Chapter Twelve📖

Development psychology → Area of psychology that is concerned with changes in physical and psychological functioning 

• How and why people change over time 

• Occurs from conception across entire life span 

  • Development is the more or less predictable changes in behaviour associated with age 

Stage theories of development 

• Stages → series of abrupt changes from one period to another (discontinuity) 

  • All children must pass through in same order what are some North American milestones 

  • Many advocate that changes unfold over time (continuous change or continuity) 

  • Qualitative than quantitative (such as child mastering physical properties of object) 

Studying development 

• Often conceptualize the lifespan as either gains or losses (debits and credits) 

• How do we study change over time? 

  • Normative investigations 

    • Describe characteristics of a specific age or developmental stage (average level norms) height, weight, reading, writing 

    • Chronological and development age what is normal/make comparisons 

    • E.g. Comparing a 2 year old to other 2 year olds in the same country you live in 

      • Doctor comparing your height to different percentiles and seeing where your average is 

      • EQAO is an example of this 

      • Problem with this is that people come from different countries such as people who come guyana aren’t looked at from that perspective 

• Who assesses variations in development? → these people use normative investigations 

  • Physicians 

  • Nurses 

  • Day care workers 

  • Speech language pathologists 

  • Occupational and physiotherapists 

  • Teachers 

  • Psychologists 

• A sequential design incorporates both longitudinal and cross sectional designs 

  • Longitudinal design 

    • Repeated observation and testing of the same people over time 

    • Is there benefit? Short term and long term 

    • Up series by Michael Apted followed the lives of fourteen British children since 1964

    • Able to study longer term individual differences 

    • Age related changes cannot be confused with variations in different societal circumstances (assessment of Gen Z, Gen Y and Gen X) 

    • Costly, time consuming, where is the data?, only one group

Cross sectional design 

• Groups of participants of different chronological ages are observed and compared at the same time (e.g., a census) 

• More groups can be studied 

• Political and societal variables may confound the results 

• The sequential design is actually a combination of both a cross sectional design and a longitudinal design. Using a sequential design, we study several cohorts, or age groups, over a long period of time 

Jean Piaget believed that representations of reality change at different stages needed for adaptation 

• wasn’t interested in the amount of knowledge 

• Through the studies PIaget carefully watched children and listened to them reason as they tried to solve problems 

  • He proposed that children’s thinking changes qualitatively with age it is not that children are simply less practiced, it is that the way they think is different from the way adults think 

  • To achieve the understanding of the world the brain builds schemas which are organized patterns of thought and action (internal framework) which guides our interaction with the world 

    • Ex. infants are born with a sucking reflex which provides a primary framework, a schema for interacting with physical objects. 

• Mental structures that enable individuals to interpret the world called schemes 

  • Assimilation → modifies new environmental information to fit into what is already known (interpret new input according to existing schemes) 

    • Ex. peter’s daughter loving a red rubber ball and would laugh however, when she started eating real foods she loved apples, she would throw her red ball lose track and get an apple and do the same but it didn’t bounce or sound the same but they looked the same → she did accommodation and learned the difference between the two 

    • Ex. ball vs apple vs pumpkin 

    • Ex. when a young infant encounters a new object, a small plastic toy, a blanket, or a doll they will try to suck it. The infant tries to “fit this new experience into a schema that they already have: objects are suckable 

    • Ex. a child who sees a horse for the first time may exclaim “big doggie.” After all, the horse has four legs, and a tail just like a the family pet, so the child tries to make sense of this new experience by applying the familiar schema: “doggie” 

  • Accommodation → restructure or modifies the child’s existing schemes so that new information is accounted for 

    • Ex. when an infant tries to suck different objects, they will eventually encounter ones which are too big to go into their mouth or taste bad 

    • Ex. the child who calls a horse a “big doggie” eventually will realize that this “big doggie” doesn’t bark, sit, fetch, or otherwise behave like a dog 

  • Balance and imbalance → ex. Change in belief system 

    • Ex. the infants “suckability” schema will become more complex, some objects are suckable, some are not 

    • Ex. the child’s “doggie” schema also will change, and they will begin to develop new schemas for “horsey,” “kitty” and so son

  • Assimilation and accommodation work in together 

• Stages of cognitive development 

  • Things to keep in mind: 

    • Cognitive development within each stage seems to proceed inconsistently. A child could perform at the preoperational level on some tasks, yet solve other tasks at concrete operational level 

    • Culture influences cognitive development 

      • Piaget looked at cognitive development with a scientific logical thinking and western perspective 

    • Many cognitive skills and concepts at an earlier age than Piaget thought 

  • Sensorimotor stage (0-2) 

    • Senses and motion without the use of symbols 

    • Mobility allows for knowledge acquisition 

    • Object permanence understanding that objects exist independent from awareness (around age 2) 

    • At age 2 the brain is 80% of adult weigh 

  • Preoperational stage (2-7) 

    • Use of symbols, language matures, memory develops, imagination develops → most learning happens here 

