PYB203 Exam Revision

Developmental psychology

The field of study that explores patterns of stability, continuity, growth and change that occur throughout a person’s life. 

Domains of development 

Physical - The growth of the body and its organs, the functioning of physiological systems including the brain, physical signs of ageing, changes in motor abilities etc. 

Cognitive - Changes and continuities in perception, language, learning, memory, problem solving and other mental processes.  

Psychosocial - Changes and continuities in personal and interpersonal aspects such as motives, emotion, personality traits, interpersonal skills, relationships and roles played in the family and in society.  

Nature vs nurture  

• Nature: biogenetic and hereditary influences 

• Nurture: environment influences (relationships, culture) 

Maturation vs experience 

• Maturation: developmental changes that occur over time (due to biology) regardless of experiences 

• Experience: developmental changes related to specific experiences 

Continuity vs discontinuity  

• Continuity: gradual development, with change happening in increments over time. 

  • E.g., at age 2 years a child cries when their mother leaves a room, but by age 25 years they can go a week without a phone call. 

• Discontinuity: development occurs in distinct stages or steps, with each stage bringing different behaviours and qualities than previous stages. 

  • E.g., butterfly to a caterpillar. 

Active vs passive  

• Active: individuals are active agents in their own development, seeking out opportunities to grow, learn, and master increasingly difficult tasks. 

• Passive: development occurs through events in the environment that require individuals to respond, leading to changes in behaviour. 

Universal vs specific - development experiences

• Universal: a general trend/pattern of development that is applicable to all individuals and groups. 

• Specific: patterns of development are specific to a particular context or setting (e.g., individual experiences or cultural circumstances) 

Frued’s personality structures  

• People are driven by motives and emotional conflicts of which they are largely unaware 

• People’s lives are shaped by their earliest experiences 

• Three personality structures: 

  • Id: unconscious, selfish instincts and biological needs and desires (pleasure principle) 

  • Ego: reality and problem solving, learning how to redirect desire for instant satisfaction to realistic pursuits (reality principle) 

  • Superego: conscience, and sense of right and wrong 

Erikson's psychological stages of development  

• Proposes that dialectical conflicts are the mechanisms for growth 

• Emphasis on social influences, such as peers, family, school etc. 

• Emphasis on rational and active resolution of conflicts 

• People emerge from each crisis/conflict “with an increased sense of inner unity, with an increase of good judgement, and an increase in the capacity to do well” 

Bronfenbrenner (1917-2005)  

• Views development as a process of reciprocal, patterned interactions between the individual and their physical and social environment. 

• Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological systems theory proposed four interacting and overlapping contextual levels: 

  • Microsystem: Face-to-face interactions 

  • Mesosystem: Connections between microsystems 

  • Exosystem: Indirect influences 

  • Macrosystem: General aspects of society 

  • Chronosystem – encompasses time and the critical life and historical events that also influence development. 

• This model was later amended to the bioecological systems theory to encompass the individual and their biology and physical growth. 

Classical conditioning - Ivan Pavlov (1849 -1936) 

• Unconditioned stimulus/unconditioned response 

• Neutral stimulus paired with unconditioned stimulus 

  • Neutral stimulus --> Conditioned stimulus 

• Conditioned stimulus/unconditioned response 

• Reflex learning 

Operant Conditioning - B. F. Skinner (1904 - 1991) 

• Reinforcement strengthens response 

• Punishment weakens response 

• Positive: addition 

• Negative: withdrawal 

Social Learning Theory - Albert Bandura (1925- 2021) 

• Learn through modelling: observing others doing something 

• Then imitate the modelled behaviour 

• Can observe the rewards or consequences associated with behaviours 

• Can also learn not to do something (e.g., child watching others falling in the playground might deter them from doing the same thing) 

Cognitive Development - Jean Piaget (1896 - 1980) 

• Children actively construct new understandings of the world based on their experiences 

• Four discrete stages of thought 

  • Sensorimotor operation stage 

  • Pre-operational stage 

  • Concrete operational stage 

  • Formal operational stage 

• Assimilation: fitting new information into existing cognitive structures or schema. 

• Accommodation: when assimilation doesn’t work, new schemas are formed. 

