psych 1-7

CHAPTER 1: Human Development & Theories of Development

Development- the pattern of change that begins at conception continues through the human lifespan. 

• Studying life- span development helps prepare us to take responsibility for children, gives us insight about our own lives, and gives us knowledge about what our lives will be like as we age.

Characteristics of the life Span Perspective

• Life expectancy has increased in the last century, but lifespan has remained the same.

Three Important sources of contextual influences:

1. Normative age-graded influences: Events or experiences that are expected to occur in their life. 

2. Normative history-graded influences: historical events that affect a large portion of people in their life.

3. Nonnormative life events: happens randomly in life. 

Contemporary concerns:

• Health and wellbeing

• Parenting

• Education

• Sociocultural contexts and diversity

• Social policy and technology

Dimensions of sociocultural context:

• Culture

• Ethnicity

• Socioeconomic status

• gender

Biological Processes

Changes in an individual's physical nature (ex. genes inherited in parents, brain development, height and weight gains)

• There has been a substantial increase in studies that focus on the role of genes in development at different points in the lifespan.

• With the invention of brain imaging techniques, there has been an explosion of research on how the brain influences many aspects of development at different points in life.

Cognitive Processes

Changes in the individual's thought, intelligence, and language. (Ex. imagining what it would be like to be a movie star.)

Socioemotional Processes

Changes in the individual’s relationships with other people, changes in emotions, and changes in their personalities. (Ex. an infants smile in response to a parent’s touch, a teenager’s joy at a senior prom)

Periods of Development

Refers to a time frame in a person’s life that is characterized by certain features.

The Four Ages:

1. First age: childhood and adolescence

2. Second age: Prime adulthood, ages 20-59

3. Third age: ages 60-79

4. Fourth age: 80 years old and older

Three Developmental Patterns of Aging

1. Normal Aging- psychological functioning often peaks in early middle age, remains stable until late fifties to early sixties, and shows a modest decline through the early eighties.

2. Pathological aging- individuals who show greater than average decline as the age throughout the adult years.

   1. In early old age, they may have cognitive impairment, develop Alzheimer disease later on, or have chronic disease that impairs their daily functioning.

3. Successful aging- those who have positive physical, cognitive, and socioemotional development are maintained longer, declining later on in adulthood.

The Significance of Age

Adults are happier as they age. It is called the “paradox of aging” because physical health and function are often declining while happiness continues/increases.

• Carstensen (2020) found that older adults have reported more positive emotions despite being more aware of the risks of COVID-19 posed for them.

• Bardo & Lynch (2021) found that ages 65 individuals’ happy life expectancy has 25% longer than their cognitively intact life expectancy. It is possible for older adults to continue to be happy even after becoming cognitively impaired.

Studies that have NOT found increase in life satisfaction with age:

• Deaton (2008) conducted studies in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, reporting a decrease in life satisfaction.

• Lamont found that older adults with poor health tend to be less satisfied.

Conceptions of Age

Chronological age is the number of years that have elapsed since birth.

• There are different ways to think about age and not only the way to measure age.

Biological age is a person's age in terms of biological health.

• Knowing the functional capacities of a person’s vital organs.

Psychological age is an individual’s adaptive capacities compared with those of other individuals of the same chronological age.

• Thomas & Gutchnes (2020) conducted a longitudinal study where they found that the personality trait of being organized, careful, predicted lower morality (frequency of death) risk from childhood through late adulthood.

• Duckek (2020) found that a higher level of conscientiousness and being more emotionally stable were protective of cognitive functioning in older adults.

• Boylan (2022) found that having a higher purpose in life, positive affect predicted a lower mortality risk.

Social age

• Connectedness with others are the social roles individuals adopt

• Individuals who have better social relationships with others tend to be happier and live longer.

Developmental Issues

Nature and Nurture

The extent to which development is influenced by nature and nurture.

• Nature: organism’s biological inheritance

• Nurture: individual's environmental experiences.

Epigenetics

The development reflects an ongoing bidirectional interchange between genes and the environment.

Epigenetics involve the actual molecular modification of the DNA strand as a result of environmental inputs in ways that alter gene functioning.

Stability Change

The degree to which early traits and characteristics persist through life or change.

Continuity and Discontinuity

The degree to which development involves either gradual, cumulative change (continuity) or distinct stages (discontinuity).

• Continuity: an oak grows from a seed to a tree, it becomes more of a tree whereby its development is continuous.

• Discontinuity: a caterpillar becoming a cocoon, to a chrysalis, to a butterfly. It passes through a sequence of stages in which change is qualitatively rather than quantitatively different.

The Scientific Method

1. Draw theories and develop hypotheses 

2. Collect research information

3. Analyze the data

4. Draw conclusions

Psychoanalytical Theories

Describes development as primarily unconscious (beyond awareness) and heavily colored emotions.

They emphasize behavior that is merely a surface characteristic and that a true understanding of development requires analyzing the symbolic meanings of behavior and the deep workings of the mind. It was highlighted by Sigmund Freud. 

Freud’s theory

He believed that as children grew up, their focus of pleasure and sexual impulses shifted from the mouth to the anus and eventually to the genitals.

For adults, it is determined by the way we resolve conflicts between sources of pleasure at each stage and demands of reality. 

1. Oral stage- infants pleasure centers on the mouth. (Birth to 1½ years)

2. Anal Stage- children's pleasure focuses on the anus. (1½ to 3 years)

3. Phallic Stage- Children’s pleasure focuses on the genitals (3-6 years)

4. Latency Stage- Child regresses sexual interest and develops social and intellectual skills (6 years to puberty)

5. Genitial Stage- a time of sexual reawakening; source of sexual pleasure becomes someone outside the family. (puberty onward)

Erikson’s Psychoanalytic Theory

Suggested that we develop in psychosocial stages, rather than in psychosexual stages as Freud maintained.

According to Erikson, the primary motivation for human behavior is social and reflects a desire to affiliate with other people and that our basic personality is shaped during the first years of life.

Evaluating Psychoanalytic Theories

Include an emphasis on developmental framework, family relationships, and unconscious aspects of the mind.

