Question

What is meant by the “social clock”? How does following a social clock foster confidence during early adulthood?

Answer 1

Psychologist Bernice Neugarten introduced the concept of social clock in 1965. It refers to certain milestones in life such as, education, employment, marriage, family etc. within the time limit a culture has set. Although social clock is very specific to each culture, the difference is only with the age within which such thing is achieved in each culture. There are certain milestones that children in early childhood is expected to achieve from birth to until they become 8 years of age such as gross motor skills, fine motor skills, speech development, cognitive development, ability to interact with other children, ability to cope in a classroom environment etc. If children do not achieve any of these, they would struggle hard to maintain positive self-esteem. This could also be seen from Erikson’s first three stages where children either go through trust, autonomy and initiative or they would undergo mistrust, shame and guilt.

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