AP Psychology - Development

Chronological order of development

Infancy to adulthood

Thematic issues of development

• Stability vs. change - how much do people change as they grow up and how much of who we are stays the same

  • Ex: Are you shy or outgoing? Have you always been this way?

• Nature vs. nurture - heredity vs. environment, which one shapes you more?

• Continuous vs. discontinuous - distinct stages or gradual growth

Different types of development

• Physical

• Social

• Cognitive

Ways to study development

• Cross-sectional study - compare people of different ages at the same time

• Longitudinal study - follow same people over time

What can prenatal development be influenced by?

• Maternal illness

• Genetic mutations

• Environmental factors

Teratogens

Chemical that can harm baby during prenatal development

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome

Series of physical and cognitive abnormalities that appear in children whose mothers drank large amounts of alcohol while pregnant

Order of prenatal development

• Development of gross motor skills (ex: moving arm) and then fine skills (ex: writing with a pencil)

  • Critical periods in infancy/childhood for certain skills, especially language

    • Ex: Brain not capable of learning to talk past childhood (different studies show different specific age)

How do doctors judge whether infants are maturing normally?

• Use developmental milestones (average benchmarks)

  • Use percentiles

• Infant reflexes help indicate on-track development

  • Rooting Reflex - when cheeks are touched, baby opens mouth and sucks to nurse

Adolescent development

Growth spurt puberty (reproductive abilities develop)

Adult development

Leveling off of physical development and then varying decline in reproductive ability, mobility, flexibility, reaction time, and visual/aiditory acuity

Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory

• Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory - cognitive development is shaped by social interactions

  • Culture plays a huge role

  • Nurture side

• Zone of Proximal development - gap in what a child can do alone and what he/she can do with another’s guidance

  • ZPD is where instruction should be focused for individual children

  • Ex: For person A needs help with specific parts of AAQ that person B is good at. Person A is good at parts of AAQ that person B is bad at. Both need instruction in different areas

  • Ex: Different class types - AP, honors, academic, general

• Children learn from others by scaffolding - giving help less and less as children learn more

  • Shaping is the same thing

  • Ex: teacher shows them how to cut, then guides their hands, then watches them

Piaget’s Cognitive Development of Children

• Piaget’s Cognitive Development of Children

  • Children learn in same progression because it is innate

  • Nature side

• Has stages

  • Innate to go through this stage progression

Schema

• Schema - framework for organizing information

  • File cabinet in your brain

  • Made of connections between neurons

• Children build schemas very quickly as they learn new information because making new neural connections

How can schemas be changed

• Assimilation - fitting new objects/experiences into an existing schema

  • Ex: adding a new file to a file cabinet

  • Ex: Learning different types of flowers and birds

• Accommodation - changing a schema to fit in new information or creating new schema

  • Ex: making a new file cabinet or replacing a bad file

  • Ex: Bambi

Piaget’s Stages

1. Sensorimotor stage

2. Preoperational stage

3. Concrete operational stage

4. Formal operational stage

Sensorimotor Stage

• Experience world through senses

• Ages

  • Birth to 2 years old

• Key Developments (need to develop before they can move onto next stage)

  • Object permanence - objects continue to exist even if can’t be seen

    • Ex: Peek-a-boo with a baby (This is why scared of strangers)

Preoperational Stage

• Learning to express themselves with words and images, but still don’t have logic so do pretend play

• Ages

  • 2 to 6 years old

• Key Developments

  • Conservation - quantities remain the same even if they change shape

    • Ex: More slices of pizza does not mean more pizza

  • Reversibility - things that have been changed can go back to their original state

    • Ex: this room was a mess, but it can go back to being clean

  • Animism - believe all things are living

  • Egocentrism - child cannot see another person’s point of view

    • Ex: sun exists “to wake me up,” says a child in this stage

• All developments lead to developing Theory of Mind - people’s ideas about their own and other’s mental states

Concrete Operational Stage

• Can think logically about concrete events can do some representative operations like math

• Ages

  • 7 to 11 years old

• Key Developments

  • Thinking systemically

    • Ex: how to complete a large school project if the teacher doesn’t break it down into little steps

Formal Operational Stage

• Ages

  • 12 to adulthood

• Key developments

  • Abstract Reasoning - solving hypothetical problem, systematic reasoning, “if this, then that”

  • Systemic problem solving

    • Ex: Strategies for Monopoly or Chess

• Piaget believed that not all people can think like this

Language

A mutually agreed upon system of arbitrary symbols that are rule governed and generative to produce an infinity of ideas

Structure of Language

1. Phonemes - smallest units of language that you can perceive

   • Ex: “ah” sound in father, “a” sound in pay

   • Different set in every language

2. Morphemes - smallest unit of meaning

   • Ex: house=1 morpheme; houseboat=2 morphemes

   • Un-friendly-ly= 3 morphemes (“un” and “ly” change the meaning of the word)

3. Semantics - understanding meaning of words and word combinations

   • Both the literal meaning and the connotation (implications of word)

