Intro to development

nature-nurture debate

Is development due to genetics?

Or due to experience?

• what you have learned, how you are treated, things you were exposed to (disease, pollution), etc.

How much of any characteristic, behavior, or pattern of development is the result of genes and how much is the result of experience?

Critical Periods and Sensitive Periods

A critical period is a time when a particular type of development MUST happen. If it does not occur in this window, it will not occur later on

• An embryo develops legs and arms between 21 and 50 days after conception

A sensitive period is a time when a certain type of development is most likely to happen and happens most easily

• Early childhood is considered a sensitive period for language learning

Normative Development and Individual Differences

Developmentalists look for both universal patterns and differences across individuals and groups

Normative Development

• The developmental changes that everyone progresses through

• The average age when people hit a developmental milestone

Individual Differences

• Variations around this average for each individual

Continuity vs. Discontinuity

Are individuals changing or remaining the same over time?

Is development a slow continuous growth?

• Quantitative improvement over time (changes in amount)

Or does development occur in stages?

• Where each stage is qualitatively different (changes in kind; transformations)

Plasticity

Plasticity is the idea that abilities, personality, and other human traits can change over time

Plasticity is particularly evident during childhood, but even older adults are not always “set in their ways”

The brain is more plastic in infancy and childhood than as an adult

Dynamic Systems

The dynamic-systems approach is a view of human development as an ongoing, every changing interaction:

• Between the physical, cognitive and psychosocial influences

  • ex. How the ability to sit up affects cognitive development

• Between the person and every aspect of his or her environment, including the family and society

  • ex. How going through puberty affects family interactions

Culture

Culture – reflects the beliefs, way of life, and customs that are shared and accepted by people in a society

Culture can be based on ethnicity, nationality, locale, religions, etc.

Developmental Theories

Systematic statements of general principles that provide a coherent framework for understanding how people change as they age

theories

Theories are systematic bodies of ideas that:

Organize and explain

Produce hypotheses

Generate new knowledge

Can be modified by new research

Can offer practical guidance

Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory

Stage theory of personality development

Focus on psychosexual issues

Focus on early experiences

Unconscious drives and motives, often originating in childhood, underlies human behavior

Stages in Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory

Oral stage: birth to 1 year old

Anal stage: 1 to 3 years old (ego: relative principle)

Phallic stage: 3 to 6 years old (superego/egocentric moral issues)

Latency stage: 6 to 11 or 12 years old

Genital stage: adolescence and beyond

Erikson’s Psychosocial Developmental Stages

Infancy

• Basic Trust vs Mistrust (trust caregiver/trust in life, mistrust caregiver/trust issues in life)

Toddlerhood

• Autonomy vs Shame/Doubt (protect from difficult things but give chance)

Early Childhood

• Initiative vs Guilt (moral issues)

School Age

• Industry vs Inferiority (start of self-image)

Adolescence

• Ego Identity vs Role Confusion

Young Adulthood

• Intimacy vs Isolation

Middle Adulthood

• Generativity vs Stagnation

Maturity/Old Age

• Ego Integrity vs Despair

behavioral theories

Behavior is due to experience (learning)

Ivan Pavlov:

Classical Conditioning - pairing a neutral stimulus (a sound) with a meaningful one (smell of food) leads to learning to respond to the neutral stimulus

John Watson and B. F. Skinner:

Operant Conditioning

• Behavior and consequences

• Reinforcement and punishment

• Ben and Noah pacifier example

Social Learning Theory

Albert Bandura

Observational Learning

• Modeling – observing the actions of others and copying them

Piaget’s Cognitive Development Theory

Stage theory in which children are active in the learning process

Organization – creating schemes (mental structures) about the world

Equilibrium – mental balance

Disequilibrium leads to confusion but is an opportunity to adapt one’s mental schemes

Adaption (to schemes)

• Assimilation

• Accommodation

Stages in Piaget’s Theory

Sensorimotor (Birth to 2-years-old)

• Children learn about their senses and how to manipulate objects

• Children acquire a sense of object permanence (things still exist even if they are out of sight)

Preoperational (2 to 7-years-old)

• Children develop mental representation, but lack logical rules

• Egocentric

Concrete Operations (7 to 11- or 12-years-old)

• Ability to think logically about concrete events

Formal Operations (12 years +)

• Ability to reason abstractly

Which of the following is NOT a stage theory?

Social Learning Theory

Ben and Noah learned that they could get their dad to pick up their pacifiers when they threw them down but that they would lose their pacifiers if they did that with the nanny. This can be explained by:

Operant conditioning

When do children master object permanence?

Sensorimotor period

ethics

Do not cause or minimize physical or emotional damage

Fully informed about nature of the research

Consent from both parent and child

Participants must volunteer

Participants must be allowed to withdraw

Participants are entitled to know results

Confidentiality

Evaluated by a review board