentrate on current inequalities including low-wage female labour and movement within female sex-typed occupations.

Dependency Theory:

To understand the development process in relation to various countries, there is also the dependency theory. This hypothesis, developed by Andre Gunder Frank, describes how “core” countries gain profit from the “peripheral” countries, as the resources move from the latter to the former ones.

And that is how poor countries come to be totally dependent on these affluent countries, which cruelly exploit them and reduce them to nothing more than puppets in their hands. The degree to which the USA controls the global economy was expounded by Samir Amin’s Uneven Development in the same context.

World-system Theory:

By grouping all nations in the globe into three units, Wallerstein’s World-systems approach advanced similar ideas. First, he believed that in the global economic system, it was the Core nations—the USA, Japan, and the Western European nations—that took the lion’s share of the profit.

On the other side, peripheral countries are low-income nations that are heavily dependent on agriculture, such as some South African and Latin American nations. The Core nations take advantage of these nations. Rich in minerals and other natural resources, peripheral nations frequently export raw materials to core nations. In exchange, the core nations sell finished items to the periphery nations—and that too at profit.

Finally, the semi-peripheral nations—including Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina—occupy an intermediate position. In other words, these are referred to as developing nations that reap revenues from the periphery and yield profit to the core nations.

72 Social Development Essay Topics

🏆 best essay topics on social development, 🎓 interesting social development essay topics, 👍 good social development research topics & essay examples, 🌶️ hot social development ideas to write about.

Social-Emotional Development in Early Childhood
Social Groups and Development of Personality
Social Development from Infancy to Adulthood
How Risk Determines Identity and Social Development
Divorce Influence on Children’s Social Development
Agents of Socialization: The Development of Social Media Platforms
The Role of Gender in Social and Moral Development
Key Theories of Personality: Social and Personality Development A theory is a system of interconnected concepts, constructs, and principles that explain specific observations of reality.
Children’s Social and Moral Development Young children go through various stages in their social and moral development. Growth and development are much more complicated than it seems.
Erikson’s Psycho-Social Development Theory in Use Erik Erikson believed in strong ties between an individual and society. The researcher noted that people’s development is closely connected with societal roles played.
Facebook Usage and Social Development of Children The paper indicates that Facebook is a unique means of socialization, but what matters is not its content but the nature of its use.
Social Development: The Institutional Perspective The social crisis that has gripped the world demonstrates role of the quality of the institutional environment in confronting and overcoming the recurrence of anti-social phenomena.
Violation of Social Norms and Moral Development Social norms can differ from governmental rules as they are not written in constitutions or official governmental documents.
Japan’s and India’s Political Status and Social Development Japan is a parliamentary constitutional monarchy, while India is a federal parliamentary constitutional republic. This paper analyzes the problems these countries face.
Literature to Teach Social-Emotional Development In the “Big Feelings” book, a group of children has a shared goal of converting a trash-filled area into a playing ground.
Erickson’s Theory of Psycho-Social Development In his famous developmental theory, Erickson argued that throughout their lifespan, people go through eight stages, with each of them being associated with a specific crisis.
Missing Issues in Perspectives of Social Development I would like to concentrate on the several topics, that are neglected in the course: migration, poverty, and providing education in countries of the third world.
Regional Economic and Social Development Focus Economic and social developments are policies that improve the living standards of people through numerous developments and promote social equality.
Industrialization: Social and Economic Development The case study is devoted to the review and analysis of some technologies that emerged at the end of the 19th century and their roles in social and economic development.
Social Relationships and Development in Childhood Development in children takes different forms and is influenced by a number of factors as will be discussed later in the paper.
Global Social Progress and Human Development The global social progress concept provides an opportunity to look at the development of the humankind as the process enhanced by a combination of multiple factors.
War and Social Development This essay seeks to address the impacts of the conflicts on the social development between 1500 and 1815.
Adolescents Cognitive, Emotional, and Social Development
Discovering the Identity of Adolescents Through Social Development
The Negative Impact of the Natural Environment on the Social Development of Africa
Applying Social Development Within the Classroom
Aspirations and Challenges for Economic and Social Development in the Philippines
Biological and Cultural Influences on Social Development Learning
Solidarity Works for Welfare: Subnationalism and Social Development in India
Assortative Mating and Social Development
Child Malnutrition, Social Development, and Health Services in the Andean Region
Democratic Governance and Social Development
Social Development in Post-Independence Jamaica and Barbados
Children, Computer Addiction, and Problems of Social Development
Disparity in the Social Development of the Indian States
Canadian Social Development Periods
Social Development of Children Raised by Same Sex Parents
Children’s Cognitive Social Development in Connection to the Children’s Theory of Mind
Exploring the Linkages Between Productivity and Social Development in Market Economies
Family Conflict Affects Child Social Development
China Land Policy Reform for Sustainable Economic and Social Development
Fisheries Trade and Social Development in the Philippine-Malaysia Maritime Border Zone
Gender Differences Within Social Development
Cognitive and Social Development During Early Childhood
Food Aid for Social Development in Post-Conflict Situations
Creative Dance and Social Development of Preschoolers
The Influence of Neoliberalism on Political and Social Development
The Impact of Human Technological and Social Development on the Rapid Movement of People Throughout
Infant Social Development Across the Transition From Crawling to Walking
Land Reform, Latifundia, and Social Development at Local Level in Colombia
Mineral Rents and Social Development in Norway
Informal Social Protection and Social Development in Pacific Island Countries
Online Friends and Social Development
Parenting Styles and Children’s Social Development
Issues With Social Development in Adults
Online Journalism and the New Media: Implications for Human Social Development
Physical, Intellectual, Emotional, and Social Development
Connections Between Temperament and Social Development
Institutional Framework for Social Development
Opportunities for the Economic and Social Development of the Rural Area in Romania
Information Technology, Globalization, and Social Development
Friendship Quality and Social Development
Community Participation, Social Development, and the State
New Zealand in the Making: A Survey of Economic and Social Development
The Culture of Morality: Social Development, Context, and Conflict
Class, Citizenship, and Social Development
Finding “Meaning” in Psychology: A Lay Theories Approach to Self-Regulation and Social Development
The Social Development Model: A Theory of Antisocial Behavior
Radical Man: The Process of Psycho-Social Development
The Social Development Model: An Integrated Approach to Delinquency Prevention
Parents and Peers in Social Development: A Sullivan-Piaget Perspective
Learning in the Arts and Student Academic and Social Development

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This essay topic collection was updated on January 9, 2024 .

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Article contents

Social development across the lifespan.

Kendall Cotton Bronk , Kendall Cotton Bronk Claremont Graduate University, Department of Psychology
Elyse Postlewaite , Elyse Postlewaite Claremont Graduate University, Department of Psychology
Betsy Blackard , Betsy Blackard Claremont Graduate University, Department of Psychology
Jordan Boeder Jordan Boeder Claremont Graduate University, Department of Psychology
and Hannah Lucas Hannah Lucas Claremont Graduate University, Department of Psychology
https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190236557.013.754
Published online: 28 September 2020

Social development refers to the process through which individuals learn to get along with others. It encompasses the formation of friendships and romantic relationships as well as experiences of bullying and loneliness. Across the life span, cognitive development enables increasingly complex social interactions, and the most important contexts for social development expand. Early in life, family is the primary context for social development, but in adulthood the social world grows to include peers, colleagues, and others. Social development is critical for well-being. Research finds that the lasting social bonds that individuals form are perhaps the most important ingredient in a life well lived.

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Towards a Strong Foundation: Social and Emotional Development in Young Children

Nurturing relationships provide the context for human development and are an essential source of resilience for children and adults (e.g., Luthar, 2006; Rutter, 1987). Resilience refers to the capacity to weather and bounce back from both everyday challenges and significant adversity and trauma -- like that we’ve all experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is influenced by foundational social and emotional skills and competencies (e.g., Masten, 2009).

In this short essay we describe children’s early social and emotional skills, show how they are linked to early caregiving and are influenced by stress and vulnerability, and highlight some programs, practices, and strategies that foster them.

Social and Emotional Development and Foundational Relationships

Social and emotional development refers to the processes whereby children learn to identify and express emotions, focus attention and manage impulses, successfully navigate relationships with peers and adults, develop a positive self-concept, make responsible decisions, and solve problems (e.g., Jones, McGarrah, & Kahn, 2019).

Over many decades researchers from an array of disciplines, e.g. human development and psychology, neuroscience, education and economics, have described how these essential skills are deeply intertwined with other areas of development, such as cognitive and physical. These developments in the brain and in behavior all work together to influence school and life outcomes, including higher education, physical and mental health, economic well-being, and civic engagement (Jones & Kahn, 2018).

During development, social and emotional skills grow and change like building blocks. Early skills lay the foundation for more complex skills that emerge later in life. For example, during early childhood, children learn and grow in the context of relationships with parents and other caregivers at home and in childcare and preschool settings. Through responsive, nurturing interactions these relationships shape the growth of basic executive functions, self-regulation and emotional competencies, which are the salient social and emotional skills of early childhood.

These skills encompass young children’s emerging capacity to:

Understand their emotions, communicate about them, and read those of others around them. For example, use feeling words when frustrated, angry, or excited.

Be aware of and begin to manage impulses and behavior. For example, wait for a snack or dinner when hungry or for the chance to share news in the classroom, or remember and follow the routines of bedtime.

Focus and shift attention in explicit ways and imagine the perspectives of another person. For example, move from one activity to another in the classroom, or engage in basic social back and forth and play.

Basic skills like these set the stage for more complex skills later in life such as planning and problem solving, critical thinking and decision making, forming and maintaining sophisticated friendships, and coping skills, among others (Bailey & Jones, 2019).

The Role of Experience and Context Including Stress and Vulnerability

Importantly, these early skills are highly susceptible to stress and vulnerability. Research shows that the prefrontal cortex – which is responsible for executive function and self-regulation -- is closely linked to other brain regions that signal emotions like fear, anger, and anxiety.

These brain regions are connected through the stress response system, which alerts the body to react in times of danger (e.g., Arnsten, 1998). But responding and adapting to stress can come at a cost. When stress is chronic or takes over, it can inhibit children’s early social and emotional skills, resulting in dysregulated, reactive, and sometimes withdrawn behavior, and this is true for young children and adults (e.g., Arnsten, Mazure & Sinha, 2012).

Critical to this dynamic is that predictable, nurturing relationships are protective. They operate as a buffer between stress and strain on the one hand, and children’s healthy development on the other (Center on the Developing Child, 2014).

Research on children’s wellbeing during the pandemic illustrates how these processes can play out. For example, Harvard education researcher Emily Hanno (2021) examined data about a sample of young children and families before and after COVID-19 shut down U.S. childcare centers and preschools in 2020. They found that as parents experienced more stress, households grew more chaotic, and parent-child conflict increased, children displayed more challenging behaviors and fewer adaptive ones.

Another large-scale study, the Rapid Assessment of Pandemic Impact on Development–Early Childhood (RAPID)https://rapidsurveyproject.com/), documented that high levels of material hardship that families experienced in the first year of the pandemic, coupled with ongoing week-to-week unpredictability, had detrimental effects on both caregivers’ and children’s well-being (Liu, et al 2022). Studies on how poverty, disasters, bereavement, armed conflict, and displacement affect children and adults have produced similar findings.

Supporting Family Well-Being and Social and Emotional Development

Supporting children’s social and emotional development demands coordinated child, family, and education-based efforts. Some examples of these are described here.

As noted above, social and emotional development, indeed successful early childhood development more generally, requires nurturing care. This has been defined as health, nutrition, security and safety, responsive caregiving, and opportunities for early learning (Black, et al, 2016).

Globally, this concept has been advanced through The Nurturing Care Framework for Early Childhood Development ( https://nurturing-care.org/ ) .

The Nurturing Care Framework was developed by WHO, UNICEF, the World Bank Group, in collaboration with the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health, the Early Childhood Development Action Network and many other partners, and launched alongside the 71st World Health Assembly in May, 2018. It takes a comprehensive approach by outlining important strategies to address the integrated needs of the developing child.

The wellbeing of caregivers is the enabling environment for responsive care. The promotion of social emotional development depends on policies and practices that take a whole family approach, assuring that those who care for young children have the support they need to be successful as caregivers, including adequate housing, income, childcare, education, health, and mental health supports.

A relevant and recently launched innovation focused on parents is the Global Initiative to Support Parents ( https://ecdan.org/global-initiative-to-support-parents/ ) . This unique partnership launched by the Early Childhood Development Action Network, WHO, UNICEF, End Violence Against Children, and Parenting for Lifelong Health includes the ultimate vision that all families worldwide have universal access to evidence-based parenting support.

Early childhood services designed for parents and children have for decades been understood to play an important role in offsetting the impact of vulnerability and adversity on healthy growth and development and to be an important setting for cultivating emerging social and emotional skills. A hallmark of these efforts is that they provide families with information, resources, and support that enables those nurturing, connected interactions, and helps all parents navigate the stress that inevitably comes with raising young children (Jones, Bailey & Partee, 2017).

In the early classroom context, there are a large number of curricular and strategy-based approaches that educators can embed in their instructional and caregiving routines. The most effective of these programs typically combine direct teaching of social and emotional skills with structures and routines that provide young children with lots of opportunities to practice emerging skills, as well as support for adult caregivers to proactively manage young children’s behavior (e.g., Jones, Bailey & Jacob, 2014).

As noted above, children across the world have been impacted by the uncertainty, isolation and stress caused by the pandemic. In response, The LEGO Foundation teamed up with HundredED, to identify education innovations from across the world focused on improving social and emotional learning. In 2021, they published Spotlight Social and Emotional Learning which presented 13 innovations from 10 countries. These inspiring examples provide promising solutions that can help respond to the needs of children and offer ideas about how to foster caring and nurturing relationships. Some of these innovations can be found here: https://hundred.org/en/collections/social-emotional-learning-sel .

In summary, research and practice focused on children’s early social and emotional development tells us that these skills:

Develop in the context of primary relationships and interactions.

Are foundational to early learning, as well as important developmental milestones throughout life.

Are optimized when children feel safe, secure, and supported.

Are influenced and shaped by experience, culture, and beliefs.

Effective approaches to fostering and supporting these important skills are situated in families, leverage nurturing relationships and interactions at home and in early learning settings, and are rooted in community and family support.

Stephanie Jones

Gerald S. Lesser Professor in Child Development and Education, Harvard Graduate School of Education

Co-Director, Saul Zaentz Early Education Initiative

Joan Lombardi

Senior Fellow, Collaborative on Global Children’s Issues, Georgetown University

Senior Advisor, Graduate School of Education, Stanford Center on Early Childhood

Arnsten, A. (1998). The biology of being frazzled. Science , 280 (5370), 1711-1712, DOI: 10.1126/science.280.5370.1711

Arnsten, A. Mazure. C.M. & Sinha, R. (2012). This Is Your Brain in Meltdown. Scientific American 306, 4, 48-53. DOI: 10.1038/scientificamerican0412-48

Bailey, R., & Jones, S. M. (2019). An Integrated Model of Regulation for Applied Settings. Clinical Child & Family Psychology Review , 22 (1), 2–23. DOI: 10.1007/s10567-019-00288-y

Black, M. M. et al. (2016). for the Lancet Early Childhood Development Series Steering Committee. Advancing Early Childhood Development: from science to scale 1 , Early Childhood development coming of age: Science through the life course . www.thelancet.com , published online October 4, 2016

Center on the Developing Child (2014). Building adult capacities to improve child outcomes: A theory of change. Center on the Developing Child, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.