• Adaptation: when existing schemas are deepened or strengthened through processes of assimilation or accommodation. 

Vygotsky's zone of proximal development  

• Cultural nature of human development 

• Culture as a tool ‘within’ a person 

• Social interaction drives cognitive development 

• Scaffolding: the framework of support and assistance provided by others (e.g., teachers,  
  parents, peers)  

• With this scaffolding, support can be gradually reduced  

Bronfrenbrenners bioecological systems theory

Erikson’s psychosocial stages of development

Frueds stages of psychosexual development

Operant conditioning

Theory vs research

Theory  

• A ‘theoretical’ framework aiming to explain human development  

• Incorporates many ‘assumptions’  

• Help guide research and practice.  

• Micro-theory: narrow scope  

• Macro-theory: encompass large fields of development.  

Research 
• Collect data to test and refine theories and hypotheses (predictions) 
• Derive concrete observations/findings. 
• Help guide future research, practice, and policy. 

Methods of developmental research  

Case study, naturalist observation, experiments, self-report assessments

Case study

• In-depth focus on one individual, group, or event 

• Aim is to fully understand that experience by compiling a complete picture 

Naturalistic Observations 

• Observing the normal habits of an individual/group in a natural setting 

• Goal is to limit the researcher intrusion 

• Increases the real-life validity, but is open to subjectivity and interpretation 

• Often require two observers to check the accuracy and objectivity of the collected data 

Experiments  

• Aim is to test causal hypotheses by systematically manipulating one variable at a time 
• Impose a tight level of control over the testing environment and any factors that could influence behaviour 
• However, these controls could mean findings aren’t generalisable (applicable) to the real world 

Self-report Assessment 

• Individuals report on their own experience or perspectives 

• Often via interviews or surveys 

• Allows us to get an insight into functioning or experiences that are difficult to observe (e.g., personality) 

• Open to reporting bias; requires a level of insight into behaviours; relies on recall 

• For self-report data in particular, a multi-informant approach is often the best, including from child, caregivers, teachers etc. 

Assessments

Assessment with examples

• Include a standardised assessment of functioning or performance 

• Establishes a standardised and objective approach 

• Quality of test relies on the quality of the items and whether they work equally well for all individuals (diverse backgrounds) 

Examples 

• Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) 
  • National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) 
  • Birth weight 
  • Mental State Examination 

Correlation studies 

Looks at the relationship between two or more variables, but doesn’t manipulate these variables, doesn’t permit causal inferences but sometimes is the only way to research something.  Cross-sectional, longitudinal & cross-sequential.

Cross-sectional study

Studies a group of participants at one point in time. 

Advantages: 

• Can examine differences between participants 

• Can examine differences according to age OR explore one particular age/stage in-depth 

• Cost-effective and time efficient 

Disadvantages: 

• Can’t distinguish between age effects (variation in experiences due to chronological age) and cohort effects (social and historical changes affecting a specific group with a shared event) 

• Can explore associations between variables (e.g., personality and mental health) but only at one time. 

• Difficult to infer cause and effect 

Longitudinal study

• Studies the same group of participants over multiple time-points. 
  Advantages: 

  • Study developmental trajectories over time 

  • Can explore how early experiences (predictors) relate to later development (outcomes) 

Disadvantages: 

• Expensive (time and resource intensive) 

• Attrition (drop-out over time) 

Cross-sequential study

Combines cross-sectional and longitudinal research. Multiple groups followed across multiple time points. 

• Allows investigation of development among individuals over time. 

• Allows investigation of differences in development between groups of different ages. 

What is Infancy

A period of rapid growth and development in a range of areas:

Physical, Perceptual, Cognitive, Language, Social and Emotional

Infant Motor Development- Newborn Reflexes 

Reflexes are unlearned, involuntary responses to stimuli 

• Survival reflexes are adaptive. E.g. breathing, eye-blink, sucking 

• Primitive reflexes are less adaptive and typically disappear in early infancy. E.g. Babinski reflex, grasping reflex 

Motor skill types & how they’re developed

Motor development follows two trends: 

• Cephalocaudal - pattern of development in humans that occurs from the head down to the feet.  

