Children’s Private Speech, Essay Example

After reading the article by Engle, It is quite obvious that much of adult life is governed and ruled by the concepts and ideas that are formed when one is a child. Playing as a child was a process that developed important mental abilities. Abilities such as self-regulation, emotional control, and social responsibilities are all developed during childhood. These skills are directly linked to what Vygotsky coined as “make-believe play”. He believed that make-believe play helped children enhance and develop social skills that would be needed later in life. Vygotsky went on to say that make-believe play helps to develop what he called the zone of proximal development. When a child make-believe plays, he/she is displaying how he/she sees the world. Within the zone of proximal development a child might display behavior that is above his average age. Often, children view themselves as taller and older than they age they actually are. This type of play helps children to develop in to adults who are capable of dealing with life issues.

With make-believe play, an observer can see some very distinct features. When children are participating in make-believe play they create imaginary scenarios. During this stage, children may use objects or events to represent something totally unrelated to what the observer is seeing. For example, the child might be using a television remote as a make-believe telephone.  However, the child’s age is directly correlated with the object they may use in make-believe play. Likewise, a child who is under the age of two will only use a phone to pretend to call grandma.  Nevertheless, the older they are the more complex and flexible their make-believe play becomes.  Vygotsky insisted that this progression is a display of the child’s understanding of the world around them. Also, it must be noted that in make-believe play object are representative of something else other than what they are used for in the real world.  Winsler, Diaz, & Montero (1997) adds that when children actively engage in make-believe play, they are more likely to become productive, socially accepted members of society. A second feature of make-believe play is that children have specific rules that they are governed by. These rules are often the result of experiences they have had with the families. These experiences consequently establish guidelines for social behavior and ethics. Likewise, this is also an obvious way that stereotypes and forms of discrimination are perpetuated from one generation to the next.

A great deal of research has been conducted how make-believe play impacts children later in life. First of all, many researchers have noted that children are very adamant about breaking the rules of make-believe play. As they get older, children engage in more complex forms of make-believe play that is governed by rules of gender, culture, and even discrimination. In late 1997, Winsler, Diaz, & Montero conducted a study on self-talk.  Self-talk occurs when a child talks to himself in order to accomplish a task or get through a tough situation. In one of the children they were studying, they observed a child talking herself through a scary situation. The child had to go to the bathroom during the night, but the lights were off in the hallway and bathroom. The child repeatedly told herself that there were no monsters in the dark because mommy said so. The child was able to successfully coach herself through going to the bathroom in the dark. Winsler, Diaz, & Montero insist that adults use self-talk in much the same way. Although most adults do not speak to themselves aloud, they use this process mentally. For example, Winsler, Diaz, & Montero gave several adults difficult tasks to complete. Only one of the adults was able to accomplish the task. They asked the adult how he was able to accomplish the task and what his thinking process was. When the adult explained his cognitive process it was very similar to self-talk (Berk, 17). The adult explained that mentally, he was telling himself that he could do this, take your time and think.

In 2004, Fantuzzo, Sekino, & Coleman conducted a study on a group of preschool students between the ages of 3 and 5 years old. Each child was observed more than 50 times engaging in make-believe play. The children were observed in 30 minute intervals. The researchers noticed that even when children are told not to make-believe play, most will do so anyway.  However, the researchers noticed that those children who were discouraged from make-believe play had self-talk that was more negative than those that were encouraged to engage in self-talk. At the conclusion of the study, the researchers concluded that those children who participated in self-talk were more likely to use self-talk to guide their interaction in real situations. If this is so, this information directly correlates with Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development.

Engle poses the question, “If we draw on our memories to create an ongoing sense of who we are in the present) how does this self for self relate or conflict with the different selves in the past we describe for others?”(pg. 198).  After looking more closely at what Vygotsky hypothesized, it is very obvious that most adults still use make-believe play or self-talk as a coping mechanism. Adults talk themselves through situations much the same as children do. The only distinct difference in the process is that children do it aloud, while adults do it mentally. Nevertheless, the process is developed and enhanced during childhood.  So, certainly, self-talk and the stories that one tells himself are developed during childhood and progresses into adulthood.

After careful examination of how children develop in to individuals, psychologists hypothesized that individuals are equipped with varying personalities. These personalities can affect every aspect of the person’s daily existence. Personality has been defined as distinctive characteristics that make each person unique and different from everyone else. Scientists have concluded that people are not necessarily born with personalities, but that they develop over time due to the experiences one has. As a result, it is believed that personality is a learned behavior that is acquired through personal experiences-childhood. Likewise, childhood experiences can shape one’s adult life. According to Kohlenberg & Tsai, human beings seek to be accepted and have a sense of belonging (115).   Nevertheless, there are those people who have such strong personalities that do not seem to be shaped by their childhood experiences.  Some people do not seemed to be governed by their desire to fit in or be accepted by society.  Some people are deemed deviant long before their personality has been developed and shaped by their environment.