Hanno, E.C., Cuartas, J., Miratrix, L.W., Jones, S.M., & Lesaux, N.K. (2021). Changes in children’s behavioral health and family well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics. DOI: 10.1097/DBP.0000000000001010

Jones, S.M., Bailey, R. & Jacob, R. (2014). Social-emotional learning as a platform for effective classroom management. Phi Delta Kappan . https://doi.org/10.1177/0031721714553405

Jones, S.M., Bailey, R., & Partee, A. (2017). SECURe Families: Interrupting Intergenerational Cycles of Stress and Poverty , The Aspen Journal of Ideas , Aspen Institute.

Jones, S. M., & Kahn, J. (2018). The Evidence Base for How Learning Happens: A Consensus on Social, Emotional, and Academic Development. American Educator , 41 (4), 16-21.

Jones, S.M., McGarrah, M. & Kahn, J. (2019). Social and emotional learning: A principled science of human development in context. Educational Psychologist .

Liu, S., Zalewski, M.,Lengua,L., Gunnar, M., Giuliani, N., Fisher, P. A. (2022) Material hardship level and unpredictability in relation to U.S. Households’, family interactions and emotional well-being: Insights from the C0VID-19 pandemic . Social Science & Medicine, 115173 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953622004798?dgcid=author

Luthar, S. S. (2006). Resilience in development: A synthesis of research across five decades. In D. Cicchetti & D. J. Cohen (Eds.), Developmental psychopathology: Risk, disorder, and adaptation (2nd ed., pp. 739–795). New York: Wiley.

Masten, A. S., & Wright, M. O’. D. (2009). Resilience over the lifespan: Developmental perspectives on resistance, recovery, and transformation. In J. W. Reich, A. J. Zautra, & J. S. Hall (Eds.), Handbook of adult resilience (pp. 213–237). New York: Guilford Press.

Rutter, M. (1987). Psychosocial resilience and protective mechanisms. American journal of Orthopsychiatry , 57, 316—331.

Social Development in the World Bank

Essays in Honor of Michael M. Cernea

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© 2021

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The first book that examines the World Bank's social development initiatives from the inside
Provides unique insights into the impacts of social development initiatives around the globe
Includes perspectives from key social scientists and policymakers who were part of the journey with Michael Cernea

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Table of contents (20 chapters)

Front matter, growing social science demand at the world bank, the important contribution of social knowledge to international development.

Leif E. Christoffersen

The Road to Achieving a Critical Mass of Sociologists and Anthropologists in the World Bank

Charles Weiss

Address to the World Bank Sociological Group

Working together at the world bank for broadening the development paradigm.

James Wolfensohn

Social Analysis in the World Bank

Huw Evans, Eveline Herfkens, Ruth Jacoby, Jan Piercy

Social Sciences at the World Bank and the Broadening of the Development Paradigm

Ismail Serageldin

The Direct and Major Operational Relevance of Social Assessments

Jonathan C. Brown

Social Analysis in Project Lending: Writing New Rules and Changing Old Practices

Susanna Price

Social Development Work—Live

The 1995 malinowski award lecture: social organization and development anthropology.

Michael M. Cernea

Anthropology at Work

Maritta Koch-Weser

Social Development (Excerpts from Her 2004 Oral History)

Gloria Davis

Putting People First in Practice: Indonesia and the Kecamatan Development Program

Scott Guggenheim

The World Bank and Indigenous Peoples

Shelton H. Davis

The Need for Social Research and the Broadening of CGIAR’s Paradigm

Amir Kassam

Fighting Poverty, Combatting Social Exclusion

William L. Partridge

Involuntary Resettlement

The risks and reconstruction model for resettling displaced populations.

Social Development
International Development Aid
Development Anthropology
Sustainable Development

About this book

This open access book honors the work of Michael Cernea, who was the World Bank’s first professional sociologist, by taking on and extending his arguments for "putting people first.” Cernea led a community of social scientists in formulating and promoting a comprehensive set of innovative and original social policies on development issues, which the World Bank adopted and implemented. This book includes globally significant work on urban and rural development, the epistemology of using social science knowledge in national and international development, methodologies for using social organization for more effective poverty reduction, and the experience of crafting social policies to become normative frameworks for purposive collective social action. And by including contributions from senior policy makers in the World Bank who helped shepherd social science's entry into development policy and practice, it provides a unique look at how organizational change can happen.

Editors and Affiliations

About the editors.

Maritta R. von Bieberstein Koch-Weser is an anthropologist and environmentalist with a PhD from the Universities of Bonn and Cologne, Germany. She also received an honorary doctorate from Oxford Brookes University, UK, in 2010. Early in her career she taught anthropology and Latin American studies at George Washington University in Washington, DC, and conducted extensive fieldwork in Brazil. One of the World Bank´s first social scientists, she served for 20 years as a project officer and in various senior management positions in South and East Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, various countries of the former Soviet Union, and Latin America. She also helped establish the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) at the World Bank, has headed a number of the bank’s Environment Programs in the Asia Region, and was Director of Environmental and Socially Sustainable Development for the Latin America and Caribbean Region. After leaving the World Bank,Koch-Weser served as Director General of the World Conservation Union (IUCN) in Gland, Switzerland. She is the founder and President of Earth3000, a non-profit organization established in 2001, which supports strategic innovations in governance for environment and development. She also leads the University of São Paulo, Institute of Advanced Studies’ program Amazonia em Transformação: História e Perspectivas.

Scott Guggenheim received his PhD from the John Hopkins University and became a full staff anthropologist at the World Bank in 1989. Moving to Indonesia in 1994, Guggenheim and his team developed the nationwide community development program described in the book, which has since been replicated in East Timor, Philippines, Afghanistan, Myanmar and elsewhere. Dr. Guggenheim served as Senior Development Adviser to the Office of the President, Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, from 2014-2018. He is currently an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. His publications include Power and Protest in the Countryside (with Robert Weller), Anthropological Approaches to Involuntary Resettlement: Policy Practice, and Theory (with Michael Cernea), "Development and Dynamics of Displacement"; "Cock or Bull: Cockfighting and Social Change in the Philippines" (Filipinas); and "Compadrazgo, Baptism and the Symbolism of a Second Birth" (with Maurice Bloch, Man).

Bibliographic Information

Book Title : Social Development in the World Bank

Book Subtitle : Essays in Honor of Michael M. Cernea

Editors : Maritta Koch-Weser, Scott Guggenheim

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57426-0

Publisher : Springer Cham

eBook Packages : Social Sciences , Social Sciences (R0)

Hardcover ISBN : 978-3-030-57425-3 Published: 24 April 2021

Softcover ISBN : 978-3-030-57428-4 Published: 18 January 2022

eBook ISBN : 978-3-030-57426-0 Published: 23 April 2021

Edition Number : 1

Number of Pages : XXI, 368

Number of Illustrations : 3 b/w illustrations

Topics : Social Sciences, general , Development Studies , Environmental Policy , Sociology, general

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Social Development in Children Essay

Introduction, what is needed for positive social development, qualities needed in a family environment, qualities of an effective classroom environment, reference list.

Social control theory developed by Travis Hirschi specially states that all individuals actually have the potential to develop antisocial or criminal tendencies however it is the “bond” they share with society whether in the form of friendships, recognition of societal rules and norms of conduct, parental influences etc. that prevent them from manifesting such behavior (Payne & Salotti, 2007).

Hirschi goes on further to state that crimes occur due to individuals either losing or weakening the various bonds which bind them to society and as such results in them not caring of the social ramifications of certain criminal actions.

It is based on this that it can be seen that instilling proper social-emotional learning early on in a child’s life is of paramount importance in ensuring that they develop the necessary social and emotional bonds as well as the right way of thinking in order to succeed in aspects related to school, family life, community obligations and work.

It is based on this that this paper will explore the various qualities needed in order for a child to develop into a proper and well-balanced adult that is ready to tackle whatever life throws their way.

All individuals need to have a skill set that helps them cope not only with social interactions but with personal relations and the bonds that help to keep them in place. It is based on this that one of the first personal capabilities that contribute to positive social development is empathy. Empathy is a way in which an individual is able to understand either the positive or negative aspects of another person’s life.

It helps to facilitate a moment of deep thought and reflection wherein they place themselves in that person’s shoes and “feel” how certain positive or negative events would feel if it happened to them. It is through this that people learn how to promote positive behaviors and limit negative ones due to their perception over how it would be like if such experiences had occurred to them as well.

The second personal capability needed is tolerance; all too often people encounter various situations in their life that test their patience whether it comes in the form of a frustrating spouse, a demanding boss at work or even certain events that don’t go the way they were planned.

Tolerance can be thought of as a conscious effort to take such things in stride and to address them calmly and reasonably instead of reacting violently and irresponsibly. By developing proper tolerance an individual is able to respond to everyday challenges and cope with them instead of being frustrated and lashing out at those around them.

The last personal capability needed for positive social development is responsibility. Individuals need to learn to take responsibility for their actions or to take into account the possible repercussions of certain actions and how they will be responsible for it.

Through an understanding of individual responsibility individuals are able to limit negative behaviors due to their belief that they are inherently responsible for everything they do. This results in the development of further traits such as integrity, positive work ethics, as well as lesser predilection towards criminal behavior.

In order to bring about the positive personal capabilities discussed in the previous section there are distinct factors necessary in a family environment in order to bring them about. The first factor is a supportive family environment that facilitates independent action, emotional development and the creation of bonds that help to develop an individual’s social, emotional and mental stability.

It is suggested by Siegel (2011) that it is socialization and not the social structure itself that produces either positive or negative tendencies within children as they grow and develop (Siegel, 2011).

Siegel explains that “the more social problems encountered during the socialization process the greater the likelihood that youths will encounter difficulties and obstacles as they mature, such as being unemployed or becoming a teenage mother” (Siegel, 2011).

It is based on this that social learning theorists suggest crime is a direct result of individuals learning norms, values, and behaviors associated with criminal activity (Siegel, 2011). When taking such factors into consideration it can be seen that a supportive family environment is a necessity in ensuring proper social development.

Children develop their positive or negative tendencies through emulation and socialization within family units and as such the greater the support given within an environment for proper emotional and mental development that is in line with positive societal traits the more likely it is for a child to develop into a proper adult. The second trait needed within a family environment for positive social development is familial affection.

What must be understood is that a child’s emotional growth is inherently dependent on the care and affection given to them during their formative years. It was seen in numerous cases of absentee mothers or fathers where children were left to their own whims and actions that their emotional growth and development was stunted leading to greater anti-social tendencies resulting in the potential for criminal behavior in the future.

It is based on this that adequate familial affection that encourages positive emotional growth is a necessity in order to ensure that negative tendencies do not manifest themselves.

A classroom environment is a place where children interact utilizing the personality traits they learned within their family environment inside a social setting and as such it is the responsibility of a teacher to either promote or discourage certain types of positive or negative behavior.

One way of contributing towards the positive development of personality capabilities as expressed in the first section is to encourage cooperation and sharing among students. By helping students develop concepts related to cooperation and sharing they are able to take in the first steps towards understanding empathy, tolerance and responsibility.

This is done through group exercises where children learn to work together, share materials and take responsibility for certain tasks that they are assigned to do. This helps them to experience the initial aspects of a basic social setting resulting in the development of positive personality traits. The second quality necessary within a classroom environment is the creation of a reward and punishment system for displayed behavior.

By instituting this form of behavioral control this encourages students to display positive forms of behavior such as respecting other children’s things, empathizing with their situations and encouraging them to be responsible for their own behaviors. On the other hand it must be noted that one aspect that should not be implemented within a classroom environment is a rigid and unyielding structure for learning.

Children should be allowed to learn at their own individual paces since not all children have the same capability. If lessons were to proceed at a predetermined pace without taking into account differences in learning ability some children may feel left out resulting in the development of attitudes related to depression or anti-socialization due to them being unable to keep up with the other students.

Payne, A., & Salotti, S. (2007). A Comparative Analysis of Social Learning and Social Control Theories in the Prediction of College Crime. Deviant Behavior , 28(6), 553-573.

Siegel, L. (2011). Criminology . (11 ed., p. 523). California: Wadsworth Publishing.

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Home — Essay Samples — Education — Importance of Education — The Importance of Education for Personal and Social Development

The Importance of Education for Personal and Social Development

Categories: Importance of Education Personal Growth and Development

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Published: Sep 7, 2023

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Introduction, the value of education in personal development, the impact of education on society, educational solutions to social issues.

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Social development key pillar for ‘sustainable and resilient’ world – Commission hears

Children at the Oruchinga refugee settlement in Uganda are being taught critical development skills, as the world is encouraged to foster policies that tackle high and rising inequality. (file)

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As coronavirus vaccines provide a glimmer of optimism around the world, a high-level UN official said on Monday that it was “painful to witness” the dashed hopes of most people in the Global South who have little chance of receiving an inoculation anytime soon.

“The COVID-19 pandemic is a stark reminder of the key role social development plays in protecting people’s lives and livelihoods, as well as the planet”, Munir Akram, Pakistan’s UN Ambassador and the President of the Economic and Social Council ( ECOSOC ) told the in-person opening session of the Commission for Social Development in New York.

#COVID19 has pushed 131 million into extreme poverty. That number could climb to 800 million by 2030 unless we reshape our societies.This week, experts at #CSocD59 discuss how inclusive social policies can lead to a resilient & sustainable recovery. https://t.co/QBr7Sa7dk7 pic.twitter.com/e0cdRvcUCK United Nations UN February 8, 2021

He upheld that it is also “one of the critical pillars” for making the world “more sustainable and resilient”. 

Foster transformation

Despite 25 years of extraordinary progress in human and social development, with a reduction in poverty, higher education standards, employment growth, rising incomes and increased longevity for hundreds of millions, Mr. Akram pointed out that “today, 26 people own half the world’s wealth”.

And todays crisis has shone a stark light on existing vulnerabilities and inequalities. 

“We need to foster transformative resilience by choosing policies that tackles high and rising inequality…[and] policies that empower people and communities to become more resilient and offer multiple opportunities for decent work and social and economic transformation”, the ECOSOC President stated.

Under the premise that today’s digital divide could become “the new face of the development divide”, he underscored the “urgent need” to invest in infrastructure that connects people and strengthens international cooperation “to build a digitalized global economy” guided by regulation and fair competition.

‘Act with urgency’

Meanwhile, General Assembly President Volkan Bozkir said that the world faces the “largest setback in socio-economic development since the Second World War”, and that decades of gains and untold resources, risk being wiped away “if we do not act”.

“This is unacceptable”, he spelled out, encouraging the members to act with urgency to drive a “people-centered” recovery to mitigate and overcome the negative impacts of COVID-19 , particularly on disadvantaged and vulnerable populations.

However remote or disadvantaged, he stressed that all people must be reached, and that the needs of those hit hardest hit be reflected in recovery planning.  

Visionary action

As countries face the social and economic fallouts of the pandemic, the Assembly President called for visionary action, solidarity, multilateral cooperation and “above all else”, transformation.

“The challenges we face today – from COVID-19 to climate to inequality – all go hand-in-hand”, he observed, saying that “our efforts must be equally as reinforcing if we are to overcome them”. 