• Proximodistal - growth pattern in which development radiates from the center of the body outward.  

• Gross motor skills - Movement of large muscles of arms, legs, and torso 

• Fine motor skills - Movement of small muscles such as fingers, toes 

Habituation 

• The process of learning to be bored with a stimulus 

  • After repeated presentation with the same visual stimulus, the infant becomes bored and looks away 

  • If a different stimulus is presented and the infant regains interest, researchers conclude that the infant has discriminated between the two stimuli 

Preferential looking 

A method used to assess infant perception by presenting two visual stimuli and measuring which one the infant looks at longer. If an infant consistently looks at one stimulus more, it suggests they can perceive a difference and have a preference. 

Evoked potentials 

Researchers can assess how an infant’s brain responds to stimulation by measuring its electrical conductivity 

Infant - Operant conditioning

Infants can learn to respond to a stimulus (to suck faster or slower or to turn the head) if they are reinforced for the response  

Infants: Vision 

• At birth, infants have vision, but lack acuity 

  • Can see more clearly about 20 – 25cm 

  • Objects at 6 metres as distinct as objects at 180 metres for adults 

• Improves steadily during infancy 

• Attracted to patterns that have light-dark transitions, or contour 

• Attracted to displays that are dynamic rather than static 

• Young infants prefer to look at whatever they can see well 

• Around 2 or 3 months, a breakthrough begins to occur in the perception of forms 

Depth perception in infants

• Gibson and Walk (1960): Classic study to examine depth perception in infants using the visual cliff 

• Infants can perceive the cliff by 2 months (tend to be curious rather than fearful) 

Hearing 

• Basic capacities are present at birth 

• Can hear better than they can see 

• Can localise sounds 

• Can be startled by loud noises 

• Can turn toward soft sounds 

• Prefer relatively complex auditory stimuli 

• Can discriminate among sounds that differ in loudness, duration, direction, and frequency/pitch 

 

Early development 

• Sensory experience is vital in determining the organisation of the developing brain 

• The visual system requires stimulation early in life to develop normally 

• Early visual deficits (i.e., congenital cataracts) can affect later visual perception 

• Exposure to auditory stimulation early in life affects the architecture of the developing brain and influences auditory perception skills 

Infant Cognition- Piaget’s Sensorimotor Stage 

• The world is understood through the senses and actions 

• The dominant cognitive structures are the behavioural schemes that develop through coordination of sensory information and motor responses 

Substages of the Sensorimotor Stage 

• Reflexes: (first month) 

  • Reflexive reaction to internal and external stimulation 

• Primary circular reactions: (1-4 months) 

  • Infants repeat actions relating to their own bodies 

• Secondary circular reactions: (4-8 months) 

  • Repetitive actions involving something in the infant’s external environment 

• Coordination of secondary schemes: (8-12 months) 

  • Secondary actions are coordinated in order to achieve simple goals (i.e., pushing or grasping) 

• Tertiary circular reactions: (12-18 months) 

  • Experimentation; actions are repeated with variations 

• Beginning of thought : (18 months) 

  • Symbolic thought permits mental representation, imitation, and recall 

The Development of Object Permanence 

• Object permanence develops during the sensorimotor period 

• From 4-8 months, “out of sight, out of mind” 

• By 8-12 months, make the A-not-B error 

• By 1 year, A-not-B error is overcome, but continued trouble with invisible displacement 

• By 18 months, object permanence is mastered 

Research suggests that infants may develop at least some understanding of object permanence far earlier than Piaget believed.  

• By 3 months, infants appear to understand that objects have qualities that should permit them to be visible when nothing obstructs them 

Emotions 

• Earliest emotion – crying 

  • Hunger, anger, pain, fussiness 

• Other emotions 

  • Joy and laughter, 3 - 4 months 

  • Wariness, 3 - 4 months 

  • Surprise, 4 months 

  • Fear, 5 - 8 months 

  • More complex emotions in toddlerhood 

Infants: Self 

• Infants develop an implicit sense of self through their perceptions of their bodies and actions 

• In the first 2 or 3 months, infants discover they can cause things to happen 

• After 6 months, infants realise they and other people are separate beings with different perspectives, ones that can be shared 

