Module 42

• Temperaments are stable

• Social attitudes are more subject to change, especially in late adolescence

• Researchers who emphasize learning/experience see development as a slow, continuous process

• Researchers who emphasize biological maturation see development as a sequence of stages

• Zygotes— fertilized eggs

• Embryo— developing human organism, 2 weeks to 2 months

• Fetus— developing human organism after 9 weeks to birth

• 6 months— fetus responsive to sound, the sounds they hear in the womb are later recognized after birth

• Teratogens— Chemicals and viruses that can harm the embryo or fetus

• FAS— physical and cognitive abnormalities caused by heavy drinking during pregnancy

• Extreme stress can cause earlier delivery

• Habituation— a new stimulus gets attention but the attention wanes as it repeats

Module 43

• From ages 3 to 6, most rapid growth was in frontal lobes

• Association areas (linked with memory, language, thinking) were the last to develop

• Maturing nervous system causes babies to learn to roll, sit up, crawl, and then eventually walk

• Walking learned at about age 1

• Infantile amnesia— earliest memories are forgotten since brain hasn’t fully developed yet

• Even though conscious recall of early memories isn’t possible, our brains were still processing and storing emotion (ex. kids who spoke different languages as young children can relearn them more easily as adults)

Module 44: Cognitive Development

• Sensorimotor stage

  • Age 0-2

  • No object permanence

  • Object permanence develops

• Preoperational stage

  • Can use symbolic thinking

  • Do not understand conservation

  • Egocentric

  • Eventually develop the ability to infer another person’s perspective

• Concrete operational stage

  • Starts around age 7

  • Understand conservation

  • Can comprehend mathematical transformations, but slowly

• Formal operational stage

  • Around age 12

  • Abstract thinking

  • Hypothetical propositions, deduce consequences

• Lev Vygotsky

  • Emphasized how a child’s mind grows through social environment interaction

  • Parents and teacher interactions give children a framework/scaffolding to develop higher levels of thinking

  • Zone of proximal development— zone between what a child can and can’t do: what the child can do with help

  • Children learn best when their environments are neither too easy or to difficult

• Autism Spectrum Disorder— disorder appearing in childhood marked by significant deficiences in communication and osical interation, and by rigidly fixated interests and repetative behaviors

Module 45: Social Development

• Infants become attached to parents and caregivers

• Stranger anxiety— fear of strangers that begins at about 8 months

• Contact from a young age makes humans and animals alike more attached

• Children like familiarity

• Secure attachment— temporary distress when caregiver leaves and comfort when they return

• Insecure attachment— either anxiety or avoidance of a strange situation, either cry loudly when caregiver leaves or remain indifferent

• Anxious infants have higher and more variable heart rates, reactive nervous systems, more aroused in new situations

• Basic trust— a sense that the world is predictable and trustworthy, formed during infancy by appropriate experiences with responsive caregivers

• Anxious attachment— craving acceptance but remaining vigilant to signs of possible rejection

• Socially deprived children have lower intelligence, reduced brain development, abnormal stress responses, higher ADHD rates

• Self-concept— thoughts and feelings about who we are

• Self-awareness begins when we recognize ourselves in a mirror

• Self-concept generally is stable by age 8-10

• Parenting styles

  • Authoritarian— impose rules and expect obedience

  • Permissive— few demands, few limits, little punishment

  • Negligent— neither demanding nor responsive, do not seek a relationship with child

  • Authoritative— demanding and responsive, set rules but encourage open discussion and allow exceptions

• Western cultures prefer independence, Eastern cultures value emotional closeness

Module 46: Gender development

• Sex— biological sex characteristics

• Gender— socially influenced characteristics defining man and woman

• Relational aggression— an act of aggression intended to harm someone’s relationship or social standing (more likely for women to do this)

• Gender differences in aggression, social power, connectedness, etc

• Males enjoy side-by-side activities and focus on problem solving, more likely to guess at an answer they dont’t know

• Females imitate social relationships more, spend more time with friends, more conversation

• 16,000 words spoken daily

• Women are more likely to turn to others for support

• Nomadic societies have less gender roles, agricultural societies have more,

• Social learning theory— we learn social behavior by observing and imitating and by being rewarded or punished

• Gender typing— the acqusition of a traditional masculine or feminine role

Module 47: Parents, Peers, and Early experiences

• Normal stimulation in early years leads to more normal or healthier development

• Children’s personalities are less sculpted by parents than by other experiences

• We seek to fit in with people around us and will adapt our actions to do so

Module 48: Physical and Cognitive Development (adolescence)

• Transition period from childhood to adulthood

• Begins with puberty (sexual maturation)

• Frontal lobes continue to develop, neurotrasnmission becomes fast to improve judgement, impulse control, and long-term planning

• Emotional limbic system matures rapidly which increases impulsiveness and risky behavior

• Reasoning is self-focused and teens tend to think their private experiences are unique

• Develop hypotheticaal reasoning and start to deduce consequences

• Develop morality

Module 49: Social development and emerging adulthood

• Teens begin to try out different “selves” in different situations, which can cause discomfort when different situations overlap

• This eventually unifies into their identity

• Social identity— the “we” aspect of our self-concept that comes from group memberships

• Identity formation followed by capacity for intimacy (ability to form emotionally lose relatinships)

• As western adolescents seek to form their identities, they pull away from their parents

• Positive parent-teen relationships and positive peer relations are closely linked

• Emerging adulthood— period of time from age 18 to mid-20s when one is no longer an adolescent but has not yet achived full adult independence

• Transitiion to adulthood is growing longer

Module 50: sexual development

• Testosterone— main male sex hormone, stimulates grwoth of male sex organs during fetal period and male sex characteristics during puberty

• During 4th and 5th prenatal months, sex hormones influence fetal brain’s wiring

• Adolescent sexual development— 2year period of rapid sexual maturation in puberty, pronounced differences between sexes emerge

• Primary sex characteristics— ovaries, testes, and external genitalia

• Secondary sex characteristics— nonreproductive sexual traits, like female breasts and hips and male voice quality and body hair

• Spermarche— first ejaculation

• Teen girls are more at risk for STDs due to not fully mature anatomy and lower levels of protective antibodies

• Genes influence teen sexual behavior

• Communication about birth control, impulsivity, alcohol use, religious engagement, father presence, service learning participation, and intelligence level affect teen sex rates

Cluster of cells in the hypothalamus larger in heterosexual men than in women or gay men

Module 51: Adulthood

• Menopause— natural cessation of menstruation and resulting biological changes

• Age 75 or older, sexual desire decreases to litte or none

• People are more likely to die after reaching a milestone (birthday, holiday, new year)

• Immune system declines with age but short term ailment risk decreases

• Older drivers less likely to focus on side-approaching vehicles

• Cognitive decline occurs as blood-brain barrier breaks down

• Impulsiveness returns with age

• Exercise slows aging

• Teens and twenties best remembered

• Older people recognize little and recall less

• Older adults rely on time management and reminder cues like notes to themselves

• Neurocognitive disorders— acquired disoerders marked by cognitive deficits

• Alzheimer’s— neurocognitive disorder marked by neural plaques that cause a progressive decline in memory and other cognitive abilities

• Social clock— the cullturally preferred timing of social events like marriage, parenthood, and retirement