Week 8 - Developmental Psychology

Traits

Change over time and develop

Trait change

Follow a trajectory

Able to predict what trait is seen at what point

Stages (3)

Childhood

Adolescence

Adulthood

Two study designs to compare age groups

Cross Sectional

Longitudinal

Cross sectional study design

Observe individuals at diff ages at same time

Concerns of cohort effects

Longitudinal study design

Observe same people at diff stages

Concerns of practice effects and attrition

Stages of child development (3)

Prenatal, perinatal, postnatal

Prenatal events (3)

Maternal cortisol levels

Maternal immune activation

Valproic acid exposure

Maternal cortisol levels

associated with altered cognition, emotion, structure of brain

Maternal immune activation

Associated with higher risk for schizophrenia and autism

Valproic acid exposure

Comes from a drug, associated highly with autism

Postnatal events

Freq and diverse

Maternal care such as env enrichment and nutrition

Biological and env factors determine development of traits

Self Concept

Collective knowledge an individual has on own characteristics

eg. personality traits, physical features, values, goals, roles

Self concept stages (3)

2: awareness of sex and gender

4: awareness of physical features

6: identification with attributes

Childhood amnesia

When long term beings to develop around 3-5

Childhood amnesia theories (2)

Development of language (enforce memory encoding)

Development of brain (prefrontal cortex and hippocampus cell turnover)

Piaget’s stages of cognitive development

Development occurs in 4 stages, unidirectional progress through independent exploration, and domain general (across all areas)

Piaget’s 4 stages of cognitive development

Sensorimotor

Preoperational

Concrete Operational

Formal Operational

Sensorimotor

Birth to 2

Concentration of here and now

Object permanence

Cant form mental representation

Preoperational

2 to 6

Create mental representation but lack ability to do operations or transformations

Don’t understand principles of conservations

Begin to appreciate mental states of others (theory of mind)

Theory of mind

ability to take on other people’s perspectives

plays role in social interactions and moral judgement

Evident in preoperational stage

Concrete operational stageForma

6 to 12

create mental representations and perform operations and transformations on them

Can’t perform on abstract concepts

Mastery of conservation problems

Formal Operational

12+

Create mental representations and abstract concepts and can perform operations/transformations on them

Can work with hypotheticals

Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development

8 stages at different ages from infancy to late adulthood

Characterized by different challenges and relationships

Resolution through completion of stages

Erikson’s psychosocial stages (3/8)

Childhood: hope, will, purpose, competence

Adolescence: fidelity

Adulthood: love, care, wisdom

Morality and Heinz Dilemma Responses (3)

Young children: preconventional morality, based on punishments and self interest

Adolescents: conventional morality, based on how actions affect others

Adults: preconventional morality, abstract reasoning to justify behaviour and based on chosen principles

Attachment theory

emotional and physical attachment to primary caregiver is critical

3 types of attachment

Secure, insecure (avoidant), insecure (resistant, insecure)

The Strange situation

standardized procedure to observe attachment security in children to primary caregiver

Attachment theory properties (3)

Secure attachment correlated with better outcomes

Reliability concern of parents jobs for eg

Different attachment styles for different parents

Physical comfort and Harlows monkeys (outcome)

Monkeys preferred cloth mother over wire mother even without food production from cloth mother

Parenting styles (4)

Demandingness/Responsiveness

high/high: authoritative parenting

High/low: authoritarian parenting

low/high: permissive parenting (indulgent)

low/low: rejecting neglecting parenting (uninvolved)

Culture and parenting

Certain parenting styles more common depending on culture

Environmental enrichment

animal studies mainly show that environments exceeding normal quality are better

Developmental windows (2)

Critical period

Sensitive period

Critical developmental period

period of time where stimulation is required, experience needed

Sensitive developmental period

Time where experience has relatively greater effect on development

Periods of high neuroplasticity

Adolescent development

emergence of egocentricity

Often self-conscious

Fear of embarrassment
Seek out role models

Adolescence and the brain

regarded as critical period for brain development, last critical period

Prefrontal cortex and synaptic pruning continue

Adolescents and risk

More risk taking behaviour compared to adults regardless of awareness of risk

Neurodevelopmental Disorders (NDD)

Abnormal development of nervous system leads to abnormal cognition and behaviour

Emerge early in life

distinct form acquired disorders emerging in adulthood

Memories and aging

free recall declines but cued recall and recognition remain good

Positivity bias

look back on own past positively and imagine positive futures

Personality changes

A and C increase

E and O decrease

Socioemotional selectivity theory

Older adults have fewer relationships based on different motives, emotion rather than info

Job satisfaction

Follows u shaped curve, peak at entry and exits

Mid-life crisis and empty nest syndrome

likely exaggerations, depends on person and lack of personal career or hobbies