Developmental Psychology
Developmental psychologists: study physical, mental, and social changes occurring throughout the life cycle, their work centers on three major issues:
Nature vs nurture/genetics/heredity vs environment: are we genetically influenced or environmentally influenced, 50/50
Continuity vs stages: as we change is it a continuous process or are we going through distinct stages
Prenatal development: stage of development before birth, everything that the mother does during this period has the ability to affect the child
Germinal/zygotic: first 2 weeks, the zygote is the result of a fertilized egg, rapid cell division and the zygote implants onto the mothers uterine wall once this attachment occurs the outer cells become the placenta: how the baby will receive nourishment from the mother, and the inner cells are called the embryo
embryonic stage/period: third week through eight week, the body organs begin to form and function
fetal period: ninth week to birth, when internal organs are sufficiently formed and allows a prematurely born fetus a chance of survival
Teratogens: harmful agents or substances that can cause malformations or defects in embryo or fetus
ex. radiation, toxic chemicals, diseases, drugs
Fetal alcohol syndrome: causes physical and cognitive abnormalities caused by a pregnant woman heavy drinking, is the leading cause of mental retardation
Newborn: babies are born with reflexes: in-born responses
Rooting reflex: when you rub the baby’s cheek, it opens its mouth and turns its head
Sucking reflex: typically touching the baby’s lips cause the baby to start sucking
Moro/startle reflex: if you start to lay the baby down-title them backwards, their arms and legs shoot straight out
Babinski reflex: when you rub the bottom of a baby’s foot its toes fan out and then curl back in
Grasping reflex: if you put your finger in the baby’s palms they will grasp your finger very tightly
Stepping reflex: if you hold the baby upright with their feet touching a flat surface they will move their legs like they are trying to walk
infancy: after birth the neural networks that enable you to walk, talk, and remember have a wild growth spurt
Sigmund Freud:
infantile amnesia: infants can’t remember what happened to them or what they did before the age of 3 or 4
maturation: biological growth processes that enable orderly changes in behavior and it’s relatively uninfluenced by experience, in order to do the skills we are able to do all the body parts involved have to be mature for that skill to be in place
Stability vs change: do our individual traits persist or how much do we change
Plasticity: the brain's capacity for modification, greater in childhood than in adulthood
Use it or lose it: starts from birth and is applied throughout life
Piaget: first proponent of the idea that children think differently than adults, he developed a four-stage theory of cognitive development
Two primary ways children try to make sense of new information
Assimilation: interpreting one's new experiences in terms of their existing schemas: a mental category or a concept that you have about something in your world
Accommodation: adapting one's current understandings or schemas to incorporate new information
ex. having a dog at home going to park with mom and calling a cat a dog and mom letting you know that they are two different animals
Age Range | Stage Name | Developmental Milestones |
---|---|---|
0-2 | Sensorimotor: The period during which the infant explores the environment and acquires knowledge through sensing and manipulating objects. | object permanence: the ability for something to still exist even when it can't be seen stranger anxiety: fearful of people with those that are unfamiliar, 8-9 months |
2-6 or 7 | Preoperational: kids start becoming who they are going to be | language development: for kids to learn language they need to be around language egocentrism: the inability to take another person's perspective or point of view pretend play |
7-11 | Concrete: they learn to think logically about concrete events and grasp concrete analogies, making the transition from being literal to understanding more | mathematical transformations: learning to add, subtract, multiply, and divide conservation: understanding that something stays the same in quantity even though its appearance changes |
11 or 12- death | Formal: being able to play board games, | abstract logic/hypothetical situationspotential for mature moral reasoning: getting an understanding of what’s right behavior and what is wrong behavior |
Cognition: all the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, and remembering
⭐ people used to think children were just miniature adults
cognitive development
social development: interacting with others, from birth parents and the baby communicate through eye contact, touch, smiles, and voice. The interactions between the parent and child promote the infant’s survival and their emerging sense of self,
stranger anxiety: fear of strangers usually occurs between 7-9 months (more commonly 8-9 months)
attachment: an emotional tie with another person babies attach to those with whom they are comfortable, familiar, and responsive to their needs. For baby to feel comfortable with caregiver
secure attachment: in their mother's presence, they will play comfortably, explore their environment, and maybe become distressed when the parent leaves.
