Lecture 2: Human Development I
January 10, 2025
The study of human development = studying continuity/change across the entire lifespan
Four main periods of human development
Prenatal period and infancy (conception to 2-3 years)
Childhood (2-3 to 11 years)
Adolescence (12 – ?? years)
Adulthood ( ?? years – death)
Early memories are formed at different ages → usually tied to to highly emotional events or physically salient
Early memories are often vague or non-existent
Failure of autobiographical memory creates the belief that experiences during infancy are less relevant = FALSE
Crucial to normal development (language, food, music taste, etc.)
Gives rise to many of the individual differences are observed across the human population
Earliest experience of the human organism = hearing
Happens in utero (prior to birth)
Touch is an additional experience as well; reacting to mother’s movement
Prenatal Development
*Beginning of the human experience = conception
Zygotic/Germinal stage ENDS at implantation (best answer)
Germinal (0 - 2 weeks)
Embryonic (3 - 8 weeks) → organ development
Fetal (9 weeks - birth) → sensory experiences and learning
Developmental processes in Brain Development
Much of experience and learning occurs during the fetal period
Neurogenesis, Myelination, Synaptogenesis, Synaptic pruning
Fetal Experience and Sensation
Fetuses experience stimuli in utero (tastes, smells, sounds, tactile sensation)
Fetal Audition
Fetal heartbeat changes in reaction to external voices being played
Different in reaction to music than to human speech (sound type plays an effect)
Newborns can recognize their mother’s language and their mother’s voice
Teratogens
External agents that cause damage or death during prenatal development
Most affect fetuses during a series of critical and sensitive periods
Neonatal period (after birth)
The average neonate (newborn) spends most of the day sleeping
Changes occurring are almost observed during wakefulness
Neonatal sleep
*Figures/Graphs would show up on test/midterm
Perceptual Development
Begins in utero → perceptual experiences after birth are much richer
Due to more exposure to stimuli; rather than experiencing through the mother
Measuring infants’ perception
Preferential looking = choosing to spend more of their time looking at objects and events that are stimulating
Tests for discrimination
Visual acuity – relies on the principle that infants would rather look at stripes
First month of life = infants’ visual acuity increases from approx. 20/400 to 20/120
By 6 months = adult-like acuity
Colour perception and depth perception develop in the first 6 months as well
Motor Development in Infancy
Movements develop as perception is developing
These two processes are highly related
Newborn’s motor skills consist predominantly of reflexes
Grasping, rooting, sucking, swallowing, tonic neck reflex
Reflexes that last for the ENTIRE lifespan
Coughing, sneezing, blinking, withdrawal from pain
Lecture 3:Human Development II
January 15, 2025
Motor Development in Infancy
After reflexes, the development of sophisticated moto behaviours follows two rules:
Cephalocaudal Rule: ‘Top to bottom’ – describes the tendency for motor skills to emerge in sequence from the head to the feet
Children develop more control from the top (head) of their bodies to the bottom
Slowly start to gain more control moving downward
Proximodistal Rule: ‘Inside-to-outside’ rule that describes the tendency for motor skills to emerge from the center to the periphery
Complex movements start from the centre (core) of the body and move outwards → fingers and toes come last
Motor Development → Visual Development
Children with more advanced motor development have more developed visual development
Walking sooner = getting more information faster
Cognitive Development
At the same time as their perceptual and motor abilities develop, children learn to think about the world around them
The ability to think and understand = cognitive development
Jean Piaget separated child development into 4 different stages:
Sensorimotor stage (0-2 years)
Pre-operational stage (2-6 years)
Concrete operational stage (6-11 years)
Formal operational stage (11 years - adulthood)
Piaget’s Theory
Believed that children move from one stage to the next as they gain knowledge about the world
Children acquire knowledge
Children organize it into a scheme
Children acquire new knowledge
Children add this new knowledge to their existing schema (assimilation)
Children acquire new knowledge that does not fit into their editing schema
Children modify their schema to fit this new knowledge
Lecture 4: Human Development III
January 17, 2025
Assimilation and accommodation
As children update their schema, they are assimilating new information into them
When it comes to information that drastically changes their schema, accommodation occurs
Subtle/minor chang: assimilation
Major change: accommodation
Piaget’s Stages
Two of Piaget’s stages occur during infancy and early childhood
Sensorimotor stage (0-2 year)
Infants rely predominantly on their movements and senses to learn about the world
Preoperational stage (2-6 years)
Children shift from egocentrism to sociocentrism
Children developing a working theory of mind – understanding that human behaviour is guided by mental representations, and that they differ across individuals
Theory of Mind Tasks
How is theory of mind measured?
