Human Development Notes

Physical Abilities

  • Reflexes:
    • Involuntary, unlearned motor behaviors.
    • Examples include stepping, sucking, rooting, grasping, swimming, tonic neck, Babinski, Moro, and Babkin reflexes.
    • Table 3.2 details neonatal reflexes and when they disappear.
      • Moro:
        • Response: Arch back, extend arms and legs outward, bring arms together swiftly
        • Stimulation: Hold baby under arms with feet touching floor and dip downward suddenly, or loud sounds
        • Disappears by: 2 months.
      • Babkin:
        • Response: Mouth opens, eyes close, head tilts forward.
        • Stimulation: Press and stroke both palms.
        • Disappears by: 3 months.
      • Sucking:
        • Response: Sucking.
        • Stimulation: Object or substance in mouth.
        • Disappears by: 3 months.
      • Rooting:
        • Response: Turn toward touch.
        • Stimulation: Touch on cheek or mouth.
        • Disappears by: 4 months.
      • Grasping:
        • Response: Hold tightly.
        • Stimulation: Object placed in palm.
        • Disappears by: 4 months.
      • Swimming:
        • Response: Holds breath, swims with arms and legs.
        • Stimulation: Baby is immersed in water.
        • Disappears by: 4 months.
      • Tonic neck:
        • Response: Head turns to side, legs and arms take "fencing position" with arms and legs extended on side head is turned, flexed on the other side.
        • Stimulation: Baby laid on back
        • Disappears by: 4 months.
      • Babinski:
        • Response: Foot twists in, toes fan out.
        • Stimulation: Stroke sole of foot.
        • Disappears by: 8 months.

Perceptual Abilities

  • Visual abilities:
    • Develop quickly beyond initial range of eight inches.
    • Can distinguish contrasts, shadows, and edges.
  • Other senses: Allow the baby to discriminate between a caregiver and a stranger.
    • Hearing (Cat in the Hat study).
    • Taste.
    • Touch.
    • Olfaction.

Attachment

  • Attachment begins with physical touching and cuddling between infant and parent.
  • Contact comfort: Importance of contact comfort and attachment for infants (and adults).

Bowlby’s Characteristics of Attachment

  • Safe Haven: Child returns to caregiver for comfort when threatened.
  • Secure Base: Caregiver provides a dependable base for exploration.
  • Proximity Maintenance: Child stays near caregiver to remain safe.
  • Separation Distress: Child becomes upset when separated from caregiver.

The Strange Situation (Mary Ainsworth)

  • Ainsworth studied attachment with Bowlby in London.
  • Studied attachment between mother and child in natural settings in Uganda.
  • Developed the “Strange Situation” procedure.
  • Types of attachment:
    • Secure Attachment (Type B):
      • Reaction to stranger: Child is indifferent to the stranger when mother is present, but when alone will ignore the stranger (stranger fear).
      • Reaction to separation: Becomes upset and distressed when the mother leaves, will usually cry and cannot be consoled by stranger.
      • Reaction to reunion: Happy when reunited at both reunion stages and is quickly calmed down when the mother returns, so can continue exploring.
    • Anxious-Avoidant Attachment (Type A):
      • Reaction to stranger: Child plays with the stranger regardless of mother's presence, and doesn't check for the mother's presence.
      • Reaction to separation: Is not distressed by the mother's absence, and can seek comfort from the stranger.
      • Reaction to reunion: Shows no interest in the mother's return (was not distressed by their departure either).
    • Anxious-Resistant Attachment (Type C):
      • Reaction to stranger: Child shows fear of stranger and avoid them whether or not the mother is present.
      • Reaction to separation: Severe reaction to the mother's absence, clearly distressed.
      • Reaction to reunion: Child will want the mother's comfort but may push her away when approached.

Types of Attachment (Summary)

  • Secure: Baby is secure when the parent is present, distressed by separation, and delighted by reunion.
  • Insecure (Avoidant): Baby doesn’t care if the parent leaves and does not seek contact upon return.
  • Insecure (Anxious): Baby clings to the parent, cries at separation, and reacts with anger or apathy to reunion.

Harry Harlow and Rhesus Monkeys

  • Harlow hypothesized that “love comes from touch not taste.”
  • Studies on Dependency in Monkeys.
  • Infants need cuddling as much as they need food.
  • Infant rhesus monkeys preferred a cuddly terry-cloth “mother” over a bare-wire “mother” that provided milk.
  • The infants would cling to the cuddly mother even when they were not being fed and would run to her for comfort when frightened.

Cognitive Development (Jean Piaget)

  • Argued that cognitive development consists of mental adaptations to new observations.
  • Schemas: Categories.
  • Two adaptive processes:
    • Assimilation: Absorbing new information into existing cognitive structures.
    • Accommodation: Modifying existing cognitive structures in response to new information.
  • Equilibration: Striking a balance between Assimilation and Accommodation.
  • Proposed a 4-stage theory of cognitive development.

Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Stages

  • Sensorimotor Stage (Birth – 2 years):
    • Infant learns through concrete actions: looking, touching, putting things in the mouth, sucking, grasping.
    • “Thinking” consists of coordinating sensory information with bodily movements.
    • Major accomplishment is object permanence: The understanding that an object continues to exist even when you cannot see or touch it.
    • Object Permanence - Stewie
    • A not B error
  • Preoperational Stage (2 – 7 years):
    • Language and symbolic thought develop.
    • Still lack the cognitive abilities necessary for understanding abstract principles and mental operations.
    • Egocentric: Cannot grasp conservation.
  • Concrete Stage (7–12 years):
    • Thinking is still grounded in concrete experiences and concepts, but children can now understand:
      • Conservation.
      • Reversibility.
      • Cause and effect.
      • Mental operation.
  • Formal Stage (12 or 13 to adulthood):
    • Beginning of abstract reasoning.
    • Can reason about situations not personally experienced.
    • Can think about the future.
    • Can search systematically for solutions.
    • Can draw logical conclusions.