In the early 1900s, Sigmund Fraud began studying the human personality. He divided the human personality into three major components: the id, the ego, and the superego.  He devoted great time to studying and watching people. He would look closely at how they reacted to others and the world around them. He might have been one of the first people watchers. He firmly believed that a person’s childhood greatly affected them in later life.  Later in 1926, William Marston coined the four areas of human behavior. He called them dominance, influence, steadiness, and compliance. He developed this theory in the offset of Skinner’s theory that suggested that environment shapes individuals.  The authors of The Self-Talk Scale: Development, Factor Analysis, and Validation suggest that self-talk continues into adulthood and is usually mostly positive. There are very few cases when a person without mental illness talks negatively to themselves. The authors found that self talk was multidimensional and varied from one person to the next according to personality. Likewise, self-talk is displayed in ways that are related to the person’s personality (89). However, many adults are leery about talking aloud to themselves because it raises issues of sanity. Consequently, most adults talk to themselves mentally.  The study was conducted over a period of three months and involved 101 undergraduate psychology majors. They scored participants in ranges of 4 to 20 in areas of self-reinforcement, self-criticism, and self-management.  The study concluded that those who used mental self-talk were more likely to complete tasks successfully. However, those that used aloud self-talk also suffered from some form of mental illness. For example, obsessive compulsive disorder victims often self talked themselves about obsessions. Those who suffered from obsessive disorders were also noted to have a “depletion of one’s ego resources” (89).  Consequently, the researchers concluded that those who suffered from obsessive compulsive disorders also had the tendency to complete self-talk aloud.  Finally, they said, “The preliminary validation data demonstrate that self-talk may manifest itself in individuals in very different ways and that how self-talk is manifested in an individual is likely to be related to other personality and individual difference variables” (89).

According to Mayer, “The ego,” or self, in Latin, was in part conscious and was responsible for the person’s understanding of and behavior in the outside world. It carried out systematic trial and error thinking, was rational, and sought to ensure the individual’s survival” (454). In order for this concept to be true, the ego must be functioning as a person’s self-talk. The ego helps a person rationalize what is the best way to solve a problem or decide not to do something that would be unacceptable by society.  Freud divided this concept into two parts-the conscious and unconscious. Freud explained that the unconscious control the urges that all human beings have. These urges dictate all aspects of one’s life. The human mind is conscious of this part of the mind, but unaware of the actual process that takes place in the mind. The unconscious part of the mind is not known to the conscious part of the mind. Freud equates those slips of the tongue that happen overtly as a result of the repression of the unconscious. The unconscious part of the mind is referred to as the Id. The Id has no connection with the outside reality that humans live within. The ego, however, has contact with reality. Freud proposed that the Id transforms into the Ego as the child grows into adulthood. If this does not occur, the adult is operating purely on instinct and desire of pleasure. Whenever this does occur, society ends up with deviants and misfits that do not adhere to societal norms and rules. People who have not properly transitioned are unable to self-talk mentally. They have no concept of logic and the consequences of their actions on other people.  Finally, the superego governs a person’s ethics. The superego is formed from the ego. When a person has matured they reach the superego stage. The superego essentially becomes the mediator or the self-talk that an individual uses to regulate choices.

In conclusion, examining self-talk is an intricately woven concept that dictates so much during adult life. According to the research, self-talk is just a manifestation of one of the defining stages that Freud insisted that all human beings transition through. Self-talk is a healthy part of growing up and is a tool that is used throughout life to cope with difficult situations. However, as the child grows into adulthood, the way in which he/she uses self talk changes drastically. This change is governed by the personality type a person has developed. In most cases where mental illness is not involved, self-talk is mostly positive. It has been proven that those individuals who are successful and driven to succeed are very likely to use self –talk mentally. While those who suffer from mental illnesses are more likely to use self-talk aloud and it can be negative charged. Self-talk is instrumental in the development of coping skills later in life.

Works Cited

Berk, L. E. (1992). Children’s private speech: An overview of theory and the status of research. In R. M. Diaz & L. E. Berk (Eds.), Private speech: From social interaction to self-regulation (pp. 17–53). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Brinthaupt, Thomas M., Michael B. Hein, and Tracey E. Kramer. “the Self-Talk Scale: Development, Factor Analysis, And Validation.” Journal of Personality Assessment 91.1(2009): 82-92. Academic Search Premier. Web. 25 Nov. 2015

Fantuzzo, J., Sekino, Y., & Cohen, H. L. (2004). An examination of the contributions of interactive peer play to salient classroom competencies for urban Head Start children. Psychology in the Schools, 41, 323–336.

Knollenberg, R. J., & Tsai, M. (1995). I speak, therefore I am: A behavioral approach to understanding problems of the self. The Behavior Therapist, 18, 113-124.

Mayer, John D. “Primary Division of Personality And Their Scientific Contributions: From The Trilogy-Of-Mind To The Systems Set.” Journal For Theory Of Social Behavior 31.4(2001):449. Academic Search Premier. Web. 25 Nov. 2015.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher mental processes (M. Cole, V. John-Steiner, S. Scribner, & E. Souberman, Eds. and Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. (Original work published 1930–1935.)

Winsler, A., Diaz, R. M., & Montero, I. (1997). The role of private speech in the transition from collaborative to independent task performance in young children. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 12, 59–79.