insecure attachment: less likely to explore their surroundings, they may be clingy, likely to become distressed when the mother leaves
Harry Harlow: researched attachments, and worked with monkeys, he believed that baby monkeys attach to their mother because the mother is the food source
took baby monkeys mad cloth mother monkey that didn’t have a bottle and the other a wired mother monkey that had a bottle, he would place the monkeys with the mother and they found that the baby monkeys preferred the cloth mother monkey, there is more to forming an attachment than just providing food
temperament: a person's characteristic, emotional reactivity, and intensity
Konrad Lorenz: studied imprinting
imprinting: rigid attachment process that animals go through early in life
Humans are not imprintable
Daycare: no major impact on the child’s development due to parents working, quality of daycare is the most important factor,
good quality: low ratio of kids to workers and stimulating environment
Divorce: affect children, divorce rate 50%, two doses of stress,
first dose: occurs immediately after the divorce-a lot of anger, resentment, and there may be depression
second dose: when the custodial parent remarries
Self-concept: a sense of one's identity and personal worth, starts from an early age affected by things above
Children with strong self-concept: more confident, independent, optimistic, assertive, and sociable
Parenting patterns:
Authoritarian: impose rules, and expect obedience
Permissive: submit to their children's desires, make few demands, and use little punishment
Rejecting/Neglecting: disengaged, expect little, and invest little, basic needs met but little to no relationship
Authoritative: (reasonable) demanding and responsive, establish reasonable rules in house and the kid understands why they would be punished if they break the rules, punishments are reasonable, the children would understand why the rules are in place, parents are open to discussion and compromise
Another aspect of life that parents influence
two ways we look at gender
gender identity: one’s sense of being male or female
gender typing: the acquisition of a traditional masculine or feminine role
theories of gender
social learning theory: we learn social behaviors by observing and imitating and by being rewarded or punished
gender schema theory: that children learn from their cultures, a concept of what it means to be male or female and they adjust their behavior accordingly
Adolescence: period between childhood and adulthood, begins with puberty and ends with the social achievement of independent (emotionally, socially, physically, and financially) adult status t
roughly corresponds with the teen years, a time of transition, marked by mood swings
G Stanley Hall: researcher of adolescence says it is a period of storm and stress
Physical development: key physical change is puberty
puberty: the period of sexual maturation during which one becomes capable of reproduction, average age for females is 11, and the average age for boys is 13
two sex characteristics
Primary sex characteristics: ovaries, testes, and external genitalia that make reproduction possible
Secondary sex characteristics: non-reproductive sexual characteristics such as female breasts and hips, male voice quality, and body hair, females experience monarchy: first menstrual period
Mary Cover Jones: researcher maturation, found that early maturing boys have dividends for girls early maturation is more stressful
Cognitive Development: the stage according to Piaget is formal operation (adolescence) this developing ability to reason gives them a new level of social awareness and moral judgment
Lawrence Kohlberg's stages of moral development three levels
Preconventionallevel: younger than 10, can consider punishment and obedience, choose right behavior to avoid punishment
Mutual benefit or self-interest: choosing right behavior because you're going to get something out of it
Conventional level: between around 7 and 11, interpersonal expectations or conformity, do the right thing because you want approval from others
Law and order: follow the rules and laws simply because they have been established by the society
l Post-conventionalevel: 11 and above, social contract orientation, you choose right behavior based on protecting the basic rights of all members of society, values such as fairness, justice, equality, and democracy ex not playing music late or letting guests go onto neighbors property
Universal moral principles: you choose right behavior based on self-chosen ethical principles, if you belive you should never take somebody's life but you take somebody's life or retribution and you can live with that and you feel justified
Erik Erickson's psychosocial stages of development
psychosocial: as we interact with others we are processing those interactions
there is a conflict (crisis) at each stage of life, it will be solved in either a positive way or a negative way
life stage | psychosocial conflict | positive resolution |
---|---|---|
infancy: birth-18 months, they’re completely dependent on others, gaining skills | trust vs. mistrust | when needs are met: reliance on consistent and warm caregivers produces a sense of predictability and trust in their environment |
