HumanBecoming

Social Behavior

Technical Characteristics

Childrens social behavior is partially shaped by endogenous factors like temperament, cognitive development and personality traits. For example, personality development research tells us that children who show signs of emotional reactivity tend to withdraw in social situations. Whereas children that have higher levels of extraversion have a tendency to instigate group play and social interactions (Personality Development in the context of individual traits & parenting dynamics). Another important role in endogenous factors is cognitive mechanisms. Children use internal models to predict their peers' possible actions during play. This aids the practicing of conflict resolution and cognitive empathy. (Play in Cognitive Development from Rational Construtivism to Preditive Processing). While these endogenuos influences give insight to social propensity, it does not fully dictate the outcomes.

Social behavior is also shaped by environmental influences, like peers, cultural experience and caregivers (nurture/exogenous). Narrative tools such as childrens storybooks offer culturally valued emotional reactions, such as teaching excitement is some cultures and calmness in others. This shows that socialization (such as storytelling) teaches children how to express their emotions. (Tsai es al. 2007). An essentialism study also revealed that children who are susceptible to fixed group traits, tend to be more likely to have biased opinions towards peers. For example, believing some children are inherently 'bad' or 'good' at certain social behaviors(The Development and Developmental Consequences of Social Essentialism). Parenting practices also influence childrens social behaviors. The cultural shifts with parents prioritizing either obidience or independence. The shifts in type of caregiving has been proven to affect childrens emotional regulation (There Used To Be A Consensus On How To Raise Kids).

Expected growth trajectory / needs as a function of age

The expected growth trajectory for social behavior is relatively straight forward, heavily impacted by both exogenous and endogenous factors.

In early childhood (ages 0-5), caregivers (parents, babsitters, extended family) are extremely influencial in guiding social behavior. Children go from parallel play, not nessecarily interacting or sharing, to collaberative play, being able to regulate early emotions (Tsai el al., 2007).

In Middle childhood (ages 6-11), children start to develop empathy and peer relationships become increasingly important. While socializing with peers more, children are able to learn how to follow rules and start to understand social normalities (Play in Cognitive Development).

Adolescence (ages 12-18) social behavior starts developing into indentity. Children start to care more about how they appear to their peers. They start to become more aware of reasoning, cultural expectations, social behavior and social categories. (The Development and Developmental Consequences of Social Essentialism/ There Used To Be A Consensus On How To Raise Kids).

Ideal conditions to support flourishing

Children flourish in many environments and can learn a lot about themselves and others through their experiences.
Attachment with caregiving is an emotional bond between a child and a caregiver. Consistent time with the caregiver provides a sense of security, which allows children to explore different social environments, seek support, and regulate emotions in peer interactions.
Playing and collaborating with others helps children to learn more about empathy and to learn socialization skills.
The amount of time adults read to their child, these children will learn how

Expected Variations

A child who listens to their caregiver reading a story to them will help gain the child extend their vocabulary skills while having a child playing video games or watching tv shows, won't get that much experinece with new words.

Threats to flourishing

As humans, we have 3 biological needs (sense of autonomy, sense of competence, and the sense of good relationships and belonging
We are biologically primed to respond to faces for relationship, and we are also wired for social interaction (Becoming Social)
Because the US is design more of as a business, we still see schooling as a place to only develop intelligence measured in test scores, as we see recess as times to interact but only for very short periods of time and for punishments, we see teachers tend to take away this interaction time.
Limitations on social interaction plays role on hindering different aspects of children's development such emotional regulation, cognitive development and puts limits on development of executive functions (inhibition, working memory, and cognitive flexibility)
For infants and toddlers, they don’t have emotional regulation developed yet as their frontal cortex has not linked yet, insinuating that they need help with this part of development.
Because infants and toddlers and infants don't have the emotional intelligence yet to understand meanings by interactions, they struggle to use or inhibit emotions from coming out. They also struggle with the intensity applied when displaying different emotional reactions
limiting social interactions limits emotional self-regulation as the interactions provide the way they can figure what they like and what they don't like, what they should take away and ignore when learning about things like culture and civil socialization.

Field notes / Observation guide. What signs to look for?

While social interactions is what we need for kids to develop, we do see trends where kids pick and choose who they want to interact with.
One trend we see is kids having their own narratives about other kids and interacting with one kid more than another due to biases that kid has developed. For kids now adults who were the beginning of generation z, a common thing we saw was the fastest kid at recess was one of the most popular kids.
Another part of biology we need to take in is a humans temperament as some kids may behave either more erratically or more calm.