• Around 18 months, infants recognise themselves visually as distinct individuals - Lewis and Brooks-Gunn (1979): Mirror test 

Attachment 

A strong and enduring emotional bond that develops between an infant and a caregiver during the infant’s first years of life 

Characterised by reciprocal affection and a shared desire to maintain physical and emotional closeness 

• Psychoanalytic - I love you because you feed me 

• Learning - I love you because you are reinforcing 

• Cognitive - I love you because I know you 

• Ethological - I love you because I was born to love 

• Key figures in attachment theory: 

  • John Bowlby (1907-1990) 

  • Mary Ainsworth (1913-1999) 

 

Piaget’s Theory & Core Concepts 

• Children actively construct new understandings of the world based on their experiences 

• Schemes are mental structures or frameworks that help children organize and interpret information (e.g., a baby’s grasping scheme for holding objects). 

• Assimilation is when a child fits new information into existing schemes (e.g., calling all four-legged animals "dog"). 

• Accommodation is when a child changes or creates new schemes to fit new information (e.g., learning that a cat is different from a dog and adjusting their understanding). 

Piaget’s Sensorimotor Stage

Infant - 2

• The world is understood through the senses and actions 

• The dominant cognitive structures are the behavioural schemes that develop through coordination of sensory information and motor responses 

• Goal-directed behaviour/intentionality 

• Symbolic thought/representations 

  • Infants move from understanding the world through senses and actions toward understanding through symbolic thought 

  • Become capable of mental representations 

  • Mental imagery - Internal representation of an external event 

  • Language - Not just a communication system, but a means of representing objects and events in an abstract way 

  • Symbolic play – Pretending 

Play

• The first pretend play emerges early in the second year – Play in which one actor, object, or action symbolises or stands for another 

• In the earliest pretend play, the infant performs actions that symbolise familiar activities such as eating, sleeping, and washing 

• Between the ages of 2 and 5, pretend play increases in frequency and in sophistication 

• Inverted U shape: nonexistent around 15 months, peaks around 5-7 years before decreasing 

• Social pretend play is universal - The content of play is influenced by culture 

• Social pretend play emerges around 3 – 4 years, or earlier in the context of a more proficient partner such as an older sibling, mother, or father. 

Cognitive skills developed from pretend play

• Social referencing 

• Using another person’s response to an ambiguous situation as a guide for one’s own response 

• Decentration 

• Reading intentionality in others 

The Development of Intentionality 

• Seeing oneself (and others) as intentional agents is one of the most basic elements of cognition in social contexts 

• Intentionality underpins more complex social cognition such as Theory of Mind 

Piaget’s Pre-operational Stage

2-7 

• Symbolic representations and capacity: 

  • Language 

  • Pretend play 
    • Can include imaginary companions 

• Can refer to the past and future 

• Object permanence 

• A focus on perceptual salience – the most obvious features of an object or a situation – means that preschoolers can be fooled by appearance 

• They may also have difficulty with tasks that require logic 

• Reliance on perceptions and lack of logical thought means that children have difficulty with conservation - the idea that certain properties of an object or substance do not change when its appearance is altered in a superficial way 

Cognitive limitations of pre-operational stage

• Centration -Focusing on one aspect of a problem or object 

• Irreversible thought - Cannot mentally undo an action 

• Static thought - Focusing on the end state rather than the changes that transform one state into another 

• Difficulty with classification - Using criteria to sort objects on the basis of characteristics such as shape, color, function 

• Lack class inclusion, the ability to relate the whole class (furry animals) to its subclasses (dogs, cats) 

• Egocentrism 

Theory of Mind 

The ability to attribute mental states— beliefs, intents, desires, pretending, knowledge—to oneself and others and to understand that others have beliefs, desires and intentions that are different from one's own. 

• Develops around age 4–5 in children

• Crucial for empathy, social interaction, and predicting others’ behavior

Early development of social cognition in infants

• Intentionality: Infants recognize that others act with purpose (e.g., reaching for a toy on purpose, not by accident).

• Perspective-taking: Begins in infancy and develops over time; understanding that others can have different views or knowledge.