toddler-hood: 18 months-3 years, potty training, showing more independence, explore | autonomy (independence) vs. doubt | caregivers encourage independence and self-sufficiency promoting positive self-esteem |
early childhood: 3 years-6 years, when kids go to pre-school and then go to elementary school | initiative vs. guilt | the child learns to initiate activities and develops a sense of social responsibility concerning the rights of others, promotes self-confidence |
middle and late childhood: 6 years-12 years, kindergarten to middle school, when kids start getting to learn more and more challenging work, more responsibility, | industry vs. inferiority | through experiences with parents and “keeping up” with peers the child develops a sense of pride and competence in schoolwork and home and social activities |
Adolescence: roughly the teen years, trying to discover their identity, adolescents experience a growing sense of peer influence and a decrease in parental influence, overall though on Adolescent views on social, political, and religious topics reflect the ideas of their parents | identity vs. identity diffusion/role confusion | through experimentation with different roles, the adolescent develops an integrated and stable self-definition and forms commitments to future adult roles |
young adulthood (20s-40s) | intimacy vs. isolation | you establish lasting and meaningful relationships and have a sense of contentedness and intimacy with others, |
middle adulthood (40s-60s) | generativity vs. stagnation | through child-rearing, caring for others, productive work, and community involvement the adult expresses unselfish concern for the welfare of the next generation, doing something and making a difference |
late adulthood (60+) | integrity vs. despair | in reviewing their life older adult experiences a strong sense of self-acceptance and meaningfulness in their life and accomplishments |
early middle and late adulthood: harder to generalize about stages
physical changes: physical abilities tend to peak in early adulthood, muscular strength, reaction time, sensory keenness, and cardiac output all crest by the mid-twenties,
women mature earlier than men and peak earlier, women experience menopause: the time of natural cessation of menstruation, and their ability to reproduce declines - average age 45 and 50, going through the change can experience depression, changes in sleep, some become very grumpy, hot flashes
sensory abilities: visual sharpness diminishes adaptation to changes in light levels slows older people have more accidents, hearing and distance perception diminish
health: the body's disease-fighting immune system weakens making elderly people more susceptible to life-threatening ailments such as cancer and pneumonia but a lifetime accumulation of antibodies, older people suffer less often from short-term ailments such as the flu and colds,
use it or lose it
caregiving family members: often a diseases exasperated and exhausted victims
cognitive changes:
use it or lose it
memory
prospective memory: memory to do routine stuff, very little decline, ex. taking medication, taking care of body hygiene, items to pick up at the store
two types of studies that have been conducted to measure how thinking and memory change throughout the lifespan
Longitudinal study: the same people are restudied and retested over a long period of time, expensive, takes a lot of work
Cross-sectional study: one in which people of different ages are tested and compared to each other, concern - difference in the results could be due to factors other than age
Based on studies found 2 types of intelligence
Crystallized intelligence: one’s accumulated knowledge and verbal skills, tend to increase with age
Fluid intelligence: one’s ability to reason speedily, and abstractly, and this tends to decrease in late adulthood
social changes
one of the ways adulthood has been described is by using this statement: Adults progress through periods of stability, punctuated by times of upheaval and change
concept of social clock: a cultures preferred timing of social events such as marriage, parenthood, and retirement
commitment to love in adulthood,
Gottman concludes that a good indicator of likely marital success is at least a 5:1 ratio of positive to negative reactions, 5 times more smiling, touching, complimenting, and laughing than sarcasm, criticism, and insults.
when children are small they absorb your time, money, and emotional energy, which can cause stress for the couple
empty nest syndrome: a feeling of distress focusing on a loss of purpose and relationship
older people report as much happiness and satisfaction with life as younger people do, emotions tend to medal so the highs are less high and the lows are less low
death
usually, the most difficult separation of one's spouse, suffered mostly by women because men die younger
accepting death is more severe when it is unexpected and sudden, harder to deal with a younger person's death
people grieve differently, no right or wrong way
Elisabeth Kuvler-Ross: known for her 5 stages of death and dying
denial: given test results that say there is a terminal condition and they'll say that those aren’t their test results
anger: where people question “Why me?”