• Criticisms include a lack of scientific support, too much emphasis on sexual underpinning and an image of people that is too negative.

Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development

Jean Piaget’s theory states that children go through four stages of development as they actively construct their understandings of the world. There are two processes: organization and adaptation

1. Sensorimotor stage (birth to 2 years old): physical actions

2. Preoperational stage (2 to 7 years old): looks at words and images and increases symbolic thinking

3. Concrete operational stage (7 to 11 years old): thinking logically

4. Formal operational stage (11 to 15 years old, continues to adulthood): abstract and idealistic knowledge and thinking

Lev Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Cognitive Theory

Emphasizes the fundamental role of social interaction, culture, and language in cognitive development.

He argued that learning is inherently social and that cognitive abilities develop through collaborative learning experiences with more knowledgeable people (teachers, parents).

• Learning happens through collaborative dialogue and social interactions.

• Through interactions, and acquire cultural tools (language, symbols, and problem solving strategies)

Cognitive development differs across cultures because it depends on social and cultural experiences.

Example: a child learning puzzle may be hard but with the help of a caregiver, they have assistance and have a better learning experience along with learning strategies.

Information Processing Theory (Robert Siegler)

A continuous process that improves overtime.

Example: Like how a computer receives, processes, stores and retrieves information.

• Siegler expanded this perspective by emphasizing the adaptive nature of thinking, proposing that cognitive development involves the gradual refinement of strategies for problem-solving and learning. 

• He sees thinking as information processing. Or when individuals perceive, encode, represent, store, and retrieve information: they are thinking.

Behavior and Social Cognitive Theories

Behaviorism- study scientifically only when it can be directly observed and measured. It can be learned through experience with the environment.

B.F. Skinner’s Operant Conditioning described the process by which consequences of a behavior produce changes in the probability of the behavior’s occurrence. A behavior followed by a rewarding stimulus is more likely to recur rather than a punishing stimulus.

• Skinner believed that rewards and punishments shape development.

Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory holds that behavior, environment, and cognition are key factors of development. Cognitive processes have important links with the environment and behavior.

• An individual’s confidence in being able to control his/her success is an example of a person’s factor. Strategies are an example of a cognitive factor.

Ethological Theory

Ethology stresses that behavior is strongly influenced by biology. It is tied to evolution, and is characterized by critical/sensitive periods.

• Konrad Lorenz studied the behavior of greylag geese, which followed their mothers as soon as they hatch. 

• John Bowlby stresses that attachment to a caregiver during the first year of life has important consequences throughout the lifespan.

• Bronfenbrenner theory holds that development reflects the influence of five environmental systems: microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem.

Eclectic Theoretical Orientation

Does not follow any one of the theoretical approaches but rather selects from each theory whatever is considered its best features.

Methods of Collecting Data

Laboratory Research

Research collected in a laboratory or controlled setting where many of the real world complex factors are absent.

When researchers observe variables in a laboratory, they have greater control over the variables and other factors and therefore have more confidence about how to interpret the observations.

Drawbacks of Laboratory Research

1. It is almost impossible to conduct research without the participants knowing they are being studied.

2. The laboratory setting is unnatural and can cause the participants to behave unnaturally. 

3. People who are willing to come to a university laboratory may not accurately represent groups from diverse cultural backgrounds.

4. People who are unfamiliar with university settings and with the idea of “helping science” may be intimate by the laboratory setting.

Naturalistic Observation

Observing behavior in real-world settings, making no effort to manipulate or control the situation.

• Usually researchers conduct this at sport events, child-care centers, work centers, and other places people live in and frequent.

• Crowley 2001: at a children’s science museum when parents were far more likely to engage boys than girls in explanatory talk. This suggests a gender bias that encourages boys to be more interested in science than girls.

Survey and Interview

Quickest way to get information. One technique is to interview them directly. Another way is to make a survey, which is useful when information from many people is needed.

• In good surveys, the questions are clear and unbiased, allowing respondents to answer unambiguously (clearly).

• However, surveys and interviews show the tendency of participants to answer questions in a way that they think is socially acceptable or desirable rather than to say what they truly think or feel.

Standardized Tests

Procedures for administration and scoring. Allows a person’s performance to be compared with other individuals.

However, they assume a person’s behavior is consistent and stable. Yet, personality and intelligence (two primary targets of standardized testing) can vary with the situation. 

• Example, taking the SAT in a school setting can be intimidating for them while at home they may be more calm.

Case Study

An in-depth look at a single individual. This could not be duplicated and tested on other individuals. It may focus on any aspect of the subject’s life that helps the researcher understand the person’s mind, behavior, or other attributes.

Physiological Measures

It is used to help units of hereditary information or genes.

• Cortisol is a hormone produced by the adrenal gland that is linked to the body’s stress level and has been measured in studies of temperament, emotional activity, mood, and peer relations.

• FMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging): electromagnetic waves to construct images of a person’s brain tissue and biochemical activity.

• EEG (electroencephalography): a physiological measure that has been used for many decades to monitor overall electrical activity in the brain.

• Heart rate has been used as an indicator of infant and children’s development of perception, attention, memory, and social skills.

• Study eye movement to help learn more about perceptual development and others.

Research Designs

Descriptive Research: all of data collection methods which aim to observe and record behavior. (Example: researchers might observe the extent to which people are altruistic or aggressive towards each other.)

• It cannot prove what causes some phenomenon.

Correlational Research: Provide information that will help us predict how people will behave.

• To describe the strength of the relationship between two or more events or characteristics. (Ex. Ice cream sales and murders).

Experimental Research: Has two variables, independent and dependent variables.

• Independent: a manipulated, influential, experimental factor.

• Dependent: a factor that can change in an experiment, in responses to changes in the independent variable.

• Experimental group: group whose experience is manipulated.

• Control group: a comparison group that is similar to the experimental group as possible and is treated in every way like the experiential group except for the manipulated factor.

Time Span Research

Cross Sectional Approach

Research strategy that simultaneously compares individuals of different ages. Might include these types of children: 5 year olds, 8, or 11.