Noting that it would not be easy, Mr. Bozkir pinpointed that a new social contract must be drawn up to address root causes of inequality and vulnerability, prioritize equal opportunities and close gaps across the Sustainable Development Goals ( SDGs ).    

“Now is not the time for hesitancy”, he concluded.

Digital transformation

Commission Chair Maria del Carmen Squeff, said that this session is a special one because it follows up on the objectives of the Copenhagen Declaration and Programme of Action , to fight poverty, achieve full employment and promote social inclusion – all within the challenges posed by the pandemic.

Social welfare depends on a digital transformation, flagged Ms. Squeff, adding that in today’s world, digital inclusion is imperative in leaving no one behind.

“We must promote equality, with inclusive digital transformation processes”, she said, adding that the way out of the pandemic is by creating in solidarity, “fairer, egalitarian, diverse and inclusive societies”.

Harness 4th Industrial Revolution

On behalf of civil society, Maria Fornella-Oehninger and Monica Jahangir-Chowdhury, co-chairs of the non-governmental Committee on Social Development, said that digital technology has “shrunk the planet, galvanized voices for social change and transformed the way we live forever”.

They urged the UN to utilize the “transformational power of the Fourth Industrial Revolution” to build better societies guided by the values of justice, equity, security, and transparency.

“Let us join forces and harness the immense potential of digital technology for the benefit of all, accelerating the global transition to a sustainable development based on inclusion, respect for human rights and human dignity”, the cochairs said.

A 15-year-old girl in India carries water (right) as she is forced to miss school because she lacks the technology attend online classes.

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Social Development in Adolescence

Introduction.

Adolescence occupies a distinctive niche in the human lifespan, which is primarily characterized by self-determination, social roles’ expansion, and the formation of outlook, interests, and principles. During this period, teenagers closely explore their personalities and their surrounding environment through intense interactions with their community. They begin to be involved in multiple public processes and responsibilities, including education, work, business, and even family creation, thereby laying the foundations for their future career and life path. Thus, this paper aims at examining social development in adolescence by reviewing its aspects, such as identity development, self-concept, self-esteem, and relationships, and applying different perspectives and concepts.

The Aspects of Social Development

Identity development.

Identity development is typically determined as a stage during which persons tend to make first endeavors, find their interests, and try various appearances and behaviors to reveal who they are. Moreover, adolescents can question their values and rules established by adults, analyze their relationships with peers and families, seek the meaning of life, and contemplate their talents and dispositions (“Adolescent development explained,” 2018). This process is frequently accompanied by internal and external conflicts, confusion, misunderstandings, the exploration of social roles, and experimentation with activities and ideas. This period marks the first steps towards independence and attaining a sense of competence. Therefore, developing and maintaining identity in adolescence years is a highly challenging task since it depends on many factors, such as socioeconomic, cultural, and sex affiliations and environments.

As the body experiences noticeable changes, adolescents pay close attention and give considerable time to their appearance. In contrast to children, they make more effort to look presentable or, at least, decent. According to the social learning theory, individuals acquire behavioral patterns through observational learning, and thus, culture plays a critical role in personality formation (Leung & Shek, 2020). In addition, Marcia links adolescence’s identity formation to decisions and commitments regarding ideologies and occupations (as cited in Pellerone et al., 2017). He distinguishes four key identity statuses, such as identity diffusion, identity achievement, foreclosure, and moratorium (as cited in Pellerone et al., 2017). For example, while, in identity diffusion, teenagers neither examine nor adhere to any individualities, identity achievement is connected with investigating different options and further commitments to them. Therefore, identity development entails the intensive exploration process, due to which youth become more deeply familiar with their personalities, inclinations, and talents.

Self-Concept

Self-concept is one of the main elements of identity development, which is tightly associated with the question “Who am I?” In adolescence, cognitive development leads to deeper self-awareness, interest in others, including their thoughts and judgments, and the skill to think abstractly and logically. In particular, adolescents can consider the consequences of their choices and various possible selves, especially those that concern their long-term perspectives (Agrahari & Kinra, 2017). Examining these possibilities may cause radical and unexpected shifts in self-presentation, depending on selecting or rejecting particular qualities and behaviors. Therefore, teenagers begin to determine themselves through the prism of their opinions, preferences, and values, whereas children focus more on physical traits when defining themselves. It is worth noting that self-concept differs from self-esteem: the former is of descriptive nature, while the latter is related to evaluative opinions about self and personal achievements.

A self-perception can vary depending on the context, especially on personal aims, values, and imaginations. According to the humanistic perspective, primarily Rogers’s theory of self-concept, the real self implies individuals’ understanding of who they are, whereas the ideal self means a perception of whom they would like to be (Leung & Shek, 2020). This discrepancy between the real self and the ideal self is the principal drive for personal achievements and future career choices. Moreover, sometimes, it can result in excessive self-criticism, failures in activities, and consequent depression. For instance, as research indicates, positive self-concepts are associated with better academic success. Hence, it is vital to form positive self-concepts in adolescents because this significantly impacts their adult lives.

Self-Esteem

Self-esteem is usually regarded as a person’s subjective appraisal of own worth, which comprises beliefs about oneself and respective emotional states, including pride, despair, and shame. Self-esteem can be related to specific attributes or occupations (“I am pleased that I am an excellent player”) or character overall (“I feel upset about my stupidity”). Additionally, this sense is dynamic and varies based on short-term conditions and feelings. Most self-esteem concepts assert that all people, irrespective of gender and age, attempt to protect, support, and improve their self-esteem (Leung & Shek, 2020). An adolescent’s self-esteem can be immensely affected by approval from friends, family, and personal accomplishments. Teenagers with positive self-esteem are usually least vulnerable to peer pressure, and they better manifest leadership skills, especially in decision-making, communication, and problem-solving.

Nevertheless, men and women possess diverse determinants in their self-esteem. Girls generally enjoy high self-esteem when they are actively engaged in healthy relationships with peers and friends, who support them socially and have similar interests (Agrahari & Kinra, 2017). When they fail to find a person with shared activities or cannot achieve friends’ approval, their self-esteem decreases. Unlike girls, boys pay more attention to asserting their independence and determining their scope of authority or influence. In this regard, many youngsters strive to compete, excel, or even control others because such actions boost their self-esteem. Furthermore, failures to win or maintain the sympathy of the opposite sex can cause acute frustration and depression. In addition, Barbot and Heuser (2017) claim that creativity in different domains, especially music, drawing, and spectacular sports, delivers improved self-esteem. It is worth noting that this phenomenon can be connected with the body and appearance.

Relationships

The adolescents’ relationships with their family, peers, and other people acquire a pivotal significance in youth’s social development. During this period, individuals’ social sphere develops fast, and they frequently become substantially engrossed in the establishment of friendship bonds. Usually, it is not dangerous unless friends put a person in a potentially pernicious situation via peer pressure, where they learn anti-social habits. Moreover, teenagers take their first independent decisions, which makes adolescence immensely sensitive and vulnerable. Nevertheless, communication within peer groups is essential in identity formation, and high-quality friendships can considerably improve children’s development regardless of their friends’ characteristics (Bagwell & Bukowski, 2018). Interactions with peers enable individuals to examine their feelings and personality and develop their social skills, including leadership, empathy, mutual help, and team- and self-belonging.

The foundation and patterns for building outer relationships are laid in the family. In healthy familial circumstances, adolescents begin to assert themselves noticeably and strive to win independence while maintaining a warm relationship with their parents. However, during puberty, the number of conflicts and misunderstandings between parents and children can significantly increase, especially regarding family values, acceptable garments, or adolescent privacy rights. Interaction between siblings is the earliest experience of children’s relationships, contributing to their social and self-understanding. Such experiences can enhance each other’s sociability and a sense of self-esteem. A powerful impact on adolescents is the abrupt change in family structure or dynamic that can occur due to divorce. A two-year study conducted among 1225 students concluded that divorce adversely affected youngsters’ conversational confidence, mental health, and self-concept (Meland et al., 2020). In this regard, most adolescents perceive divorce as a traumatic life event, which also reflects on their romantic relationships.

Romantic relationships take a prominent place in adolescents’ consciousness and development. According to the Pew Research Center, 35 percent of teenagers experience some romantic involvement, and 14 percent consider their relationships with boyfriends or girlfriends serious (Lenhart et al., 2015). Gómez-López et al. (2019) state that romantic experiences are vital sources of emotional bonding and improve positive self-conception and social integration. The healthy development of romantic relationships in adolescence can possess conducive reverberation in adult life and contribute to people’s well-being. According to the study, successful romantic involvement is correlated with higher rates of satisfaction with life, self-esteem, and personal and relational accomplishments (Gómez-López et al., 2019). On the other hand, these experiences can lead to negative aftermaths, such as various forms of violence, delinquency, low self-worth, aggression, depression, anxiety, or inadequate psychosocial functioning.

In summary, the paper has explored social development in adolescence by reviewing its aspects and different perspectives and concepts. Identity development is a pivotal stage of adolescents’ social development, during which they actively examine their feelings and thoughts and seek their interests, hobbies, and friends. Self-concept and self-esteem are two main elements of identity formation, the first of which is closely related to the question “Who am I?” while the second concerns a person’s subjective appraisal of own worth. The adolescents’ relationships with their family, peers, and other individuals acquire critical importance in social development. In this regard, the most adverse events can be divorce or family disturbance and failed romantic experiences.

Adolescent development explained . (2018). U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Adolescent Health. Web.

Agrahari, S. K., & Kinra, A. (2017). A comparative study on self-concept of adolescent boys and girls. Indian Journal of Positive Psychology , 8 (4), 519-523.

Bagwell, C. L., & Bukowski, W. M. (2018). Friendship in childhood and adolescence: Features, effects, and processes. In W. M. Bukowski, B. Laursen, & K. H. Rubin (Eds.), Handbook of peer interactions, relationships, and groups (pp. 371-390). The Guilford Press.

Barbot, B., & Heuser, B. (2017). Creativity and identity formation in adolescence: A developmental perspective. In M. Karwowski & J. C. Kaufman (Eds.), The creative self (pp. 87-98). Elsevier.

Gómez-López, M., Viejo, C., & Ortega-Ruiz, R. (2019). Well-being and romantic relationships: A systematic review in adolescence and emerging adulthood. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health , 16 (13), 2415. Web.

Lenhart, A., Anderson, M., & Smith, A. (2015). Teens, technology, and romantic relationships . Pew Research Center. Web.

Leung, J. T. Y., & Shek, D. T. L. (2020). Theories of adolescent development: Overview. The Encyclopedia of Child and Adolescent Development , 1-12. Web.

Meland, E., Breidablik, H. J., & Thuen, F. (2020). Divorce and conversational difficulties with parents: Impact on adolescent health and self-esteem. Scandinavian Journal of Public Health , 48 (7), 743-751. Web.

Pellerone, M., Ramaci, T., Herrera López, M., & Craparo, G. (2017). The role of identity development and decision making process on adult attachment: a cross-national study in Sicilian and Andalusian adolescents. Clinical Neuropsychiatry , 14 (2), 141-150.

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17 Module 17: Social Development

Module 17. social development.

Many parents are proud of their children’s physical and cognitive developments. Milestones in social development, the third type of development, elicit very different emotions some parents when they witness them for the first time. Sure, they are proud the first time their daughter walks across the room, but they are overjoyed the first time she runs into their arms and hugs them. An infant’s first smile, his obvious realization that you, his parent, will protect him and soothe his fears, his willingness or unwillingness to go to preschool without you, all are social developments, and for many parents, they are accompanied by strong emotions of happiness, fear, and even some sadness. And yes, some pride, too.

As we pointed out in Module 16, many key cognitive developments are closely related to social developments. This is particularly easy to see in infants. For example, think about the ability of newborn infants to recognize their mother’s voice as soon as they are born, or more generally, in infants’ apparent preference to attend to all things human. Clearly, these predispositions, abilities, and preferences are going to influence the processes through which children develop socially.

Cognitive developments might begin first, so they may be more fundamental, but one can make a good argument that social developments are really the goal. Infants and young children must use their fledgling cognitive abilities to learn how to get along in the world of other humans, that is, the social world. This module describes what some of the important social developments are and how they occur. Section 17.1 describes attachment, the emotional bonds that develop between an infant and one or more specific people, and how those bonds affect us throughout our lives. Section 17.2 covers issues related to the roles that parents and other caregivers play in their children’s early social development. It describes the effects of different parenting styles, and physical punishment. Section 17.3 focuses on Erik Erikson’s influential theory of psychosocial development and one of its major components, the development of our identity. Section 17.4 concludes the module with a discussion of the role of friendship in our social development.

17.1 Developing Social Bonds: Attachment

17.2 Parenting Styles and Discipline

17.3 Developing Identity

17.4 Friendship

READING WITH A PURPOSE

Remember and understand.

By reading and studying Module 17, you should be able to remember and describe:

Attachment: Strange situation technique, secure attachment, resistant attachment, avoidant attachment, disoriented attachment (17.1)
Parenting styles: authoritarian, permissive, authoritative, neglecting (17.2)
Physical punishment (17.2)
Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development (17.3)
Components of identity: religiousity, ethnicity, nationality (17.3)
Changes in friendship over the lifespan (17.4)

By reading and thinking about how the concepts in Module 17 apply to real life, you should be able to:

Recognize different attachment styles in young children (17.1)
Recognize different parenting styles (17.2)
Recognize examples of crises from Erikson’s theory (17.3)

Analyze, Evaluate, and Create

By reading and thinking about Module 17, participating in classroom activities, and completing out-of-class assignments, you should be able to:

Recognize characteristics from attachment styles in your own relationships (17.1)
Support your opinion about the use of physical punishment (17.2)

17.1 Social Bonds: Attachment

Have you ever seen a group of one-year old children with their parents? (If not, try to observe some, perhaps at a park or at the grocery store) Have you noticed any differences in the way these children relate emotionally with their parents?
What purpose do you think the emotional bond between a child and parent serves?

Our descriptions of infants so far have left out two of the most noticeable facts about them. First, they cry. Boy, do they cry. Surely, there must be some reason for this universal behavior. Second, infants are, shall we say, needy. They cannot feed or clean themselves, they cannot move around, they cannot keep themselves safe, and so on. To borrow from Blanche DuBois of Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire, they are completely “dependent on the kindness of strangers.” You probably realize that these two facts are related to each other. Infants’ primary way of expressing their needs is by crying. (By the way, although it is not critical for the points we want to make about crying, it is not a trivial observation that the characteristics of crying change as the infant develops, from a more-or-less automatic reflex to a conscious strategy; Thompson, 1998). What you may not realize is that these two facts are probably related to the most significant social development during the child’s first year. In essence, infants move from being interested in all people to having a strong emotional bond with one person (or a small number of people), often with an accompanying fear of others.

Consider crying for a moment. Adults are quite good at judging differences in distress or emotion in infants’ cries (Leger, Thompson, & Merritt 1996; Thompson, Merritt, and Benz, 1996). In addition, parents are good at recognizing their own child’s cry from other children’s (Gustafson, Green, and Cleland, 1994). Finally, listening to an infant cry hurts. Really. Jeffrey Lorberbaum and his colleagues (1999) used fMRI to record brain activity while mothers listened to the sound of babies crying. The researchers found that the mothers’ brains were active in the anterior cingulate cortex, a cortex area that is involved in the emotional distress that accompanies physical pain (Rainville et al. 1997).