      • Big ones for us are language and numbers 

      • Putting your hand up in front of toddler that means stop, putting your hand up to ask a question or answer one, school bell (school started/end, recess, lunch) 

    • Non reversible thinking 

    • Egocentrism → inability to take other’s perspectives 

      • This isn’t selfishness but rather that children at this stage believe that other people perceive things in the same way they do 

        • Ex. hide and seek a preoperational child showing egocentrism will believe that if they can’t see you, then you can’t see them, and so they may in a way  that only obscures their view of you 

    • Centration → tendency for attention to be captured by perceptually striking features of objects 

    • Rapid language development helps children label objects and represent simple concepts, such as that two objects can be “the same” or “different” 

      • Children can think about the past 

        • Ex. Yesterday or the future “tomorrow,” “soon” 

  • Concrete operations stage (7-11) 

    • Conservation physical properties of objects don’t change even though appearance might (reversibility) 

    • Intelligence is demonstrated through logical systematic manipulation of symbols to concrete objects 

    • During this stage they have difficulty with hypothetical problems or problems requiring abstract reasoning they often show rigid types of thinking 

    • Reversibility - 1 + 1 = 2 & 2 minus 1 = 1 

  • Formal operations stage (11 - adult) 

    • Development of abstract and hypothetical thinking 

    • Consider series of alternatives and logical thinking 

    • Return to egocentric thinking 

Contemporary cognitive views 

• Renee Baillargeon and infant cognition 

  • Demonstrated that some aspects of Piaget’s stages don’t occur in order 

  • Violation of expectation experiments - rudimentary object permanence at a younger age (4-5 months) 

• Theory of mind 

  • This refers to a person’s beliefs about the mind and the ability to understand other people’s mental states 

    • We have theories about the contents of other people’s minds we use these assumptions to explain and predict our own and other people’s behaviour 

  • Lying and deception reflect this theory, evidence indicates that those who understand false beliefs are more likely to lie, starting as early as three years of age 

    • They will understand the difference between a mistake and a lie. For both a mistake and a lie, what I say is wrong. The difference is that in one case, the lie, I recognize that you do n’t know what is going on inside my mind and so I can deceive you 

  • Frameworks for initial understanding called foundational theories (accumulation of experiences) 

• Lev Vygotsky and internalization 

  • Process of absorbing knowledge from the social and cultural context that has a major impact on how cognition unfolds over time 

  • Zone of proximal development → little apprentices 

    • This is the difference between what a child can do independently and what a child can do with assistance from adults or more advanced peers 

    • It emphasizes that people can help to “move” a child’s cognitive development forward within limits (the “zone”) dictated by the child’s biological maturation 

      • Ex. parents who assist a child on a scientific tasks may push the child’s understanding further along by using age appropriate but cognitively demanding speech (introducing scientific concepts) rather than simpler speech 

Social development → how individuals social interactions and expectations change over time 

• Conclusions based on the “average” life course, but development not independent from cultural and environmental aspects

  • Erikson’s psychosocial stages represents 8 conflicts or crises that every individual must face through the lifespan 

    • Four crises occur infancy and childhood 

      • Basic trust vs basic mistrust → depending on how adequately our needs are met, and how much love and attention we receive during the first year of life, we develop a basic trust or basic mistrust of the world 

      • Autonomy vs shame and doubt → during the next two years, children become ready to exercise their individuality. If parents unduly restrict children or make harsh demands during toilet training, children develop shame and doubt about their abilities and later lack the courage to be independent 

      • Initiative vs guilt → from age three through five, children display great curiosity about the world. If they are allowed freedom to explore and receive answers to their questions, they develop a sense of initiative. If they are held back or punished, they develop guilt about their desires and suppress their curiosity 

      • Industry vs inferiority → from age six until puberty, the child’s life expands into school and peer activities. Children who experience pride and encouragement in mastering taks develop an industry striving to achieve. Repeated failure and lack of praise for trying leads to a sense of inferiority 

    • Erikson’s Psychological Stages 

      • First year → Basic trust vs. basic mistrust 

      • 1 - 2 → Autonomy vs. shame and doubt 

      • 3 - 5 → Initiative vs. guilt 

      • 6 - 12 → Industry vs. inferiority 

      • 12 - 20 → identity vs. role confusion 

      • 20 - 40 → Intimacy vs. isolation

      • 40 - 65 → Generativity vs. stagnation 

      • 65+ → Integrity vs. despair  

• Socialization → lifelong process through which an individual’s behaviour patterns, values, standards, skills, attitudes, and motives are shaped to conform to those regarded as desirable in a particular society 

  • Process involves many individual and social factors but family is most important in basic responsiveness to others 

  • Help us understand societal norms 

• Personality and social development 

  • Emotion

    • 18 months develop sense of self 

      • Display variety of basic emotions 

      • Envy, embarrassment, empathy can begin to emerge 

    • Age 2 learn rules and performance standards 

      • Display guilt 

    • Emotion regulation becomes more diverse 

      • Emotional competence increases 

      • Socialization and heredity contribute to emotional development 

Temperament 

• Biologically based levels of emotional and behavioural response to the environment 

