Typical & Atypical Development Final Exam

Attachment Theory

• John Bowlby.

• attachment as an innate biological system.

• caregiver sensitivity.

• phases of attachment development.

• impact on long-term development.

• internal working models

Attachment as Innate Biological System

• born with genetic predisposition → makes us able to interact with others socially and able to form attachments.

• round faces attract us more → we respond to them more (e.g., puppies, kittens, babies, etc.)

Caregiver Sensitivity (Attachment Theory)

• adults have predisposition to want to interact with babies.

• response to tones: imitating baby’s cry (ambulance, violin, etc.)

Phases of Attachment Development

• when events happen during certain stages of life, the molecular mechanisms of the brain is changed too.

Impact on long-term Development (Attachment Theory)

• something that happens in early days of life can have a long-term effect many years later.

Internal Working Model

• when interacting with a caregiver/environment in the first stages of life, you create models and patterns that will stay with you forever.

Infants Automatically Respond to their Mothers

• mother holds baby while sitting vs walking around.

• heart IBI (intra-beat interval):

  • long gap between beats → slower heartbeat → comfortable calm

  • short gap between beats → faster heartbeat → agitated uncomfortable.

• when mother moves → baby is relaxed, why?

  • in the womb during the day when the mother is moving, theres less room in the womb for baby to move → at night when relaxed the baby has more room in the womb to move around.

  • why we like hugs → the constriction → like the womb.

ECG

• electrocardiogram.

• measures electrical activity of the heart.

Developmental Scientists

• researchers who study the lifespan.

Child Development

• study of childhood and the teenage years.

Gerontology

• scientific study of age.

Adult Development

• scientific study of adult life.

Lifespan Development

• multidisciplinary.

• explores predictable milestones that define human growth through life.

  • e.g., learning to crawl → walk → run

• focused on individual variation between individuals.

• explores impact of specific child-rearing practices and life conditions.

Contexts of Development

• fundamental markers that shape how we develop throughout the lifespan.

  • cohort

  • SES

  • culture

  • gender

Normative Transitions

• predictable life changes that occur during development.

  • e.g., puberty, starting school, etc.

• things everyone typically goes thorugh.

Non-Normative Transitions

• unpredictable or atypical life changes that occur during development.

  • e.g., economic crisis, war, global pandemics, etc.

• can disrupt typical development and change the trajectory of an individual’s development depending on how they respond.

  • consequences aren’t fixed → can change depending on time of event, resources individual has access to, age, social responses of community, etc.

Cohorts

• birth or age group with whom we travel through life with.

Baby Boom Cohort

• people born from 1946-1965.

• economic expansion, traditional family roles.

  • influences expectations about education, work, family life, etc.

Maximum Lifespan

• biological limit of human life → ~105 years.

  • has increased over the last century → due to advances in medicine, technology, living conditions.

• is a biological limit.

• not to be confused with life expectancy.

Life Expectancy

• can be increased through improving living conditions.

Lifespans of Different Groups

• varies across countries.

• variability between rich & poor.

  • access to nutrition, health care, safety, education, etc.

• women tend to live longer.

  • biological, social role.

Early Conceptions of Childhood

• lower SES children were part of workforce → not really seen as kids → seen more as small adults.

• Rousseau → innocence at birth concept.

  • extended view of childhood.

Emerging Adulthood

• phase of life that begins after high school, lasts throughout the late twenties.

Changing Conceptions of Later Life

• twentieth-century life expectancy revolution.

• death more often from chronic disease rather than infectious.

• two groups of older adults:

  • young-old & old-old.

Changing Conceptions of Adult Life

• 1960s revolution → mantra of personal freedom and doing your own thing → upended ideas about family life.

• more children born outside marriage, more single households, dual income, etc.

Role of Cyberspace

• social networking sites that facilitate connections among users.

• social networking can severely impact the development of children and teens.

Rising Income Inequalities

• gap between rich and poor within a nation.

• upward social mobility.

SES & Development

• one of the strongest predictors of developmental outcomes.

  • more money = better access to nutrition, health care, etc.

Developed World Nations

• nations defined by their affluence, or high median per-person.

Developing-World Nations

• nations that are sharp in contrast to the most privileged ones.

Collectivist Cultures

• highly regard social harmony.

Individualistic Cultures

• emphasis on independent, competition, and personal success.

Impacts of Culture & Ethnicity

• cultural differences are fundamental differences in ‘how we think’ and ‘how we’re grown’

• it is a necessary part of understanding psychological development.

Nature

• biological or genetic causes of development.

Nurture

• environmental causes of development.

Traditional Behaviourists

• believed a few general laws of learning could explain behaviour from infancy through the teens.

Behaviourism Theory

• original blockbuster “nurture” theory.

• feelings and thoughts cannot be studied because inner experiences cannot be observed.

  • must instead study behaviour → what people do, say, etc.

Operant Conditioning

• the law of learning that determines any voluntary response.

• reinforcement: behavioural term for reward.

  • variable reinforcement schedules.