Think about it. Infants cry when they need something. Parents are good at telling when the need is urgent and when it is their own child, so they can respond appropriately. Listening to crying hurts, so they want to respond to it. It all fits together so well. This pattern of infant expressing needs and parent responding to the need is an important component of that shift from infants’ interest in humans in general to their emotional bond to individual people, as you will see in moment.

Why Infants Are Attached to Caregivers

The emotional bond to specific people to which we have been referring is called attachment. Think about how some young children display this attachment when they are unsure but curious about a new situation—for example, a loud but interesting looking new person. They would grab onto their parent’s legs and cautiously peer at the person from between their knees. At these times, it is easy to think that attachment means that parent and child are physically attached. Although there are many times when the attachment seems like a physical one—for example, when you can see a young child clinging to a parent during a threatening situation— attachment is defined as the emotional bond between the child and the other person. The other person can be, and often is, a parent, but it really can be anyone, another caregiver, a grandparent, older sibling, and so on.

Let us think about the purposes of attachment for a moment. We just noted that physical clinging is common when a child feels threatened. Perhaps being attached to a parent provides safety for the child. You might imagine, then, that attachment serves some biological purpose. In other words, perhaps it is adaptive; offspring that stay near their parents are more likely to survive; therefore, the tendency can be passed on to future generations (Bowlby, 1982). It is clear that some kind of bonding mechanism between parent and offspring occurs throughout the animal kingdom, suggesting that the adaptive, evolutionary, explanation is correct.

What, then, might be the specific benefits that the child derives from being attached to a parent? Because the mother is the sole biological source of nourishment for an infant, it seems reasonable to suppose that attachment helps the infant stay near its food source. If that is true, then you would expect a child to be more attached to the caregiver that provides food than to other caregivers. Indeed, infants often do have a stronger attachment bond to their mothers than to anyone else. Early psychologists, such as the behaviorists made these observations and drew the very same conclusion, namely that attachment bonds form because the mother provides nourishment for the infant. Like too many sensible and obvious conclusions, however, it is wrong. The relationship between nourishment and attachment is a correlation only. Recall that a correlation is simply a relationship between two variables, and we are not permitted to draw causal conclusions from correlations alone. Mothers, and for that matter many other kinds of caregivers, provide much more than simply nourishment.

The discovery that a separate factor was responsible for attachment required the ingenuity to separate the provision of nourishment from other factors, and the ability to conduct research designed to disrupt the attachment bond between a parent and offspring. Because such a study would be extremely unethical with human children, the important research was done by Harry Harlow with monkeys, during the 1950’s. The factor that Harlow pitted against nourishment was body contact. Again, think about human infants. When they physically cling to a caregiver, it seems that they are rarely doing so to seek food. Rather, it is more likely comfort that they are seeking. Could it be that this comfort is the cause of the attachment bond? In his research, Harlow separated infant monkeys from their mothers and raised them with different kinds of “substitute mothers.” The substitutes were designed to provide nourishment, physical comfort (specifically, a soft, warm surface to cling to), or both. By varying these aspects of the substitute mothers, he was able to discover the importance of comfort over food. Specifically, some monkeys were raised with a single substitute mother that provided both comfort and food; this was a soft terrycloth “doll” that also provided food. Other monkeys were raised with the terrycloth mother and a separate “nourishment” mother, a wire model that simply provided the food. The results of the research were simple and straightforward. It did not really matter which substitute mother provided the food; the infant spent most of its time with the terrycloth “comfort” mother.

Attachment Styles

If you spend some time around different children, you will notice that they do not all seem equally attached to their parents. Furthermore, the differences among the children can be observed quite early, certainly within the first year. Some of you might think about that and conclude that the attachment differences between children must reflect some differences that they were born with. Others of you might conclude that something must have happened to the children early in life to lead to these differences. You may both be right.

First, let us describe the common differences in attachment that we can observe among children before turning to the possible reasons. Psychologist Mary Ainsworth pioneered the research technique that has been commonly used to assess what is known as attachment style (Ainsworth et al. 1978). Through this technique, known as the Strange Situation technique, four different attachment styles have been identified: secure attachment, and three styles of insecure attachment—resistant attachment, avoidant attachment, and disoriented attachment.

The Strange Situation research is frequently conducted when the child is about one year old. In a typical study, an observer watches while the child plays with the mother in the room. After a few minutes a new person enters the room to play with the child for a few minutes, then the mother leaves. Then, the new person leaves and the mother returns. For a few more minutes, the mother and stranger alternate being in the room with the child, and the child is even left alone for a short time. Although the reactions of the child to each change in the situation are recorded, it is the response when the mother returns that is key; how does the child act during the reunion?

Securely attached children (about 65% of children in the US) are happily reunited with the mother. If they had been distressed by the mother leaving, they are easily calmed upon her return.
Resistant attached children (about 10% – 15% of children in the US) appear angry when the mother returns. They may push her way, or fight to be put down.
Avoidant attached children (about 10% – 15% of children in the US) display little response when the mother returns. It almost looks as if the infant did not even realize the mother was gone.
Disoriented attachment (about 5 % – 10 % of children in the US) display inconsistent behaviors when the mother returns. They may appear disoriented and confused and may want to be picked up, only to scream when they are. They may also show distress again after calming down.

So, what causes these differences in attachment style? Recall the discussion above about crying signifying an infant’s needs and parents responding to it. Although all parents may be motivated to respond to an infant crying, not all do so the same way. The pattern of responding by the mother when the child is in distress is closely related to the child’s attachment style. Mothers who are relatively unresponsive to their children often have children with avoidant attachment, mothers who respond inconsistently often have resistant or disoriented attached children, and mothers who respond appropriately often have securely attached children (Carbonell, et al., 2002; Cox et al., 1992; Isabella, 1993). Although we have been talking primarily about attachment to the mother, it is true that infants can be attached to several individual people. For example, van IJzendoorn and De Wolff (1997) found that fathers’ responsiveness also predicts infants’ secure attachment. It appears, then, that the pattern of parent responding causes the attachment style. This conclusion, also based on a correlation, is sensible, obvious and this time, at least partially right.

There is additional evidence that helps us conclude that parents’ behavior influences the attachment style of an infant. For example, providing support services for at-risk mothers can increase secure attachment in their infants (Jacobson & Frye, 1991; Lyons-Ruth et al. 1990). Also, there are cross-cultural differences in attachment style, which strongly suggests that experience (that is, parent responsiveness) also plays an important role. For example, van IJzendoorn & Kroonenberg (1988) found that German infants were more likely than American and Japanese infants to have avoidant attachment. Japanese infants were more likely than American and German infants to have resistant attachment. In all three, however, secure attachment was the most common style.

There might be more to the story than parent responsiveness alone, however. As many parents of multiple children report, you can often recognize differences between children’s personalities soon after birth. Some children cry a lot and are difficult to console; others seem rather content, you might even say easygoing. It is possible that these differences, called temperament, are partly responsible for differences in attachment style (Kagan, 1987; 1998). Temperament refers to biologically-based differences in a person’s emotional and motor reactions to new stimuli, and tendencies regarding self-regulation. Also, because differences in temperament appear so early, they are very likely partially genetic (Ebstein, Benjamin, & Belmaker, 2003).

To illustrate how it might work, suppose as a parent, you have a child with a difficult temperament; she cries frequently, and is very unpredictable and difficult to console. Sometimes when you pick her up, she stops crying right away, other times the crying goes on for hours. This type of behavior is essentially what a researcher would recognize as disoriented attachment. It is easy to imagine that your responding would grow to be inconsistent; sometimes you would respond right away, other times you might wait for a while. There you have it; a consistent pattern between the attachment style of the child and the responsiveness of the parent. But instead of parent responsiveness leading to attachment, we have infant temperament leading to attachment style, and then causing parent responsiveness.

Researchers, then, have been interested in the role of temperament, especially the genetic component of it, in infant attachment. Although some early studies indicated that it played a significant role, more recent research has failed to replicate some of these studies, and has indicated only a minor role of genetics and temperament (Oliveara & Fearon, 2019). The conclusion that most psychologists have drawn is that although a combination of infant temperament and genes, and parent responsiveness lead to the attachment style of the infant, genetics appear to play a relatively smaller role.

Consequences of Attachment

Before moving on to a broader discussion of parenting behaviors, We should talk a little bit about why attachment has been such an important topic for psychologists to study. If attachment style manifests itself only in the Strange Situation research studies, psychologists’ attention to it would be a pretty pointless intellectual exercise. That appears not to be so. The attachment style that is established during infancy appears to be repeated in relationships with other people throughout life. It is as if infant attachment style forms a template that guides the developing child when forming later relationships (Sroufe & Fleeson, 1986). In an unexpected twist, genetics appears to play a stronger role in these attachment patterns for adolescents and adults than they do in the infant attachment we just described (Fearon et al. 2014; Franz et al. 2011).

Attachment style, as it turns out, ends up being related to a great deal of older child and adult social behavior. Researchers have examined the same children over time, a research design called a longitudinal study , in order to find out whether later behavior is indeed related to infant attachment style. A longitudinal study is a difficult and expensive way to do research, but it is the best way to discover changes in individual people. Studies have found that attachment style does predict later social behavior. For example, securely attached infants are more socially competent when they get older, are more empathetic, have higher self-esteem, and do better in school (Sroufe, et al. 2005; Urban et al. 1991). The most consistent attachment style over time is the disoriented attachment. Children with this style have problems with aggression and anger throughout the school years (Lyons-Ruth, 1996; Lyons-Ruth, Easterbrooks, & Cibelli, 1997).

No one would claim that infant attachment style is the only determinant of social behavior during adulthood. Many life events, such as parents’ divorce, can also influence the way we form social relationships (Lewis, 1997). Even if it were the only important factor, infant attachment style can change as the child develops. Also, if the parent-child relationship changes—for example, the mother or father grows more or less responsive—the child’s attachment style might change along with it (Thompson, 2000).

Think about a current or recent close relationship in your life (romantic probably works best, but friendships will work, too). Use the four categories of attachment style and try to classify your relationship with the other person, as well as their relationship with you. Do the two of you seem to have the same attachment style? Do you think that your attachment style is the same or different for other relationships in your life?

17.2. Parenting Styles and Discipline

How strict were they?
How many rules were there, what kind of rules, and how well were they explained to you?
Did they use physical punishment?
Describe the same aspects of your own parenting style—your expected style if you are not yet a parent, or your actual style if you are.

Parents differ from each other in much more than simply their responsiveness to their children. Some parents feel that their role is to control their children, and they employ harsh discipline, firm rules, and physical punishment. Others prefer to let children make their own choices and provide very few rules and little guidance. Still others think of themselves in more of a guiding role; they explain the purposes of rules and allow their children to develop as independent thinkers. Some parents spend a great deal of time with their children, others because of career and work obligations are with them for only a couple of hours each day. There are a great many aspects that we can use to describe differences among parents. Many of these differences influence the way that children develop socially, and they could be the topic of an entire book. Indeed, there are dozens of advice books covering many parenting strategies and behaviors. In this section, we will describe two key topics: parenting styles and physical punishment. Each has been the subject of substantial research and in some cases, significant news coverage.

Parenting styles

The most heavily researched difference among parents has probably been parenting style. Diana Baumrind (1989) identified four major styles of parenting: authoritarian, authoritative, permissive, and neglecting. Researchers over the years have found several differences in the adjustment of children whose parents have different parenting styles.

Authoritarian parents rule with very firm rules and harsh discipline, often using physical punishment. They seek to teach their children to obey. Permissive parents have few rules, instead letting the children set their own courses. Authoritative parents seek to guide their children to make the right choices. Although they have firm rules, similar to authoritarian parents, authoritative parents can be flexible; they allow the children some say in formulating rules. They see their role more to teach than to control; therefore, they spend a lot of time explaining reasons for rules to the children. The fourth style, disengaged or neglecting parents , is just what it sounds like, a parenting style marked by leaving the children alone. Of the four, it is clearly the worst style, and is actually a sufficient cause for a court to suspend someone’s parental rights.

Of course, the four styles are not equally effective. Children who have authoritative parents are better adjusted than those with authoritarian or permissive parents (and children of neglecting parents fare very poorly). Children of authoritative parents—particularly compared to children of authoritarian parents—are more independent, less anxious, and friendlier and more competent in social situations; they also have high self-esteem (Baumrind, 1989; 1991; Kaufmann et al. 2000; Maccoby & Martin, 1983). This point is worth emphasizing because some people believe that harsh discipline is necessary to have well-behaved, well-adjusted children. There is very little evidence suggesting that such parenting is superior to authoritative parenting, and a great deal of evidence suggesting the opposite. For example, one study of 10,000 high school students across a wide range of ethnicities, family structures, socioeconomic statuses, and types of community found that children of authoritative parents tended to do better in school, were more self reliant, had less psychological distress, and had fewer behavior problems (Steinberg et al. 1991).

authoritarian parenting : parenting style characterized by demands for unquestioning obedience; often makes use of harsh and physical punishment

authoritative parenting : parenting style characterized by firm rules for children, along with explanation of the rules and an opportunity for children to have some autonomy permissive parenting: parenting style characterized by few demands and rules for children

neglecting (disengaged) parenting : parenting style characterized by a lack of attention to and care for children

Before completely condemning authoritarian parenting, however, we have to admit that there are alternative interpretations of the research results. Perhaps you have already realized that, similar to what we saw for attachment, the relationship between parenting style and adjustment is a correlation. Again, we are not permitted to draw causal conclusions because of the directionality and third variable problems (see Module 2). Consider the directionality problem. Just as we saw in the role of temperament on attachment, it may be the case that easygoing, well-adjusted children allow parents to adopt a more flexible, authoritative parenting style. Indeed, several psychologists have suggested that such child-to-parent effects, as they are called, can explain a lot of the relationship between parenting style and adjustment (e.g., Bell, 1968; Harris, 1995; 1998; Rowe, 2002).

We also have a version of the third variable problem preventing us from concluding that parenting styles cause differences in adjustment. In short, one variable that could lead to both is genes; again, the description parallels what we just saw for attachment. Specifically, perhaps a parent is an easygoing, authoritative parent and a child an easygoing, well-adjusted child because of genes that they share. Behavioral genetics examinations of personality have revealed heritabilities for many personality characteristics in the 30%–50% range (Ebstein, Benjamin, & Belmaker, 2003). In other words, about 30% to 50% of the variation in personality characteristics in the population can be attributed to genetic differences. The parent-child shared genetic contributions to personality could certainly account for some of the correspondence between parenting style and child outcomes.

Given the plausible directionality and third variable alternative explanations, you may be tempted to completely discount the role of parenting effects. A few psychologists have indeed assigned a minor role to parenting styles (Harris, 1995). What we really need is some experiments to help us draw the causal conclusion. Unfortunately, not many have been conducted. For example, Philip and Carolyn Cowan (2002) randomly assigned 100 couples with a child entering kindergarten to one of three groups: two groups participated in 16 weekly discussions with other parents (led by a pair of psychologists), and the third was a control group that had no discussions. One of the discussion groups had a special emphasis on parenting issues, and the other on marital issues. The Cowans found that parents in the parenting discussion group increased their authoritative parenting behavior, and as a result their children adapted to school better than the control group did. Even more interesting, the parents who participated in the marital discussion group also increased their authoritative parenting, and their children fared better in school, too.

