A Concept/Advocacy Paper*
Friedrich W. Affolter, Ed.D.
Currently
on Assignment in
Tel: 0093-70-289617
Email: friedrich.affolter@undp.org
as well as a_ffolter@yahoo.com
Citation:
Affolter, F.W. (2004) Socio-Emotionally
Intelligent Development Politics
Towards a Framework for Socio-Emotionally Intelligent Development Politics:
A Concept/Advocacy Paper. International Journal of Psychosocial
Rehabilitation. 8, 119-140.
* I would like to thank my dissertation committee members, Professors David R.
Evans, Gretchen B Rossman, Alfred S. Hartwell, and
Ervin Staub, all University of Massachusetts at
Amherst, whose lectures and publications have inspired me to write this paper.
(F.A.)
Abstract
This paper deplores the absence of socio-emotional capacity development
content in traditional socio-economic development thought. It reviews arguments
why the theme of socio-emotional well-being deserves to be acknowledged as a
key contributor to human capital development. Next, the paper discusses
conceptual frameworks and strategies for assisting planners and policy makers
to include socio-emotional well-being into their socio-economic development
strategies. The paper concludes with a framework proposal for planning
socio-emotionally effective and sustainable development programs.
Socio-emotional
(or psychosocial) well-being is a
prerequisite that enables children and adults to evolve into caring,
non-violent, emotionally-healthy citizens (Staub,
2003). As globalization and social change have - in recent decades - led to
increased levels of “socially constructed uncertainty” (Marris, 1991), there is concern that social support
networks and care-taking relationships erode (UNDP, 1999), leaving behind
“unhealthy” or “toxic” societies (Wilkinson, 1996; Garbarino, 1995; Vimpani, 2000).
Psychologists
have called upon policy makers to foster and protect communities’ and
nations’ social support network structures. A “Global Community
Psychology” is needed, which - rather than strengthening therapeutic
services - contributes through “envisioning, negotiating, designing and
evaluating a humane social order” (Marsella,
1999, p. 1289). “Reservoirs of care” must be preserved since
“no vision becomes real, nor can it gain momentum, if there is not a main
thread stitching together relationships at all levels of experience”
(Independent Commission on Population and the Quality of Life [ICPQL], 1996, p.
115).
Notwithstanding,
the theme of socio-emotional well-being presents a neglected building block in
Third World socio-economic development discourse (Affolter,
2003). Although development agencies have abolished their rigid approaches of
“economic growth through urban/rural industrialization”, and
adapted instead “modernization” and “human capital
development” frameworks (Peet & Hartwick, 1999), the theme of socio-emotional well-being -
as a contributor to human capital development - remains un-discussed. LeVine (1983) observes:
[T]he logical connections between international
development and child development - so transparently obvious … do not
guarantee [a] rapprochement, either in science or in policy. One reason is that
policy analysis in the international development field draws its concepts of
human behavior largely from economics, in which formal utilitarian models of
labor markets provide the primary basis for analyzing microsocial
phenomena. In economic analysis, the processes of interest to child development
research are more often relegated to the black box between aggregate inputs and
outputs, or else they are ignored altogether…. (p. 45)
This paper
seeks to close the disconnect between socio-economic development thought and
socio-emotional well-being research. It advocates for an expanded human capital
development notion that does not just seek to nurture sustained economic
productivity (see UNDP, 1996), but also promotes - across communities and
nations - the development of a caring, non-violent, optimally functioning
citizenry (Staub, 2003). By this is meant the
nurturance of people capable of fulfilling their basic psychological needs to a
reasonable extent, in constructive rather than destructive ways, and who engage
in continuously evolving series of experiences of effectiveness, identity and
connection as a result of the continued fulfillment of these needs (Staub, personal communication,
The paper
briefly summarizes insights from the fields of developmental psychology, social
psychology and brain research that affirm the notion that human capital
development is closely linked to socio-emotional well-being. Next, examples of
frameworks and socio-emotionally conducive policies and development
interventions will be reviewed. The paper concludes by proposing a conceptual
framework for nurturing socio-emotionally healthy human ecologies, and
psychosocial rehabilitation across communities and nations.
