THE BIG PSYCH developmental

What is developmental psychology

Developmental psychology is the study of how we change through life, physically, mentally and socially

Stages of Prenatal Development

• Organs is formed 6 weeks after conception

• The embryo turns into a fetus after 9 weeks

• The fetus is fully functional after 24 weeks as well as being able to hear the outside world

Voice preference in baby

At birth baby usually prefers the mom’s voice more compared to the father’s voice

Teratogens

Teratogens are

• harmful chemical agent that can cross the placenta and harm the zygote, embryo or fetus

• Ex: drug alcohol pollutants and chemicals like kitty litter

Alcohol and pregnancy

• There is no safe amount of alcohol for a pregnant person to drink

• Since Alcohol is a depressent, it slows down the CNS of both the baby and the mom

Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder FAS

• FAS is marked by a small disproportioned head, and lifelong brain abnormalities

• About 4 in 10 mothers who drink during pregnancy have babies with FAS

Features of a Competent Newborn

• born with only reflexes that help them survive

• Human babies are also born preferring sights sound that help their social responsiveness

• basic reflexes include withdraw limb to escape pain, turn head to get out from under a cloth, rooting reflex and sucking reflex

Do Babies Know?

• Prior to 1960 it was widely known that babies dont know

• But research discover that babies know a lot and can tell us a lot if we ask them to respond by gazing, sucking and turning heads

Habituation

Habituation is the decreased in responsiveness after repeated stimulation as infants gain familiarity with repeated exposure to a visual stimulus, their interest wanes and they look away sooner

What is Novelty preference

As the baby habituated to the old stimulus, they over time preferred gazing at new stimulus as they are bored of the old one

Maturation

A biological growth process that enable orderly changes in behavior and relatively uninfluenced by experience

Brain development

• From age 3 - 6 the frontal lobe neural work in an children brain are the most active

• 6 - puberty is when the neural networks that support language and agility are the most active

Maturation and Infant memory

• We don’t remember things from before about age 3 because our brain is no fully developed yet

• We have little conscious memory prior to 3 or 4

Motor development & maturation v training

• As our brain mature, it allow for us to enables more physical coordination ability

• The sequence of motor development is universal, but the timing is not

• Genetics plays a major role in motor development

• Baby maturation reflects a maturing nervous system not the baby imitating others or training (evidences in blind baby)

Early Cognitive Development abilities

By 6 month of age. we can comprehend

• Permanence

• numbers

• simple physical laws

Schemas

• developed by Jean Piaget

• Schemas define the way we make sense of surrounding

• Schema are concept and mental mold that we use to organize our experiences

Assimilation

A way of interpreting new experiences by putting them into existing schema

Accomodation

A way of interpreting new experiences by adjusting it to our schemas to fit a new experience

Piaget’s stage theory of cogniction

• Piaget believed that children’s cognition develops in stages,

Jean piaget development theory critism

Most critics stated that

• Piaget underestimated children’s abilities

• Most children dont develops in disconnected stages

Piaget’s Theory of sensorimotor stage

the stage from birth to about 2 years of age where infants percept mostly in terms of their sensory impressions and motor activities

Piaget’s Theory of pre operational stage

about 2 to about 6 or 7 ears of age, during which a child learns to use language but does not yet able to comprehend the mental operations of concrete logic

Piaget’s theory Egocentrism

children in the preoperational stage (about ages 2–7) have difficulty seeing things from another person’s point of view (POV).

Theory of the mind

• the ability to think of other people as thinking individuals and the ability to infer what other might be thinking r feeling

• Usually pre operation children will begin to develop this trait

Autism

A disorder characterized by a deficient in communication and social interaction marked by an impaired of the theory of the mind

Piaget's Theory concrete operational stage

the stage of cognitive development from 6-7 to 11 years old during which children gain the mental operations that enable them to think logically about concrete event as well as grasping complex idea like math and logic

Piaget’s Theory formal operational stage

the stage of cognitive development that begins around 12 during which people begin to develop the ability to think logically about abstract concepts

Stages of Piaget’s Theory

• Sensory motor / sensorimotor 0 - 2

• Pre operational 2 - 6-7

• concrete operational 6-7 - 12

• formal operational 12 -

The Alternative viewpoint - levy Vygotsky scaffolding

While Piaget’s theory emphasized how the child’s mind grows through interaction with physical environment. Levy emphasized how the child’s mind grows through interaction with social environment

Criticisms of Piaget’s Theory

Many critics said that

• Piaget theory emphasized on continuity verse stage development

• underestimating children’s development

• Piaget did not get he sequence of the milestones right

Stranger Anxiety

The fear of strangers that infants commonly display around about 8 months of age after they are able to move and have object permanence

Attachment

An emotional tie with another person; usually shown in young children by their seeking closeness to the caregiver and showing distress on seperation

Attachment also require

• comfort

• familiarity

• responsiveness

Critical period

AN optimal period early in the life of an organism when exposure to certain stimuli or experiences produces normal development

Imprinting

The process by which certain animals form attachments during a critical period very early in life

Familiarity

Humans do not imprint, but rather tends to become attached to people/things that become familiar to them

The relation between the father and attachment

• Men whoa re about to become father experiences a flood of hormonal change in their body

• Absent fathers put children at increased risk for psychological and social disorders after controlling for income and education differences

Self concept

• The major social major social achievement is attachment

• In childhood it is developing a sense of self

• Self concept is a sense of your own identity and personal worth

Awareness and self-concept developmental stage

• By 18 months the baby will form self concept

• Self recognition also lead to self concept

• By 5-6 kids will start to describe themselves by gender, group, membership, psychological traits and in comparison to other kids