• They can be compared with respect to a variety of dependent variables: IQ, memory, peer relations, attachment to parents, hormonal changes, etc. 

• Advantage: Researcher does not have to wait for the children to grow up.

• Disadvantage: Gives no information about how the individual changes throughout or about the stability of their characteristics.

Longitudinal Approach

The same individuals are studied over a period of time for several years or more.

• Advantage: provides a lot of information about issues such as stability and changes in development.

• Disadvantage: very time-consuming, expensive. The longer the study lasts, the more participants drop out (get sick, lost interest).

Cohort Effects

A group of people who are born at a similar point in history and share similar experiences. (Ex.growing up in the same city around the same time). These shared experiences may produce a range of differences among cohorts.

Conductive Ethical Research

APA (American Psychological Association) has developed ethics guidelines for its members. There are four important issues:

1. Informed consent: all participants must know what their research participation will involve and what risks might develop. Even after informed consent is given, participants are able to withdraw from the study at any time and for any reason.

2. Confidentiality: Researchers are responsible for keeping all of the data they gathered completely confidential and anonymous.

3. Debriefing: After the study has been completed participants should be informed of its purpose and the methods that were used.

4. Deception: Must ensure participants that the deception will not harm the participants.

Minimizing Bias

Gender Bias

Has less obvious effect within the field for lifespan development. (Example: it is not unusual to draw conclusions about female attitudes about behaviors from research conducted with only male participants).

Cultural and Ethnic Bias

There is a realization that research on lifespan development needs to include more people from diverse ethnic groups.

• Ethnic gloss: using an ethnic label in a superficial way that portrays an ethnic group as being more homogeneous than it really is. It can cause researchers to obtain samples of ethnic groups that are not representative of group’s diversity, which can lead to overgeneralization and stereotyping.

CHAPTER 2: Heredity

Heredity- the process of passing traits from parents to their offspring. (ex. Eye color, hair)

The Evolutionary Perspective

Natural Selection and Adaptive Behavior

Natural selection- the evolutionary process by which those individuals of a species that are best adapted are the ones that survive and leave the most fut offspring.

• Charles Darwin published on the Origin of Species (1959), notes that most organisms reproduce at rates that would cause enormous increases in the population of most species and yet populations remain nearly constant.

• Darwin argues that the species that survive and reproduce pass on their genetics to the next generation are better adapted. 

Evolutionary Psychology

Emphasizes the importance of adaptation, reproduction, and survival of the fittest in shaping behavior.

• Swiss army knife theory: the human mind encompasses a number of independent domains or tools.

• Albert Bandura has criticized what he refers to as “one sided evolutionism”. He sees social behavior as strictly the product of evolved biology. An alternative is a bidirectional view in which environmental and biological conditions influence each other.

• Environmental pressures created changes in biological structures that allowed the use of tools, which enabled our ancestors to manipulate their environment, constructing new environmental conditions.

Genetics Foundations of Development

The Collaborative Gene

Genetics influence behavior overtime. Many of our traits and characteristics that are genetically influenced over history are retained in our DNA.

• Nucleus of each human cell contains chromosomes. Which are threadlike structures made up of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA).

• Genes- the units of heredity information, are short segments of DNA. They help cells produce themselves and assemble proteins.

Human Genome Project- worked to map the human genome. Which is the complete genetic content of our cells which include developmental information used for creating proteins that contribute to making a human organism. 

• Human genomes consist of many genes that collaborate with each other with non-genetic factors inside and outside the body.

• The active genes are affected by their environment.

• Stress, exercise, nutrition, cancer, etc can influence gene expression.

Genes and Chromosomes

All cells in your body, except the sperm, have 46 chromosomes arranged in 23 pairs.

• Mitosis: the nucleus and chromosomes duplicate itself and the cell divides. Two new cells are formed, each containing the same DNA as the original cell and chromosomes.

• Meiosis: forms eggs and sperm (gametes). A cell in testes (men) or ovaries (women) duplicates its chromosomes but then divides twice forming 4 cells. But only half of the genetic material of the parent cell.

• Fertilization: egg and sperm fuse to create a single cell called a zygote.

Genetic Principles

• Recessive gene: one gene of a pair exerts its effects. It is dominant and overrides the potential influence of the other gene.

• Polygenic inheritance: many different genes contribute to the development of a characteristic. (ex. Height, reflects the interaction of many genes as well as the influence of the environment)

• Gene-gene interaction: to describe studies that focus on the interdependent process by which 2 or more genes influence characteristics, behavior, diseases, and development.

Chromosomal and Gene-linked Abnormalities

Abnormalities characterize the genetic process. Some of these involve whole chromosomes that do not separate properly during meiosis. Other abnormalities are produced by harmful genes.

Reproductive Challenges and Choices

Prenatal Diagnostic Tests

An ultrasound test is conducted 7 weeks into a pregnancy and at various times later.

• Ultrasound sonography is a prenatal medical procedure in which high-frequency waves are directed into the pregnant woman’s abdomen.

MRI- used to diagnose fetal malformations. (brain-imaging techniques)

Chorionic villus sampling (CVS)- prenatal procedure in which a small sample of the placenta may be used to detect genetic defects and chromosomal abnormalities.

Infertility and Reproductive Technology

8-12 percent experience infertility. Which is the inability to conceive a child after 12 months of regular intercourse without contraception.

• Most common technique: vitro fertilization (IVF). In which eggs and sperm are combined in a laboratory dish.

Adoption

A social and legal process that establishes a parent-child relationship between persons unrelated at birth.

• Adopted children are at higher risk for externalizing (aggression and conduct disorders), internalizing (anxiety and depression), and attention problems (ADHD). 

Heredity-Environment Interaction: Nature-Nurture Debate

Behavior Genetics

The field that seeks to discover the influence of heredity and environment on individual differences in human traits and development.

• This does not identify the extent to which genetic/environment affects an individual's traits. Instead, they try to figure out what is responsible for the difference among people. (genes, environment, combination).

