Psychology AOS 1 - Chapter 2

Development

Changes that occur over time in an organism

Life-span development

Development from birth to old age

Developmental change

A relatively permanent or lasting change in a lifespan

4 broad areas of life span development

Emotional: changes in how an individual experiences, expresses, interprets and deals with different emotions

Cognitive: changes in an individual's mental abilities; e.g. reasoning, problem-solving

Social: changes in an individual's relationships, and their skills interacting with others

Physical development: changes in body and its systems; e.g. brain, nervous system, bones + muscles, motor skills, hormonal changes

Psychological development

Emotional, cognitive and social developmental changes

Stages of Life Span Development

Infancy: birth-2 years
Childhood: 2-12 years
Adolescence: 12-20 years
Early adulthood: 20-40 years
Middle age: 40-65 years
Older age: 65 years and beyond

Developmental norms

Typical abilities, characteristics or achievement associated with different ages, determined by average from studies. Provides a way of identifying 'typical' development

Heredity

Biological transmission of characteristics and traits on to offspring

Heredity (nature) Factor examples

Blood type, eye and hair colour

Environmental

All the experiences, events and objects that we are exposed to in our life

Environmental (Nurture) Factor examples

Upbringing, friendships, income, religion, media consumed and other personal and social factors.

Biopsychosocial model

A holistic approach to interpreting psychological behaviour, processes and development, taking into account biological, physical and social factors.

Biological factors

Physiologically determined influences, often not under our control, like sex, race, physical injury, sleep patterns and bodily stress response

Psychological factors

All mental processes and influences, like effects of prior experience, beliefs, perception of ourselves and skills for coping with emotional challenges

Social factors (in biopsychosocial model)

Influences from external environment we interact with, like friends, support availability, social media use and housing situation.

3 elements of emotion

Subjective feelings, expressive behaviour, physiological responses

Subjective feelings

1 of 3 elements of emotion. Personal experience of an emotion, like someone's experience, understanding and attitude towards being in love. Cannot be directly observed.

Expressive behaviour

1 of 3 elements of emotion. Physical communication and expression of emotion, like posture and tone of voice. People can hide expressions. Can be observed.

PhYSIOlogical responses

1 of 3 elements of emotion. Bodily changes that happen due to experiencing emotion, like heart rate, perspiration and blood pressure. Can be observable or not observable.

Importance of attachment in emotional development

Early attachment gives infants a basis of to build their emotional understanding.

Attachment

Emotional connection between an infant and a caregiver. Around 6 months attachment forms for specific person (mother) instead of accepting affection from anyone.

Ainsworth's theory of attachment

In 1978, American psychologist Mary Ainsworth devised an attachment assessment called 'Strange Situation'. It is conducted between 9 and 18 months of age.

Stranger Anxiety

Distress experienced by an infant (usually 8 months to 2 years old) when around strangers

Separation Anxiety

Distress experienced by an infant (usually 6-10 months, but can come later in life) when separated from or faced with the prospect of separation from those they are attached to.

Secure attachment

Dependence and exploration balance. Caregiver is 'home base'. Some distress when caregiver leaves (suggests confidence in returning). Upon return infant is happy and seeks contact.

Insecure avoidant attachment

Treats caregiver like stranger. Rarely cries when leaving, ignores upon return. Can be result of neglect or abuse.

Insecure resistant attachment

Anxious even when caregiver is near. Cries when separated, upon return cries to be picked up, then squirms to be free, unsure of what they want. Can be result of not very responsive caregiver (infant feels caregiver won't give them what they need).

Disorganised attachment

Inconsistent or odd behaviour during separation and reunion with caregiver. E.g. Upon return, infant approaches slowly backwards, or without making eye contact, or may impulsively begin to run to caregiver before pulling back. Usually caused by fear of caregiver but need to be comforted nonetheless. Leads to difficulties opening up + finding support and relationships as adult.