  • Ex. some infants are calm and happy; others are irritable and fussy, some are outgoing and active; others are shy and inactive 

• We are not all the same in regards to our social responses 

  • Inhibited (shy,withdrawn) and uninhibited babies (sociable, outgoing) falls on a continuum 

• Sets the stage for later aspects of development and can have interactive effects (social anxiety, antisocial) but not always 

Attachment → intense social emotional relationship with mother, father, or regular caregiver 

• Some species experience imprinting of the first moving object they see (Konrad Lorenz) 

  • Ex. the strongest imprinting takes place within one day after hatching, and by two and a half days the capacity to imprint is lost 

• John Bowlby 

  • Humans biologically predisposed to form attachments (agreed with maslow) but become more selective in their attachment choices 

    • Indiscriminate attachment → newborns 

      • Newborns cry, vocalize, and smile, and they emit these behaviours toward everyone. In turn, these behaviours evoke caregiving from adults 

    • Discriminant attachment → 3 months 

      • Around three months of age, infants direct their attachment behaviours more toward familiar caregivers than toward strangers 

    • Specific attachment → 7 months 

      • By seven or eight months of age, infants develop their first meaningful attachment to specific caregivers. The caregivers become a “secure base” from which the infant can crawl about and explore the environment 

• Contact and social bonding 

  • Freud’s cupboard theory → is bonding only for the purpose of being fed? 

  • Harry Harlow and contact comfort 

    • Monkey studies → he separated infant rhesus monkeys from their biological mothers shortly after birth. Each infant was raised in a cage with two artificial, “surrogate” mothers. One was a care wire cylinder with a feeding bottle attached to its “chest.” The other was a wire cylinder covered with soft terry cloth, without a feed bottle. Faced with this choice, the infant monkeys became attached to the cloth mother. When they were in frightening situations, the infants ran to the terry cloth figure and clung tightly. 

  • Stephen Suomi and cross fostering 

    • Attentive adoptive monkey mothers 

    • Human deprivation and lack of consistency linked to physical and social deficits 

• Mary ainsworth and the Strange Situation Test → stranger and separation anxiety 

  • Studies of attachment by Mary Ainsworth involved a mother leaving her infant with a stranger. Ainswoeth believed that the infants attachment style could be categorized according to their behavioural responses to the mother leaving and returning 

• Three main types of attachment style 

  • Secure (70%) 

    • In the mother’s presence infants explore the playroom and react positively to strangers, they are distressed when she leaves and happily greet her when she returns

    • They are better adjusted socially during childhood 

  • Insecure - avoidant (20%) 

    • Infants show few signs of attachment and seldom cry when the mother leaves and don’t seek contact when she retuns

  • Insecure ambivalent/resistant (10%) 

    • infants are fearful when the mother is present, demand her attention, and are highly distressed when she leaves, they are not soothed when she returns and may angrily resist her attempts as constant 

  • Disorganized attachment 

    • Infants which show disorganized attachment may appear disoriented and confused, or they may show contradictory behaviours, such as simultaneously trying to get close to the mother and freezing or striking out when the mother tries to comfort them 

• Highly predictive of child’s later behaviour and interactions with others 

Parenting style and practices 

• Parenting styles range on dimensions of demandingness and responsiveness 

• Parents have different socialization goals for their children which determine parenting 

• The child may influence the goals 

• Authoritative parents → controlling but warm, they establish clear rules, consistently enforce them, and reward children’s compliance with warmth and affection. They communicate high expectations, caring, and support this is associate with the most positive childhood outcomes 

  • These children have higher self esteem, high achievers in school and have fewer conduct problems 

• Authoritarian parents → exert control over their children, but do so within a cold, unresponsive, or rejecting relationship

  • These children have lower self esteem, be less popular with peers and perform more poorly in school than children with authoritative parents 

• Indulgent parents → have warm and caring relationships with their children, but do not provide the guidance and discipline that helps children learn responsibility and concern for others 

  • These children tend to be more immature and self centred 

• Neglectful parents → provide neither warmth nor rules and guidance 

  • These children are most likely to be insecurely attached, have low achievement motivation and disturbed relationships with peers and adults at school and be impulsive and aggressive

  • Neglectful parenting is associated with the most negative developmental outcomes  

Moral development 

• Morality → a system of beliefs, values, and underlying judgements about the rightness or wrongness of human acts 

• Lawrence Kohlberg and theory of moral development 

  • Studied moral reasoning in seven stages 

  • Shaped by Piaget changing importance of consequences of acts and intentions 

  • Moral dilemmas used to evaluate reasons for moral decisions: privacy facebook? Should apple unlock the phone? 

  • Children do not see morality as adults do they are more interested in what others think? 

Four key principles in Kohlberg’s model

• An individual can be at  only one stage at a given time 

• Everyone goes through the stages in a fixed order 

• Each stage is more comprehensive and complex than the preceding 

• The same stages occur in every culture