To study this, they often use twins or adoption situations.

Heredity-Environment Correlations

Refers to the phenomenon whereby individuals’ genes may be systematically related to the types of environments to which they are exposed.

• Passive: children inherit genetic tendencies from their parents, and parents provide an environment that matches their own genetic tendencies. (ex. Musically inclined parents have musically inclined children, and they are likely to provoke an environment rich in music for their children).

• Evocative: a child's genetic tendencies elicit stimulation from the environment that supports a particular trait. (ex. A happy, outgoing child elicits smiles and friendly responses from others).

• Active: children actively seek out “nitches” in their environment that reflect their own interests and talents and are thus in accord with their genotype. (ex. Libraries, sport fields, etc are environmental niches children might seek out if they have intellectual interests in books, talents in sports, etc).

The Epigenetic View

Critics argue that heredity-environment correlation gives too much of a one-sided influence in determining development because it does not consider the role of prior environmental influences in shaping the correlation itself. 

• Gilbert Gottlieb (2007): emphasized Epigenetic view, which states that development reflects an ongoing, bidirectional interchange between heredity and the environment. 

• Studies found that heredity and environmental influences development, including interactions that involve specific DNA sequences.

CHAPTER 3: Prenatal Development and Birth

The Course of Prenatal Development

Occurs when a single sperm cell unites with an ovum in the female’s fallopian tube in a process called fertilization.

Fertilization to birth takes between 266-280 days (38-40 weeks). It can be divided into germinal, embryonic, and fetal stages.

• Germinal period: takes place during the first two weeks after conception. It includes the creation of the fertilized egg (zygote), cell division, and the attachment of the zygote to the uterine wall.

  • Differentiation: specialization of performing various tasks– starts to take place by approximately one week after conception.

  • Germinal blastocyst consists of an inner mass of calls that develop into the embryo. And the trophoblast (outside layer of cells) provides nutrition and support for the embryo.

  • Implantation: the attachment of the zygote to the uterine wall, takes 11-15 days after conception.

• Embryonic period: development that occurs from 2-8 weeks after conception. The rate of the cell differentiation intensifies and a support system for cells form + organs appear.

  • Three layers of cells: endoderm=inner layer of cells which develop into digestive and respiratory systems. mesoderm=middle layer which becomes the circulatory system, bones, muscles, excretory system, and reproductive system. ectoderm =outermost layer which will become the nervous system, brain, sensory receptors, and skin parts.

• Fetal period: lasts about 7 months between 2 months after conception and birth. Growth and development continue during this time.

  • This is toward the end of the first trimester and continues through the second and third trimesters.

  • Viability (the chances of surviving outside of the womb) begins at the end of the second trimester.

Four Important phases of the Brain Development during the prenatal period:

1. Neural tube- forms at 18-24 days after conception; develops out of the ectoderm.

2. Neurogenesis- a process that continues through the remainder of the period. New neurons are formed in the brain.

3. Neuronal migration- 6-24 weeks after conception. This involves cells/new neurons moving outward from their point of origin to their appropriate locations and creating different levels, structures, and regions of the brain.

4. Neural connectivity- 23rd prenatal week, connections between neurons begin to occur and the process continues postnatally. Major fiber pathways connect to different brain regions and start to develop by the end of the first trimester.

Birth defects:

Anencephaly- a severe birth defect where the upper part of the neural tube fails to close during embryonic development, resulting in the absence of a significant portion of the brain, skull, and scalp.

Spina bifida- varies in degrees of paralysis of the lower limbs. People with it usually need assistive devices like crutches, braces, or wheelchairs.

Teratology and Hazards

Teratogen: an agent that can potentially cause a birth defect or negatively alter cognitive and behavior outcomes.

Key teratogens:

1. Prescription/nonprescription drugs including antibiotics, antidepressants.

2. Psychoactive drugs including caffeine, alcohol, nicotine

3. Synthetic opioids and opiate-related painkillers

4. Environmental Hazards such as carbon monoxide, mercury, x-ray radiation.

Maternal Diseases and infections can produce defects in offspring by crossing the placental barrier or cause damage during birth.

• Rubella- cardiac defects, pulmonary problems, and microcephaly

• Syphilis- stillbirth, eye lesions (cause blindness), skin lesions, bone damage, and congenital syphilis

• Genital herpes- ⅓rd of babies delivered through an infected birth canal die; ¼ become brain damaged.

• HIV/AIDS- destroy the immune system

• Diabetes- increases rate of diabetes, early onset cardiovascular disease, and risk of cancer (leukemia)

Prenatal Care

Exercise during pregnancy helps prevent constipation, reduces the likelihood of excessive weight gain, lowers the risk of developing hypertension, improves immune system, and is associated with a more positive mental state.

Birth

Has three processes:

1. First Stage: the contractions come closer together, appearing every two to five minutes. The intensity increases and by the end, contractions dilate the cervix to an opening of about 4 inches so the baby can move from the uterus to the birth canal.

2. Second Stage: begins when the baby’s head starts to move through the cervix and the birth canal. It terminates when the baby completely emerges from the mother’s body.

   1. The mother has to push the baby out of her body and by the time the baby’s head is out of the mother’s body, the contractions come almost every minute and last for about a minute.

3. Third Stage: afterbirth; at which time the placenta, umbilical cord, and other membranes are detached and expelled.

Assessing the Newborn

After the baby and its parents have been introduced, it is taken to be weighed, cleaned up, and tested for signs of developmental problems that might require urgent attention.

• The Apgar Scale evaluates an infant’s heart rate, respiratory effort, muscle tone, body color, and reflex irritability. 

  • Does an evaluation on a newborn and scores them. (7-10 indicates the newborn’s condition is goof. 5 indicates there may be developmental issues. 3 or below signals an emergency and the baby might not survive).

• NBAS (Brazelton Neonatal Behavioral Scale): assesses the newborn’s neurological development, reflexes, and reactions to people and objects.

• NNNS (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit Network neurobehavioral Scale): assesses the newborn’s behavior, neurological stress and stress responses, and regulatory capacities.