• Joint attention: Around 9 months, infants share focus with others by following gaze or pointing.

• By 12 months: Infants point to inform others (not just to request).

• By 18 months: Infants distinguish between intentional and accidental actions.

Piaget’s Concrete Operations Stage

• 7-11

• In middle childhood, children move from preoperational to concrete operational stage 

  • Non-conserving, transitional, conserving 

• Demonstrate the ability to perform operations 

  • Mental actions on concrete situations/objects 

• Decentration 

  • Can focus on two or more dimensions of a problem at once 

• Reversibility of thought 

  • Can mentally reverse or undo an action 

• Transformational thought 

  • Can understand the process of change from one state to another 

In this stage we see a shift from understanding being driven by perceptual salience to logical reasoning 

• Seriation 

  • The ability to arrange items mentally along a quantifiable dimension such as weight or height 

• Transitivity 

  • The understanding of relationships among elements in a series 

• Less egocentrism 

• Classification abilities improve 

  • Can classify objects by multiple dimensions and can grasp class inclusion 

Piaget’s Formal Operations Stage: Adolescents  

• This takes place gradually over years 

• Formal operations are mental actions on ideas 

  • They permit systematic and scientific thinking about problems, hypothetical ideas, and abstract concepts 

• Piaget’s pendulum task 

The postformal stage

Some researchers have postulated a fifth stage of cognitive development- the postformal stage (e.g., Commons and Bresette, 2006) 

• In postformal thinking, decisions are made based on situations and circumstances, and logic is integrated with emotion as adults develop principles that depend on contexts. 

Limitations of Piaget’s Theory 

• The timing of stage progressions is more variable than Piaget proposed. 

• Piaget was more likely describing children’s performance (what a child usually does) rather than their competence (the limits of their abilities). 

• Piaget may have over-estimated some abilities: 

  • Adults frequently fail to use formal operations in daily life. 

  • Formal operations can be domain-specific (successfully applied in some contexts but not to others). 

Cognitive-developmental approach: Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934)

• Key Idea: Cognitive development is shaped by social interaction and cultural tools (e.g. language).

• Learning happens first socially, then individually (internalised).

• Introduced the concept of the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)

Morality

• Morality is a sense of behavioural conduct that differentiates intentions, decisions, and actions between those that are good (or right) and bad (or wrong). 

Three Components of Morality

1. Affective (Emotional)

   • Feelings around right/wrong (guilt, concern for others).

   • Emotions motivate moral thoughts/actions = moral affect.

   • Negative emotions (e.g., shame, guilt) deter bad behaviour.

   • Positive emotions (e.g., pride) reinforce doing good.

   • Empathy (feeling others' emotions) is key to moral dev.

   • Empathy motivates prosocial behaviour (helping, sharing, concern for others' welfare).

2. Cognitive

   • How we understand right/wrong and decide how to act = moral reasoning.

3. Behavioural

   • What we actually do in moral situations (e.g., resisting cheating, helping others) = moral behaviour.

Moral Reasoning 

• Cognitive developmental theorists study morality by looking at the development of moral reasoning – the thinking process involved in deciding whether an act is right or wrong 

• Moral reasoning is believed to progress through an invariant sequence – a fixed and universal order of stages, each of which represents a consistent way of thinking about moral issues that is different from the stage preceding or following it (Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development)

Piaget’s theory of moral development

Includes three aspects: 

• Premoral period 

  • During the preschool years, children show little awareness or understanding of rules and cannot be considered moral beings 

• Heteronomous morality 

  • Children 6 to 10 years old take rules seriously, believing that they are handed down by parents and other authority figures and are sacred and unalterable 

  • They judge rule violations as wrong based on the extent of damage done, not paying much attention to whether the violator had good or bad intentions 

• Autonomous morality 

  • At age 10 or 11, most children enter a final stage of moral development in which they begin to appreciate that rules are agreements between individuals – agreements that can be changed through a consensus of those individuals 

  • In judging actions, they pay more attention to whether the person’s intentions were good or bad than to the consequences of the act 

Moral Reasoning- Kohlberg 

Kohlberg proposed that moral reasoning develops through a series of stages, grouped into three levels. He believed that people progress through these stages as they mature and gain life experience.