Rather than continuing to look for straightforward parenting effects, many researchers have become interested in the possibility that parenting styles do not affect all children equally (Bates et al. 1998). Most psychologists believe that children’s adjustment reflects a combination of genetic effects, child-to-parent effects, parenting styles, and other environmental forces such as peer influences (Maccoby, 2002).

Physical Punishment

A parenting tool common in authoritarian parents, but present among all styles, is physical punishment, or spanking. The estimates of the frequency of physical punishment in the US vary widely, from 37% – 80% of parents (Gershoff et al. 2018; Finkelhor et al. 2019). The discrepancy largely results from different methodologies, particularly with respect to the ages of the children included in the study (younger children are more likely to be spanked than older children are). It is probably safe to say that the majority of parents in the US have used physical punishment, though.

The key question, of course, is does all this spanking create better children? This has been the subject of debates over the years. One of the key problems is that ethical concerns make it difficult to conduct the type of research that allow confident casual conclusions (of course, you remember that this is the experimental research design, right? If not, we recommend that you go back to Module 2, if not now, at least before your final exam in this class). The primary research method that has been used is a longitudinal design, which is technically a correlational design.

Further complicating matters, or so it seems, is the fact that the research is not entirely consistent. There are some studies that show spanking is associated with poorer outcomes, some that do not. And media accounts have continued to report these controversies, with article titles like Spanking Can Be an Appropriate Form of Child Discipline (Pingleton, 2014) and Meet the Scientists Who Haven’t Given Up on Spanking (Pelley, 2018). One final bit of apparent contradiction and complication: 30% of members of the American Psychological Association surveyed in 2016 did not agree that spanking is harmful to children (Gershoff, 2018). It is a requirement to have a PhD in psychology to be a member of APA, so this certainly seems like a legitimate scientific controversy that has not yet been settled.

But hold on, things are not so simple. Or is it things are not so complicated? We are starting to confuse ourselves here. Let us clarify. And we will start by simplifying: the science is largely settled. Spanking is harmful to children.

We will let the American Psychological Association speak for itself. From the Resolution on Physical Discipline of Children By Parents (APA, 2019):

“. . .the American Psychological Association recognizes that scientific evidence demonstrates the negative effects of physical discipline of children by caregivers and thereby recommends that caregivers use alternative forms of discipline that are associated with more positive outcomes for children.”

And how about the American Academy of Pediatrics, who have had a policy against physical punishment for many years? Here is an excerpt from their 2018 revision. It is their strongest statement against the practice yet:

“Parents, other caregivers, and adults interacting with children and adolescents should not use corporal punishment (including hitting and spanking), either in anger or as a punishment for or consequence of misbehavior, nor should they use any disciplinary strategy, including verbal abuse, that causes shame or humiliation.”

It is true that longitudinal studies are correlational. In essence, we are stuck with the same kinds of difficulties that we had when trying to draw conclusions about the roles of parent responsiveness on attachment and parenting style on adjustment. Physical punishment is consistently associated with negative outcomes, but is it the case that the spanking caused the poor outcomes, or that the poorly behaved children caused parents to spank them more? Gershoff et al. (2018) produced an excellent explanation of the scientific conclusion that physical punishment is harmful and ineffective, and they did it by following an important historical model. No one doubts that smoking causes lung cancer, despite the fact that there are no experimental studies on humans. Gershoff and her colleagues applied the same criteria used to evaluate the appropriateness of causal conclusions from the smoking-lung cancer non-experimental research to the research on physical punishment to produce a very convincing case that spanking causes poor outcomes and spanking does not produce better-behaved children.

So what are these poor outcomes to which we keep referring?

A well-known meta-analysis found that children who are spanked have lower levels of moral internalization (essentially, learning that what they did was wrong and taking responsibility for it), lower quality of parent-child relationship, worse childhood and adulthood mental health, higher childhood and adulthood levels of aggression, and higher childhood antisocial behavior (Gershoff 2002). Ouch.

The one “positive” outcome? Immediate compliance. The quotation marks, of course, are intended to convey that this only seems like a positive outcome. In reality, it is one of the key factors that lead parents to believe that spanking is effective. But even here, it is not doing what they think it is. Although spanking often stops a behavior in the short term, the long-term results are less promising. Essentially, children learn how to avoid the spanking, sometimes by making sure that they commit the behavior only in situations in which they are unlikely to be caught (Johnston, 1972). Picture the 13-year old who is spanked for using profanity at the dinner table. He is likely to stop swearing in the presence of his parents, but unlikely to do so with his friends.

Some critics have charged that research showing negative effects combined mild physical punishment with harsher punishment that crosses over the line to abuse, and that only lower quality studies have found negative effects. Gershoff and Grogan-Kaylor (2016) conducted a new meta-analysis that addressed these concerns. They found separate effects for lower-level and harsher physical punishment. They also found no evidence that the size of the negative effects varied according to the measure of study quality they employed.

Still, spanking does have some adherents. Even they admit, however, that spanking should be occasional and mild (Baumrind et al. 2002; Larzelere & Kuhn, 2005). The problem is, children are often judged most in need of a spanking when they have committed an act that has frustrated, insulted, or angered a parent. In short, the time that the parent probably most wants to spank the child is the exact time that the “mild swat” is most likely to spiral into an anger-fueled abusive episode. If parents accept the advice that they should wait until they are not angry when they spank, they force themselves to contradict one of the principles of the effective use of punishment. You might recall that consequences are much more effective at influencing behavior if they are immediate (Module 6). If it takes a parent an hour after a child’s infraction to calm down enough to administer a controlled swat, the time for the effective use of the punishment has long passed. Also, it is worth considering what the word discipline means; it comes from the same Latin root as the word disciple. It means to teach. The goal of discipline is not simply to stop unwanted behaviors; it is also to teach wanted behaviors. Punishment, physical or otherwise, is designed only to stop specific behaviors. There is no guarantee that unwanted behaviors will be replaced by appropriate ones.

What can we conclude from these sometimes confusing results about the role of parents? First, because of the genetics/temperament/personality issues, it is safe to say that parents’ behaviors are not as strong an influence as some believe. At the same time, few psychologists have gone so far as to say that parents are unimportant, rather that they are one of several influences. Second, there is growing agreement that a one-size-fits-all approach to parenting is inappropriate, so it can be difficult to track the individual influence of a parent’s behaviors. Third, there is a widespread, but not universal, agreement that the negative aspects of physical punishment outweigh any possible benefits. There is a good possibility that physical punishment and authoritarian parenting cause problems such as aggression, antisocial behavior, and poor relationships between parents and children. Keep in mind that very few psychologists are out there advocating strongly that physical punishment (and authoritarian parenting) is better than alternative techniques, only that they might not be worse.

Let us conclude this section by returning to two lingering problems. What about the news articles in favor of spanking and the 30% of APA members who are not against spanking? Well, part of the answer comes from the seven tips for evaluating information that we shared with you in Module 1. In particular, we think a version of what we called the myth of two equal sides is going on with respect to the evaluation of research. The number of studies that find that spanking is not harmful is quite small. The overall evaluation of the whole body of research has led to the two most appropriate professional associations (the American Psychological Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics) to produce unequivocal recommendations that parents NOT use physical punishment under any circumstances. As for the 30% of APA members, we cannot be sure because we do not know who the respondents are, but there are a significant number of psychologists who do not endorse a scientific, evidence-based approach to psychology. We believe this is a serious problem in the discipline and will describe it more fully in Module 31.

Did this section lead you to reconsider any personal decision you had made regarding your own parenting practices? Why or why not?

17.3. Development of Identity: Learning Who You Are

Answer the following question at least five different ways: Who are you? Include only the important aspects of your identity. At what age did these aspects solidify in your view of yourself?

Life is hard. And we are not even talking about school. Throughout your life you have had to learn how to survive in the physical and social world. You had to learn which kinds of situations were safe and how to navigate the social landscape. There were friends to make, rivals to best, enemies to avoid. Each task may require a unique set of abilities. Is it any wonder that many psychologists over the years have characterized human life as a monumental struggle?

Erik Erikson was one of those psychologists. He is one of the most famous social developmental psychologists, and his theory guided a great deal of research throughout the second half of the 20th century. Erikson divided the entire lifespan into eight separate stages; during each, he explained, we are faced with particular kinds of conflicts or challenges. Social development proceeds through our resolution of these conflicts, or the way that we meet the challenges. The “footprints” of the challenges are left on our later personalities, as they influence the way that we approach later social relationships.

Erikson’s Stages of Psychosocial Development

As you read the descriptions of the eight stages, you may have two reactions that correspond to the major evaluations of Erikson’s theory. First, he was right on the money about the types of challenges that many people face throughout their lives. Second, the timing seems off. Although it does seem correct that we face important challenges and that our response to those challenges will influence our later social relationships, the challenges probably do not come so neatly packaged into particular stages of life. Rather, the challenges may occur at any time throughout life and in no particular order.

This section will expand on one of Erikson’s key challenges, developing an identity, to illustrate how they can span well beyond a single life stage. Your identity is your sense of self, the important aspects of your life that make you a unique person. Most people have a very strong sense that their identity is constant, but the reality is that identity is formed and modified throughout your life.

Self-Awareness in Infancy and Childhood

The first step along the path to establishing a solid identity is to realize that you are an individual person. This is not as ridiculous as it may sound. Recall from Module 16 that the first time an infant is absorbed watching her hand move, she may not even realize that it is her hand, under her control. A key accomplishment during Piaget’s sensorimotor stage is for the infant to realize that objects exist apart from the self. Part of that key cognitive development comes from the realization that there is such a thing as the self.

To be sure, infants love looking at their reflection. If you hold an infant up in front of the mirror, she is likely to kick her legs excitedly, coo, or laugh. But this response is a bit like a dog that barks at its own reflection, thinking it another dog. How do we know that? That is, how do we know that a young infant does not realize that the baby in the mirror is a reflection of her? Suppose you manage to sneak a sticker onto the child’s nose without her knowledge. When she sees the baby in the mirror, will she reach for her own nose, or will she reach for the mirror? If the infant is under 15 months old, she will probably reach for the mirror; if she is over 18 months, she will reach for her own nose. Thus, the child’s realization that she is the baby in the mirror develops during this period (Butterworth, 1992; Schneider-Rosen & Cicchetti, 1991). After this time, the infant begins to focus on and think about her self. She can experience emotions such as embarrassment and pride, and will soon learn to recognize photographs of herself (Bullock & Lutkenhaus, 1990; Lewis, 1990).

Development of thinking about the self seems to parallel, or at least closely follow the development of a theory of mind (Module 16; Wellman, 1993). For example, children begin to think more clearly about their own intentions and plans, and develop the ability to systematically about pursuing goals during the ages of 5 to 7. Psychologists call it the 9 to 5 shift. Just kidding. They call it the 5 - 7 year shift (Sameroff & Haith, 1996).

Adolescent Identity Crisis and Emotional Turmoil

Erik Erikson thought of adolescence as a time of crisis, as the teenager struggles to figure out who he or she is. Researchers have found that he was at least partially right. Because of the physical, cognitive, and social changes that occur, identity does appear to become key in adolescence (Grotevant, 1998). Research is less supportive of the idea that the search becomes a crisis, however.

Erikson was not the first psychologist to think of adolescence as a turbulent time. Over 100 years ago, one of the pioneers of psychology, G. Stanley Hall, characterized adolescence as a period of “storm and stress.” The accepted wisdom is still that adolescence is a time of extreme turmoil, filled with risky behavior, explosive conflict with parents, and moodiness (Arnett, 1999). Public perceptions are clear: many people in the US believe that adolescence is a very difficult time (Buchanan et al. 1990; Buchanan & Holmbeck, 1998).

But is it really? Is adolescence really a time filled with frequent mood swings, excessive risk-taking, and constant fights with parents? The answer is a resounding, “sort of.” It is true that “storm and stress” are more likely during adolescence than at other times of life. The turmoil is by no means a sure thing, however, and when it does occur, it tends to be less dramatic than in the movies, which, by their very nature, must be dramatic. Come on, would you pay thirteen dollars (plus six dollars for popcorn) to watch 112 minutes of a fourteen-year old spending quiet time with, speaking respectfully to, and not arguing with her parents? In reality, there are large individual differences, and many adolescents do not have much conflict with their parents. Even in families that do experience a lot of conflict, adolescents and their parents still report that they have a good relationship with each other (Arnett, 1999).

The famous adolescent mood swings are based in reality, however. Adolescents do report more extreme moods, especially negative ones, than adults report (Arnett, 1999; Larson and Richards, 1994). But contrary to public opinion, the mood swings are probably not the result of “raging hormones.” Researchers found that the mood swings were not related to the stage of puberty an adolescent was experiencing, which would be tied to the kinds and levels of hormones; instead, they suggested that the causes were cognitive and environmental (Larson & Richards, 1994).

Finally, it is also true that adolescents are more likely to engage in risky behavior than at other times in their lives. Risky driving and sexual behavior, criminal behavior, and substance abuse all tend to peak during the adolescent years (Arnett, 1992; 1999; Moffitt, 1993). Although there are individual differences as in the other areas of storm and stress, most adolescents occasionally engage in at least one kind of risky behavior (Arnett, 1992). It’s important to note that while research suggests that risk-taking behaviors are more likely to occur during adolescents, new research indicates that there are some adolescent risk-taking behaviors that have decreased in the last 30 years including unprotected sex and substance use among (Arnett, 2018).

Emotional turmoil, when it does occur, may very well be related to the struggle to form an identity independent from parents. A typical adolescent belief is that no one, especially parents, understands them. Originally, psychologists viewed this as solely a cognitive issue. Specifically, they believed it was a version of Piaget’s egocentrism that applied to adolescents (Elkind, 1985; Elkind & Bowen 1979). More recently, some psychologists have proposed that adolescents’ feelings of being misunderstood may be more an effect of social development, specifically establishing one’s identity. Key parts of the process of establishing one’s own identity are paying extra attention to the self and separating the self from parents. During these processes, many adolescents tend to exaggerate their differences from other people. They (correctly) notice their own uniqueness, and they (probably incorrectly) believe that because they are so different from everyone else, no one—especially parents—can possibly understand them (Lapsley, 1993; Vartanian, 2000). Many adolescents struggling with their identity come to think that other people notice them as much as they notice themselves, as if they are on a stage in front of an “imaginary audience” (Elkind, 1976; O’Conner, 1995). Adolescents who have difficulty during the process of establishing an identity—in other words, those who suffer an identity crisis—are especially likely to adopt these “egocentric” beliefs.

So, identity formation can be a struggle, but is it a crisis? For example, think about one of literature’s best-known examples of an adolescent in the throes of an identity crisis, Holden Caulfield from J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. During the course of a single weekend, Holden is expelled from school and reveals that he cannot relate socially to people with whom he comes in contact. He despises and ridicules his roommate, yet Holden clearly envies him. He also expresses a deep-seated need to protect the innocence of childhood, part of his identity that he is giving up as he approaches adulthood. Increasingly alienated, depressed, and hopeless, Holden ends up in a hospital unable to cope with his crisis.