1. Review of the
Literature: Human Development and Socio-Emotional Well-Being
Competence, confidence and caring can flourish even
under adverse circumstances, if young children encounter people in their lives
who provide them with a secure basis for the development of trust, autonomy,
and initiative. (p. 14)
Brain
research confirms the conduciveness of socio-emotionally adequate support
structures for physical, social and cognitive capacity development. Dobbing
(1990) asserts that optimal brain development requires - beyond nutritional
intake - emotional support:
Nutritional deprivation is only one element
restricting normal child development, and it may even be a small one in
relation to the other deprivations to which they are subject, except where
malnutrition leads to serious infective illness, as it often does. Several
examples were found of nutritional relief on its own, without adequate
attention to “stimulation” in the environment, being without
effect. Indeed there were even examples of “stimulation”
alone producing apparent restoration to bodily, if not intellectual
normality…, and, on the other hand, of undernutrition
in an otherwise enriched environment not resulting in any detectable deficit at
all…. (p. 14)
Already
during pregnancy, a mother’s physical and emotional well-being is crucial
for the active promotion of optimal brain development of the fetus (Diamond
& Hopson, 1998). Appropriate pre-school stimulation and nurturance is
crucial for ensuring the realization of intellectual and social skills,
particularly when considering that the “amygdala”
(the part of the brain that manages emotional responses) grows and matures
earlier than the cerebral cortex, and is very sensitive to parental feedback
and handling:
An atmosphere conducive to healthy emotional
development is probably the most important foundation a parent can provide.
Proper nurturing at this stage is a priceless form of mental enrichment that
lasts a lifetime, whereas inappropriate or inconsistent treatment, neglect, or
outright abuse are forms of mental impoverishment that can also take a
life-long toll….
Emotional development has a curious and important quality: As tiny
infants, long before we have words to describe our feelings, our experiences
with parents, siblings and caregivers - loving or harsh, supportive or
destructive - help establish a mental map that will guide our emotional life,
and, in turn, its influence on all of our thinking processes. (Diamond &
Hopson, 1998, pp. 125-126)
Brain
researchers today are able to explain how the “emotional mind”
influences and dominates the “rational mind” (see Damasio, 1998; LeDoux, 1994). By
controlling the endocrine system, whose hormonal outputs affect all bodily
functions, the emotional brain affects the neocortex
tone of symbolic activities such as language, strategic operations, and action
planning. Thought is the product of the brain’s genetically specified
wiring system, and past experiences of similar situations. Humans interpret
reality in obedience to the dictates of their own emotions:
In the nervous system, information echoes down the
filaments that join harmonious neural networks. When an emotional chord is
struck, it stirs to life past memories of the same feeling.
One manifestation of these orchestral evocations is the immediate
selectivity of emotional memory. Gleeful people automatically remember happy
times, while a depressed person effortlessly recalls incidents of loss,
desertion, and despair. Anxious people dwell on past threats; paranoia instills
a retrospective preoccupation with situations of persecution. If an emotion is
sufficiently powerful, it can quash opposing networks so completely that their
content becomes inaccessible – blotting out discordant sections of the
past. Within the confines of that person’s virtuality,
those events didn’t happen. To an outside observer, he seems oblivious to
the whole of his own history. Severely depressed people can
“forget” their former, happier lives, and may vigorously deny them
when prompted by well-meaning guardians of historical verity. Rage affords
hatred an upper hand that is likewise obtuse, sometimes allowing a person to
attack with internal impunity those he has forgotten he loves. (Lewis, Amini & Lannon, 2000, p. 130)
Beyond
the formation of attachment ties and relationship dynamics that impact dentritic growth and socio-emotional programming,
macro-social structures facilitate or impede support networks’ ability to
stimulate socio-emotional well-being (see Folbre,
2001; UNDP, 1999; Kirby
Table 1.
The Need for Positive Social Support Structures, and Developmental
Consequences Across the Life-Span
|
Human Development |
Developmental Psychology |
Brain Development Research |
|
|
Phase |
Western
Developmental |
Non-Western Developmental Psychology |
|
|
Embryo-genesis |
Psychological support prepares caretaker to effectively engage in
child-parent relationship. |
Women use pre-structured meaning systems provided by cultured
environment for reasoning and adjusting to pregnancy. |
Freedom from stress and “deliberate calmness” prevent
possible damages in brain and nervous system. |
|
Infancy |
Caretakers’ external feedback complements maturing forces of
central nervous and internal feedback systems. Socio-emotional well-being of
caretaker determines quality of child-parent interaction. |
Non-Western cultures have alternative attachment procedures that may draw
on infants’ mothers only marginally, but instead draw on a variety of
alternative resources available in the community. |
Positive social stimulation produces bodily and intellectual
normality. The emotional quality of social experiences determines the
programming of the amygdala, and of the cerebral
cortex of children. |
Early Childhood |
Affective communication with caretakers allows infants to develop and
regulate their social interaction capabilities. |
Affective communication, and processing of misunderstandings with
adults and older siblings allows for the development of “cultured
understanding”. |
Proper nurturing allows brain to establish mental map that will guide
emotional life and thinking processes. |
|
Middle Childhood |
Multiple positive relationship opportunities (i.e. extended family)
provide a rich data source for reflective experiential learning and the
drawing of comparisons. |
Children learn from emotional tones of adults and older siblings who
frequently serve as their caretakers. |
Structured leisure activities that elicit intrinsic motivation and
high levels of attention produce continued branching/growing of dendritic trees. |
|
Late Childhood |
Nurturing, pro-social culture of parents and peers mold
children’s identity, behavior patterns, feeling of self-worth, as well
as intellectual and social survival skills. |
Kinship/informal education systems provide nurturance and guidance.
