Social Development

The need to form social relationships and to develop social skills is central to the socialization of the infant. The human infant is fundamentally social and enters into an interactive environment made up of social networks, the most immediate and important of which is the family. Soon the infant's environment will include significant others beyond the family--friends, teachers, and eventually, mates. The emergence of social skills and children's social networks is the focus of several Institute projects.

The Development of Body Image

Body image has emerged as a critical facet of human development, particularly in highly body-conscious western societies. Body satisfaction is related to numerous other indices of well-being, and body dissatisfaction is related to serious pathologies, including eating disorders and depression. Our research explores factors influencing the development of satisfaction and dissatisfaction with the body in adolescent girls and boys.

Development of Body Dissatisfaction in Adolescence

This study examined the early to mid-adolescent period in a normative sample of boys and girls from ages 13 to 18. Results indicated that girls and boys experienced similarly low levels of body dissatisfaction at age 13. In the period from age 13 to 15, boys became more satisfied with their bodies while girls became significantly more dissatisfied with their bodies, indicating a “critical period” for the development of body dissatisfaction in girls. Furthermore, ratings of body dissatisfaction were unrelated to objective ratings of the adolescents’ physical attractiveness and to their body mass index, indicating that overall, adolescents’ body image has little to do with how others perceive them or how they objectively measure up to an appearance standard. This implies that interventions designed to maintain girls’ satisfaction with their bodies would be best applied by age 13 or earlier, before girls’ body image decline begins, and they should address girls’ own internal standards for body satisfaction.

Longitudinal Predictors of Body Dissatisfaction

It is important to understand the relative influence of early childhood factors in contrast to concurrent factors influencing development. This project examined data from 109 children (50 boys, 59 girls) seen in infancy, childhood, early adolescence, and late adolescence. Various factors were studied to identify the psychological and social variables that predict body dissatisfaction, and to contrast the influences of early childhood factors and concurrent late adolescent factors. Girls were more dissatisfied with their bodies at age 18 than boys. When examined together, historical variables from earlier in childhood contributed relatively little to the prediction of 18-year body dissatisfaction over and above that predicted by concurrent variables. Thus, body dissatisfaction might be sensitive to current environmental influences. This implies that interventions to prevent or treat body dissatisfaction and related disorders must be responsive to the current external (e.g., social) pressures, as well as internal psychological factors.

Sexual Development: Predictors Of Adolescent Sexual Intercourse

Sexual behavior during adolescence is becoming the norm; unfortunately, our understanding of the emergence of sexual behavior is limited, and longitudinal data have been lacking. This project sought to study the factors influencing the onset of sexual intercourse in a normative longitudinal sample of teenagers. Thirty-two boys and 36 girls were followed from age 2 through 18 years to examine adolescent sexual behavior as a function of early sex role behavior, friendship patterns, and dating histories. We proposed that early other-sex role behavior would lead to greater exposure to members of the other sex via other-sex friendships and, through social learning mechanisms, would promote greater rapport with and opportunity to become intimate with the other sex, which would lead to increased likelihood of heterosexual intercourse. Boys who showed more feminine sex-role behaviors in toddlerhood were more likely to have intercourse by the time they were 18 years old than boys who had more masculine sex role behaviors. In girls, those with greater numbers of friendships with boys were more likely to have had intercourse by the time they were 18 years old than those with fewer male friends.

Families at Dinner

This project explores how children learn about social rules and develop social skills within the environment of the shared family meal. Families are videotaped during dinnertime and these tapes are analyzed for the social functions and roles played by the children and their parents. Results indicate that exchange of information concerning the day's activities is a primary function of the mealtime get-together. The mother usually is the most instrumental in getting children and fathers to exchange information. While small families are oriented toward parents teaching the child, larger families spend more time with children playing while parents attempt to keep control of dinner activities. Through observation of mealtime family interactions, current work explores how children acquire concepts of sex roles and cognitive styles from their social environments. 

The Social Environment of Children

This longitudinal project examines the social environment of children from infancy through adolescence. For young children, it is the mother who shapes the social network. By the time children enter grade school, social networks reflect both children's and parents' social choices. As children grow up and move from a more home- to a more school-centered existence, their social environments change in accordance with their developmental level; for example, there is an increasing number of school friends and teachers in older children's networks. Sex differences also are of interest, as we have found that aspects of the environment, such as contact with non-kin adults and friends, are more related to the development of girls' than boys' social competencies. Parental knowledge of their adolescents' friendship environments is inversely related to adolescent substance use and positively related to family cohesiveness.