Human Development and Psychology Chapter 1 Review

Course Logistics and Administrative Guidelines

• Survey Deadlines:

  • The "Getting to Know Me" survey and the rank survey (used to prioritize language articles for prospective exchange) are due at midnight.
  • The course quiz closes on Tuesday between $8:00\text{ AM}$ and $5:00\text{ PM}$.

• Academic Integrity Requirements:

  • Quiz completion requires navigating to the Academic Integrity Code link provided in the syllabus.
  • Answers must be retrieved directly by hyperlinking to the university catalog's academic requirements and reading the specific Academic Integrity Policy and procedures section.

• Syllabus Reading Expectations:

  • Readings listed on the right side of the course schedule must be completed by Friday of the corresponding week unless explicitly noted otherwise.
  • The initial Perspective Exchange discussion regarding genetic testing is scheduled for the $30\text{th}$.

• Note-Taking Organization:

  • Maintaining a single, continuous document for different daily tasks and chapters prevents losing track of separate files and streamlines exam preparation.

Human Development Domains and Developmental Milestones

• Milestone Categorization:

  • Developmental analysis involves sorting $30$ distinct milestones across physical, cognitive, and social-emotional domains.

• Physical Domain:

  • Infant Reflexes: Gripping is an innate infant reflex present from birth.
  • Motor Demands: Physical coordination is required for complex motor tasks such as nursing activities.

• Cognitive and Visual-Cognitive Domain:

  • Visual-Cognitive Integration: Intentional tasks (e.g., deliberate block building or object manipulation) require visual and cognitive alignment.
  • Organizational Skills: Developing organizational capabilities requires substantial cognitive improvement alongside physical coordination.

• Social-Emotional Domain (Social Cognition):

  • Identity Development: Identity issues involve internal mental processing and self-reflection, placing them firmly within social cognition and emotional development.
  • Stranger Anxiety: Developing a fear of strangers is a natural emotional milestone that emerges after $6\text{ months}$ of age.

• Theoretical Framework:

  • Human development encompasses $6$ primary theoretical perspectives that correlate with specific developmental domains.

Course Assignments and Document Formatting

• Free Write Protocol:

  • Entries must be dated ($09/04/2026$) and assigned a standardized label.
  • Free Write 01/02 designates the second free write activity within Chapter 1.

• Canvas Navigation:

  • Course documents are located at canvas.merrimack.edu under Modules $\rightarrow$ Chapter 1 $\rightarrow$ Data Theory Table.
  • Selecting the text within the gray header bar expands the embedded table into a full-page view.

Non-Normative Life Events

• Definition:

  • Non-normative events are atypical, rare experiences that do not occur to the vast majority of individuals within a population.

• Positive Non-Normative Examples:

  • Winning millions of dollars.
  • Being a multiple (e.g., twins, triplets).

• Negative Non-Normative Examples:

  • Experiencing the death of a child.

Theoretical Foundations of Human Development

• Purpose of Developmental Theories:
  • Theories serve as analytical lenses or perspectives used to analyze, predict, prescribe, and discourage specific human behaviors.

Clinical Case Study: David

• Behavioral Profile and Early Symptoms:

  • Destructive Tendencies: Exhibited destructive behavior, including crashing into walls, smashing household items, and destroying houseplants.
  • Behavioral Triggers: Aggressive and destructive episodes intensified immediately following meals or when experiencing anger and disappointment.
  • Sleep and Attention: Required minimal sleep, experienced chronic restlessness, and quickly grew bored of most activities.
  • Sustained Focus: Maintained prolonged engagement only when playing computer games or interacting with the family dog, Jesse.
  • Parental Response: Parents gently teased David about his frequent coordination accidents until he reached $8\text{ to }9\text{ years}$ of age.

• Family Structure and Dynamics:

  • Sister (Sarah): Precocious older sister who achieved high social and academic success. She defended David in front of their parents but teased him when they were alone.
  • Maternal Leave: Mother (Sharon) took a $3\text{-year}$ leave of absence following David's birth before returning to work part-time.
  • Childcare Agitation: David demonstrated severe anxiety and agitation upon returning to the childcare center, leading the school to request his withdrawal.
  • Home Care Shift: Sharon and father (Oliver) rearranged their work schedules over the following year to provide direct parental care until school enrollment.

• Academic History and Cognitive Evaluation:

  • Montessori Education: Enrolled in a private Montessori school at age $6$.
  • Early Performance: Enjoyed learning and performed well academically through the $4\text{th}$ grade despite ongoing social isolation.
  • Psychometric Testing: Recorded an overall IQ score of $126$.
  • Cognitive Discrepancy: Demonstrated exceptionally high verbal intelligence alongside significantly lower mathematical capabilities.

• Fifth-Grade Decline and Maladaptive Behaviors:

  • Teacher Conflict: Encountered an inflexible $5\text{th}$ grade teacher, resulting in a severe drop in grades and persistent refusal to apply effort.
  • Delinquency: Stole small amounts of money from his mother's purse (denying the act when confronted), engaged in frequent classmate fights, preferred assaulting teachers, and was suspended for defacing school walls with obscenities.
  • Self-Attribution: Attributed his disruptive behaviors to a complete inability to control his own actions.
  • Inconsistent Discipline: Parents imposed a $1\text{-month}$ ban on computer games, but both parents independently allowed him occasional gameplay during the punishment period.

Psychodynamic Theory and Freudian Concepts

• The Unconscious Mind:

  • Unconscious drives and motives frequently dictate behavior.
  • Anxiety-provoking or embarrassing thoughts are actively pushed out of conscious awareness via repression.

• Therapeutic Techniques:

  • Free Association: Expressing thoughts without censorship to reveal underlying unconscious conflicts.
  • Dream Analysis: Unpacking dream content to access suppressed unconscious material.

• Iceberg Model of Personality Structure:

  • Id: Operates entirely on the pleasure principle, demanding immediate gratification of basic drives.
  • Ego: Serves as the realistic mediator between the demands of the id and societal constraints.
  • Superego: Represents internalized moral standards and social ethics.

• Psychosexual Stages of Development:

  • Oral Stage: Primary gratification is centered on mouth-related activities (e.g., nursing, feeding, sucking).
  • Fixation Dynamics: Insufficient gratification (deprivation) or excessive gratification (spoiling) at any stage results in developmental fixation, leading to characteristic psychological issues in adulthood.
  • Phallic Stage: Focus shifts to the genitals; includes theoretical constructs such as penis envy.
  • Latency and Genital Stages ($12+\text{ years}$ / Puberty): Re-emergence of sexual energy, romantic interests, dating, and interpersonal crushes.

• Defense Mechanisms:

  • Unconscious strategies employed by the ego to cope with anxiety.
  • Displacement: Redirecting emotional reactions or hostility from the primary source to a vulnerable target (e.g., a manager redirecting anger onto a subordinate).

Student Interactions and Personal Exchanges

• Shared Living Expenses:

  • Detailed financial reimbursements via Venmo for shared household purchases, including a couch, television, TV mount, air conditioner, rug, and refrigerator.
  • Itemized breakdown of purchased items included directly within the Venmo transaction descriptions.

• Classroom Logistics:

  • Observations regarding course pacing, session duration, and the implementation of approved disability accommodations (such as specialized microphone and recording equipment).