Developmental Psychology

What do developmental psychologists study?

How our behavior and thoughts change over our entire lives, from birth to death

• the physical, intellectual, social, and moral changes across the life span

Natal (vocab)

Birth

Prenatal period

Developmental period before birth

• in womb

Neonatal period

Birth—1 month

Infancy period

1 month-18/24 months

Conception

• release about 200 million sperm

• sperm seeks out the egg and attempts to penetrate the egg’s sperm

Zygote (first two weeks)

Fertilized egg

• enters a 2-week period of rapid cell division and develops into an embryo

Embryo (2 weeks to 8 weeks )

Developing human organism from about 2 weeks after fertilization through the second month

• organs begin to form

• heart beats

• liver functions

Fetus (9 weeks till birth)

Fetus gains increased mobility and develops rapidly

• digestion begins to form

• looks human-like

Teratogens

Agents, chemicals or viruses, that can reach embryo or fetus and cause harm to the baby

• ex. smoking→reduced heart rate, still birth, etc..; Alcohol→Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS), can cause physical and mental defects; mercury→from fish; various drugs, opioid addiction, caffeine

If a mother is addicted to something during pregnancy, the child is ____ likely to develop the same addiction

MORE

Healthy newborns..

• Turn heads towards ____

• See ____ inches from their faces

• Gaze longer at ____-like objects from birth

• voices

• 8 to 12

• human

Reflexes

Inborn automatic responses

Rooting (reflex)

Tendency for an infant to move its mouth toward any object that touches its cheek

Sucking (reflex)

Tendency for an infant to suck any object that enters its mouth Vigorou

Grasping (reflex)

Vigorous grasping of an object that touches the palm

Moro (reflex)

Flailing and then making itself into a small ball to protect itself

Babinski (reflex)

Projection of the big toe and the fanning of the other toes when the sole of the foot is touched, found only in infants T

Plantar (reflex)

Toes curl in when the ball of the foot is pressed

Stepping (reflex)

When feet touch the ground→will try to walk

What are three things newborns can detect?

Sounds, smells, and patterns

Habituation

A decrease in responsiveness with repeated presentation of the same stimulus

Maturation

Automatic, biological, and developmental changes in body or behavior over time (nature), RATHER than life experience, or learning (nurture)

• these natural processes contribute to orderly sequences of developmental changes

• ex. sitting up, crawling, standing before walking

• Maturation sets the basic course of development, while life experience adjusts it

Infantile amnesia

Before 3 years of age, children don’t remember EPISODIC events

• because hippocampus isn’t fully developed yet

Puberty

The period of sexual maturation, during which a person becomes capable of reproducing

Primary sex characteristics (male & female)

Body structures that make reproduction possible

• males:

  • penis

  • testes

• females

  • vagina

  • ovaries

Secondary sexual characteristics (also landmarks for puberty) (male & female)

Non-reproductive sexual characteristics

• males

  • hairy

  • deeper voice

• females

  • widening of hips

  • breast development

Common issues that adolescents face during puberty (ERIKSON)

1. Finding one’s identity

2. Establishing relationships and understanding the world is extremely difficult

All physical abilities essentially peak by our…

mid twenties

Physical milestones

• Menopause

• ______________________

• The ending of the menstrual cycle around 50

• Decline in sexual reproduction

Alzheimer’s

Progressive/Irreversible brain disorder→gradual deterioration of memory, reasoning, language, and physical functioning

• deterioration of myelin

(males or females?) outlive the other sex by about 4 years

Females

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’ Stages of Grief

1. Denial

2. Anger

3. Bargaining

4. Depression

5. Acceptance

Lev Vygotsky - Zone of Proximal Development

The range of tasks that are too difficult for a person to learn by themselves, but can be learned with guidance from someone with experience in the task

• scaffolding a skill

• ex. in teaching, giving students problems that they haven’t quite learned yet but can get there, especially with guidance

Secure attachment

Infants use the mother as a home base from which to explore when all is well, but seek physical comfort and consolation from her if frightened or threatened

• explore when parent is present

• distressed when parent leaves

• seek comfort when parents returns (calms quickly when parents gets back)

• does not engage stranger without parent

• 66% of children

Insecure (anxious/ambivalent) attachment

• less likely to explore, even with parent

• very distressed when parent leaves

  • when reunited with their parents, difficult time being soothed, and often exhibit conflicting behaviors that suggest they want to be comforted, but that they also want to “punish“ the parent for leaving

• caregivers behavior with these children is often inconsistent, the children’s responses may be inconsistent

• 12% of children

Insecure (avoidant) attachment

• may resist being held by parents and will explore the environment

• do not go to parents for comfort when they return after absence

• sign of disengaged parenting

Mary Ainsworth’s Strange Situation

Children and infants need to develop a secure dependence on their parents before seeking unfamiliar situations