How accurate was Salinger’s portrayal of an adolescent struggle for identity? One of the great appeals of the novel is that teenagers can identify with Holden Caulfield. Individual readers recognize pieces of themselves in small aspects of Holden’s experiences. Very few people experience a weekend as dramatic as Holden Caulfield’s, however. In reality, as you might have guessed from the earlier discussion about emotional turmoil in general, the search for an identity is not as much a crisis as is commonly assumed. Although a crisis may occur, it is by no means necessary (Grotevant, 1998). For many people, it is a better characterization of the process to call it an exploration. Some people choose an identity without much fanfare and searching, others seemingly never do (Grotevant, 1998; Marcia et al. 1993). Many adolescents do, however, engage in active exploration, and for some of these people, identity search can be a crisis. As we are sure you realize, identity is a very complex concept; individuals may experience a crisis for some aspects of identity, such as gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, or religion, but not for others.

Identity Development Beyond Adolescence

Although forming an individual identity is a critical task during adolescence, refining your sense of who you are is a lifelong process. People have many opportunities throughout their lives to reassess and redefine their identities (Yoder, 2000). For example, becoming a parent can force a profound change in someone’s identity.

Erik Erikson (1950) proposed that a person’s occupational choice was a key part of his or her identity. Think of how adults in the US introduce themselves. Very often they give their name and then their title or occupation (“I’m JoAnn; I’m an accountant”) rather than referring to their geographical history or family status (“I grew up in Colorado Springs” or “I’m the middle daughter in my family”). But occupational identity is rarely constant throughout your life. Career counselors commonly advise students who are graduating from college today that they can expect to have an average of four different careers (not jobs within the same career, but completely different careers) during their lifetimes. Each career change is likely to entail a significant revision of your identity.

Aspects of Identity

Although it is clear that people’s identities develop over time, it does not really feel that way. Quite the contrary, your identity feels like the part of you that does not change; it is what makes you, you . One possible explanation of this contradiction is that some aspects of your identity seem freely chosen, such as career or religious affiliation, and others, such as sex or ethnicity, are assigned to you. It may be that the assigned aspects of one’s identity play the key role in providing that sense of continuity, despite changes in other aspects. Even the chosen aspects are often conceived in relation to the unchosen aspects (Grotevant 1992; 1993). For example, a female adolescent may choose a career based on her gender identity. Thus, even the chosen and changing aspects of identity are tied to the invariant, assigned ones. We will finish our coverage of identity by discussing three different sources of identity, one chosen, one assigned, and one somewhere in the middle. Note, we will address a fourth aspect of identity, gender in Module 26.

Religious affiliation: A chosen aspect of identity

The majority of people throughout the world affiliate themselves with a specific religion, and for many it is among the most important aspects of their identities. Although there are certainly areas throughout the world where people are not exactly free to choose their religion, citizens of the US and the rest of the western world do have that choice.

According to the CIA World Factbook (2020), the World and the US are represented by the following religions:

The US figures are listed for some individual Christian religions, rather than for Christianity overall. As a consequence, some of the “Other Religions” may be Christian as well.

The two most prominent differences between the US and the rest of the world are the percentages of Christians (69% versus 31%) and Muslims (0% versus 24%). Although nearly one-quarter of the world’s population is Muslim, less than 1% of the US is, according to the CIA World Factbook. (Another estimate of the number of Muslims in the US is 3.45 million, which corresponds to a bit over 1%; Pew Research Center, 2018) Obviously, there is an extraordinary difference between the distribution of religions in the US and the rest of the world.

In one key way, however, the United States may have more in common with deeply religious Muslim-populated countries than with the Western European and North American countries more similar in terms of religious affiliations. The US is quite religious. More people believe in God, attend church regularly, pray at least occasionally, and read the Bible in the US than in any other western country. Although religious commitment in the US has remained higher than other nations, it has begun to decline recently, however (Pew Research Center, 2019).

Religion, of course, is not a monolithic concept. Some aspects of religious identity lead to good outcomes, others to bad. Religious commitment, or religiosity , is often related to good deeds. The relationships are not always strong and straightforward, but they are there. For example, religious people—especially those who adopt a flexible, questioning attitude toward their religion—are likely to help people in need (Batson et al., 1989; Batson et al. 2001). Researchers occasionally question the motives of some religious helpers. For example, some religious people help only because they want to look like helpers (Batson & Gray, 1981). Still, it is difficult to criticize them, because they are embracing an aspect of identity that encourages them to do good deeds.

Religious intolerance, on the other hand, just like any intolerance, leads to bad outcomes. One of the driving forces behind atrocities committed throughout history is an overabundance of religious identity and the unwillingness to accept alternative religious viewpoints. Religious fundamentalism is the belief that one’s own religion is the sole legitimate source of fundamental truths about humanity and deity (Altemeyer & Hunsberger, 1992). The fundamentalist is required to fight against those who oppose this truth. Thus, fundamentalism, which can be an element of any religious affiliation, essentially includes intolerance as a defining feature. Fortunately, strict fundamentalism is atypical among the world’s religious people, but the seeds of intolerance are often present in any person with a strong religious identity. For example, researchers have shown that religiosity is positively related to prejudice (Batson, Schoenrade, & Ventis, 1993; Dittes, 1969).

Many people have a set of experiences that lead them to assess their faith and affirm religious beliefs as a key part of their identity. In the classic case, such conversion, as it is called, is swift and radical, following the Biblical story of Paul, who converted to Christianity suddenly when he received a visit from Jesus in the form of a voice and a bright light while traveling. You should realize that conversion can work both ways; people can also have revelatory experiences that lead them away from religious beliefs (Roof & Hadaway, 1979).

Perhaps the key source of religious identity is socialization. In short, children learn their religious beliefs and the strength of those beliefs from other people in their lives. Some of that learning takes place in a formal educational setting. For a great many people, however, parents play the primary socialization role. So, although people are free to choose the religious aspects of their identities, many end up adopting their parents’ beliefs. If you examine the degree to which people identify with their parents’ religion as they mature, the agreement between parents’ and children’s attitudes about religion, or the self-reported influence that parents had on their children’s religious beliefs, the conclusion is the same. Parents play a very important role in the development of religious identity (Spilka et al. 2003). As we have seen in other aspects of life, parental influence wanes through adolescence; in the case of religion, the decrease of parental influence is fairly late, around traditional college-age (Ozorak, 1989). Even during adolescence, when general disagreements with parents may be at their highest level, parents and children still tend to agree on many issues related to religion (Glass, Bengtson, & Dunham, 1986; Hunsberger, 1985). As you might guess, parent influence on religious identity is strongest when the parent and child have a high-quality relationship (Bao et al. 1999; Myers, 1996).

As we are sure you realize, religious identity is related to additional aspects of an individual’s social identity. For example, one researcher has identified in Christian adults attachment styles with God that resemble the secure and insecure attachments that researchers have observed in infants (Kirkpatrick (1992; 2002). Some research has also found that religious individuals trust others more than non-religious individuals do. Religiosity is also related to people’s stated beliefs (but not always their behaviors) about morality, marriage, non-marital sex, love, and homosexuality (Lefevor, et al. 2019; McFarland, Ueker & Regnerus, 2011; Pew Research Center, 2017 ).

Ethnicity: An assigned aspect of identity

Another key aspect of identity for many people is ethnicity. You can choose your religion, but you cannot typically choose which ethnic group you belong to. Ethnic minority adolescents are faced with the double-sided problem of fitting into the majority culture while keeping elements of the ethnic minority group culture in their identities (Erikson, 1968; Phinney et al. 2000). Adolescents who are members of a majority ethnic group are less likely to acknowledge their ethnicity as an important aspect of their identity, so these issues pertain mostly to members of minority groups (Phinney, 1990).

Successful development of ethnic minority identity within the context of the majority culture leads to good feelings about the self, the majority culture, and one’s ethnic group. A positive ethnic identity also leads to good feelings about other ethnic groups (Phinney, Ferguson, & Tate, 1997).

It is not always smooth sailing, however. Media depictions and news reports of adult members of ethnic minority groups as morally and socially bankrupt can make it difficult for children to find positive role models, an important step in developing a positive ethnic identity (Glassner, 1999). Adolescents who understand that their options in life may be limited by the ethnic group to which they belong also have trouble developing a positive ethnic identity. Indeed, the stress associated with the problems of forging an ethnic identity can lead to depression, anxiety, and other psychological problems (Caldwell et al. 2002).

Prejudice and discrimination in the larger culture against members of minority groups can also stand in the way of minority adolescents’ attempts to develop a positive attitude about their ethnic group. The problem of discrimination is compounded by the fact that many members of the majority culture are unaware of it. For example, white respondents in the US have consistently rated racial relations and racial discrimination better than black respondents over the past 20 years (Davis, 2020). (By the way, we are writing this book in the immediate aftermath of the worldwide protests against systemic racism that resulted from the George Floyd killing. There has been a rapid change in these attitudes as a result, which we will describe in more detail in Module 21.)

Because of these complications and difficulties, ethnic minority adolescents in the US often form their identity in a different way than white adolescents do. For example, ethnic minority college students may be more likely to engage in extended exploration of their identity options than white students are (Phinney & Alipuria, 1990). On the other hand, because options often seem limited for members of minority groups, many wind up doing less exploration, essentially accepting the identity designation that the dominant culture assigns to them (Streitmatter, 1988).

Nationality: An aspect of identity in the middle

Some political scientists have characterized much of the turmoil in the world as a conflict between dramatically different national and cultural identities, a sort of “clash of civilizations” (Huntington, 1998). For some people, cultural or national identity is something assigned to them by virtue of the location in which they were born. Others, such as immigrants who become citizens of their adopted countries, make a very conscious decision to change their national identity. Researchers have discovered that individuals who immigrate to the United States, for example, often do reassess their identity during adulthood (Birman & Trickett, 2001).

On what do people base a national identity? Many observers have noted that shared religion, language, and ethnicity are among the most important keys to developing a strong national identity. Paradoxically, citizens of the US have had among the strongest national identities in the world over the years despite lacking many of the characteristics commonly thought to be important. As the famous “melting pot,” we are ethnically and racially diverse, we prohibit the establishment of a single religion, and our residents speak many different languages. What we do share, though, is a common history and commitment to ideals such as democracy and freedom. And for many years that was sufficient to create a very strong national identity and a great deal of national pride among the citizens of the US. For example, surveys consistently found that US citizens report levels of pride that are among the highest rates of any country in the world (Smith & Jarkko, 2001). In recent years, however, national pride has been declining in the US to an all-time low of 63% who are extremely or very proud to be American in 2020 (from a high of 92% in 2003; Branan, 2020). Political and racial divisions that have grown deeper over the last several years are related (and perhaps responsible for) this dramatic and rapid decrease.

You should realize that it is not a simple matter to state that national pride is automatically good, or as some people claim, national pride is automatically bad. When a country has extremely high levels of pride and a strong sense of ethnic identity, it can lead to abuse of people with other ethnic identities. In addition, nations that are seen as too proud can be resented by other countries throughout the world. At the same time, however, the rapid decline of pride in the US, as at least a reflection of the increasing (and increasingly damaging) political and racial divisions cannot be seen as a positive development, at least not yet. If it triggers a serious reflection that leads to real improvement in relationships across the political aisle and among different ethnic and racial groups, then we can change our assessment. Only time will tell, however.

When you wrote down aspects of your identity in the Activate section, did you include your ethnicity, nationality, or religion among the important parts?
Have you ever suffered from an identity crisis? If so, was it for your whole identity or just for specific aspects? How difficult was the experience? When do you expect the next period of adjustment for your identity will come?

17.4. Developing Gender Identity

What are some important (non-anatomical) differences between men and women? What do you think the causes of those differences are?
Do you tend to have traditional or non-traditional attitudes about the behavior that’s appropriate for females and males?

In section 25.3, we will move on to a discussion of the self-concept, but, first, we are going to spend some time on the topic of gender identity. Gender identity is one of the key components in our social identities, so we would be remiss if we left out this important topic. However, in future versions of this book, we will move this topic to the section in Module 17 where we discuss other aspects of identity development.

The concept of gender is complicated. While as previously mentioned, sex is more or less determined by nature or genes (except in cases of surgical transformation from one sex to another); gender is more obviously an interaction between nature and the environment. In essence, gender is a person’s feelings about their masculinity or femininity within a given culture. There are two related concepts you should think about when you examine gender in psychology. Gender identity is a person’s inner feelings about being male or female. Gender roles are the behaviors that a particular culture finds acceptable for males versus females.

The next thing we have to do is clarify something important. A person’s sex (based on their genitals, chromosomes, or internal organs) is not the same thing as their gender identity. Well, the simplest way to think about it is by considering the match or mismatch between an individual’s gender and biological sex. People for whom the two-match are referred to as cisgender . Individuals whose gender identity mismatch their biological sex are transgender .

Actually, psychologists have begun to recognize that gender identity is not even really binary. Some individuals are a mixture of genders, for example, bigender , in which someone identifies as both genders. Others are genderfluid , in which gender varies over time (from one to the other to both or neither). For example, Jonathan Van Ness, one of the stars of the Netflix show, Queer Eye has been quoted: “…somedays I feel like a boy and somedays I feel like a girl” (Tirado, 2019). Still, others do not identify with a gender at all, which is known as agender .

Underlying most psychological and everyday interest in the concept of gender is the obvious observation that men and women differ from each other. The important questions are how much and why?

agender : denotes a person who does not identify with a gender

bigender : denotes a person who identifies with both genders

cisgender : denotes a person who identifies as the gender that matches their biological sex

genderfluid : denotes a person whose gender identity changes over time

gender identity : a person’s inner feelings about being male or female

gender role : the behaviors that a particular culture finds acceptable for males versus females

transgender : denotes a person whose gender identity does not match their biological sex

How Different are Females and Males?

The dominant themes in all of the gender conceptions is maleness and femaleness, whether we are talking about presence and absence, stability, or degrees. For that reason, it is helpful to focus on that binary conception, as long as you remember observations about non-binariness that we just shared.

The short answer to this main question is that males and females differ enough in many characteristics that you will be able to notice the difference but won’t be able to predict anything about a person from their gender. Researchers typically report gender differences as an average difference between males and females. The size of that difference is, without exception, quite small. Furthermore, differences within a gender are, without exception, quite large. As a result, you will routinely find individuals who “violate” the gender difference.

Complicating matters somewhat is the unfortunate fact that most of the gender differences you have probably heard about are probably the oversimplified, “newspaper headline” kind. Let us illustrate with an example. “Everyone knows” that females are the emotional gender. Emotion is quite a complex phenomenon, however. There are specific aspects of emotions on which males and females tend to differ, such as emotional expressiveness. Females on average tend to be more emotionally expressive than males (Kring & Gordon, 1998). There is very wide variability within genders. There are females who are extremely expressive and females who are not, and there are males who are extremely expressive and males who are not. The result is that the average difference between males and females is dwarfed by the differences within the genders, and you will encounter many males, for example, who are more expressive than the average female. Thus, you cannot make any predictions about a person’s emotional expressiveness from knowing his or her gender.

At the same time, some gender differences are definitely noticeable. For example, Alice Eagly (1995) has noted that although within-gender variation is much larger than the average gender difference for frequency of smiling, 65% of females and 35% of males smile more than the average person.