1. Pre-conventional (kids):

   • Stage 1: Avoid punishment

   • Stage 2: Self-interest

2. Conventional (teens/adults):

   • Stage 3: Gain approval

   • Stage 4: Follow rules/laws

3. Post-conventional (some adults):

   • Stage 5: Social contract/fairness

   • Stage 6: Universal ethics/conscience

Criticisms of Kohlberg’s theory 

• Scoring procedures not sufficiently objective or consistent 

• Content of dilemmas too narrow 

• Dilemmas not aligned with real-life 

• No distinction between moral knowledge and social conventions 

• Gender and culture bias 

Moral behaviour according to social-learning theory

Moral behaviour is learned in the same way that other social behaviours are learned: through observational learning and reinforcement and punishment principles 

• Social-learning theorists believe moral behaviour is believed to be strongly influenced by the situation 

• Due to situational influences, what we do (moral performance) is not always reflective of our internalised values and standards (moral competence) 

Attachment Theory

Foundation of the Theory: 

• Attachment theory is based on the idea that humans have a biological predisposition to form emotional bonds, particularly with caregivers, for survival and well-being.  

• John Bowlby, a British psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who developed the foundational concepts of attachment theory. 

• Bowlby's theory draws on evolutionary psychology, suggesting that attachment behaviors, like crying for comfort or seeking proximity, are adaptive mechanisms that ensure the survival of infants. 

Early Relationships Matter: 

• The quality of these early relationships, characterized by responsiveness, consistency, and sensitivity, significantly impacts a child's development and their ability to form healthy 
  relationships later in life. 

Attachment Styles & influence on adult relationships

• Attachment theory identifies different attachment styles, including secure, anxious-preoccupied, dismissive-avoidant, and fearful-avoidant, which are thought to emerge from early experiences with caregivers.

• Mary Ainsworth is a developmental psychologist who collaborated with Bowlby and developed the "Strange Situation" method, a tool for assessing attachment styles in infants. 

Influence on Adult Relationships: 

• Attachment styles formed in childhood can influence patterns of relating in romantic relationships, friendships, and other significant connections throughout adulthood. 

The Impact of Historical Trauma on Attachment 

• The Stolen Generations and its impact on familial bonds and attachment. 

• Intergenerational trauma and its effects on attachment behaviours. 

  • Parental trauma is linked to detachment in the next generation, where individuals tend to distance themselves from close relationships (Spiel & Bornstein, 2023) 

  • Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) in parents, particularly maltreatment, are associated with behavioral problems in children, emphasising the need for interventions that address parental trauma to break the cycle of intergenerational trauma (Wang et al., 2022). 

• Maladaptive Coping Mechanism 

• Misdiagnosis weaponised against Aboriginal peoples 

• Mistrust in systems and services resulting in disengagement 

Cultural Limitations of Attachment Theory 

Attachment theory in Australian child welfare systems misrepresents Aboriginal families and children's needs, perpetuating inequities. 

• use of non-Indigenous constructs in child protection interventions reflects dominant cultural perceptions, causing harm to Aboriginal communities. 

• the mother-infant dyad, does not fully capture the communal and extended family structures prevalent in Aboriginal communities. 

• This theory often misrepresents Aboriginal parenting practices, leading to inappropriate child welfare interventions 

• The reliance on attachment theory in legal decisions concerning Indigenous children often overlooks the importance of cultural continuity and community-based caregiving systems 

Protective Factors for Aboriginal Attachment 

• Kinship = extended family + community
  ➤ Core to identity and protective care for children

• Cultural attachment is protective
  ➤ Strong community ties reduce stigma, support healthy choices

• Traditional practices support development
  ➤ Collective child-rearing and Elders strengthen family function and resilience

• Place attachment matters
  ➤ Connection to land (e.g., Cherbourg) supports identity, social & cognitive growth

The Promotion of Social and Emotional Wellbeing (SEWB) 

A holistic concept that recognises connection to land, culture, spirituality, ancestry, family and community are as important for wellbeing as physical health. This concept also acknowledges the impact of past events and policies on the SEWB of individuals today. 

