Judy Dunn and Alexandra Cutting devoted their work to the psychological aspect of children’s development. They highlighted the individual differences of small children in their temperament, social understanding, behavioral adjustment, and how they interact with their friends. The article is called Understanding others, and Individual Differences in Friendship Interaction in Young Children. The authors managed to provide the reader with the statistical data and social surveys in order to show the psychological development ion individual examples. The aspect of socio-cognitive abilities of small children in the process of interaction was disclosed with the help of psychological theories. (Dunn & Cutting, 2000)
It is interesting to analyze the aspect of the material concerning the period of time when children become morally responsible people reflecting it in the communicating and interacting skills. The combination of affective and cognitive capacities makes a morally responsible person. It is usually expressed in children’s perceptions, intentions, and beliefs. The ability of a small child to keep control of his actions is usually reflected during interpersonal interaction.
It should be stressed that the aspect of sensitivity that dominates in children is very important. Children begin to find differences between the rules which can be conventional and moral. Morality and non-morality are differentiated for children in pre-school years. Their reaction can be either physical aggressiveness or an emotional one. (Dwyer, 2003)
Early sensitivity of children to their friends plays an important role in the formation of the personal characteristics of a small individual. Children who at an early age focus their attention on the moral and non-moral rules of behavior, empathy capacity and blames discrimination are usually concentrated on the effects and consequences of the mutual interaction with their friends and actions they observe rather than on the psychological side of the situation.
Children’s reaction to the situation is considered to be the process of mind interference. Children begin to see the difference between the levels of harm produced by others. At this period children begin to blame and judge; they begin to understand such notion as responsibility for the actions committed. As a result, these judges can be reflected in different forms of children’s excuses provided for some harmful actions. This stage is considered to be the beginning of normal moral behavior development. (Dwyer, 1999)
It should be pointed out that a morally responsible child can target others in a proper way; his psychological picture combines the unity of cognitive and affective capacities. The research of the psychological development of small children in the process of their interaction with their friends is a background for the development of psychological theories studying the adequate perception of the world by children beginning with the first years of life and up to the psychologically formed individuals with the developed and formatted psychological aspects of the behavioral system of human nature.
References
Dunn, Judy & Cutting, Alexandra. (2000) Moral Sensibility, Understanding Others, and Children’s Friendship, Interactions in the Preschool Period, British Journal of Developmental Psychology 18, 159 -77.
Dwyer, Susan. (1999). Moral Competence, Philosophy and Linguistics, edited by Kumiko Murasugi and Robert Stainton. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 169-90.
Dwyer, Susan. (2003) Moral Development and Moral Responsibility.