  • extinction.

• Skinner.

Cognitive Behaviourism (Social Learning Theory)

• behavioural worldview emphasizing that children learn by watching others and that our thoughts about reinforces determine behaviour.

• modeling → learning by watching.

• efficacy: internal belief in one’s competence that predicts whether children initiate activities or persist in the face of failures.

• Bandura.

Psychoanalytic Theory

• focus on early childhood and unconscious motivations.

• Id: instinct, needs, feelings.

• Ego: conscious, rational part of personality.

• Superego: moral aspect of personality.

• Freud.

Attachment Theory

• focus on nurture, nature, and love.

• importance of being closely connected with a caregiver during early childhood.

• argued that attachment response is genetically programmed into our species to promote survival.

• Bowlby.

Evolutionary Psychology

• theorizing about the “nature” of human similarities.

• worldview highlighting the roles that inborn, species-specific behaviours play in human development and life.

Behavioural Genetics

• exploring the “nature” of human differences scientifically.

• devoted to determining the role that hereditary forces play in determining individual differences.

  • twin studies, adoptions studies, etc.

Principle 1 (Nature & Nurture Combine)

• Our nature (genetic tendencies) shapes our nurture (life experience).

  • evocative forces.

  • active forces.

Principle 2 (Nature & Nurture Combine)

• we need the right nurture (life experience) to fully express our nature (genetic talents)

  • person-environment fit.

Epigenetics

• research field that explores how early life events alter the outer cover of our DNA → producing lifelong changes in health behaviour.

Erik Eriksons Psychosocial Tasks

• infancy (birth to 1 year)

  • trust v. mistrust

• toddlerhood (1-2 years)

  • autonomy v. shame & doubt

• early childhood (3-6 years)

  • initiative v. guilt

• middle childhood (7-12 years)

  • industry v. inferiority

• adolescence and emerging adulthood (teens into twenties)

  • identity v. role confusion

• emerging adulthood (twenties)

  • intimacy v. isolation

Piaget’s Cognitive Development Theory

• from infancy to adolescence, children progress through 4 stages of intellectual growth.

• assimilation.

• accommodation.

Assimilation

• first step promoting mental growth, involve fitting environmental input to current mental capacities.

• putting novel stimuli in pre-existing categories.

• e.g., → learning a new dog breed and putting it into category of dog.

Accomodation

• enlarging mental capacities to fit input from wider world.

• creating new categories for novel stimuli.

• e.g., → learning a cat is not a dog, and creating a new ‘cat’ category.

Piaget’s Stages of Development

1. Sensorimotor

2. Pre-operations

3. Concrete Operations

4. Formal Operations

Sensorimotor

• age 0-2

• baby manipulates objects to pin down basics of physical reality.

• stage ends with language development.

Pre-operations

• age 2-7.

• children’s perceptions are captured by immediate appearances.

  • “what they see is real”

• believe that inanimate objects are really alive.

• limited logical reasoning.

• have not mastered conservation

  • → believe if the appearance of a quantity of liquid changes, the amount actually changes too.

Concrete Operations

• age 8-12.

• realistic understanding of the world.

• can reason conceptually about concrete objects but cannot think abstractly.

• master conservation.

Formal Operations

• age 12+

• reasoning is at its peak.

  • hypothetical, scientific, flexible.

• full cognitive human potential has been reached.

Ecological Developmental System Approach

• perspective on children that stresses the need to embrace a variety of approaches → emphasizes the reality that many things influence/affect development.

• stress the need to use many different approaches.

• emphasize need to look at how processes interact.

Correlation Study

• research strategy involves relating two or more variables.

Representative Sample

• group that reflects the characteristics of the overall population.

Naturalistic Observation

• measurement strategy that involves directly watching and coding behaviour.

Self-report Strategy

• people report on their feelings and activities through questionnaires.

True Experiment

• only research strategy that can determine that something causes something else.

• randomly assigning people to different treatments and then looking at outcomes.

Cross-Sectional Designs

• compare different age groups at one time.

  • measuring only group differences, not individuals.

Longitudinal Designs

• testing the same group across time.

Subject Attrition

• the fact that people drop out t each testing point in longitudinal research.

Consider when Scanning Findings

• study participants

• examine study measures

• correlational findings might be due to other forces.

• cross-sectional findings → beware of making assumption that this is the way all people really change with age.

• look for longitudinal studies and consider insights from them.

Quantitative Research

• data-collection strategy that involves testing groups and using numerical scales and statistics.

Qualitative Research

• occasional developmental science data-collection strategy that involves personal interviews.

What variable can predict how long it will take for offspring to become independent?

• complexity

  • the more complex the more time it will take.

Importance of Caregivers as part of Environment

• change/restructure environment to fit needs.

• a filter between you and external world.

  • passive.

• responding to interaction between the baby & parent & environment.

  • active.

• is biologically organized to decode the infants signals → cries, etc.

• interaction shape child in ways that will effect everything that happens in their life after.

• multi-level approach to studying these interactions/predictions.