Preterm and Low Birth Weight Infants

Low birth rate infants- weigh less than 5-8 ounces. Very low birth rate newborns weigh less than 3-4 ounces. Extremely low birth weight newborns weigh less than 2-3 ounces.

Preterm infants- those born 3 weeks or more before pregnancy has reached its full term (35 or fewer weeks after conception).

Small for date infants- those whose birth weight is below normal. They weigh less than 90% of all babies in the same gestational stage. 

The Postpartum Period

Physical Adjustments

After delivery, a mother’s body undergoes sudden and dramatic changes in hormone production. When the placenta is delivered, estrogen and progesterone levels drop and remain low until the ovaries start producing hormones again.

Emotional and Psychological Adjustments

• Postpartum blues: 2-3 days after birth, mothers may begin to feel depressed, anxious, or upset. They usually go away after 1-2 weeks.

• Postpartum depression: involves a major depressive episode that occurs 4 weeks after delivery. They may have strong feelings of sadness, anxiety, or despair that lasts 2 weeks and have trouble coping with their daily tasks.

Bonding

A special component of the parent-infant relationship. A formation of a connection.

• A hypothesis states that the newborn must have close contact with the mother in the first few days of life to develop optimally, this is false.

CHAPTER 4: Physical Development in Infancy

Physical Growth and Development

Newborns' heads are quite large in comparison with the rest of their body. Neck muscles are not strong enough to support the head, but they have some basic reflexes.

In 12 months, infants are able to sit, stand, stoop, climb, and usually walk.

During the second year, growth slows down but motor skills increase rapidly. 

Patterns of Growth

• Cephalocaudal pattern: the sequence in which the earliest growth always occurs at the top (the head), with physical growth and differentiation of features gradually working their way down the body.

• Proximodistal pattern: the sequence in which growth starts at the center of the body and moves towards the ends. (ex. Infants control the muscles of their trunk and arms before they can control their fingers).

Height and Weight

Growth slows considerably in the second year of life. By the years of 2, infants weigh 26-32 pounds, having gained a quarter to half a pound per month during the second year to reach ⅕ of their adult weight.

The Brain

By the time the infant is born, it contains 100 billion nerve cells/neurons. Newborns have greater electrical brain activity in the left hemisphere than the right hemisphere where they are listening to speech sounds.

• Neuroconstructivist view, it emphasizes the importance of considering interactions between experience and gene expression in the brain’s development.

1. Biological processes (genes) and environmental conditions influence the brain's development

2. The brain has plasticity and is context dependent

3. The child’s cognitive development is closely linked to development of the brain

Sleep

Restores, replenishes, and rebuilds our brains and bodies.

A typical newborn sleeps 18 hours a day. Infants spend a great deal of time in REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. Evidence suggests that the large amount of REM sleep may provide infants with self-stimulation since they spend less time awake than older children.

• Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) is a condition that occurs when infants stop breathing usually during the night, and suddenly die without any apparent cause.

Nutrition

During the first 4-6 months, human milk is the baby’s source of nutrients and energy.

• Breast-fed infants have fewer gastrointestinal infections and fewer infections of the lower respiratory tract.

• No support has been found for breastfeeding reducing the risk of asthma in children.

• A research concluded that breast milk contains components that benefit the maturation of the infant’s immune system and provide defenses for fighting off disease.

• Breast-fed infants are less likely to become overweight or obese.

• Breast-fed infants have lower rates of SIDS

• An analysis found that breastfeeding was linked to better cardiovascular fitness in children 4-8.

Malnutrition (not enough nutrition) is a threat to millions of children. Early weaning of infants from breast milk inadequate sources of nutrients, such as unsuitable and unsanitary cow’s milk formulas cause protein deficiency in infants.

Motor Development

Dynamic system theory- infants assemble motor skills for perceiving and acting.Top develop motor skills, infants must perceive something in their environment that motivates them to act and their perceptions to fine-tune their movements.

Mastering a motor skill requires the infant’s active efforts on the skill. They can assemble adaptive patterns by modifying their current movement patterns.

Adolph and Hoch (2019) described four key aspects that reflect the dynamic systems theory of motor development: embodied, embedded, enculturated, enabling.

1. Embodied: opportunities for motor behavior involve the current status of a child’s body. Changes in infants’ bodies modify the nature of their motor behavior. (ex. Walking. The changing body interacts with experience and opportunities to walk as they physically mature.)

2. Embedded: environmental circumstances can facilitate/restrict possibilities for motor behavior. Motor behavior occurs in a physical environment and variations in the environment require infants to adapt. As they encounter slopes and stairs, infants have to be flexible and modify how they move.

3. Enculturated: social and cultural contexts influence behavior. Caregivers play an important role in infants; motor development.

4. Enabling: where motor development is not isolated from other aspects of development and it contributes to infants’ and children's development in other domains.

Reflexes

Built in reactions to stimuli: they govern the newborn’s movements, which are automatic and beyond the newborn’s control.

• Rooting reflex: when the infant’s cheek is stroked or the side of the mouth is touched. In response, the infant turns its head toward the side that was touched in apparent effort to find something to suck.

• Sucking reflex: occurs when newborns automatically suck an object placed in their mouth. It enables newborns to get nourishment before they have associated a nipple with food and also serves as a soothing mechanism.

• Moro reflex: occurs to a sudden intense noise or movement. When started, newborns arch their back, throw back their head and then rapidly draw their arms and legs.

• Grasping reflex: occurs when something touches the infant’s palms. They respond by grasping tightly.

Gross Motor Skills

Large muscle activities (moving one’s arm and walking).

Motor accomplishments of the first year increases independence allowing infants to explore their environment more and interact with others more.

In the second year, toddlers become more motorically skilled and mobile.

Fine Motor Skills

Involve finely tuned movements. (grasping a toy, using a spoon)

Infants have hardly any control over it, but newborns do.

• Perceptual-motor coupling is necessary for the infant to coordinate grasping. At different stages of development, infants use different perceptual systems (sensory organs for vision, hearing, and touch) to coordinate grasping.