Surrogate

Anyone/thing that substitutes for something else.

Monkey experiment - attachment

American Psychologist Harry Harlow studied role of breastfeeding on attachment. Baby monkeys got fed by either a soft or spiky surrogate, and attachment was always to the soft mother. Therefore, contact comfort plays a part in attachment.

Monkey experiment - social privation on emotional development

3 month: Emotionally disturbed, scared of other monkeys at first, took 12 months to recover.

6 months: Longer time isolating self once meeting others, developed self-destructive behaviours like biting self and pulling hair out. Slower recovery than 3 month monkeys.

12 months: Extreme social and emotional impairment. Withdrawn and self-destructive, avoid all social interaction, some improvement but never fully.

Privation

Absence of opportunity to satisfy a need or desire

How do you identify cognitive development in young children?

Through observable behaviour, as kids can't communicate their abilities and feelings well.

Piaget's theory of cognitive development

Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget thought of cognitive development as a type of adaptation to environment, through two related processes called assimilation and accommodation.

Equilibriation

The ongoing process of achieving a balance between assimilation and accommodation, according to Piaget.

Adaption

Taking in, processing, organising and using new information to adjust to environmental changes.

Assimilation

Fitting new information into pre-existing mental ideas about objects or experiences.

Accommodation

Changing a pre-existing information or ideas to include new information

What is a Schema

Plural schemata.
Achieved with assimilation and accommodation. A mental idea of what a thing is, and how to go about acting on it. E.g. The idea of what Christmas is and what it involves.

Action schemata

Basic schemata for survival, like suckling and grasping, ready for action at birth

Stages of cognitive development

Must learn first stage's mental capabilities before moving onto next stage. Stages are Sensorimotor, Pre-operational, Concrete Operational and Formal Operational.

Sensorimotor stage

Birth - 2 years. Understands world through senses and motor actions. After 3 months, learns to integrate sensory + motor info to coordinate behaviour to do things like grasping out of reach items or turning to a noise. Crawling age (8 months) learns object permanence, essential, along with goal-directed behaviour.

Object permanence

Learned late sensorimotor stage. Understanding that objects exist, even if not seen, heard or touched. 'Out of sight, out of mind' and peekaboo.

Goal-directed behaviour

Learned late sensorimotor stage. Performing and completing a series of actions with a purpose in mind. Learns they can pull up on table to reach object up there.

Pre-operational stage

2-7 years. Imagination develops. Increased ability to mentally represent things. Uses symbolic thinking, animism, and centration, and learns reversibility and transformation in later part. Mainly egocentric view with a decentred shift towards end of stage.

Symbolic thinking

Learned pre-operational stage. Ability to use words and pictures to represent an image that isn't currently there, e.g. using imaginative play to 'transform' a bucket into a turtle.

Egocentrism

During pre-operational stage. Viewing the world only from your own point of view. e.g. a child standing right in front of the tv. Only shifts towards end of pre-operational stage to a decentred way of thinking.

Animism

Used pre-operational stage. Piaget proposed this links to egocentrism. Belief everything that exists has a consciousness. E.g. A rusty bike is sick, a tall tree is old.

Transformation

Learned pre-operational stage. Understanding that something can change from one form or structure to another.

Centration

Happens during pre-operational stage. Focus on one feature of something at a time. E.g. Two lines of tokens, same amount. Says they are the same. Bunches one up. Says longer has more. Centred on length.

Reversibility

Learned towards end of pre-operational stage. Ability to mentally follow a sequence of events back to the start.

Concrete Operational Stage

7-12 years. Mental operations are only able to be applied to concrete objects that can be experienced. Learns to understand conservation and classification.

Mental operation

Only applicable to concrete objects in concrete operational stage. Ability to correctly imagine the consequences of something happening without it actually needing to have happened.

Conservation

Learnt in concrete-operational. Understanding that certain characteristics of an object can remain the same, even if the appearance changes. E.g. Water is moved to different shaped glass, the understanding that there is still the same amount of water.

