2.5 Emotional, social and personality development  (Page 2/4)

Because children are at a similar intellectual and emotional level as other children, their confidence and smoothness in interacting is probably going to be higher. Also, similar interests and physical development would lead to greater identification. Kids could view adults to see how they can improve, and with children their own age they can identify and become more comfortable with themselves.

• In a volume titled “Identity: Youth and Crisis” Erikson, E. H. (1968). Identity: Youth and Crisis. New York: Norton. Erik Erikson asserted that close relationships with others are not possible until identity development is complete, because intimacy requires knowing and sharing the self.

I think that it makes sense that as self identity develops, relations with others will improve. Not necessarily that identity development needs to be complete – children of all ages can form close relationships even though they haven’t fully developed yet. If animals like dogs can form close relationships, then young children shouldn’t have a problem doing it even though they might not be strong in their identity.

• Three psychoanalytic writers - Harry Stack Sullivan, Peter Blos and Erik Erikson asserted that intimacy, empathy and loyalty in peer relationships emerge mainly in the second decade of life.

In order for close relationships involving empathy, intimacy and loyalty to occur, it makes sense that children would need to be confident with who they are first because without confidence it would be hard to be confident experiencing intimate emotions. Those emotions involve a sense of security that isn’t present unless someone is confident in who they are. It is possible to be close to someone, like how animals can be close to people, but to experience real intimacy, empathy and loyalty a much larger amount of development would need to occur.

• A “behavior system” is a partnership whereby the individual is empathic to the needs and feelings of the partner, and functions to maintain ties between an individual and his or her partners. There are four types of systems believed to dominate interpersonal relationships –attachment, caretaking, affiliative and sexual/reproductive. In the early years the attachments system dominates parent-child relations but in adolescence it functions reconfigured and less prominently in peer and romantic relationships. The affiliative system includes play, cooperation, collaboration and reciprocity is present in initial parent-child relations but later dominates relations between childhood peers. Weiss, R.S. (1986). Continuities and transformations in social relationships from childhood to adulthood. In W.W. Hartup&Rubin, Z. (Eds.), Relationships and development (pp.95-111). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Romantic relationships in adolescence incorporate all four systems.

It is important how the people in relationships view these types of attachments. Someone could become more selfish in a relationship simply by considering the other person as contributing everything in the relationship, instead of viewing the relationship as reciprocal. There is an overlap and similarity between the types of attachment. For instance you could compare an affiliative relationship to a caretaking relationship, and learn from that that maybe even in play there is caretaking. Emotionally there might also be a large overlap, it might feel like a romantic relationship is like a friendship even though you would label the relationship as a romantic one.