• Where one (mind or body) influences one another to do something/activities in the environment. How our brain and body work together to perceive and respond to the environment. 

Sensory and Perceptual Development

Sensation occurs when information interacts with sensory receptors (the eyes, ears, tongue, nostrils, and skin).

Perception is the interpretation of what is sensed. The air waves that contact the ear might be interpreted as noise or as musical sounds.  (ex. Physical energy transmitted to the retina of the eye might be interpreted as a particular color, pattern, or shape, depending on how it is perceived).

The Ecological View

Eleanor and James J. Gibson views that we directly perceive information that exists in the world around us. It is called ecological because it connects perceptual capabilities to information available in the world of the perceiver.

Perception brings us into contact with the environment so we can interact with and adapt to it. Perception gives people information such as when to duck, when to turn our bodies through a narrow passageway.

• In Gibson’s view, objects have affordances, which are opportunities for interaction offered by objects that fit within our capabilities to perform activities.

Visual Acuity and Human Faces

At birth, nerves and muscles and lens of the eyes are still developing. As a result, newborns cannot see small things that are far away.

• Researchers found out that infants prefer to look at faces rather than objects.

Intermodal Perception and Perceptual Development

Refers to the ability to relate and integrate information from two or more sensory modalities. (such as vision and early).

• Nature proponents are referred to as nativists and those who emphasize learning and experience are called empiricists.

• Nativists: the ability to perceive the world in a competent, organized way as inborn or innate. A complete nativist view of perceptual development is no longer accepted in developmental psychology.

CHAPTER 5: Infant Cognitive Development

Piaget’s Theory of Infant Development

Believed that biology and experience sculpt cognitive development. Just as our physical bodies have structures that enable us to adapt to the world, we build mental structures that help us adjust to new environmental demands.

• He believed that the developing brain creates schemes. They are actions or mental representations that organize knowledge. (ex. A baby’s schemes are structured by simple actions that can be performed on an object, like sucking, grasping).

• Older children have schemes that include problem solving and strategies.

• Adults have already constructed a large number of schemes. For example, balancing a budget.

Two concepts to explain how children use and adapt their schemes:

1. Assimilation: occurs when children use their existing schemes to deal with new information or experiences.

2. Accommodation: occurs when children adjust their schemes to take new information and experiences into account.

Organization- the grouping of isolated behaviors and thoughts into a higher-order system.

• Continual refinement of this organization is an inherent part of development.

Disequilibrium: child is constantly faced with counterexamples to his/her existing schemes and with inconsistencies.

Equilibration: mechanism by which children shift from one stage of thought to the next.

The Sensorimotor Stage

Lasts from birth to 2 years of age. During this stage, infants construct an understanding of the world by coordinating sensory experiences (seeing and hearing) with physical, motoric actions.

Six Substages:

1. Simple reflexes (sucking, grasping)

2. First habits and primary circular reactions (repeating a body sensation like sucking thumb)

3. Secondary circular reactions (an infant coos to make a person stay near; as the person starts to leave, the infant coos again)

4. Coordination of secondary circular reactions: hand-eye coordination. (infant manipulates a stick in order to bring an attractive toy within reach)

5. Tertiary circular reactions, novelty, curiosity (a block can be made to fall, spin, hit another object)

6. Internalization of schemes: infants develop the ability to use primitive symbols and form enduring mental representations. (an infant who has never thrown a temper tantrum sees another infant do it; the infant retains the memory and throws one themselves the next day).

Object permanence- the understanding that objects continue to exist even when they cannot be seen, heard, or touched. 

A-not-B error

Where the infant repeatedly reaches for the hidden object at the same location (A) even when they see it move to a new location (B).

Nature vs. Nurture

Elizabeth Spelke endorses a core knowledge approach which states that infants are born with domain-specific innate knowledge systems. Among these domain-specific knowledge systems are those involving space, number of senses, object permanence, and language.

Learning, Attention, Remembering, and Conceptualizing

Conditioning

The consequences of a behavior produces changes in the probability of the behavior’s occurrence. (ex. If an infant’s behavior is followed by a rewarding stimulus, the behavior is likely to occur).

• Carolyn Rovee-Collier (1987, 2009) demonstrated how infants can retain information from the experience of being conditioned. 

Attention

The focusing of mental resources on select information, improves cognitive processing on many tasks. Attention in the first year of life is dominated by an orienting/investigative process.

• Closely linked with attention are the processes of habituation and dishabituation. If you say the same word or show the same toy to a baby several times in a row, the baby usually pays less attention to it each time.

  • Habituation: decreased responsiveness to a stimulus after repeated presentation of stimulus.

  • Dishabituation: increased responsiveness after a change in stimulation.

• Joint attention: two or more individuals focus on the same object or event. It requires:

1. An ability to track another’s behavior (like following the gaze of another person)

2. One person’s directing another person’s attention

3. Reciprocal interaction

Memory

Involves the retention of information over time.

• Implicit memory: refers to memory without conscious recollection (memories of skills and routine procedures that are performed automatically)

• Explicit memory: conscious remembering of facts and experiences.

Imitation

Andrew Meltzoff conducted studies of infant’s imitative abilities. He sees that their abilities are biologically based because infants can imitate a facial expression within the first few days after birth. Additionally, the infant’s abilities do not resemble a hardwired response but rather involve flexibility and adaptability.

Concept Formation and Categorization

Infants at 3-4 months of age can group together objects with similar appearances.

The categorizations are based on similar perceptual features of objects, such as size, color, movement, as well as parts of objects like legs for animals.

Language Development

Infinite Generativity- the ability to produce and comprehend an endless number of meaningful sentences using a finite set of words and rules. Rules describe the way language works.

• Phonology: the sound system of the language and sounds that are used and how they may be combined.

  • Phoneme: basic unit of sound in a language. It is the smallest unit of sound that affects meaning.

• Morphology: the units of meaning involved in word formation. (ex. Girl cannot be broken down into simpler terms).

  • Morpheme: a minimal unit of meaning. It is a word or part of a word that cannot be broken into smaller meaningful parts.

