California Preschool Learning Foundations - ECEZero2Three ...

SOCIAL-EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT
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memory development and self-awareness.
Finally, by the time they reach
kindergarten, young children are
already becoming experts in the use
and interpretation of social comparison
information, a skill that will continue to
develop throughout the primary school
years (Pomerantz and others 1995).
Older preschoolers are just beginning
to incorporate social comparison information
into their self-perceptions.
Self-Regulation
The development of self-regulation
involves emerging capacities to
suppress a dominant response and
to perform, instead, a subdominant
response. It is also associated with
the self-control of impulsivity and
the development of more deliberate,
intentional activity throughout early
and middle childhood. Self-regulation
is relevant to the management of
emotions and emotion-related behavior,
attention, cognitive activity, and
social behavior (such as impulses to
act aggressively when provoked). The
significant growth in self-regulation
in early childhood is revealed through
the contrast between the impulsivity
of a toddler and the capacities for
more careful, deliberate behavior of a
child preparing to enter kindergarten
(although these capacities are not, of
course, consistently exercised). Bronson
(2000) has written a valuable overview
of research and practical knowledge
on this topic (see also Brazelton
and Sparrow 2001; Knitzer 2000;
Committee on Integrating the Science
of Early Childhood Development
2000). The relevance of self-regulation
to young children’s school readiness
is widely acknowledged because of the
importance of cognitive, behavioral,
and emotional self-control to learning
and classroom conduct (see Kopp
2002; Thompson 2002; Thompson [in
press]). Several research teams have
found that differences in aspects of
self-regulation predict children’s reading
and mathematics achievement in
the early primary grades (Alexander,
Entwisle, and Dauber 1993; Howse
and others 2003; NICHD Early Child
Care Research Network 2003a).
Self-regulation is relevant to the
management of emotions and
emotion-related behavior, attention,
cognitive activity, and social behavior
(such as impulses to act aggressively
when provoked).
The development of self-regulation
has been a topic of long-standing
interest to developmental scholars
(see reviews of this research: Kopp
1982; Kopp and Wyer 1994). This topic
has recently gained renewed attention
under the concepts of “effortful
control” and “executive function.”
Although effortful control is often
studied as a component of emergent
personality, developmental researchers,
including Eisenberg (Eisenberg
and others 2004; Liew, Eisenberg, and
Reiser 2004) and Kochanska (Kochanska
and Knaack 2003; Kochanska,
Murray, and Harlan 2000), have
documented important developmental
changes in young children’s capacities
for effortful control. Their research
has revealed not only significant
increases in children’s capacities for
self-regulated conduct throughout
early and middle childhood, but also
a consistent association between individual
differences in effortful control
and independent measures of social
Preschool Learning Foundations, Volume 1 • California Department of Education