Psychosocial development

the development of the personality, and the acquisition of social attitudes and skills, from infancy through maturity. 

Key points of Mary Ainsworth Attachment Theory

• It is the reunion behaviour that is the most telling 

• Lack of observable distress does not mean lack of underlying anxiety e.g. avoidant attachment 

Formation of Internal Working Models (IWMs)

Internal Working Models are mental representations of ourselves, others, and relationships, formed through early attachment experiences (Bowlby, 1969).

• Based on interactions with primary caregivers (especially in infancy). Eg, If a caregiver is responsive and consistent, the child forms a positive IWM (e.g., "I am lovable, others are trustworthy").

• IWMs guide future relationships, emotional regulation, and expectations.

• They’re mostly unconscious but can affect how we relate to others throughout life.

Two dimensions of PARENTING STYLES 

• Acceptance-responsiveness 

  • refers to the extent to which parents are supportive, sensitive to their children’s needs, and willing to provide affection and praise when their children meet their expectations 

• Demandingness-control (sometimes called permissiveness- restrictiveness) 

  • refers to how much control over decisions lies with the parent rather than with the child 

Authoritarian parenting and outcomes

• High demandingness-control and low acceptance-responsiveness 

• Parents impose many rules, expect strict obedience, rarely explain why the child should comply with rules, and often rely on power tactics such as physical punishment to gain compliance 

• Children of authoritarian parents tended to be moody and seemingly unhappy, easily annoyed, relatively aimless, and unpleasant to be around  

Authoritative parenting and outcomes

• high demandingness-control and high acceptance- responsiveness 

• parents set clear rules and consistently enforce them, but they also explain the rationales for their rules and restrictions, are responsive to their children’s needs and points of view, and involve their children in family decision-making 

• Children of authoritative parents were the best adjusted – cheerful, socially responsible, self-reliant, achievement oriented, and cooperative with adults and peers 

Permissive parenting and outcomes

• High in acceptance-responsiveness but low in demandingness-control 

• Permissive parents are indulgent with few rules and few demands 

• They encourage children to express their feelings and impulses and rarely exert control over their behavior 

• Children of permissive parents were often impulsive, aggressive, self-centered, rebellious, aimless, and low in independence and achievement 

Uninvolved (Neglectful) parenting and outcomes

• Low demandingness-control and low acceptance-responsiveness 

• They seem not to care much about their children and may even reject them 

• Uninvolved parents may be so overwhelmed by their own problems that they cannot devote sufficient energy to expressing love and setting and enforcing rules 

• Children of neglectful parents display behavioral problems such as aggression and frequent temper tantrums as early as age 3 

• They tend to become hostile and antisocial adolescents who abuse alcohol and drugs and get in trouble 

Benefits of Only Children 

• Sometimes stereotyped as self-centred or spoilt, however, this is not borne out in research. 

Research suggests higher in: 

• Self-esteem 

• Positive personality 

• Achievement motivation 

• Academic success 

Saracho & Spodek (1998) definition of play

• Intrinsically, not extrinsically motivated 

• Process-, not product- oriented 

• Creative and non-literal 

• Having implicit rules 

• Spontaneous and self-initiated 

• Free from major emotional distress 

RELATIONSHIPS WITH PEERS 

A peer is a social equal, someone who functions at a similar level of behavioral complexity, often someone of similar age 

• Peer relationships have developmental value 

• Peers help children learn that relationships are reciprocal 

• Peers force children to hone their social perspective-taking skills 

• Peers contribute to social-cognitive and moral development in ways that parents cannot 

• Contact with peers comes simultaneously with cognitive development including:

  Major advances in language development

  Major advances in perspective-taking abilities, and hence capacity for cooperative play, prosocial behaviour (and antisocial behaviour!) increases

  Advances in problem-solving ability means improved capacity to tackle conflict

Sociometric measures & social status categories

Researchers study peer-group acceptance through sociometric techniques 

• Methods for determining who is liked and who is disliked in a group 

Using sociometric techniques, children may be classified into the following categories of social status (Coie & Dodge, 1988): 

• Popular – well liked by most and rarely disliked 

• Rejected – rarely liked and often disliked 

• Neglected – neither liked nor disliked (isolated children who seem to be invisible to their classmates) 

• Controversial – liked by many but also disliked by many (the fun-loving child with leadership skills who also bullies peers and starts fights) 

• Average – in the middle on both the liked and disliked scales 

GENDER-ROLE DEVELOPMENT 

• Process of learning gender-consistent behaviours.

