Development

Sensorimotor Stage

Period within Piagetian theory from birth to age 2 years, during which children come to represent the enduring reality of objects

Preoperational Reasoning Stage

From ages 2 to 7 years, in which children can represent objects through drawing and language but cannot solve logical reasoning problems, such as the conservation problems

Concrete Operations Stage

Stage between ages 7 and 12 when children can think logically about concrete situations but not engage in systemic scientific reasoning

Formal Operations Stage

Stage starting at age 12 years and continuing for the rest of life, in which adolescents may gain the reasoning powers of educated adults

Why does it take us so long to pick up all the steps of development?

• We have so much more to learn

  • Human advantage is knowledge

• Humans overimitate the steps and are used from learning from others

Theory of Mind

• Ability to understand the minds of others

  • Most challenging thing we do

• You had a mind, I have a mind

Level 0

• No self-recognition

• Sheep, ants, computers

Level 1

• Self-recogntiion

• Chimps, gorillas, dolphins

Level 2

• Recognition of other minds

• Humans, maybe chimps

Level 3

• I know that you know what she knows

• Humans

Level 4

• Necessary level for understanding a Shakespeare play

• Humans

Level 5

• Advanced

• Most humans

Level 6

• Very advanced

• Some humans

The Mark Test

• Researcher mark’s child’s cheek, and then the child is able to point to the mark on their cheek and are able to recognize themselves

• Most pass at 2 years old

The Mark Test Animal Recognition

Look at correlation between brain mass and body mass

Reading the Mind in the Eyes Task

Guess what emotion someone is feeling based on their eyes

Lethbridge Mice Study

• Mice that were able to play normally were more fearless and more exploratory

  • Developed normally

• Mice that did not play or were sedated had stunted social competence

Antifragile

Gets better when exposed to pressure whereas tough is something that just doesn’t break

Risk Taking Behaviour

Tends to be around adolescent era

Reasons for Adolescent Risk Taking Behaviour

• Reward: The brain’s neurochemical reward systems are at their lifetime peak

  • Increased attentiveness to rewards

  • Increased sensation seeking

  • Increased emotional arousal

The Legend of Phineas Gage

• The dynamite went through his eye and out the back of his head

• Managed to survive

• Personality changed after his brain changed

  • Took to gambling, swearing a lot, and is more ill-mannered/impulsive

Relative Maturation of Brain Systems

• The prefrontal cortex is the last to develop

  • Controls executive functioning such as planning, inhibition, and morality

  • Not fully developed until 25

• Adolescents have fully developed reward system but lack the impulse control system

Indifference Point

• Discounting the future, the present value is more

• Where the present option is as desirable as the future option

  • The degree to which you are willing to ‘discount’ the future

• Get better ar delaying impulse control

Susceptibility to Peer Influence

• Peer influence has been underestimated and parental influence overestimated

  • Much apparent parental influence is due to genes

  • Other prenatal influence is restricted to behaviour at home

• Peers have tremendous influence

Peer Influence and Reward

The pressure of peers significantly changes people’s decision making

Stop Light Task

Individuals are tasked with having to do a course/game and decide whether to run the red lights or not

• Found that the adolescents were more likely to when in the presence of their friends, whereas adults stayed and acted the same

Evolutionary Adaptive

• Life history theory

  • The schedule and duration of key events in organism’s lifetime are shaped by natural selection to produce highest genetic inclusive fitness

• Trades offs between different goals

  • Growth, mating, parenting

• Mating especially for males, is competitive and thus rewards risks

Conservation Problems

Problems pioneered by Piaget in which physical transformation of an object or set of objects changes a perceptually salient dimension but not the quantity that is being asked about

Continuous Development

Ways in which development occurs in a gradual incremental manner, rather than through sudden jumps

Information Processing Theories

Theories that focus on describing the cognitive processes that underlie thinking at any one age and cognitive growth over time

Nature

The genes that children bring with them to life and that influences all aspects of their development

Nurture

The environments, startting with the womb, that influence all aspects of children’s development

Object Permanence Task

The Piagetian task in which infants below 9 months of age fall to search for an object that is removed from their sight and, if not allowed to search immediately for the object, act as if they do not know that it continues to exist

Phonemic Awareness

Awareness of the component sounds within words

Piaget’s Theory

Development occurs through a sequence of discontinuous stages, the sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational stages

Sociocultural Theories

Theory founded in large part by Lev Vygotsky that emphasizes how other people and the attitudes, values, and beliefs of surrounding culture influence children’s development

Attachment Behavioural System

A motivational system selected over the course of evolution to maintain proximity between a young child and his or her primary attachment figure

Attachment Behaviours

Behaviours and signals that attract the attention of a primary attachment figure and function to prevent separation from that individual or to reestablish proximity to that individual

Attachment Figure

• Someone who functions as the primary safe haven and secure base for an individual.

• In childhood, an individual’s attachment figure is often a parent

• In adulthood, an individual’s attachment figure is often a romantic partner

Attachment Patterns

Individual differences in how securely people think, feel, behave in attachment relationships

Strange Situation

A laboratory task that involves briefly separating and reuniting infants and their primary caregivers as a way of studying individual differences in attachment behaviour