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Remember junior high?
PreTeens have mostly finished developing. Their brains have all the right parts in the right places but refinements are still being made. Mostly they think like adults…like adults with poorly functioning frontal lobes.
PreTeens are highly involved with each other. Peers are very important and treated as a separate track from parents. Basically, they are about to enter adolescence and there is no known cure.
Here’s what is included in this lesson:
- Peer groups
- Coping strategies
- Learned helplessness
- Horney
- Erikson
Mind Map
Notes
- Groups
- Social group
- Unity, interdependency & traditions
- Primary group vs secondary
- Small & close (family, BFF)
- Work & school friends
- Reference group
- Refer-defer for making decisions
- A good example: peer group
- Peer group
- Same age, SES, interests
- Patterns of behavior
- Talk with parents about school
- Talk with friends about sex
- Source of information
- Teach gender roles
- Peers groups only one sex
- Restrictive views
- Less dependent on parents
- Transition to independence
- Identity formation
- Experiment with identities
- Hierarchical Structure
- Acceptance
- Rejection
- Social group
- Peers & Popularity
- Coie & Dodge, 1988
- Kids rated how much they like or dislike each classmates
- Used responses to classify them into five groups
- 5 Category Labels
- 1. Popular children
- Lots of positive votes
- Few negative votes
- Popular children (In)
- 2. Rejected children
- Lots of negative votes
- Few positive votes
- Rejected children (Out)
- Not one of us
- 3. Average children
- Medium positive & negative
- 4. Neglected children
- Few positive votes
- Few negative votes
- Neither extreme; unnoticed
- 5. Controversial children
- Lots of positive & negative votes
- Either love me or hate me
- Coie & Dodge, 1988
- Inside-Outside
- Helps us define ourselves
- Widely used for group cohesion
- Us-Them
- Good-Bad
- Have-Not
- Helps us define ourselves
- Widely used for group cohesion
- Prejudice
- Not a real Martian
- Peers & Bullying
- Peer Victimization
- School shootings
- Peer beatings
- Suicides
- Bullying
- Research has looked at:
- Bully-victim relationships
- What leads victims to experience negative outcomes
- How widespread problem
- Research has proven problematic; no clear answers
- Low & high school engagement
- Low & high school achievement
- Low & high self-esteem
- Learned helplessness
- Learned Helplessness
- Helplessness is learned
- Don’t respond to $ when the probability of success is low
- Don’t choose available options
- Clinical depression?
- Mental illness?
- Perceived absence of control
- Maladaptive coping strategy
- Coping strategies
- Coping = conscious effort to reduce stress
- Goes by many names
- Coping mechanisms
- Coping strategies
- Coping skills
- Defense mechanisms (Freud)
- Unconscious strategies
- 3 Coping Categories
- Change the mix periodically
- People use a combination
- 1. Appraisal-focused
- Change thinking
- Distancing from problem
- Reframe situation
- Deny it exists
- Alter goals
- Humor
- 2. Problem-focused
- Reduce stressor stimulus
- Make stressor go away
- Focus on cause
- 3. Emotion-focused
- Change emotional reaction
- Release energy
- Meditate & relax
- Distract
- Change emotional reaction
- Proactive Coping
- Positive techniques
- Anticipate the problem
- Decide how going to cope
- Social coping (support)
- Meaning-focused: derive meaning from situation
- Avoid stressful thoughts
- Avoid stressful situations; alcoholics & bars
- Maladaptive Coping
- Negative techniques
- Work in short term
- That’s why we do them
- Examples
- Dissociation (compartmentalize)
- Escape (e.g., self-mediation)
- Sensitization (numbing)
- Anxious avoidance
- Too much = Neurotic
- Karen Horney
- 10 Neurotic Needs
- Exaggerated need for ______
- Affection, approval, power
- Productive coping
- Moving with (go with flow)
- 3 Neurotic Strategies
- Moving toward (appeasement)
- Moving against (attack)
- Moving away (withdraw)
- 10 Neurotic Needs
- Erik Erikson (1902-1994)
- No college degree
- Started progressive, non-graded, Montessori style school in Vienna
- Analyzed by Anna Freud
- Identity Crisis
- Ego
- Maintains effective performance (not just avoid anxiety)
- Organizing capacity (can reconcile discontinuities & ambiguities)
- Sees people as:
- Creative problem solvers
- With adaptive defenses
- Overview of Stages
- Children try to understand world
- Go through same stage
- Each has a social dimension
- Epigenetic (upon emergence)
- Sequential & hierarchical
- Personality becomes more complex
- Critical periods; not strict time limits
- They overlap; don’t disappear when next stage starts