bargaining: with whatever power they believe in, if you let me live till this time I will be in church every day
Depression: what the sick person is going to miss out on, family and friends grieving
Acceptance: parents become advocates for what the child has died from, plan how they want their end of life to go,
She was involved in hospice: an organization made up of largely volunteer staff which is for dying people and their families in special facilities or their own homes
Developmental psychologists: study physical, mental, and social changes occurring throughout the life cycle, their work centers on three major issues:
Nature vs nurture/genetics/heredity vs environment: are we genetically influenced or environmentally influenced, 50/50
Continuity vs stages: as we change is it a continuous process or are we going through distinct stages
Prenatal development: stage of development before birth, everything that the mother does during this period has the ability to affect the child
Germinal/zygotic: first 2 weeks, the zygote is the result of a fertilized egg, rapid cell division and the zygote implants onto the mothers uterine wall once this attachment occurs the outer cells become the placenta: how the baby will receive nourishment from the mother, and the inner cells are called the embryo
embryonic stage/period: third week through eight week, the body organs begin to form and function
fetal period: ninth week to birth, when internal organs are sufficiently formed and allows a prematurely born fetus a chance of survival
Teratogens: harmful agents or substances that can cause malformations or defects in embryo or fetus
ex. radiation, toxic chemicals, diseases, drugs
Fetal alcohol syndrome: causes physical and cognitive abnormalities caused by a pregnant woman heavy drinking, is the leading cause of mental retardation
Newborn: babies are born with reflexes: in-born responses
Rooting reflex: when you rub the baby’s cheek, it opens its mouth and turns its head
Sucking reflex: typically touching the baby’s lips cause the baby to start sucking
Moro/startle reflex: if you start to lay the baby down-title them backwards, their arms and legs shoot straight out
Babinski reflex: when you rub the bottom of a baby’s foot its toes fan out and then curl back in
Grasping reflex: if you put your finger in the baby’s palms they will grasp your finger very tightly
Stepping reflex: if you hold the baby upright with their feet touching a flat surface they will move their legs like they are trying to walk
infancy: after birth the neural networks that enable you to walk, talk, and remember have a wild growth spurt
Sigmund Freud:
infantile amnesia: infants can’t remember what happened to them or what they did before the age of 3 or 4
maturation: biological growth processes that enable orderly changes in behavior and it’s relatively uninfluenced by experience, in order to do the skills we are able to do all the body parts involved have to be mature for that skill to be in place
Stability vs change: do our individual traits persist or how much do we change
Plasticity: the brain's capacity for modification, greater in childhood than in adulthood
Use it or lose it: starts from birth and is applied throughout life
Piaget: first proponent of the idea that children think differently than adults, he developed a four-stage theory of cognitive development
Two primary ways children try to make sense of new information
Assimilation: interpreting one's new experiences in terms of their existing schemas: a mental category or a concept that you have about something in your world
Accommodation: adapting one's current understandings or schemas to incorporate new information
ex. having a dog at home going to park with mom and calling a cat a dog and mom letting you know that they are two different animals
Age Range | Stage Name | Developmental Milestones |
---|---|---|
0-2 | Sensorimotor: The period during which the infant explores the environment and acquires knowledge through sensing and manipulating objects. | object permanence: the ability for something to still exist even when it can't be seen stranger anxiety: fearful of people with those that are unfamiliar, 8-9 months |
2-6 or 7 | Preoperational: kids start becoming who they are going to be | language development: for kids to learn language they need to be around language egocentrism: the inability to take another person's perspective or point of view pretend play |
7-11 | Concrete: they learn to think logically about concrete events and grasp concrete analogies, making the transition from being literal to understanding more | mathematical transformations: learning to add, subtract, multiply, and divide conservation: understanding that something stays the same in quantity even though its appearance changes |
11 or 12- death | Formal: being able to play board games, | abstract logic/hypothetical situationspotential for mature moral reasoning: getting an understanding of what’s right behavior and what is wrong behavior |
Cognition: all the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, and remembering
⭐ people used to think children were just miniature adults
cognitive development
social development: interacting with others, from birth parents and the baby communicate through eye contact, touch, smiles, and voice. The interactions between the parent and child promote the infant’s survival and their emerging sense of self,
stranger anxiety: fear of strangers usually occurs between 7-9 months (more commonly 8-9 months)
attachment: an emotional tie with another person babies attach to those with whom they are comfortable, familiar, and responsive to their needs. For baby to feel comfortable with caregiver
secure attachment: in their mother's presence, they will play comfortably, explore their environment, and maybe become distressed when the parent leaves.