Remember these points any time you hear, for example, that girls are better than boys in verbal ability and boys are better than girls in math. Girls do tend to learn language earlier than boys, and boys are more likely to have reading problems, but overall the differences are small and some of them tend to get smaller as children develop (Hyde and Linn, 1988). With respect to math, boys on average are better than girls at math problem solving, but only after adolescence. They also are overrepresented among the very small number of people who have very high math ability (Benbow et al. 2000). On the other hand, girls on average are better than boys at computation, and the genders are equal in how well they understand math concepts (Hyde, Fennema, & Lamon, 1990).

Why are Females and Males Different?

We are going to shift back to talking about biological sex now because a portion of our explanations for gender differences relies on it. Some people think that men and women are exactly alike; others that they are so different that they may as well be from different planets (Gray, 1993; 2008, no relation to one of the co-authors of this book). Contrary to both extreme views, research has shown consistent, noticeable, if small, average differences between men and women, or between boys and girls on various characteristics (Hyde, 2005). The question that remains is the origins of those differences. We can look at both nature (genes and hormones) and nurture (social learning). In order to describe the two types of influences clearly, let us pretend for a moment that it is either nature or nurture and discuss them separately.

A temporary dichotomy, part 1: Genes and hormones

In Module 15, you saw the important role of genes and hormones in the prenatal development of sex organs. Further, you saw in Module 22 that the two probably play a role in the childhood gender nonconformity that is strongly associated with non-heterosexual orientations. Although the notion has been controversial through the years, it is clear by now that biology plays a central role in the development of gender differences between boys and girls, beyond the obvious anatomical differences. Do not make the mistake of oversimplifying, however. Accepting the role of biological factors is not to deny a role for social factors—remember, this is a temporary dichotomy. You have seen a number of times in this book—for example, in the section on parenting styles—that psychological phenomena are always an interaction between nature and nurture. In some cases, it is not even clear how to distinguish between nature and nurture. Consider the prenatal role of hormones in gender development. Hormones are clearly biological substances, produced by a fetus on indirect orders from an X or Y chromosome. On the other hand, some hormones originate in the environment outside of the fetus, and the amounts of hormones produced by the fetus can be influenced by environmental factors. When it gets right down to it, it is difficult to clearly classify hormones as nature or nurture. In Module 22, we referred to hormones as a part of the non-social environment. We include them with genes on the nature side this time to draw a sharper distinction with the social environment explanations we will be sharing soon.

Prenatal hormones, in addition to their role in differentiation of fetal sex organs, play an important role in our gender identity through differentiation of our brains (Dennis, 2004; Maccoby, 2000; Ruble & Martin, 1998). Experimental research with rats has indicated that exposing a female prenatally to high levels of male hormones leads the females to learn to navigate a maze as well as males (male rats typically outperform females). It is tricky to generalize research results like this to humans; after all, we only know a few people whom we would equate with rats. There are cases of accidental or naturally occurring human prenatal exposure to the “wrong” sex hormones, however, and they are consistent with the rat research. For example, some fetuses have been exposed to a synthetically produced hormone, progestin, which is chemically similar to some androgens. It has been used as a drug for women who are at risk for miscarriages. Female children whose mothers received the drug exhibit some behaviors more commonly considered male-typical, such as aggression and independence (Reinisch & Saunders, 1984; Reinisch, 1981). Other children have suffered from genetic conditions that have caused them to receive too much or too little of the gender-appropriate hormones. Here, too, the research has tended to confirm the experimental results with rats. For example, some genetic girls suffer from a disorder called congenital adrenal hyperplasia. Their adrenal glands produce too many androgens during prenatal development (Ruble & Martin, 1998). Sometimes, when doctors catch it early, the condition is reversed, and the infants are raised as girls. Although they have a female gender identity, it is not as strongly female as in girls who had not been exposed to high levels of androgens (Collaer & Hines, 1995).

There are likely other direct effects of genes on gender formation, as well, but researchers have not yet uncovered details about what these effects might be (Dennis, 2004). Research with mice, for example, has found that some genes begin to express themselves differently in male versus female brains before hormones begin to play a role (Dewing et al., 2003). Altogether, we have a persuasive case for a critical role of hormones and genes on the development of differences between men and women. Let us now turn to the other side of the coin, to the role of social learning.

A temporary dichotomy, part 2: Social learning

There is little doubt that parents, other relatives, peers, and society have different expectations for boys and girls; these expectations are called gender roles. It is from the communication of these expectations—which begins essentially at birth—that children learn their own gender identity. From the first days of life, boys and girls are treated differently by many people that they encounter. Although parents often try to treat children of opposite genders similarly they do not always succeed. For example, a group of adults participating in a research study were given a one-year-old infant (not their own child) to engage in play. Each baby was addressed half the time as a girl, and half the time as a boy. When the baby was a “boy” the adults offered more boy-typical toys and encouraged more active play. When the baby was a “girl” the adults engaged in more nurturing style of play (Frisch, 1979).

Many parents do not even try to treat their female and male children similarly. But among those who do, there are many other messages in the environment that convey gender roles. Even if each individual message has only a small effect, the cumulative effect can be quite substantial. For example, imagine the birth of a baby girl whose parents disapprove of “girl” versus “boy” treatment. Well-meaning friends and relatives might want to respect the wishes of the parents, but they might also long to indulge their desire to dress a girl. So, they attempt to satisfy both goals. They very generously gave the infant girl two sets of clothes each. One relative gives her a yellow outfit to satisfy the parents and the pink one that they loved so much. Another gives a multicolored jumpsuit to keep the parents happy and a pink one that they could not resist. A third even gives a blue outfit. Oh, and there is that pink one that was on sale. And so on. At the end, half of the clothes the new daughter receives as gifts were pink, and the other half were spread among several other colors.

There are many possible sources of gender role information. In addition to the differential treatment of boys and girls, there is role modeling. Parents, siblings, teachers, peers, and the media have all contributed (Ruble & Martin, 1998). For example, a young boy would develop expectations about men’s and women’s roles by observing the division of household chores between his mother and father.

How Do Thinking and Gender Identity Interact?

When you meet a new classmate, one of the first facts you notice about the person is gender. It is worth noting that this is a cognitive phenomenon. Recall the discussion in Module 16 about Piaget’s conceptual schemes. They are used to interpret new experiences and to help us understand the world. Many modern researchers refer to these mental representations of categories as schemas . Gender, because it is emphasized in many (perhaps all) cultures, turns out to be a very important schema for people.

Sandra Bem (1981; 1993) has proposed a gender schema theory to explain how our gender-related cognitions help shape our gender identity. It is a great theory with which we can remind you of the interaction between cognitive and social development. A schema for a complex concept, such as male or female, would consist of a lot of information, such as physical characteristics, typical behaviors and activities, and so on. Gender schemas do more than simply helping us to recognize a particular person as male or female. They help organize and guide all of our knowledge about the concept. If a particular schema becomes active in memory, it means a great deal of related knowledge is available. The schema leads you to notice information consistent with it and to neglect information inconsistent with it. For example, suppose your schema for male contains the information that men are aggressive. You will tend to notice cases of men being aggressive. If this mental habit reminds you of the confirmation bias that we told you about in Modules 1 and 7, you should ask your professor for extra credit. The biasing power of a schema is indeed very closely related to the confirmation bias.

People also apply their gender schemas to themselves. Their expectations about the important aspects of gender can lead them to engage in “gender-appropriate” behaviors. In addition, they can compare their own behavior to their schema to help figure out aspects of their own gender. For example, an assertive woman whose gender schema contains the information that women are submissive may think of herself as less feminine. You can now begin to see how a person’s way of thinking about gender becomes an important determinant of that person’s gender identity.

Try to think of some errors that you have made about someone else, or that someone else has made about you as a result of assuming something from your gender. Did the error lead to any conflict or bad feelings?

17.5 Friendship and Intimacy

Think about your oldest friend (meaning the friend you have had the longest). How has your relationship changed over the years? Think about your best friend (even if it is the same person). What makes you such good friends? What are the specific benefits the two of you gain from the friendship?
Think about a casual friend. What are the main differences between your relationship with this person and with your best friend?

Friendships begin very early in life. But there are profound differences between the friendships you can observe between young children and between a pair of twenty-year-olds. These differences roughly correspond to the person’s developing capacity for emotional intimacy. Again we will return to childhood to help us understand friendship and intimacy later in life.

What is friendship? This turns out to be a difficult question for psychologists to answer, in part because friendship can mean different things to different people. With so many different kinds of relationships between people, it is not surprising that there would be disagreement regarding what constitutes a friendship. Let me propose that we define friendship as a relationship between two people that they choose to create and that is based on mutual affection or fondness or liking. According to this definition, shared interests and activities—for example, between classmates, teammates, or co-workers—are not by themselves sufficient bases for friendship, although friendship can develop from them. Other characteristics that people might like to include in a definition of friendship, such as trusting and self-disclosing, might be more useful at judging the strength or quality of a friendship, rather than whether or not the relationship is a friendship.

Childhood Friendship

Many of the young infants’ cognitive abilities seem especially geared to promoting the growth of social relationships. These abilities are not applied solely to caregivers and other adults, however, and they are very important components of developing friendships. Infants show a great interest in other infants, at least by the last three months of the first year; for example, they commonly look at, smile at, and imitate each other (Rubin, Bukowski, & Parker, 1998). During the second year, infants’ social interactions become quite a bit more active and impressive, often involving games of mutual imitation of complex behavior (Brownell, 1990; Hanna & Meltzoff, 1993; Ross, 1982). Although you cannot always tell by the behavior that goes on in my household, two-year-olds also know how to take turns. These older infants’ interest in other children is selective; they choose to associate with some children and not with others (Strayer, 1990). They prefer familiar and sociable playmates, and children that have similar behavioral tendencies and other characteristics (Howes, 1983; 1988; Rubin et al., 1994). Thus, with the children’s demonstration of preferences, even these early relationships contain an important component of friendship.

You can see the increasing complexity of social interactions among preschoolers by examining the ways that they play. Most children between the ages of two and five engage in solitary, group, and parallel play (playing alongside other children, but not really with them), so it is not simply whether or not the child plays alone that reveals their social development. Rather, it appears that parallel play serves a different function for older preschoolers; it is an important way for the children to approach each other. First, they play next to each other, and then they begin to play together (Bakeman & Brownlee, 1980). Another difference that emerges during the later preschool years is a large increase in the frequency of pretend play. Although literally child’s play, a five-year-olds’ ability to share meanings and symbols with playmates through pretending shows a remarkable repertoire of cognitive and social abilities. They must be able to imagine and fulfill complementary roles, such as husband and wife when playing “house,” and the children must agree with each other about the roles and the rules by which pretend scenarios will operate (Rubin, Bukowski, & Parker, 1998). Again, this sharing and collaborating between young children, important as they are for increasing bonds of affection, indicate an increased capacity to form and retain friendships.

Despite these impressive social abilities in evidence in their relationships, young children still define their friendships based on shared activities; they are friends because they do things or play with the same toys together (Berndt & Perry, 1986; Hartup, 1993). It is during the elementary and middle school years that we see a shift toward a less “object-oriented” definition of friendship. By age 10, children realize that friends need each other, that they stick up for and are loyal to each other, and that they share interests and not simply activities (Bigelow, 1977; Zarbatany, McDougall, & Hymel, 2000). They have been moving toward it for a while, but children at this age are now ready to begin their attempts at building intimacy . They make efforts to understand each other and are self-disclosing, able to share private thoughts, fears, and feelings (Bigelow, 1977; Clark & Bittle, 1992; Hamm, 2000). Think about the game “Truth or Dare.” When a group of nine-year-olds plays this game, it often devolves quickly into an uninterrupted succession of goofy dares. Twelve-year-old friends, on the other hand, are likely to include many “truth” rounds, in which the players take turns disclosing their private thoughts.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=d9HH3pTmHz8

Adolescent and Adult Friendship

Adolescents continue the trend of redefining friendship to include shared thoughts and feelings, and loyalty (Berndt & Perry, 1990). What they are doing is increasingly recognizing the importance of quality friendships (Berndt, 2002) and emphasizing intimacy in their friendships (Buhrmester, 1996). They also become less possessive. Younger children often act as if friendship is exclusive: if he is my friend, he cannot be yours. Adolescents recognize that their friends can have other friends (Rubin, Bukowski, & Parker, 1998). In part because of their increasing focus on friendship quality, adolescents depend on their friends more than younger children do. They also depend more on their friends than on their parents to meet their emotional needs (Furman & Buhrmester, 1992), and they spend much more time with friends than parents—in one study, double the amount of time (Csikszentmihalyi and Larson, 1984). As was true for younger children, adolescents are similar to their friends; similarity is more broadly defined, however. For example, adolescent friends tend to have similar ethnicities, genders, school achievement, and attitudes about many aspects of life (Hamm, 2000; Hartup, 1993; Youniss & Haynie, 1992).

Friendship in young adulthood changes in a way that most people would guess. Because parenting and work require so much time and effort in young adults’ lives, their friendships often end up tied to these activities. Newlyweds have the largest number of friends, more even than children and adolescents (Hartup & Stevens, 1999). As people get older, their circle of friends gets smaller. Time spent with friends declines steadily, from one-third of an adolescent’s waking hours to less than 10% of a middle-aged person’s day.

Friendship in adulthood resembles friendship in adolescence in important ways. Both types of friendships are characterized by intimacy and self-disclosure, and emotional support. Adolescent and adult friendships differ mainly in the contexts in which these behaviors occur; an adolescent friend may provide emotional support during a breakup with a steady boyfriend or girlfriend, while an adult friend does so during a divorce.

Psychologists have paid a great deal of attention to gender differences in friendship. On the whole, women tend to report higher levels of intimacy in their friendships than men do. Women’s friendships tend to be based more on talking and providing emotional support for each other, whereas men’s tend to be based more on sharing activities (Sapadin, 1988). In this way, then, many men’s friendships are reminiscent of young children’s friendships. Now, we are not saying that men are children. Many men do have friendships in which self-disclosure and support are key features, and the differences between men and women grow smaller later in life.

Some other characteristics of our friendships change as we age, as well. According to the socio-emotional selectivity theory (Carstensen, Isaacowitz, & Charles, 1999), our circle of friends grows smaller and more selective. As we age, we are more motivated to seek positive emotions and have less need for friends to serve information needs, resulting in a more carefully chosen, and therefore smaller, group of friends.

We will have quite a bit more to say about friendship and other intimate relationships in Module 23, when we take a non-developmental approach to some of these concepts, so stay tuned.

Think about your best male friend and your best female friend. Are the differences between the two friendships consistent with the general differences between men’s and women’s friendships?
At what age did emotional intimacy become an important aspect of your friendships? What were your friendships like before and after this time?

an emotional bond between a child and another specific person, often (but not necessarily) a parent

biologically-based differences in a person’s emotional and motor reactions to new stimuli, and tendencies regarding self-regulation

a research technique in which groups of participants are followed over time in order to examine changes in individuals

parenting style characterized by demands for unquestioning obedience; often makes use of harsh and physical punishment

parenting style characterized by few demands and rules for children

parenting style characterized by firm rules for children, along with explanation of the rules and an opportunity for children to have some autonomy

parenting style characterized by a lack of attention to and care for children

the proportion of variability in a trait throughout a group that is related to genetic differences in the group

people’s sense of self, the important aspects of their lives that make them unique

Developmental period during which children become more intentional and systematic their planning and goal pursuit

religious commitment

a person’s inner feelings about being male or female.

the behaviors that a particular culture finds acceptable for males versus females.

denotes a person who identifies as the gender that matches their biological sex

denotes a person whose gender identity does not match their biological sex

denotes a person who identifies with both genders

denotes a person whose gender identity changes over time

denotes a person who does not identify with a gender

a mental representation of a category

a relationship between two people that they choose to create and is based on mutual affection

understanding and sharing private thoughts, fears, and feelings with another person

Introduction to Psychology Copyright © 2020 by Ken Gray; Elizabeth Arnott-Hill; and Or'Shaundra Benson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Essays About Development: Top 5 Examples and 10 Prompts

Would you like to develop your writing skills? Our essays about development plus enriching prompts can help with this goal.