Children become caretakers of younger siblings, thereby developing pro-social
competence. |
Same as above. |
|
Adolescence |
Through socio-emotionally competent caretakers, peers and prosocial bystanders, adolescents establish a sense of
role and identity in life. |
Different folk ideas harness different collective relationship experiences
in terms of self-worth, social relationships and quest for meaning. |
Structured leisure activities - “constructively connected to
teens’ emotional status quo” -produce continued
branching/growing of dendritic trees. |
|
Adulthood |
Adults thrive in environments that make it possible to accommodate
internal moral and mental attitudes with traditional values dictated by outer
society. |
Same. |
Education, strenuous activity & active social life style increases
and maintains mental agility, even among old people. |
The Threat of “Toxic” Environments and Social Stress,
and Developmental Consequences Across the Life Span
|
|
Developmental Psychology |
Brain Development Research |
|
|
Phase |
Western |
Non-Western
|
|
|
Embryo |
Psychological discrimination enhances pre-partum depressions. |
(No data available) |
Anxiety releases stress hormones that damage dendritic
trees. |
|
Infancy |
Poverty correlates with low maternal education, negative parental
values and attitudes. Lack of social and economic support correlates with
mental health problems and maternal anxiety. |
Parents who have left behind traditional social support structures are
vulnerable to various types of stress situations. Poverty may force women to intentfully neglect/abandon newborns. |
Emotional deprivation inhibits bodily ability of self-restoration and
development of intellectual normality. |
Early Childhood |
Anxious
or insecure parents are inhibited in establishment of relationships with
their own children. Single caretakers have limited resources to nurture the
child or foster a reciprocal, responsive-sensitive relationship. |
Life in “unplanned communities” deters caretakers’
attention from children towards economic production. Loss of pride and family
separation leads to disoriented and deviant children and youth. |
Harsh destructive relationship experiences establish mental map
inspired by aggression rather than nurturance; and eventually guide future
emotional & intellectual life. |
|
Middle Childhood |
Authoritarian / laissez-faire parenting prevents children from
becoming effective agents in their own socialization, or to experience rational,
issue-oriented cooperative interactions. |
Life in communities separated from traditional kinship systems
distances children from traditional values embraced by parents. Economic
needs facilitate situations of child labor. |
Families that are economically struggling, uneducated, emotionally
distressed are less able to provide brain-stimulating environment. |
|
Late Childhood |
Negative regard from peers or parents correlates with negative self-worth,
relationship problems and poor adjustment ability. |
Social stress as a result of deteriorating levels of living, and
communal disintegration creates anxiety spillovers. |
Boring, uneducational, meaning-less
instructive experiences fail to stimulate dendrite development. |
|
Adolescence |
Lack of socio-economic stability produces hostility. Lack of positive
relationships results in feelings of alienation; resulting isolation may lead
to the desire to commit suicide. |
Socio-cultural changes and resource depletion leads to questioning of
time-honored practices. Changes demand socio-emotional competence for
responding and internalizing change. |
Lack of meaningful relationships and learning environments results in
failure to constructively address teenagers’ emotional “status
quo”. |
|
Adulthood |
Unresolved tensions between inner moral and mental attitudes, and
traditional values dictated by outer society create socio-emotional
uneasiness. |
Worries about food, housing, inability to satisfy children’s
physical needs leads to worries and anxiety, which have a pervasive effect on
relationships and parenting quality. |
Lack of socio-economic stability and meaningful, satisfactory social
relationships decrease physical and emotional health. |
|
Child Abuse |
Physical, sexual and psychological trauma leads to psychiatric
difficulties that show up in childhood, adolescence or adulthood. |
Immigration, urbanization, changes from agrarian to urban economies,
and alien social environments may increase potential maltreatment of children. |
Stress affects brain’s transmitters and leads to irrecoverable
brain deformation. |
& Frazer, 1997; Comer, 1989). Material inequality,
for example, affects social relationships by imposing a psychological burden
that reduces physical and emotional well-being (Wilkinson, 1996):
One of the ways in which adverse socio-economic
circumstances may do lasting psychological and emotional damage is through
increasing the levels of stress in which domestic life is lived. The social and
economic environment establishes many of the difficulties with which domestic
life has to cope and cannot be separated from a range of what are normally seen
as family problems. It is not just worries about money, jobs and housing spill
over into domestic conflict as tempers become more quickly frayed and parents
find themselves with smaller reserves of patience and tolerance. It is also
that lack of money, of choices, play space, the need for enough indoor space to