insecure attachment: less likely to explore their surroundings, they may be clingy, likely to become distressed when the mother leaves
Harry Harlow: researched attachments, and worked with monkeys, he believed that baby monkeys attach to their mother because the mother is the food source
took baby monkeys mad cloth mother monkey that didn’t have a bottle and the other a wired mother monkey that had a bottle, he would place the monkeys with the mother and they found that the baby monkeys preferred the cloth mother monkey, there is more to forming an attachment than just providing food
temperament: a person's characteristic, emotional reactivity, and intensity
Konrad Lorenz: studied imprinting
imprinting: rigid attachment process that animals go through early in life
Humans are not imprintable
Daycare: no major impact on the child’s development due to parents working, quality of daycare is the most important factor,
good quality: low ratio of kids to workers and stimulating environment
Divorce: affect children, divorce rate 50%, two doses of stress,
first dose: occurs immediately after the divorce-a lot of anger, resentment, and there may be depression
second dose: when the custodial parent remarries
Self-concept: a sense of one's identity and personal worth, starts from an early age affected by things above
Children with strong self-concept: more confident, independent, optimistic, assertive, and sociable
Parenting patterns:
Authoritarian: impose rules, and expect obedience
Permissive: submit to their children's desires, make few demands, and use little punishment
Rejecting/Neglecting: disengaged, expect little, and invest little, basic needs met but little to no relationship
Authoritative: (reasonable) demanding and responsive, establish reasonable rules in house and the kid understands why they would be punished if they break the rules, punishments are reasonable, the children would understand why the rules are in place, parents are open to discussion and compromise
Another aspect of life that parents influence
two ways we look at gender
gender identity: one’s sense of being male or female
gender typing: the acquisition of a traditional masculine or feminine role
theories of gender
social learning theory: we learn social behaviors by observing and imitating and by being rewarded or punished
gender schema theory: that children learn from their cultures, a concept of what it means to be male or female and they adjust their behavior accordingly
Adolescence: period between childhood and adulthood, begins with puberty and ends with the social achievement of independent (emotionally, socially, physically, and financially) adult status t
roughly corresponds with the teen years, a time of transition, marked by mood swings
G Stanley Hall: researcher of adolescence says it is a period of storm and stress
Physical development: key physical change is puberty
puberty: the period of sexual maturation during which one becomes capable of reproduction, average age for females is 11, and the average age for boys is 13
two sex characteristics
Primary sex characteristics: ovaries, testes, and external genitalia that make reproduction possible
Secondary sex characteristics: non-reproductive sexual characteristics such as female breasts and hips, male voice quality, and body hair, females experience monarchy: first menstrual period
Mary Cover Jones: researcher maturation, found that early maturing boys have dividends for girls early maturation is more stressful
Cognitive Development: the stage according to Piaget is formal operation (adolescence) this developing ability to reason gives them a new level of social awareness and moral judgment
Lawrence Kohlberg's stages of moral development three levels
Preconventionallevel: younger than 10, can consider punishment and obedience, choose right behavior to avoid punishment
Mutual benefit or self-interest: choosing right behavior because you're going to get something out of it
Conventional level: between around 7 and 11, interpersonal expectations or conformity, do the right thing because you want approval from others
Law and order: follow the rules and laws simply because they have been established by the society
l Post-conventionalevel: 11 and above, social contract orientation, you choose right behavior based on protecting the basic rights of all members of society, values such as fairness, justice, equality, and democracy ex not playing music late or letting guests go onto neighbors property
Universal moral principles: you choose right behavior based on self-chosen ethical principles, if you belive you should never take somebody's life but you take somebody's life or retribution and you can live with that and you feel justified
Erik Erickson's psychosocial stages of development
psychosocial: as we interact with others we are processing those interactions
there is a conflict (crisis) at each stage of life, it will be solved in either a positive way or a negative way
life stage | psychosocial conflict | positive resolution |
---|---|---|
infancy: birth-18 months, they’re completely dependent on others, gaining skills | trust vs. mistrust | when needs are met: reliance on consistent and warm caregivers produces a sense of predictability and trust in their environment |
toddler-hood: 18 months-3 years, potty training, showing more independence, explore | autonomy (independence) vs. doubt | caregivers encourage independence and self-sufficiency promoting positive self-esteem |