Vygotsky

  • Zone of Proximal Development:
    • Tasks that are too hard for the child to learn alone but they can manage them with guidance.
    • More competent others (teachers, parents, peers) help students by providing them with information and temporary support which is gradually decreased as the student's competence increases.
    • This type of assistance is called Scaffolding.

Erikson’s Theory

  • Trained as a Freudian psychoanalyst
  • Felt social interactions were more important in development
  • Dismissed Freud’s emphasis on sexual development
  • Focused infant and child’s relationship to significant others in the immediate surroundings—parents and then later teachers and even peers
  • Erikson proposed that life consists of eight stages, each with a unique psychological challenge, or crisis, that must be resolved.
  • Erikson’s stages do not occur in the same order for everyone.
  • Trust vs. Mistrust (Stage 1):
    • Baby’s first year
    • Challenge: Baby depends on others to provide necessities.
    • If needs are not met, child may never develop essential trust of others.
  • Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt (Stage 2):
    • Toddler
    • Challenge: Young child must learn to be independent without feeling too ashamed or uncertain about his or her actions.
  • Initiative vs. Guilt (Stage 3):
    • Preschool age
    • Challenge: Child acquires new physical and mental skills, but must also learn to control impulses.
    • Danger lies in developing too strong a sense of guilt over his or her wishes and fantasies.
  • Competence vs. Inferiority (Stage 4):
    • School age
    • Challenge: Child learns to make things, use tools, acquire the skills for adult life.
    • Children who fail lessons of mastery and competence may come out of this stage feeling inadequate and inferior.
  • Identity vs. Role Confusion (Stage 5):
    • Adolescence
    • Challenge: Identity crisis Teenagers must decide who they are, what they are going to do, and what they hope to make of their lives.
    • Those who resolve the crisis will emerge with a strong identity, ready to plan for the future.
    • Those who do not will sink into confusion, unable to make decisions.
  • Intimacy vs. Isolation (Stage 6):
    • Young adulthood
    • Challenge: The young adult must share himself or herself with another and learn to make commitments.
    • People are not complete until they are capable of intimacy.
  • Generativity vs. Stagnation (Stage 7):
    • Middle years
    • Challenge: Will the adult sink into complacency and selfishness, or experience generativity—creativity and renewal?
  • Integrity vs. Despair (Stage 8):
    • Late adulthood and old age
    • Challenge: As a person ages, he or she strives to reach the ultimate goals of wisdom, spiritual tranquility, and acceptance of his or her life.

James Marcia – The Paths to Identity

  • Identity-diffusion status: The individual does not have firm commitments regarding the issues in question and is not making progress toward them.
  • Foreclosure status: The individual has not engaged in any identity experimentation and has established an identity based on the choices or values of others.
  • Moratorium status: The individual is exploring various choices but has not yet made a clear commitment to any of them.
  • Identity-achievement status: The individual has attained a coherent and committed identity based on personal decisions.

Adolescence

  • Personal fable: Adolescent believes he/she is unique and protected from harm.
  • Imaginary audience: Adolescent believes others are just as concerned about his/her thoughts and characteristics as much as they, themselves, are.

Parenting Styles

  • Authoritative:
    • High demandingness, high responsiveness.
  • Authoritarian:
    • High demandingness, low responsiveness.
  • Permissive:
    • Low demandingness, high responsiveness.
  • Disengaged:
    • Low demandingness, low responsiveness.

Outcomes Associated With Parenting Styles

  • Authoritative:
    • Independent, creative, self-assured, socially skilled.
  • Authoritarian:
    • Dependent, passive, conforming, conforming.
  • Permissive:
    • Irresponsible, behavior problems, immature.
  • Disengaged:
    • Impulsive, early sex/drugs

Morality

  • Morality is the ability to take the perspective of, or empathize with, others and to distinguish between right and wrong.
  • Some researchers suggest that morality may be prewired and evolutionarily based.
  • Biopsychosocial model highlights the psychological and social factors that explain how moral thoughts, feelings, and actions change over through childhood.

Lawrence Kohlberg

  • Developed ideas further from Piaget's theory of moral development.
  • Used Piaget’s story-telling technique to tell people stories involving moral dilemmas.
  • Presented a choice between the rights of some authority and the needs of some deserving individual who is being unfairly treated.

The Heinz Dilemma

  • In Europe, a cancer-ridden woman was near death, but an expensive drug existed that might save her.
  • The woman's husband, Heinz, begged the druggist to sell the drug at a lower price or to let him pay later.
  • The druggist refused.
  • Heinz became desperate and broke into the druggist's store and stole it.

Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development

  • Kohlberg developed a model of moral development with three broad levels, each composed of two distinct stages.
  • Individuals at various levels may or may not support Heinz's stealing of the drug, but their reasoning changes from level to level.

Assessing Kohlberg’s Theory

  • Moral Reasoning Versus Behavior: Knowing the moral choice is not the same as behaving in a moral way.
  • Cultural Differences: May be more reflective of an individualistic culture.
  • Possible Gender Bias: May emphasize more typically male values (Gilligan’s model).
  • Carol Gilligan argued that women score “lower” on Lawrence Kohlberg's stages of moral development because they are socialized to assume more responsibility for the care of others.