accommodate incompatible family activities – in short, the lack of
resources of all kinds (including time) – means that people’s needs
and demands are brought into conflict with each other. The tighter the
constraints within which a family must operate, the fewer the dreams which can
be satisfied, and the more people’s interests conflict. The smaller the
resources, the less the capacity to overcome unforeseen difficulties,
accidents, breakages and losses. The greater the potential sources of stress
and conflict, the more family life and social support will suffer. (pp. 163-164)
Economic,
social and cultural challenges also stress well-established social systems in Non-Western
societies. Globalization has led, on the one hand, to economic growth and
spread of new technologies, but also, on the other hand, to social
fragmentation, widening income disparities, job and income insecurity,
financial volatility, threat of a worldwide recession, crime, the spread of
HIV/Aids, as well as environmental degradation (UNDP, 1999). Globalization has
uprooted traditional social support networks, sparking social morbidity and
mass migration:
Deteriorating levels of living forced people to live
in unplanned communities, witnessing how the environment became polluted, how
community members suffered loss of pride for having become dependent on others
rather than self sufficient, experiencing family separation and the generation
gap, observing disoriented and deviant children and youth, watching the dying
heritage of the past, seeing the misuse of leisure time, having sources of
traditional foods neglected and feeling the mounting pressure of excess
population. Such dimensions of social life and consciousness may very often be
of much more importance in defining the quality of life as experienced by
individuals, than are some of the factors more amenable to measurement and thus
more attractive to policy makers. (MacPherson & Migdley, 1987, p. 76)
Table 3. Modernity’s Socio-Emotional Legacy
Modernity
|
Developmental
Psychology |
|||
|
Features |
Socio-emotional
consequences (West) |
Socio-emotional
consequences (Non-West)
|
||
|
|
BENEFITS |
RISKS |
BENEFITS |
RISKS |
|
Values: individualism independence |
Democracy, human rights, entrepreneurship, scientific achievement,
economic growth. |
Social “injustice”, ecologically unsustainable
exploitation of the environment, social morbidity. |
Perhaps human rights protection, benefit of technological achievements. |
Colonization, dependency, socio-cultural deterioration and morbidity. |
|
Economic beliefs:
Free- market theory |
Fosters entrepreneurial initiative and risk-taking; enhances material
choices. |
Unequal distribution of wealth, economic exclusion &
discrimination; disruption of social support structures. Disregard for
“social economy of well-being”. |
Technological and financial input. |
Socio-economic dependency. Unequal distribution of wealth; exploitation;
disruption of social support structures and kinship ties. |
|
Women’s well-being |
Inclusion in labor force creates economic independence and
socio-political influence. |
Double workload (care-taking and breadwinner). Socio- economic
discrimination. Abuse. |
Perhaps improved health. Women’s rights. Child survival. |
Socio-economic exploitation. Abuse. Women make up for dysfunctional
support systems. |
|
Family well-being |
Nuclear families: More physical and social resources available for less
children. |
Lack of social support networks; social stresses make caretakers
dysfunctional; violence, abuse, divorce. |
Some selected families enjoy perhaps increased prosperity and material
choices. |
Migration and urbanization. Disruption of social kinship ties. Impoverishment. Inability to
cope in new circumstances. |
|
Child well-being |
Improved physical health. Perhaps early childhood programs. Free
primary school education. Children’s rights. |
Child neglect; violence, abuse. |
Perhaps improved standards of health. Perhaps access to formal
schooling and protection against abuse. |
Child neglect and abuse. Child abandonment, labor, and prostitution. |
|
Adolescent well-being |
Improved school quality. Access to varied sources of stimulation. |
Over-stimulation,
lack of role models and meaningful relationships with caretakers; drugs,
teenage pregnancy, school drop-out, social isolation. |
Access to various sources of stimulation. Perhaps access to educational
opportunities and more health benefits. |
Cultural and socio-economic changes are socially stressful and put
squeeze on adolescent social support networks. |
|
Adult well-being |
Increased economic opportunities, choices, social security. |
Increased competitiveness, social isolation, disruption of social
support systems. |
Perhaps more material choices, increased levels of health and material
prosperity. |
Economic pressures lead to socio-emotional exhaustion, break-up of
kinship systems and social isolation. |
2. Towards a Framework for the Social Construction of Resiliency
Daniel Goleman (1995) has suggested that societies must
psychologically “inoculate” (p. 247) children and leaders to handle
emotional stress in an “intelligent” manner. Marris
(1991) has advocated for social systems promoting socio-emotional resiliency,
which “… minimize disruptive events, protect each child’s
experience of attachment from harm, and support family coping” (p. 88).