- Each has its own “life crisis” & virtue
- Erikson’s Stages
- 1. Trust vs distrust: Hope
- 2. Autonomy vs shame-doubt: Will
- 3. Initiative vs guilt: Purpose
- 4. Industry vs inferiority: Competence
- 5. Ego identity vs role confusion: Fidelity
- Reconstruct roles & skills into a mature sense of identity
- Role confusion = Don’t perceive self as productive member of society
- Identify crisis = failure to establish stable identity
- Negative identity
- Opposed to dominant values of their upbringing
- My Dad doesn’t control me
- 6. Intimacy vs isolation: Love
- 7. Generativity vs stagnation: Care
- 8. Ego integrity vs despair: Wisdom
Terms
- adaptive defenses
- anxious avoidance
- appraisal-focused category
- autonomy vs shame-doubt
- average children
- blended families (reconstituted) = marriage with children from previous marriages
- bullying
- care
- competence
- controversial children
- coping
- coping mechanisms
- coping skills
- coping strategies
- coregulation = dynamic social interaction, change voice & expressions as needed
- creative problem solvers
- critical period
- defense mechanisms (Freud)
- dissociation (compartmentalize)
- divorce mediation = negotiated divorce settlement led by non-lawyer or non-representing lawyer
- ego
- ego identity vs role confusion
- ego integrity vs despair
- emotion-centered coping = reduce stress by lowering negative feelings, might not solve problem
- emotion-focused category
- epigenetic
- Erikson, Erik
- escape (e.g., self-mediation)
- fidelity
- generativity vs stagnation
- groups
- hierarchical stages
- hierarchical structure
- hope
- Horney, Karen
- identify crisis
- Identity formation
- industry versus inferiority = Erikson’s 4th stage of development; the virtue is competence
- industry vs inferiority
- initiative vs guilt
- intimacy vs isolation
- joint custody = legal status, after divorce, both parents make decisions about child’s life
- learned helplessness
- life crisis
- love
- maladaptive coping
- mastery-oriented attributions = credit success to ability & hard work
- moving against
- moving away
- moving toward
- negative identity
- neglected children
- neurotic
- neurotic needs
- neurotic strategies
- peer acceptance = quality of relationships with peeers
- peer group
- peer victimization
- perspective taking = able to understand what others might be thinking
- phobia = irrational fear
- popular children
- popular-antisocial children = accepted by peers (liked) but don’t work well with others
- popular-prosocial children = accepted by peers (liked) and work well with others
- prejudice
- primary group
- proactive coping
- problem-centered coping
- problem-focused category
- productive coping
- purpose
- reference group
- rejected children
- rejected-aggressive children = rejected by peers (not liked) and confrontational
- rejected-withdrawn children = rejected by peers (not liked) and shy
- role confusion
- school achievement
- school engagement
- secondary group
- self-care children = under 14 but mostly without parental supervision
- sensitization (numbing)
- sequential stages
- social comparisons = Festinger’s theory, drive to get accurate assessment of self
- social coping
- social group
- trust vs distrust
- unconscious strategies
- virtue
- will
- wisdom
Quiz
- 1. Who described 10 Neurotic Needs?
- a. Erikson
- b. Skinner
- c. Horney
- d. Freud
- 2. Perceived absence of control is called:
- a. positive reinforcement
- b. positive punishment
- c. learned helplessness
- d. role confusion
- 3. Children who are disliked by most of their peers are:
- a. preoperational children
- b. controversial children
- c. rejected children
- d. average children
- 4. Coping by altering your goals, thinking or cognitive frame is:
- a. appraisal-focused
- b. problem-focused
- c. emotion-focused
- d. appeasement
- 5. People you defer to when making decisions become your:
- a. learned helplessness
- b. authoritarian core
- c. corporate center
- d. reference group
Answers
- 1. Who described 10 Neurotic Needs?
- a. Erikson
- b. Skinner
- c. Horney
- d. Freud
- 2. Perceived absence of control is called:
- a. positive reinforcement
- b. positive punishment
- c. learned helplessness
- d. role confusion
- 3. Children who are disliked by most of their peers are:
- a. preoperational children
- b. controversial children
- c. rejected children
- d. average children
- 4. Coping by altering your goals, thinking or cognitive frame is:
- a. appraisal-focused
- b. problem-focused
- c. emotion-focused
- d. appeasement
- 5. People you defer to when making decisions become your:
- a. learned helplessness
- b. authoritarian core
- c. corporate center
- d. reference group
Summary
Bonus
Photo credit
Photo by Thomas Park on Unsplash