   • Ex: difficult (negative connotation) vs. challenging (positive)

4. Syntax - rules that explain how words are arranged in a language

   • Ex: “her drink” vs. “the drink of her”

Typical Language Development Stages

1. 1 to 5 months

   • Reflexive communication - vocalizes randomly, coos, laughs, cries, engages in vocal play, discriminates language from nonlanguage sound

2. 6 to 8 months

   • Babbling - verbalizes in response to speech of others; responses increasingly approximately human speech patterns

3. 10 to 13 months

   • First words - uses words; typically to refer to objects

4. 12 to 18 months

   • One word sentence stage - vocab grows slowly; uses nouns primarily; overextensions begin

5. 18 to 24 months

   • Vocabulary spurt - fast-mapping facilitates rapid ac

6. 2 years

   • Two-word sentence stage - uses telegraphic speech; uses more pronouns and verbs

What do children often do with their language?

• Overgeneralization - using word incorrectly to describe a wider set of objects or actions than it is meant to

  • Ex: everyone is “mama” at first

Ecological Systems Theory

• Different social environments we encounter can affect our development

• Microsystem - groups that have direct contact with a person

  • ex: home, school, church

• Mesosystem - relationships between groups in the microsystem

  • ex: parents doesn’t like your friend (parents’ opinion can decide if you can hang out with them)

• Exosystem - indirect factors in a person’s life

  • ex: a parents workplace (stresses them out and they take it out on you)

• Macrosystems - cultural events that affect a person and people around them

  • ex: a capitalist economy, social norms

• Chronosystem - a person’s current stage of life

  • ex: childhood, adolescence (different social expectations and responsibilities)

Social Development of Children

• All people have attachments - emotional tie to another person

  • Babies develop intense bond to caregivers

  • Animals also develop intense bonds called imprinting

• Separation anxiety normal part of childhood when children are away from caregivers

• How bond develops:

  • Being fed (but not as important as once thought)

  • Body contact/comfort

  • Familiarity

  • Responsive parenting - helps babies realize they can trust caregivers

• Harlow’s Monkey Experiments - found that comfort is just as important as food

Adverse Childhood Events

• Experiencing ACEs has effects on relationships people form throughout their lives

  • Ex: extreme neglect, childhood sexual abuse, early exposure to substance abuse, etc

• Some people are resilient and can grow from adversity

• Many are dramatically affected rest of lives - have abnormal stress responses, lower intelligence scores, more mental health struggles

• The brain is plastic and wants to heal

  • PACE - Positive and Compensatory Experiences

Types of Attachment

• Parenting matters in attachment, but can be different depending on the culture

  • Secure Attachment - sad to see parents leave, happen when they return, but fine in between, highest in social competence

  • Anxious Attachment - clingy children, constantly check for parents

  • Avoidant Attachment - don’t care about parents, even if gone

  • Disorganized Attachment - inconsistent behaviors on all 3 types

Who created parenting styles?

Diana Baumrind

Parenting styles

• Authoritarian

  • Rigid, controlling, low in warmth

  • Discipline is strict, sometimes physical

  • “Because I say so”

  • Children tend to be withdrawn, fearful, distrustful of others

• Permissive

  • Parents highly involved, but have few demands of children

  • No control of children

  • Children tend to be spoiled, unable to follow rules, lack self-control

• Authoritative

  • Set reasonable limits, but not overly controlling

  • Firm but understanding and flexible

  • Discipline through negotiation, explains reasons for decisions

  • Children tend to have high self-esteem, be self-reliant, competent

Adolescent Social Development

• More reliance on peers

• Can demonstrate egocentrism:

  • Imaginary Audience: “everyone is looking at me”

  • Personal Fable: “nobody knows what it’s like to be me”

• Forming sense of identity

  • Your sense of self; who am I?

  • Formed by testing and combining different roles

  • Need to develop identities for different parts of yourself: race/ethnic, gender, sexual orientation, religious, occupational, family

Different types of identity developments

Adult Social Development

• Culture plays a big role in when true adulthood begins and when major life events should happen = “social clock”

• Emerging or transitional adulthood more common in America now

• Childhood attachment styles can affect the types of relationships adults form

Erikson’s stages of development

• Trust vs Mistrust - Trusting or mistrusting that basic needs will be met

  • Ages 1-2

• Autonomy vs Shame & Doubt - Developing independence

  • Ages 2-4

• Initiative vs Guilt - Taking initiative which may lead to guilt when unsuccessful or boundaries overstepped

  • Ages 3-4

• Industry vs Inferiority - Develop self confidence when successful or inferiority when not

  • Ages 5-12

• Identity vs Role Confusion - Finding identity and role

  • Ages 13-19

• Intimacy vs Isolation - Forming relationships and intimacy with others (more like getting married)

  • Ages 20-40

• Generativity vs Stagnation - Being part of a family and contributing to society

  • Ages 40-65

• Integrity vs Despair - Making sense of life and meaning of contributions

  • Ages 65+