The challenge lies in the unfortunate dilemma that
Individuals and
families are tempted to achieve certainty at the expense of others (i.e. by
imposing a greater burden of uncertainty on them or by providing fewer material
and social resources). When powerful groups in society promote their own
control over life circumstances by subordinating and marginalizing others, they
make it less possible for these groups to offer and experience security in
their own families. (p. 88)
The
following section presents “food for thought” for those development
planners wishing to use socio-economic development interventions as a vehicle
for “inoculating socio-emotional well-being”. It will:
1.
Propose a
map of social factors that influence - directly or indirectly - socio-emotional
well-being. Visualizing and mapping out social contexts has the advantage of providing
policy makers and development planners with an overview of key components
affecting socio-emotional well-being.
2.
Introduce Staub’s (2003) Taxonomy of Basic Human Needs. This
taxonomy lists socio-emotional objectives to be pursued by policy makers and
development planners interested in strengthening and protecting socio-emotional
well-being.
3.
Review
policy recommendations, as well as practical examples of project interventions
carried out in the past in order to enhance socio-emotional well-being and
enablement - in the US as well as developing countries.
4.
Propose a
“Framework for Planning Socio-Emotionally Effective and Sustainable
Development Programs”, which summarizes above mentioned concepts (#1-3),
and serves as a checklist for guiding socio-emotionally
“intelligent” development action.
2.1.
Socio-Emotional Well-Being and the Human Environment
Garbarino (1995) argues that policy makers must consider “the environmental
balance of culture, economies, politics, biology, and the psychological ebb and
flow of day-to-day life” (p. 36) in order to appreciate how social
systems shape socio-emotional well-being. As illustrated in Figure 1 (Garbarino, 1982, p. 648), a variety of factors affect
well-being at the micro, meso, exo
and macro-levels of the human ecology. Following Bronfenbrenner
(1979), Garbarino describes them as follows:
Microsystem refers
to relations between the child and the immediate environment; mesosystem refers to the network of
interrelationships of settings in the child’s immediate environment; exosystem refers to social settings that affect the
child but do not directly impinge upon him or her; and macrosystem
refers to the attitudes, mores, beliefs, and deologies
of the culture. (Garbarino, 1982, p. 648)
Figure 1. The Child in a
Social Context
Figure 2: Factors that
Shape Socio-Emotional Well-Being Across Cultures
|
|
|
|
|
|
2.2 Staub’s “Taxonomy of Basic Human Needs”
According to Staub (2003), the
development of caring, non-violent and optimally functioning citizens depends
on caretakers’ and societies’ ability to facilitate and sustain a
long-term, well-balanced and constructive satisfaction of basic human needs,
such as (a) security, (b) effectiveness and control, (c) positive sense of
identity, (d) positive connection, (e) comprehension of reality, (f)
independence or autonomy, (g) transcendence, and (h) long-term satisfaction
(see Table 4). Staub’s taxonomy complements the
map visualized in Figure 2, by providing a list of socio-emotional development
objectives development planners should aim for when seeking to facilitate
socio-emotional enablement and protection. According to Staub
(2003), “security” is the most basic of all human needs. In addition, experiencing - on an
ongoing basis - “effectiveness and control”, “positive
identity”, “comprehension of reality”, “positive
connection”, as well as “independence or autonomy” is necessary
for engaging in social learning, and for choosing constructive means of basic
needs satisfaction. Needs such as “transcendence” become
progressively more important as life moves on; “long-term
satisfaction” evolves with the prospect of being able to constructively
satisfy of earlier-mentioned needs.
Staub claims that his
taxonomy has cross-culturally validity. In other words, it does not matter
whether one lives one’s life as a Bushman in the Kalahari dessert, or as
a
Table 4: Staub’s
Taxonomy of Basic Human Needs
|
BASIC
HUMAN NEED |
RELEVANCE
FOR SOCIO-EMOTIONAL WELL-BEING |