Mahatma Gandhi once said, “constant development is the law of life.” Hence, the best way to succeed in life is to conform to this law. Once we do, we embrace the vast opportunities and surprises in the never-ending development cycle. Development, whether within ourselves, in a certain field, or the greater world we live in, requires allocating various resources in the form of time, action, and even financial capital.

5 Essay Examples

1. why intersectional feminism matters for development by aviva stein, 2. how video games are made: the game development process by nadia stefyn, 3. why industrial development matters now more than ever before by li yong, 4. bangladesh really is a climate success story by joyashree roy, 5. what role does culture play in development by augusto lopez-claros, 1. my personal development goals, 2. importance of socialization in childhood development, 3. effects of the digital age on intellectual development, 4. economic growth vs. economic development, 5. united nations’ sustainable development goals, 6. urban development, 7. keeping pace with technological development, 8. winning strategies for career development, 9. challenges and perks of a business development manager, 10. education in development.

“Using an intersectional feminist lens to dig deeper into the factors that affect and hinder efforts for equality also allows us as development professionals to design programs, interventions, and support systems that aim to dismantle systems of inequality.”

This essay looks into intersectional feminism and the importance of inclusion. “Intersectional” means recognizing how different people live different experiences. Integrating an intersectional lens in feminist development work enables experts to design and implement programs that address inequality effectively. You might also be interested in these essays about bad habits .

“Much like a production line, the game development pipeline helps organize the flow of work so that everyone knows what they need to deliver and when. The pipeline also helps manage the game development timeline and budget, reducing inefficiencies and bottlenecks.”

This essay walks readers through the video game development process while also introducing the different critical players of the ecosystem. Overall, the piece provides budding game developers with a comprehensive resource on the basics of the industry.

“Economists of the 20th century noted that a thriving industrial sector was crucial to the development of a modern economy, and in 2010, Cambridge economist Ha-Joon Chang observed that development without industrialization is like Shakespeare’s Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark.”

Creating a narrative out of data, this essay underscores the need to push for industrialization to further economies’ development. It sheds light on the myriad benefits of manufacturing on social development but also confronts the environmental challenges of the sector.

Looking for more? Check out these essays about empathy and essays about gratitude .

“In the 50 years since the Bhola cyclone, the nation has carved out a path to development thanks to natural gas. Turning away from that path precipitously would strand the nation’s fossil-fuel assets and undermine its hard-won sovereignty and development gains.”

The essay demonstrates the determination of Bangladesh to bounce back from one of the deadliest cyclones in history. Now the fastest-growing economy in South Asia, Bangladesh marks a unique development journey that runs against the popular belief of patterning development strategies after those of more developed countries in the West. You might also like these essays about your mom .

“Development is not only about reducing poverty and expanding opportunities against the background of rising incomes. It is also in a very fundamental way about adopting a set of values that are compatible with humanity’s moral development.”

Integrating culture in discussions about development has been a longstanding challenge. But this essay points out that we might have been misled to categorize some development factors as cultural and, as a result, missed out on the proper way to resolve problems at their roots.

10 Unique Writing Prompts On Essays About Development

Whether it be acquiring a second language or graduating college with flying colors, use this essay to discuss your personal development goals and proudly share your progress in putting them into action. And then, write a commitment to keep sight of your personal development goals and what you think you should do more to achieve them in the most efficient way you can.

Essays About Development: Importance of socialization in childhood development

Socialization helps kids learn how to take turns and manage conflicts that arise from their play and interactions with other kids. Look for the latest research studies that show how the development of social skills relates to a child’s overall physical, intellectual, and emotional development.

Then, list the challenges in helping kids socialize more, given how gadgets are becoming a kid’s best friend for entertainment. Finally, include solutions and consider how society can encourage kids to have positive socialization experiences.

Digital technologies have certainly enabled wide-scale access to information and data that can expand our horizons. However, they also discourage the exercise of cognitive and analytical skills because the information is served on a silver platter.

For this writing prompt, list the pros and cons of digital technologies in improving thinking skills and take the time to assess how each affects our intellectual development, including relevant studies to support your arguments.

In this essay, aim to find out whether economic growth and economic development are independent or inextricably linked, such that economic development is not possible without economic growth and vice versa.

For this, you can turn to the innovative insights of economists Simon Kuznets and Joseph Schumpeter. The creation of the Human Development Index is also worth delving into as it is one of the most ambitious metrics that emerged to measure the economy beyond the national income accounting framework .

The United Nations has 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted in September 2015 and targeted to be attained by 2030 to end global poverty while addressing issues such as inequality and climate change.

In your essay, explain these goals, their origins, and their relevance to today’s challenges. Then find out whether it is on track through the latest SDG report . You can also pick just one SDG close to your personal and get updates on the world’s progress in realizing this goal. Dive into politics in this essay and determine if the UN is on track and adhering to its promises.

True urban development can happen only if security, sanitation, and climate resilience are part of the equation. In this essay, outline the challenges of balancing rapid urbanization with the need to provide people with a decent environment for living.

Expound on the importance of urban development in reducing poverty. Finally, underscores the enormous role city governments have in steering urban development through a human-centric approach.

We hear about incredible technological advancements every day, but there has been little development in the regulatory sphere. Elaborate on policy and lawmakers’ challenges in coping with nimble tech companies.

Some primary challenges include the extraordinary complexity of technologies and the long period it takes to pass a law. In your writing, offer insights into how the government and private sector can join hands and balance strict regulations and self-regulation.

Career development is the journey of finding your place in the professional world. Flesh out the importance of having a career development game plan and how to implement them. Then take a glimpse at the sea shift in career development amid our present VUCA world. Specifically, analyze how younger professionals are carving out their careers and how companies design professional development plans within a VUCA environment.

With the fierce competition in today’s markets, how should business development managers think and act to drive their company’s sales growth? Strive to answer this by researching business journals and news articles to discover today’s most pressing challenges business development managers face. But also look on the bright side to flesh out the job’s pros, such as gaining new experiences and expanding your connections.

Essays About Development: Education in development

This writing prompt highlights the critical role of schools in a child’s overall development and what teaching techniques are proven to be most effective in training a child. To expand your essay, add COVID-19’s long-term debilitating impact on human capital development and how this translates to economic losses. Then, write about the lessons teachers and parents can learn from the pandemic to arrest future global disruptions from affecting the accessibility, delivery, and quality of education.

Tip: When editing for grammar, we also recommend improving the readability score of a piece before publishing or submitting it. If you’d like more help with your essays, check out our round-up of the best essay checkers .

Yna Lim is a communications specialist currently focused on policy advocacy. In her eight years of writing, she has been exposed to a variety of topics, including cryptocurrency, web hosting, agriculture, marketing, intellectual property, data privacy and international trade. A former journalist in one of the top business papers in the Philippines, Yna is currently pursuing her master's degree in economics and business.

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Essay on Sociology

Example Of Essay On Social Development

Type of paper: Essay

Topic: Sociology , Leadership , Discrimination , Culture , Development , Community , Family , Theory

Published: 12/12/2019

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Man is thought to be a social creature. There are many factors that come into play as man develops this social nature right from childhood to adulthood. There are various stages and agents that lead to this development. The essay below discusses some of the issues related to development of the social nature in an individual.

Social Development

Question 1:

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is significant to the social development of an individual. This is because the hypothesis has it that the language that an individual learns has great effect on the way an individual shapes the reality of culture. As such, the language affects the perception that an individual has on reality, thereby influencing his thoughts and actions (Anon, 2012). As such, it can be seen that this hypothesis is important to the social development of an individual. An important factor to note in this case is that language is determined by culture and has a great effect on the way an individual understands or pays attention to some aspects of life.

Ethnocentrism is a situation where an individual feels that his culture is superior to all the other cultures. This leads to a kind of pride where an individual looks down upon others simply because they do not share a culture. It leads to discrimination and lack of equality. For instance, there can be a form of discrimination in instances where the whites look at the Hindu culture as more primitive as compared to theirs. Cultural relativism, on the other hand, refers to the situation where an individual views others’ behavior from the perspective of his culture. As such, it can lead to peaceful co-existence as it advocates for understanding the cultures of others rather than dismissing them as exotic.

Question 3:

Mead’s theory of social development looks at the individual development in various stages. From the theory, it can be assumed that the self develops through various stages such as the imitation or preparatory stage where the individual tends to copy what he sees from others. Then comes the play stage where the individual learns how to take roles. The third stage is the game stage where the individual can multi-task and handles several issues at a go. The final stage is the generalized other where the individual can fully identify with the issues in the society. The self becomes multi-faceted and can therefore handle various social issues (Keel, 2011).

As an individual goes through all these development processes, his social skills continue increasing. As such, the higher an individual is in these stages, the more advanced he is in his social development.

Question 4:

There are various agents of development which play a very significant role in the development of an individual. One of these agents is the peer group. As an individual develops, most interactions occur around the people that the individual interacts with. As such, the values, behaviors and aspects of culture that an individual adopts are greatly influenced by the peer group. The peer values tend to be transferred into the individual, hence define who an individual becomes.

There is also the family unit. Right from the beginning, an individual belongs to a family unit. As such, there are various issues that an individual picks from the family. For instance, there is the language, formative social interactions, relationships, rules, role models, behavior, and the morals (ednet.ns.ca, 2012). All these are shaped at the family level and they greatly influence what the individual becomes and how he interacts with those around him. As such, it can be said that the family is the first stage where an individual encounters socialization aspects.

Anonymous. (2012). Chapter 3: Culture. (pdf) Ednet.ns.ca. (2012). Agents of Socialization. Retrieved on 28th March 2012 from http://hrsbstaff.ednet.ns.ca/mskinner/Sociology/Socialization/agents_of_socialization.htm Keel, R.O. (2011). George Herbert Mead: Social Behaviorism. Retrieved on 28th March 2012 from http://www.umsl.edu/~keelr/3210/3210_lectures/mead.html

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Alpha Scholars Fall/Winter 2023-2024 Medal Winners

Alpha Scholars is a rigorous social science research program that teaches college-level research, writing and presentation skills to high school students in support of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Students work one-on-one with Harvard student mentors in advanced study and research of a topic related to their chosen SDG, culminating in a 15-page research paper and 15-minute presentation.

Congratulations to all Fall/Winter 2023-2024 medal winners on the quality of your research papers!

Aguirre, Kiara. Innova Schools Bertello, Peru . “ Unveiling the Peruvian Coca Leaf Trade: A Comparative Study of the Impact of the National Coca Enterprise in the VRAEM vs La Convencion ”

Laanait, Tristan. Fulton Science Academy, USA . “ An Analysis of the Barriers Facing the Implementation of Duckweed Wastewater Phytoremediation Systems in Low-Income Developing Countries ”

Wu, Jasmine. Taipei Wego Private Senior High School, Taiwan . “ Examining the Impacts of Debt-for-Nature Swaps: Insights from Peru, Indonesia, and Brazil ”

Silver Medal

Chun, Kaylee. La Canada High School, USA . “ Variation of Involuntary Hospitalization Rates in America: A Florida Case Study ”

Cruz, Valentina Vale Farias. Colégio Militar de Fortaleza, Brazil . “ Promoting Quality Education: Introducing Academic Olympiads as a Mechanism for Accomplishing Global Citizenship in Brazil ”

Malinović, Desanka. Barry Goldwater High School, USA . “ Post-war Posts: An Exploration Into How Instagram May Aid in Relearning the History of the Yugoslavian Civil War ”

Pereira, Yasmim Gabriel. Colégio Militar de Campo Grande, Brazil . “ Future Political Agenda: An Analysis of the COVID-19 Pandemic’s Implications on Teenage Students’ Mental Health in Brazil ”

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Bobbala, Aadhya. Keystone School, USA . “Education is a Need, Not a Want: A Descriptive and Comparative Analysis of Obstacles to Girls’ Education in India, Afghanistan, and Pakistan”

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CREDIT 24/03: Implications of AfCFTA tariff reductions for EAC exports to Africa

Abstract .

This paper provides estimates of the potential for EAC member countries to increase exports to the rest of Africa under AfCFTA, assuming the other countries reduce tariffs on imports from the EAC. We adopt a simple approach to identify the markets (countries) and products most likely to benefit and consider only growth of existing imports from the EAC; the assumption is that EAC have evident export capacity in such products and markets, and that these products are unlikely to be excluded from liberalisation by African importing countries. Results suggest that the EAC could expand exports overall by 10-15%, largely concentrated in relatively close countries and agriculture and resource-based products. Relatively distant markets in North and West Africa do offer potential to EAC countries except Rwanda (concentrated on DRC) and Tanzania (concentrated on Southern Africa). These estimates are complemented with analysis of the welfare effects on Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda of eliminating tariffs on imports from the rest of Africa – overall imports increase by around 10% and, as these tend not to displace intra-EAC trade, the consumption gains from lower prices deliver a positive welfare effect (negligible relative to GDP). The EAC can anticipate moderate gains from AfCFTA and, by identifying the markets and products most likely to be affected, the study provides a guide to policymakers in EAC countries on sectors to target in supporting export growth within Africa.

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Evious Zgovu and Oliver Morrissey

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CREDIT 24/03: Implications of AfCFTA tariff reductions for EAC exports
Centre for Research in Economic Development and International Trade. Sir Clive Granger Building University of Nottingham University Park Nottingham, NG7 2RD

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What is Social Development? Meaning, Types, Examples, Theories

Different Approaches to Social Development:

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Article contents

Towards a Strong Foundation: Social and Emotional Development in Young Children

Social and Emotional Development and Foundational Relationships

The Role of Experience and Context Including Stress and Vulnerability

Supporting Family Well-Being and Social and Emotional Development

Social Development in the World Bank

Earth3000, Bieberstein, Germany

Edmund Walsh School, Georgetown University, Washington, DC, USA

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Table of contents (20 chapters)

The Road to Achieving a Critical Mass of Sociologists and Anthropologists in the World Bank

Address to the World Bank Sociological Group

Social Analysis in the World Bank

Social Sciences at the World Bank and the Broadening of the Development Paradigm

The Direct and Major Operational Relevance of Social Assessments

Social Analysis in Project Lending: Writing New Rules and Changing Old Practices

Social Development Work—Live

Anthropology at Work

Social Development (Excerpts from Her 2004 Oral History)

Putting People First in Practice: Indonesia and the Kecamatan Development Program

The World Bank and Indigenous Peoples

The Need for Social Research and the Broadening of CGIAR’s Paradigm

Fighting Poverty, Combatting Social Exclusion

Involuntary Resettlement

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Social Development in Children Essay

The Importance of Education for Personal and Social Development

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17 Module 17: Social Development

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17.1 Social Bonds: Attachment

Why Infants Are Attached to Caregivers

Attachment Styles

Consequences of Attachment