Cognitive adaptation in latency. The construction of social reality.

Abstract

This paper looks briefly at cognitive adaptation as it pertains to the child's construction of social reality, and suggests that what sociologists call “frames” can be a useful concept for specifying what it is the child must conceptualize to deal appropriately with social situations. In addition, the concepts of deference and demeanour, the actions of an individual as actor and audience, are useful in understanding why children learn to behave appropriately in behaviour frames. Much of the paper is devoted to describing frames, suggesting some of the cognitive processes employed in their construction and to some of the behaviours resulting from inappropriate frame behaviour. It is necessary to point out that while the frame approach to social adaptation may be useful it has limitations. It is perhaps excessively situational and does not pay sufficient attention to more abiding motivations and cognitive activities. Frame behaviour thus cannot provide a complete explanation of children's social behaviour, but it does add an important and missing dimension to the usual accounts of social behaviour. To some extent the child's behaviour is determined by the frames in which he is participating. Accordingly, the understanding of frame behaviour should add to the understanding of child behaviour in general and to the behaviour of the latency-age child in particular. For it is in the latter that failures to behave in frames are the most frequent and the most apparent, and are therefore the most likely to be misinterpreted by adults.