• by 8 - 10 self concept will be a stable trait

• self concept affects your actions and expectations

Child rearing practices

Authoritative Parents

Authoritarian Parents

Permisive Parents

• All of these parenting are differed in rules and philosophy, and each can varies tremendously depending on the children

What is Adolescent

• Adolescent is a transition stage between childhood and adulthood

• Adolescent begins with the start of puberty (sexual maturity)

• Adolescent ends with independent adult status

What is the Stanley hall view on Adolescent

• Stanley hall was one of the 1st psychologist to describe adolescence

• Stanley describe the stage of adolescence as the tension between biological maturity and social dependence that creates a period of storm and stress for the maturing children

Puberty

the period of sexual maturation during which a person becomes capable of reproducing

Primary sex characteristic

the body structures that is necessary for reproduction

Secondary sex characteristic

non-reproductive sexual characteristics such as female breasts and hips, male voice quality, and body hair

menarche

the first menstrual period of girls that mark the start of girls adolescent

spermarche

the first ejaculation of boy that mark the start of boys adolescent

Adolescence in girls and boys

• Girls puberty usually happen earlier than boys, but boys usually outgrown girls in height by the age of 14

• The sequence of physical changes that happen during adolescent is usually more predictable than the timing

Brain development in adolescence

• Until puberty, brain cells will continually increase their connections

• During puberty there is a pruning of unused connections

• During puberty, the frontal lobe development lags behind the limbic system which explain impulsiveness emotionality and risky behavior

Cognitive development in adolescent

• As adolescents goes, the ability to reason increases

• Invincibility theory starts to develop

• As adolescents goes, same as the ability to think about their thinking and other’s thinking

• Become more critical about society, parents and themselves

Reasoning power in Adolescent

• According to Piaget’s formal operational stage, abstract logic starts to develop

• Adolescent becomes more capable of thinking about how others might think and how this may differ from how they think

Morality in Adolescent

• According to Piaget, the cognitive development leads to moral judgements

• Kohlberg also studied moral reasoning and concluded that as our thinking develops, so does our moral reasoning power

Lawrence Kohlberg 3 stage of moral development theory

• Pre conventional - under 9 - moral reasoning will be surrounded by doing good to avoid punishment and getting possible rewards

• Conventional - early adolescence - moral reasoning will be surrounded by doing good to care for others and to follow rules/law

• Post Conventional - early adult - do good to affirm “rights” and personal ideals

Criticism of Kohlberg

• Most critics accepts his first two stages

• Most critics only argue that his Post conventional stage is often considered too white/Western european/middle class/individualistic

• Most critics also criticized the fact that his last stage is biased against communal cultures and women who maybe more relational

Moral feeling

• A feeling of right are wrong that comes from out gut

• Moral feeling influences moral reasoning

• Moral judgment involves quick gut feelings which then trigger moral reasoning

• Moral reasoning aims to convince others of what we intuitive feel

Moral Action

• Moral actions are actions that are deemed right according to our moral feelings

• this right thing depends on one’s social influences

Identity

our sense of self; according to Erikson, the adolescent task is to solidify a sense of self aby testing and integrating various roles

Social identity

the “we” aspect of our self-concept: the part of our answer to “Who am I”? that comes from our group memberships

The relation between intimacy and Gender

• Boys usually communicate to solve problems and more dominant & unexpressive as adolescent

• Girls usually communicate to form connections and more flirtatious as adolescents

• Older male generally less domineering and more empathetic

• Older females tends to be more assertive and self confident

What is the Male answer syndrome

When a male is faced with a difficult questions, they are more likely than women to make up an answer rather than admit that they don’t know the answer

Adolescents seperating from parents

During adolescent, closeness with kids decrease as well as influences, while peer influence increase

• there is a correlation between good relationship with parents and teens to good relationship with teen and their peers

Selection effect

teens tend to choose friends who are like themselves, who share their interests

What is a Emerging adult

an adult in his mid - late 20s who is technically past adolescent but not yet an independent adult

Adult Physical Development Peak

• Our physical peak happens at around our mid twenties (earlier for women) and then gradually goes down hill

Adulthood and relation to fertility

• Fertility decreases as we age

• Women will eventually go through menopause

• Men don’t generally loses fertility but their sperm count and speed gradually declines

Health and aging

• As we age we are less likely to suffer from short term illnesses

• Physical activity can enhances mental abilities

• As we age, our immune system also decreases

• As we age our neural processing also slows therefore reaction time decreases

• Brains regions for memory atrophy and shrink

Dimentia

The mental erosion and can be caused by small strokes, brain tumors, Alcoholism or Alzheimer’s disease

ALzheimer

a progressive, irreversible brain disorder leading to the deterioration of memory, reasoning, language and physical functioning. Patients have reduced acetylcholine and gene abnormalities

Aging and memory

• Generally as we age, we tends to not forget prospective memory

• But it is easier to remember time based task memory and habitual task memory

Cross sectional studies

a study in which people of different ages are compared with one another

longitudinal study

research in which the same people are restudied and retested over a long period of time

Crystal intelligence

the type of intelligent about knowing stuff. This also increases with age

Fluid Intelligence

the ability to reason speedily and abstractly, the ability to problem solve. This decreases with age

Human peak in math and literature

Math peaks in 20/30s while literature peaks in 50s and beyond

Social clock

a culturally-set timeline for major life events

Love correlation with divorce

• There is a positive correlation between couples who first live together then divorce later

• There is a coleration between later marriages between two educated individual are likely to last longer

Love & marriage correlatoin with success

• Marriage is a predictor of happiness, health and sexual satisfaction as well as income

• Marriage can also predicts crime rate, delinquency and emotional disorders among children