• Syntax: the way words are combined to form acceptable phrases and sentences. (ex. “Sebastian pushed the bike” has a different meaning than “the bike pushed Sebastian”)

• Semantics: the system that involves the meaning of words and sentences.

• Pragmatics: the use of language in different contexts. (ex. Using a polite language in appropriate situations).

Infants produce vocalizations before they speak recognizable words. It is a way to practice making sounds, communicate, and attract attention.

1. Crying

2. Cooing (2-4 months olds). These gurgling sounds are made at the back of their throat to express pleasure to their caregiver.

3. Babbling. It influences the behavior of caregivers, creating social iterating that facilitates their own communicative development.

4. Gestures (pointing and showing) at 7-15 months age.

Broca’s area- area in the left frontal lobe which involves in producing words

Wernicke’s area- a region of the brain’s left hemisphere involved in language comprehension.

Linguist Noam Chomsky (1957) believed that humans are biologically prewired to learn language at a certain time and in a certain way.

• Language acquisition device (LAD): a biological endowment that enables the child to detect certain features and rules of language, including phonology, syntax, and semantics. 

Child-directed speech: language spoken with a higher than normal pitch, slower tempo, and exaggerated intonation, with simple words and sentences. 

Adults often use other strategies in addition to child-directed speech to enhance the child’s acquisition of language.

• Recasting: rephrasing something the child has said that might lack the appropriate morphology or contain some error. The adult restates the child’s sentence in a fully grammatical sentence.

• Expanding: adding information to a child’s incomplete sentence. (ex. “Doggie eat”, and the parent replies with “yes the dog is eating his food out of his dish”)

• Labeling: naming objects that children seem interested in.

CHAPTER 6: Infant Social Emotional Development

Emotional and Personality Development

Emotional Development plays important roles in infancy for communication with others and behavior organization.

Emotions influence infants’ social responses and adaptive behavior as they interact with others in the world.

Biological, Cognitive, and Environmental Influences

• Biology’s importance to emotion is apparent in the changes in a baby’s emotional capacities. Certain regions of the brain that develop early in life play a role in distress, excitement, and rage.

• Cognitive processes influence infants’ emotional development. Attention toward or away from an experience can influence infants’ and children’s emotional responses.

Early Emotions

Primary emotions appear in the first 6 months of the infant’s development. (surprise, interest, joy, anger, sadness, fear, and disgust).

Self conscious emotions appear in the second half of the first year or within the second year. It requires self awareness that involves consciousness and a sense of “me”. (jealousy, empathy, embarrassment, pride, shame, guilt).

Emotional Expression and Social Relationships

Infants modify their emotional expressions in response to those of their parents. Caregivers also change their expressions in response to infants’ expressions.

• Stranger anxiety: infants show fear and wariness of strangers and a sense of fear when they are being separated from their caregivers.

• Separation protest: crying when the caregiver leaves.

Emotion Regulation and Coping

During the first year, infants try to minimize the intensity and duration of emotional reactions. When they become aroused, they try to distract themselves in order to reduce it.

Temperament

Involves individual difference in behavior styles, emotions, and characteristic ways of responding. (an infant may be cheerful and happy much of the time, while another may be crying constantly).

• Reactivity: variations in speed and intensity with which an individual responds to situations with positive/negative emotions.

• Self-regulation: the effectiveness of a person’s ability to control his/her emotions

• Goodness of fit: the match between a child’s temperament and the environmental demands the child must cope with.

Personality Development

Erik Erikson (1968) proposed that the first year of life is characterized by the trust-versus-mistrust stage of development. He believed that infants learn trust when they are cared for in a consistent, warm manner. If the infant is not well fed and kept warm consistently, a sense of mistrust is likely to develop.

The second stage of development is autonomy vs. shame and doubt. Autonomy builds as the infant’s mental and motor abilities develop. When caregivers are impatient and do for toddlers what they are capable of, shame and doubt develop.

Social Orientation/Understanding and Attachment

• Between 18-24 months of age, children markedly increase their imitative and reciprocal play, like imitating nonverbal actions like jumping and running.

• Social referencing: used to describe “reading” emotional cues in others to help determine how to act in a particular situation.

Attachment and its Development

Physical comfort (Erikson) also plays a role in the infant’s development. It is to establish a sense of trust in infants. The infant’s sense of trust is the foundation for attachment and sets the stage for a lifelong expectation that the world will be a good and pleasant place.

The ethological perspective (John Bowlby 1969) also stresses the importance of attachment in the first year of life and responsiveness of the caregiver. Bowlby maintains that both infants and their primary caregivers are biologically predisposed to form attachments. 

Individual Differences in Attachment

Mary Ainsworth (1979) created the Strange Situation, an observational measure of infant attachment that takes 20 minutes in which the infant experiences a series of introductions, separations, and reunions with the caregiver and an adult stranger in an order.

They were described in being securely attached in one of the three ways to the caregiver:

1. Securely attached babies use the caregiver as a secure base and explore their environment. 

   1. When the caregiver departs, they might protest mildly and when the caregiver returns, they reestablish a positive interaction.

2. Insecure avoidant babies show insecurity by avoiding the caregiver.

   1. They are not distressed when the caregiver leaves the room and do not reestablish contact with her.

3. Insecure resistant babies cling to the caregiver and then resist her by fighting against the closeness by kicking or pushing away. They don’t explore the room and cling onto the mother.

   1. When the caregiver leaves, they cry loudly and then push away when they return to try and comfort the child.

4. Insecure disorganized babies appear disoriented. They may seem dazed, confused, and fearful. They must show extreme fearfulness around the caregiver.

Developmental Social Neuroscience and Attachment

Research on the role of hormones and neurotransmitters in attachment has emphasized the importance of the neuropeptide hormone oxytocin and the neurotransmitter dopamine in the formation of the maternal-infant bond (Feldman, 2019). 

• Oxytocin: a mammalian hormone that also acts as a neurotransmitter in the brain, is released during breastfeeding and by contact and warmth.