early childhood: 3 years-6 years, when kids go to pre-school and then go to elementary school | initiative vs. guilt | the child learns to initiate activities and develops a sense of social responsibility concerning the rights of others, promotes self-confidence |
middle and late childhood: 6 years-12 years, kindergarten to middle school, when kids start getting to learn more and more challenging work, more responsibility, | industry vs. inferiority | through experiences with parents and “keeping up” with peers the child develops a sense of pride and competence in schoolwork and home and social activities |
Adolescence: roughly the teen years, trying to discover their identity, adolescents experience a growing sense of peer influence and a decrease in parental influence, overall though on Adolescent views on social, political, and religious topics reflect the ideas of their parents | identity vs. identity diffusion/role confusion | through experimentation with different roles, the adolescent develops an integrated and stable self-definition and forms commitments to future adult roles |
young adulthood (20s-40s) | intimacy vs. isolation | you establish lasting and meaningful relationships and have a sense of contentedness and intimacy with others, |
middle adulthood (40s-60s) | generativity vs. stagnation | through child-rearing, caring for others, productive work, and community involvement the adult expresses unselfish concern for the welfare of the next generation, doing something and making a difference |
late adulthood (60+) | integrity vs. despair | in reviewing their life older adult experiences a strong sense of self-acceptance and meaningfulness in their life and accomplishments |
early middle and late adulthood: harder to generalize about stages
physical changes: physical abilities tend to peak in early adulthood, muscular strength, reaction time, sensory keenness, and cardiac output all crest by the mid-twenties,
women mature earlier than men and peak earlier, women experience menopause: the time of natural cessation of menstruation, and their ability to reproduce declines - average age 45 and 50, going through the change can experience depression, changes in sleep, some become very grumpy, hot flashes
sensory abilities: visual sharpness diminishes adaptation to changes in light levels slows older people have more accidents, hearing and distance perception diminish
health: the body's disease-fighting immune system weakens making elderly people more susceptible to life-threatening ailments such as cancer and pneumonia but a lifetime accumulation of antibodies, older people suffer less often from short-term ailments such as the flu and colds,
use it or lose it
caregiving family members: often a diseases exasperated and exhausted victims
cognitive changes:
use it or lose it
memory
prospective memory: memory to do routine stuff, very little decline, ex. taking medication, taking care of body hygiene, items to pick up at the store
two types of studies that have been conducted to measure how thinking and memory change throughout the lifespan
Longitudinal study: the same people are restudied and retested over a long period of time, expensive, takes a lot of work
Cross-sectional study: one in which people of different ages are tested and compared to each other, concern - difference in the results could be due to factors other than age
Based on studies found 2 types of intelligence
Crystallized intelligence: one’s accumulated knowledge and verbal skills, tend to increase with age
Fluid intelligence: one’s ability to reason speedily, and abstractly, and this tends to decrease in late adulthood
social changes
one of the ways adulthood has been described is by using this statement: Adults progress through periods of stability, punctuated by times of upheaval and change
concept of social clock: a cultures preferred timing of social events such as marriage, parenthood, and retirement
commitment to love in adulthood,
Gottman concludes that a good indicator of likely marital success is at least a 5:1 ratio of positive to negative reactions, 5 times more smiling, touching, complimenting, and laughing than sarcasm, criticism, and insults.
when children are small they absorb your time, money, and emotional energy, which can cause stress for the couple
empty nest syndrome: a feeling of distress focusing on a loss of purpose and relationship
older people report as much happiness and satisfaction with life as younger people do, emotions tend to medal so the highs are less high and the lows are less low
death
usually, the most difficult separation of one's spouse, suffered mostly by women because men die younger
accepting death is more severe when it is unexpected and sudden, harder to deal with a younger person's death
people grieve differently, no right or wrong way
Elisabeth Kuvler-Ross: known for her 5 stages of death and dying
denial: given test results that say there is a terminal condition and they'll say that those aren’t their test results
anger: where people question “Why me?”
bargaining: with whatever power they believe in, if you let me live till this time I will be in church every day
Depression: what the sick person is going to miss out on, family and friends grieving
Acceptance: parents become advocates for what the child has died from, plan how they want their end of life to go,
She was involved in hospice: an organization made up of largely volunteer staff which is for dying people and their families in special facilities or their own homes