Chapter 9: Human Development - PSY 001 - Fall 25

The sequence of age-related changes that occur as a person progresses from birth through old-age

Human development

Period of conception to birth

Prenatal period

When sperm and egg produce a zygote

Conception

A single-celled organism formed by sperm and egg

Zygote

Age when baby can survive ~22-26+ wks

Age of viability

Agents that are harmful to an embryo or fetus

Teratogens

The progression of muscular coordination

Motor development

Motor development starts with what?

Innate reflexes

The typical age at which individuals display various behaviors

Norms

Which sense develops slower than other sense

Vision

Humans, unlike other species, need what for different aspects of development?

Social contact

Inability to remember events from early childhood

Infantile amnesia

Transitions in patterns of thinking, including reasoning, remembering, and problem solving

Cognitive Development

a developmental period when certain behaviors / capacities are exhibited

Stage

Children develop the ability to understand people’s motives, intentions, emotions, etc. and how they may be different from our own

Theory of mind

Emotions that motivate people to do good things and not bad things; shame, guilt, disgust, pride, gratitude, embarrassment

Moral emotions

Children show a preference to avoid unfairness & people who behave unfairly

Inequity aversion

True or False: Children learn to behave fairly over time

True

Theory suggesting who you are is shaped by your conflicts and

fixations

Freud’s Psychodynamic Theory

Who invented a way to test human attachment

Mary Ainsworth

Anxiety exhibited ~6-7 months - 18 months

Stranger Anxiety

Anxiety exhibited ~7-8 months - 2-3 years

Separation anxiety

INNATE tendencies to respond to the environment in certain ways

Temperaments

Attachment Styles: associated with better social adjustment,

self-esteem, behavior

Secure attachment

Attachment Styles: associated with aggression, attention-seeking, and behavior problems

Insecure attachment

Structures necessary for reproduction

Primary sex characteristics

Features that distinguish one sex from the other, but are not essential for reproduction (body hair, voice, muscle development, fat distribution, etc.)

Secondary sex characteristics

Neural development in adolescence continues through teen years,

up to what age?

25

Elimination of less-active synapses

Synaptic pruning

Neural development from teenage years to age 25 is prominent in what brain area?

Prefrontal cortex

Theory that suggests as people grow older, they view time as more limited and therefore shift to focus on meaningful events, experiences, and goals

Socioemotional Selectivity Theory

First 2 weeks after conception

Germinal stage

2 weeks to 2 months after conception

Embryonic stage

2 months to birth

Fetal stage

Zygote starts multiplying, moves to uterus

Germinal stage

Stage where most vital organs and bodily systems start to form and it’s now called an embryo

Embryonic stage

Most vulnerable stage in prenatal development

Embryonic stage

Stage involving rapid bodily growth and organs begin to function, now called a fetus

Fetal stage

when a baby holds your finger; survival mechanism as offspring need to be carried from place to place

Grasping reflex

the turning and sucking that infants automatically engage in when a nipple or similar object touches and area near their mouths

Rooting reflex

Help infants nurse

Sucking reflex

3 Ways infants are studied

Preferential looking, Habituation, Rate of pacifier sucking or kicking

observing infants’ reactions to patterns of black-and-white stripes as well as patches of gray

Preferential looking technique

a way to study how infants categorize a series of objects based on the principle that after looking at objects that are all from the same category, babies will look for a longer time at objects from a new category.

Habituation

a strong, intimate, emotional connection between people that persists over time and across circumstances

Attachment

Assume that people progress through developmental stages in order, advance through stages with age, and major shifts and crises may lead to transitions

Stage theories

Tendency to focus on one feature of a problem, neglecting other important aspects

Centration

inability to envision reversing an action; can’t mentally “undo”

Irreversibility

limited ability to share someone else’s perspective

Egocentrism

ability to mentally undo an action

Reversibility

can focus on more than one feature of a problem at a time

Decentration

Process by which new information is placed into an existing scheme

Assimilation

Process by which a new scheme is created or an existing scheme is drastically altered to include new information that otherwise would not fit into the scheme

Accomodation

The understanding that an object continues to exist even when it cannot be seen

Object permanence

Awareness that physical quantities stay the same even though appearance or shape may change

Conservation

The ability to understand that other people have mental states that influence their behavior

Theory of mind

Stages of Kohlbergs Theory: Based on self-interest (obtaining pleasure or avoiding discomfort)

Preconventional level

Stages of Kohlbergs Theory: Based on laws, social approval, or disapproval

Conventional level

Stages of Kohlbergs Theory: Based on complex, abstract principles, above laws (justice, equality, etc.)

Preconventional 

3 Changes during adolescence

Puberty, neural development (gray matter increases, increased myelination, synaptic pruning), development of sexuality and gender identity

genetic status of being either male or female

Sex

psychological dimensions of masculinity and femininity

Gender

one’s sense of being male, female, or nonbinary

Gender identity

the way people outwardly express their gender through behavior, interests, and appearance

Gender expression

Who one is romantically and sexually attracted to

Sexual orientation

a behavior that is typically associated with being male or female

Gender roles

physiological aspects of sex that are either ambiguous or inconsistent with each other

Intersexuality

gender identity that matches to sex

Cisgender

gender identity that doesn’t match to sex

Transgender