• Oxytocin is an influence on the formation of infant-mother attachment.

• A number of brain regions, neurotransmitters, and hormones are involved in the development of infant-mother attachment.

Key candidates for influencing this attachment are connections: the prefrontal cortex, amygdala, and hypothalamus, as well as the neuropeptide oxytocin and the activity of the neurotransmitter dopamine in the nucleus accumbens.

Social Contexts

Reciprocal Socialization

Scaffolding- a form of reciprocal socialization in which parents time interactions in such a way that the infant takes turns with the parents. It involves parental behavior that supports children's efforts, allowing them to be more skillful than they would be if they had to rely on their own abilities. 

The epigenetic view emphasizes that development is the result of an ongoing, bidirectional interchange between heredity and the environment. (ex. Harsh parenting can lead to children being defiant and oppositional)

Maternal and Paternal Caregiving

A recent study indicated that children whose fathers’ behavior was more withdrawn and depressed at 3 months had a lower level of cognitive development at 24 months.

• Children whose fathers were more engaged and sensitive, and less controlling, showed a higher level of cognitive development at 24 months.

• Other studies indicate that when fathers are positively engaged with their children, developmental outcomes improve. 

CHAPTER 7: Physical and Cognitive Development in Early Childhood

Cognitive Changes

In the preoperational stage (2-7 years old), is the second Piagetian stage. In this stage, children begin to represent the world with words, images, and drawings, and they begin to form concepts and reasons.The young child’s cognitive world is dominated by egocentrism and magical beliefs.

• Preoperational thought: the beginning of the ability to reconstruct in thought what has been established in behavior. There are two stages, the symbolic function substage and the intuitive thought substage.

Symbolic function substage: the first substage of preoperational thought, occurring at 2-4 years old. The young child gains the ability to mentally represent an object that is not present.

• Egocentrism: the inability to distinguish between one’s own perspective and someone else's.

• Animism: the belief that inanimate objects have lifelike qualities and are capable of action. (ex. Thinking a cloud is sad when it rains)

Intuitive thought substage: the second substage of preoperational thought, occurring at 4-7 years old. Children begin to use primitive reasoning and want to know the answers to all sorts of questions.

• Piaget calls this stage intuitive because young children seem sure of their knowledge and understand it, yet are unaware of how they know what they know. (know it without rational thinking).

  • Limitation: centration, a centering of attention on one characteristic to the exclusion of all others. It is the lack of conversation and the awareness that altering an object’s appearance does not change its basic properties. 

Zone of Proximal development (ZPD) (Vygotsky): the range of tasks that are too difficult for the child to master alone but can be learned with guidance and assistance from adults or more-skill children.

• Lower limit of ZPD: level of skill reached by the child working independently.

• Upper limit of ZPD: level of additional responsibility the child can accept with the assistance of an instructor.

• Scaffolding: changing the level of support.

Two aspects of Attention

Executive attention- action planning, allocating attention to goals, error detection and compensation, monitoring progress of tasks, and dealing with novel or difficult circumstances.

Sustained attention- focused and extended engagement with an object, task, event, or other aspect of the environment. Sustained attention is called vigilance.

Memory- the retention of information over time. A central process in children’s cognitive development.

• Short term memory: individuals retain information for up to 30 seconds if there is no rehearsal of information.

• Long term memory: relatively permanent type of memory that stores huge amounts of information over a long time.

  • Another aspect of long term memory is autobiographical memory. Which involves memory of significant events and experiences in one’s life.

• Executive function: managing one’s thoughts to engage in goal-directed behavior and to exercise self-control.

• Between ages 3-5, children come to understand that the mind can represent objects and events accurately/inaccurately.

• When they are 5 years old, they realize that people can have false beliefs (beliefs that are not true).

Language Development

• By the time children are 3 years old, they can produce all the vowel sounds and most consonant sounds.

Morphology rules: children begin to use plural and possessive forms of nouns. They put appropriate endings on verbs.

Preschoolers learn to apply rules of syntax. They use complex rules for how words should be ordered. And the child must know two important differences between wh- questions and affirmative statements. 

Important aspects of how word learning optimally occurs:

1. Children learn words they hear most often. (interactions and books being read out loud)

2. Children learn words for things and events that interest them. (playful peer interactions)

3. Children learn words better in responsive and interactive contexts than in passive contexts. Children who experience turn-taking opportunities, joint focusing experiences, and positive sensitive socializing contexts with adults encounter the scaffolding necessary for optimal word learning. (they learn words less effectively if they are passive learners).

4. Children learn words best in contexts that are meaningful. Children learn more effectively when new words are encountered in integrated contexts rather than isolated facts.

5. Children learn words best when they access clear information about word meaning.

6. Children learn words best when grammar and vocabulary are considered.

Early Childhood Education

Nurturing is a key aspect of the child-centered kindergarten which emphasizes the education of the whole child and concern for their physical, cognitive, and socioemotional development. Instruction is organized around the child's needs, interests, and learning styles.

Child centered Kindergarten

1. Each child follows a unique developmental pattern

2. Young children learn best through first hand experiences with people and materials

3. Play is extremely important in the child’s total development

Experimenting, exploring, discovering, trying out, restructuring, speaking, and listening and frequent activities in kindergarten programs. They are attuned to the developmental status of 4-5 years old children.

Montessori schools are patterned after the educational philosophy of Maria Montessori (1870-1952). An Italian physician-turned-educator who crafted a revolutionary approach to young children’s education.

Montessori Approach- children are given considerable freedom and spontaneity in choosing activities. They are allowed to move from one activity to another if they want.

• The teacher shows the child how to perform intellectual activities, demonstrates interesting ways to explore materials, and offers help when the child wants it.

• Montessori seek to develop self-regulating problem solvers who can make choices and manage their time effectively.

• Many educators and psychologists believed that children learn best by having physical and active activities. They call this, Developmentally Appropriate Practice (DAP), which is based on knowledge of the typical development of children within an age span.

Desired outcomes for DAP: critical thinking, working cooperatively, solving problems, developing self-regulatory skills, and enjoying learning.