Developmental Psychology- Chapter 5 and 6

Early childhood

• Age 2 to 6 years old

• Weight: start around 24 lbs.→ 40 to 50 lbs. at 6 years old

• Height: start around 34 inches→ 46 inches at 6 years old (3 in/year)

Myelination

• Fatty coating on the axons that speeds signals between neurons

• Neural pathways become more myelinated the more often we use them!

Main parts of the brain associated with cognitive development

• Limbic system

• Corpus callosum

• Prefrontal cortex

Corpus callosum

• Connects the hemispheres of the brain

• Benefits from myelination

• Reaction time decreases to more myelin

Prefrontal cortex

• Decision making, problem solving, and executive function

• Self-control, sleep, emotions, and temper

Limbic system

• Develops during early childhood

• Responsibilities include expression of emotions, regulation of emotions, and recognition of emotions in other people

Piaget’s theory of cognitive development stage

• Preoperational stage- second stage

• Spans from 2 to 6 years old

• Children start to use symbolic thinking but cannot use logic very well

Piaget’s cognitive errors

• Centration: egocentrism, focus on appearance, static reasoning, irreversibility

Vygotsky’s developmental theory

• Social Learning Theory

• Children grow and develop new behaviors and skills by observing others

• Emphasized the role of the mentor

Zone of proximal development

• The gap between what a learner can do independently and what they can achieve with guidance from a more knowledgeable other

• Mentors provide scaffolding: instructions, examples, reminders

Theory of Mind

• Around age 4, children begin to understand that other people don’t know what they are thinking- milestone ability

Early childhood vocabulary development

• Early childhood is a sensitive period to master vocab, grammar, and pronunciation

• Vocabulary explosion occurs through fast-mapping

Language grammatical errors

• Overregularization: pluralization and contractions

• Pragmatics

Main psychological task

Emotional regulation

• Ability to control and express emotions

• Cultural differences

• Environment also has a big impact

Erikson’s Theory of Psychosocial Development Stage

Initiative vs. guilt- age 3 to 6

• Very confident at this age

• Children try new things and activities and feel: self-worth when they succeed and guilty when they don’t succeed

Emotional Development

• Pride: A sense of feeling good about oneself- includes gender, size, race and/or heritage

• Prejudice: Feelings of superiority/often involves feelings of superiority to children of other gender, nationality, or religion

Early Childhood motivation

• Intrinsic motivation: Comes from inside a person- doing something for the satisfaction

• Extrinsic motivation: Doing something for an external reward- praise, money, or some other reward from outside the person

Four Parenting Styles

• Authoritarian parenting

• Permissive parenting

• Authoritative parenting

• Neglectful/uninvolved parenting

Authoritarian Parenting

• Children become conscientious, obedient, and quiet adults, but not overly happy

• Many rebel as adolescents and leave home before age 20

Permissive parenting

• Children tend to be less happy and lack self-control

• Have issues with emotional regulation

• Tend to have dependency issues

Authoritative parenting

• Children tend to have the healthiest outcomes later in life

• Children tend to be generally well adjusted (not guaranteed though)

Neglectful/uninvolved parenting

• Have the least healthy outcomes later in life

• Children have the risk of self-harm and abuse

Sex vs. gender

• Sex- biological

• Gender- social constructs

Main theories of gender development

• Psychoanalytic: phallic stage (3 to 6)→ attention shifts to the genitals

• Behaviorism: Gender differences are learned through conditioning: ex. “Gender-appropriate” behaviors are rewarded

• Social Learning Theory: Children imitate the gendered behavior of adults and subsequently other children

• Cognitivism: Children develop a gender schema: it is learned, it is very rigid, kids attempt to categorize everything