  • functioning of automatic nervous system.

Do Mother Automatically Respond to their Infants?

• biological base.

• most performed action to calm crying infant → maternal carrying.

• listening to infant crying enhances motor function.

  • MRI study → listen to different sounds → crying activated the Pre-SMA

    • which is activated when preparing body for action.

    • very specific to baby crying.

Do Infants Automatically Respond to their Mothers?

• infant calming response to maternal carrying.

• animal studies:

  • input: tactile stimulation (mother picks up infant)

  • output: body movement decreases, crying decreases, HR reduction, compact posture.

Are Mothers and Infants Synchronized? (types of synchrony)

• co-presence synchrony: doing something together at the same time.

  • e.g., watching the same video together.

• video synchrony: watching the same video (not together)

• No synchrony: modify the signal and test synchrony.

What changes the way the synchrony is processed?

• emotional valence of the video → neutral vs positive/negative action.

• more neutral emotional valence → the more people synchronize with the video.

• the stronger the emotional action (positive/negative) the stronger the emotional valence is → the more people co-presence synchronize.

Hormonal Orchestration (prenatal development & pregnancy)

• estrogen & progesterone.

  • increase drastically.

• fetal development.

• structural changes.

Motherhood Consolation (Psychological Changes)

• mental organization that emerges in mothers throughout pregnancy.

  • life & growth

  • primary relatedness

    • emotional connection with child (even before birth) → usually begins once pregnancy becomes known.

  • supporting matrix

    • building stable social networks.

  • identity reorganization

    • developing new sense of self.

Primary Maternal Preoccupation (extreme attunement)

• toward end of pregnancy, mothers enter a temporary state of heightened sensitivity to baby’s needs.

• regression-like condition allows them to satisfy baby’s needs.

Theory of Mind (pregnancy)

• enables attribution of mental states to self and others.

• differentiate others beliefs from one’s own.

• impact → modifications facilitate mother-baby interaction and understanding of needs.

• decrease of grey matter → pruning of unnecessary connections → makes the remainder work more efficiently

Childs response to Distress

• activated by discomfort, danger, separation.

• motivates proximity-seeking behaviours.

Attachment Milestones

• pre-attachment

• social smiles

• focused attachment

• social referencing

• internal working model

Pre-attachment

• first week of life.

• no preference for caregiver.

Social Smiles Emerge

• ~2 months.

• selective smiling at familiar people.

• intentions begin.

Focused Attachment

• 6-8 months.

• preference for primary caregiver.

• stranger and separation anxiety begin.

Social Referencing

• infant looks to caregiver to interpret unfamiliar things.

Internal Working Model

• guides expectations in the relationship.

Complementary Caregiver System

1. child distress

• attachment system activates.

2. caregiver response

• protection and comfort provided.

3. system deactivates

• distress decreases.

• exploration resumes.

• optimal conditions support flexible activation.

Secure Attachment (Ainsworth)

• consistent care.

• trusts caregiver availability.

• secure base for child to explore environment.

• developmental outcomes: effective emotional regulation, greater social competence.

• positive outcomes.

Avoidant Attachment (Ainsworth)

• appears emotionally distant.

• down-regulates emotional needs.

• overly independent.

• limits negative emotion expression.

Resistant-Ambivalent → Anxious Attachment (Ainsworth)

• struggle to use secure base.

• limit exploration behaviour.

• intensifies emotional expression.

• high dependency, poor self-regulation.

Disorganized Attachment (Ainsworth)

• no coherent strategy → absence of organized response when attachment system is activated.

• caregiver is both comfort and fear source.

• contradictory behaviour → disoriented, fearful responses, toward caregiver.

• developmental risk → marked emotional dysregulation, increased developmental risk.

The Strange Situation

1. introduction/baseline → caregiver and child enter unfamiliar room.

2. stranger enters.

3. first separation.

4. first reunion.

5. second separation.

6. stranger returns

7. second reunion → most important part.

Cephalocaudal Growth

• from head to toe.

Physical Development: Body Changes in Early Childhood

• bodies lengthen and slim.

• boys and girls similar in size.

• mass-to-specific progression → increase coordination and precision in actions.

Gross Motor Skills

• running, jumping, climbing.

• boys a bit better.

Fine Motor Skills

• more precise movements.

  • e.g., sowing.

• girls a bit better.

• predict later academic performance.

Threats to Physical Development

• less outdoor play.

  • (play supports social & cognitive growth)

• increased screen time.

  • risk of obesity.

• undernutrition.

Egocentrism

• difficulty understanding other people have a different perspective and knowledge.

Identity Constancy Lacking

• if someone changes appearance the child may believe they have actually changed their identity.

  • e.g., santa.

Animism

• inanimate objects are alive.

Artificialism

• belief that humans created nature (the sun, etc>)

  • form of assimilation.

Evaluating Piaget

• revolutionized understanding of child cognition.

• underestimates young children’s abilities.

  • infants and toddlers may understand more than they can express.

• culture influences development.