• By age 2, children recognize typical gender behaviours and start gender labelling themselves and others but don’t yet understand gender stability.

• Preschoolers (4-7 years) show strong rigidity about gender stereotypes.

• Rigidity decreases in primary school as gender identity firms up and thinking becomes more flexible.

• Children may exaggerate gender roles to understand them better (Maccoby, 1998).

• Non-conforming children may face social consequences.

The nervous system

Not a static network of interconnected elements; rather, it is a plastic (changeable), living organ that grows and changes continuously in response to its genetic programs and its interactions with the environment. 

Neurons

The basic functional units of the nervous system. They take in information from other neurons (reception), integrate those signals (conduction), and pass signals to other neurons (transmission). 

Glial cells

Nourish, protect, and physically support neurons and are thought to be particularly critical in brain development. One type of glial cell, the oligodendrocyte, covers the axons of neurons with myelin, a substance critical to the effective functioning of the brain. 

Speed of propagation of the action potential is determined by?

• diameter of axon (bigger = faster) 

• presence or absence of a myelin sheath 

Cortical changes 

• Infancy and early childhood is characterised by a dramatic period of synaptogenesis, following by an adaptive process of cell death and pruning. There is another notable surge of synapse growth just before puberty. 

• The strengthening or elimination of synapses is dependent on environmental demands or experience; those that are more often used are strengthened and those that are rarely used are eliminated. 

• Overall, grey matter (neuronal cell bodies, dendrites, and glial cells) development follows an inverted-U pattern of growth, first thickening in volume, peaking, and then thinning 

White matter changes 

• White matter increases in a roughly linear pattern throughout childhood, adolescence, and into early adulthood 

•  However, different brain structures myelinate at different times: myelogenetic cycles 

• Sensory/motor pathways myelinate early 

• Regions mediating higher-order functions myelinate late (e.g. the prefrontal cortex) 

Development of the Prefrontal Cortex 

• Grey matter volume: inverted U (early increases followed by gradual decreases starting in late childhood and continuing into adulthood) 

• White matter volume: Myelination- thought to be complete in the early 20s 

• Therefore, there is relatively ‘late’ maturation of the prefrontal cortex 

Functions of the Prefrontal Cortex 

• ‘Executive’ functions 

• Working memory 

• Cognitive flexibility 

• Inhibitory control 

• Reasoning 

• Problem solving 

• Planning 

• Executive attention 

Executive Functions in children

• EF includes:

  • Working memory: paying attention, remembering facts, using info to complete tasks.

  • Inhibitory control: following rules, managing emotions, delaying gratification.

  • Cognitive flexibility: planning, judging, self-correcting.

• EF helps children regulate behaviour and develop social, emotional, and cognitive skills over time.

• Moffitt et al. (2011): Poor inhibitory control in childhood predicts worse adult outcomes (health, income, crime, happiness).

Explicit Memory

involves intentional recollection of previous experiences (conscious, accessed directly) 

Four conclusions about development of explicit memory: 

• Older children are faster information processors; maturation of nervous system leads to improved short-term memory capacity and efficiency but age does not impact sensory register or long-term memory capacity 

• Older children use more effective memory strategies in encoding and retrieving information 

• Older children know more about memory 

• Older children know more in general and larger knowledge base improves ability to learn and remember 

Implicit Memory

apparent when retention is exhibited on a task that does not require intentional remembering. (unconscious, accessed indirectly) 

• From a developmental point of view, a variety of studies show that explicit memory is significantly increasing throughout infancy and childhood, where implicit doesn’t change as much  

STM capacity (Dempster, 1981)

• 2 years old: 2 items 

• 5 years old: 4 items 

• 7 years old: 5 items 

• 9 years old: 6 items 

Metamemory

your awareness and understanding of your own memory processes. It's a key part of metacognition (thinking about thinking).