Classification

Learnt in concrete operational. Categorising objects or events based on common features

Formal Operational Stage

12+ years. Capable of abstract thinking, solving problems systematically, deductive reasoning and idealistic thinking.

Abstract thinking

Learnt in formal operational. Thinking that doesn't rely on ability to see, visualise, experience or manipulate to understand, e.g. understanding concepts of time or distance. They will further develop personal morals and beliefs.

Systematic Problem Solving

Learnt in formal operational. Developing strategies to solve a problem, identify possible solutions, hypothesise and test solutions.

Deductive Reasoning

Learnt in formal operational. Using logical rules to draw a conclusion from multiple pieces of info that are believed to be true.

Idealistic thinking

Learnt in formal operational. Thinking about idealistic characteristics about themselves and others. They compare and strive to be their ideal person. This extends to envisaging possible solutions to global issues without considering what is possible in a time frame.

Social behaviour

Any action influenced by the actual, imagined, expected or implied presence of others.

Smiles

REFLEX SMILE - turning up of corners of mouth
SOCIAL SMILE - Appears around 3-6 weeks, more prevalent after 6 months. In response to social stimuli, a 'true smile'. Failure to show by 6 months is an early sign of autism.

Crying for infants

Inflates lungs at birth, communicates needs

Erikson's view of social development

The impact that different social and cultural influences have on our social, emotional and personality development. Key principles are Psychosocial Development and Psychological Crisis.

Define what Psychosocial development means and how it relates to social development

Social development is caused by psychological processes and social experiences

Psychological crisis

A turning point in our lives, where an individual faces a personal conflict in adjusting to society, between two extremities, one from personal needs and the other from society's demands.

Stages of Social Development

Trust vs Mistrust
Autonomy vs Shame and Doubt
Initiative vs Guilt
Industry vs Inferiority
Identity vs Role Confusion
Intimacy vs Isolation
Generativity vs Stagnation
Integrity vs Despair

Stage 1

Trust vs Mistrust (0-18 months). Adequate care develops trust, inadequate develops mistrust. Balance is required.

Stage 2

Autonomy vs Shame and Doubt (18 months-3 years). A child learns to be independent, and battles between their autonomy/independence, and they shame and doubt for being too independent.

Stage 3

Initiative vs Guilt (3-5 years). Children no longer just react, but think and act with purpose. Initiative is doing activities with purpose and plan and following curiosities, guilt comes from going too far and crossing boundaries.

Stage 4

Industry vs Inferiority (5-12 years). Children learn to do good work to get approval. A sense of industry, wanting to know how the world works, will develop if not limited by feelings of inferiority. School has big impact.

Stage 5

Identity vs Role Confusion (12-18 years). Teens develop a sense of identity (the view someone has of themselves), and without this they form 'role-confusion', and don't know where they belong.

Stage 6

Intimacy vs Isolation (18-25 years). Intimacy is the ability to share and care for someone without fear of losing self. Failure to develop this leads to isolation and loneliness. INTIMACY & IDENTITY can change over time.

Stage 7

Generativity vs Stagnation (25-65 years). Generativity is person's concerns with lives of younger/future generations. People may feel need to participate in fostering the continuation of life, otherwise stagnation and sameness forms.

Stage 8

Integrity vs Despair (65+ years). Looking back on life, people either feel integrity, that their lives were good, or despair, that their lives were meaningless.

Sensitive periods

Optimal time for learning, where there is greater responsiveness to environmental learning. Usually short for physical characteristics, long for psychological characteristics. For language, it goes until age 12.

Critical periods

Essential time for learning, where we are most vulnerable to absence of certain environmental factors. E.g. visual cortex fails to develop correctly if both eyes aren't exposed to life for most of first 6 years of life.

Imprinting

Young animals fixate on first thing that moves/they see, and form attachment. E.g. Ducklings.