• put children with parent into a room with a stranger→parent left so child was alone with stranger→child and parent’s reunion was to assess the quality of attachment to the caregiver

Harry Harlow’s monkeys & takeaways

Monkeys who had a choice of mothers spent far more time clinging to the terry cloth surrogates, even when their physical nourishment came from bottles mounted on the bare wire mothers

• Physical Touch = IMPORTANT

  • touch>feeding (emotionally—proved by this experiment at least)

Human skin on skin

Important for babies

• sheds light on issues in institutions, adoption, and child abuse scenarios

• massaging premature babies led to faster weight gain

Basic trust

Erikson’s theory that securely attached children have a sense that the world is a predictable and reliable

• this translated into trusting and secure adults

As demonstrated with his monkeys, humans that are raised without stimulation and attention are (more likely to be)….

Frightened, withdrawn, and dysfunctional

Critical periods

Optimal period, shortly after birth, when an organism’s exposure to certain stimuli or experiences produce proper developments

• ex. babies deprived of TOUCH have trouble forming attachments to other when they’re older

• there are critical periods even in the womb, like a period for developing limbs and other parts of body etc..

Imprinting

The process by which certain animals form attachments early in life, usually during a limited critical period

• Lorenz→some animals form attachment through imprinting

Authoritative

Set standards for children that are reasonable and explained

• will encourage independence as long as child doesn’t break rules

• praise as often as they punish

• high support & high discipline

Authoritarian

Impose rules and expect obedience

• “because I said so“

• child = more susceptible to peer pressure

• low support & strong discipline

Permissive

Make few demands, give in to child’s demands, and use little punishment

• these parents take orders and instructions from their children, are passive, and endow children with power

• high support & little discipline

Which parenting style is the best?

• Research suggests that the most social competent and personally secure individuals tend to have had authoritative parents

• Authoritative = agreeable and easily going children

• CAUTION→no real cause-effect relationship, lots of other factors

Big questions in psychology

1. Nature vs. Nurture?

2. Stability vs. Change?

   1. ex. does a trait remain stable or change throughout life?

3. Continuity vs. Discontinuity? → Is development gradual or are there specific stages?

Physical milestones—

• Month 1:

• Months 2-5:

• Months 3-6:

• Months 5-7:

• Months 5-10:

• Months 6-11:

• Months 6-11:

• Months 7-13:

• Months 9-14:

• Months 11-14:

• Months 14-22:

• Month 1: lifts head

• Months 2-5: rolls over

• Months 3-6: bears some weight on legs

• Months 5-7: sits without support

• Months 5-10: stands holding on to parents’ hands

• Months 6-11: crawls on hands and knees

• Months 6-11: pulls self to stand

• Months 7-13: walks holding onto fixed objects (furniture)

• Months 9-14: stands well alone

• Months 11-14: walks well alone

• Months 14-22: walks up steps

Jean Piaget

Theory that children’s intelligence undergoes changes as they grow

Temperament

A person's characteristic emotional reactivity and intensity

Schema

Concepts or organized cluster of knowledge (mental molds) that we use to understand and interpret information

Assimilation

Interpreting a new experience in terms of an existing schema

Accomodation

Modifying existing schema for new information

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Animism

Belief that objects that are inanimate (not living) have feelings, thoughts, and have the mental characteristics and qualities of living things

Artificialism

Belief that all objects are made by people

Conservation principle

A child's ability to recognize that the volume or amount of a substance or object does not change when its form or shape changes

Theory of Mind

A person's general understanding that the people around them each have their own unique beliefs, perceptions, and desires

Autism

A neurological and developmental disorder that affects how people interact with others, communicate, learn, and behave

Criticism of Piaget

• Piaget's theory underestimates cognitive competence in infants and young children and overestimates cognitive competence in adolescents

• Piaget's theory is vague concerning processes and mechanisms of change

• Piaget's stage model does not account for variability in children's performance

Vygotsky’s Theory of Sociocultural Cognitive Development

Based on his belief that children learned through the social, language, and cultural interactions in their experiences

• children need social interactions to build language processes, and through these language processes, they develop the mental tools to learn

Internalization

The capacity to follow requests and prohibitions, even when one is not observed or cannot expect immediate rewards or punishments

Zone of Proximal Development

The distance between where a learner is at developmentally on their own & where a learner could be with the help of a more knowledgeable other

• range of abilities an individual can perform with the guidance of an expert, but cannot yet perform on their own

Attachment

An emotional tie with another person

Stranger anxiety

Distress and apprehension experienced by young children when they are around individuals who are unfamiliar to them

Attachment Deprivation

Occurrence of an infant's inability to form an emotional attachment to their mother or a permanent mother substitute

Attachment Interruption

Disruptions in the early caregiver-child bond (?)

Self concept

Overarching idea we have about who we are—physically, emotionally, socially, spiritually, and in terms of any other aspects that make up who we are

Social referencing

Observing the behavior of others in social situations to obtain information or guidance

Menarche

First menstrual period

Moral Development

Children's concept of rules, punishments, and morals change as they mature

• Kohlberg

Dementia

Chronic or persistent disorder of the mental processes caused by brain disease or injury and marked by memory disorders, personality changes, and impaired reasoning

Crystallized intelligence vs. Fluid intelligence

• Crystallized intelligence is accumulated knowledge you can recall as needed

• Fluid intelligence is your ability to learn, assess, and navigate new situations

Contact comfort

The physical and emotional comfort that an infant receives from being close to its mother

Flynn Effect

The observed rise over time in standardized intelligence test scores

Life expectancy

The average length of time that an individual in society will live

Lev Vygotsky

A child's cognitive development and learning ability can be guided and mediated by their social interactions

• His theory (also called Vygotsky's Sociocultural theory) states that learning is a crucially social process as opposed to an independent journey of discovery

• his theory on the proximal zone of development is one that would argue for continuous development, instead of stage development

Social clock

Concept that explores the timetable determined by a culture or social structure, that specifies a proper time for certain events, like marriage, graduation, employment or social status

Social learning theory

People can learn simply by observing others in a social context

• Bandura (Bobo doll)

Gender identity

A person's psychological sense of being male or female

Gender-typing

When the child adopts behaviors, values, or characteristics of others that he or she believes are part of his or her gender

Gender schema theory

The theory that children learn from their cultures a concept of what it means to be male and female and that they adjust their behavior accordingly

Criticisms of Kohlberg

• Does moral reasoning necessarily lead to moral behavior?

  • Kohlberg’s theory is concerned with moral thinking, but there is a big difference between knowing what we ought to do versus our actual actions

• Is justice the only aspect of moral reasoning we should consider?

  • Kohlberg overemphasizes the concept of justice when making moral choices. Other factors such as compassion, caring, and other interpersonal feelings may play an important part in moral reasoning

• CAROL GILLIGAN pointed out that Kohlberg only tested boys

  • Boys tend to have more absolute value of morality

  • Girls tend to look at situational factors

Pre-conventional Moral Development Stage

1. OBEDIENCE & PUNISHMENT

   →moral decisions are based off AVOIDING punishment

2. INDIVIDUALISM & EXCHANGE

   →what’s in it for me? (“if you scratch my back I’ll scratch yours“)

Conventional Moral Development Stage

3. GOOD GIRL/BOY

   →what will others think?

4. LAW & ORDER

   →what will society think?

Post-conventional Moral Development Stage

5. SOCIAL CONTRACT

   →laws are necessary to protect natural rights (LLP)

   →laws should be changed through the democratic process

   →BUT there ARE times laws should be broken if natural rights are at stake

6. Universal ETHICAL PRINCIPLES

   →laws are necessary, however, change doesn’t happen fast enough (if at all)

   →these people are okay with CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE

Sensorimotor (Piaget) (0-2)

• World is experienced & understood through the 5 senses

• Object Permanence (developed around 8 months)

  • realizing that when you can’t see objects, they don’t actually disappear from Earth

• Stranger anxiety

  • develops around the same time as object permanence and around when crawling starts

  • child is anxious around people they don’t know

Preoperational (Piaget) (2-7)

• Begin to use words and images to represent objects, ideas, events, and feelings

  • ex. “I’m mad“ or “fluffy dog“

• Pretend play

  • use imagination to play

• Animism

  • kids believe inanimate objects have feelings/thoughts

• Artificialism

  • belief that parts of the environment are created by people

• Egocentrism

  • assumes everyone else experiences the world from their own experiences (from the kid’s own view, like thinking everyone sees the world from my POV)

Concrete Operational (Piaget) (7-11)

• Understands conservation

  • awareness that physical quantities do not change in amount when they are altered in appearance

• Basic logic

  • deductive reasoning (ex. if A=B & B=C → A=C)

Formal Operational (Piaget) (12+)

• Understands sarcasm

  • opposite of what one truly means

• Manipulates information and/or objects in one’s mind without seeing it/them

  • able to visualize numbers, images, etc.. in head

• Strategy formation

  • making plans for the future

• Abstract thinking

  • thinking about things that aren’t tangible (ex. beliefs, emotions, freedom, etc..)

• Hypothetical thinking

  • thinking about “what if“ questions that aren’t always rooted in reality

• Metacognition

  • thinking about your own thinking (ex. thinking about how you previously solved a math problem)

Not every adult gets to this stage