One way = false belief tasks
“Change of location task” a.k.a “Sally-Anne task” → failed by most 3-year-olds
“Unexpected contents task” – failed by most 3- and 4-year olds
Social Development
Infants are more egocentric than older children
The sociocentrism of humans is one of their most defining features, even from birth
Like some other animals, human children form bonds with their caregivers → this emotional bond is called attachment
Essential part of healthy human development
Individual differences in attachment
All infants require an attachment figure for normal development
There are major differences in how infants are attached to their caregiver(s)
How do we measure such differences?
Using the extent to which an infant uses their caregiver after short separations
Mary Ainsworth developed the Strange Situation Procedure to operationalize and measure these variables
Strange Situation Procedure
Ainsworth proposed that infants can be securely or insecurely attached to their caregivers
An infant’s attachment style predicts many outcomes in adulthood
Academic achievement
Emotional health
Relationship quality
Self-esteem
Identity in Early Childhood
Young children describe themselves in physical terms and almost always positively (positivity bias)
Positivity bias declines quickly at school age
Why?
Social comparison begins
Cognitive skill increase
Perspective-taking increases
Schools begin objective evaluations
Self-Esteem Inconsistency
Young children have high self-esteem
Adolescents have lower self-esteem
Particularly true for women
Adults gain self-esteem slowly throughout development; Elderly adults begins to lose self-esteem (can be caused by health/age-related issues)
Self-esteem Consistency
Compared to other people, an individual’s self-esteem is relatively consistent across the lifespan
Rank-order stability
Children with lower self-esteem tend to have lower self-esteem as adults
Much variability in self-esteem is due to heredity
Identical twins’ self-esteem correlates to a greater degree than non-twin siblings’
Physical appearance
Physical abilities
Lecture 5: Intelligence and Language I
January 22, 2025
From Previous Chapter:
Adolescence
The period of development between childhood and adulthood
How do we define this period biologically?
There are TWO major physiological changes that occur during adolescence
Puberty
Increase and refinement of connections in the prefrontal cortex
Major psychological changes also occur:
Self-esteem
Identity
Morality
Sexuality
Erik Erikson
One way that adolescents develop socially is via identity formation
German-American developmental scientist (1902-1994)
Developed a theory of conflicts and resolutions
Believed that identity formation was the chief task of adolescence
Conflict: Identity (solid) versus confusion
Resolution: Identity formation (remains stable for the remainder of lifespan)
Erikson’s identity theory
Erikson believed that during identity formation, a number of challenges might emerge
Identity confusion
Incomplete and incoherent sense of self
Very common
Identity foreclosure
Premature identity choice
Adolescent goes all in for it; find out later that they want to change their mind
Often occurs in later adolescence
E.g., Adolescents in first-year considering medical school compared to fourth year students
Negative identity*
Identity formed in opposition to others/social norms
Could appear as a question on midterm/final
Most individuals, however, emerge from this process with a stable identity
Other challenges & achievements in adolescence
Emergence of abstract thinking
Personality traits become more important
Emergence of self-socialization
Seeking out your own friends, social partners
Friends and social groups become of paramount importance
Personal fable
Remnant of egocentrism
Feeling as if you are experiencing something alone/ no one can relate to personal issues
Imaginary audience
Remnant of egocentrism from childhood
The idea that everybody is watching you/ centre of attention; everyone is noticing your flaws
Adulthood
Development does not end at age 18
Adults experience widespread changes to their physiology for the remainder of their lives, including:
Changes in sensory systems (e.g., vision, audition)
Changes to brain structure (not always loss!)
These physical changes may induce psychological changes
Changes in memory storage and retrieval
Slowing of cognitive process
However, due to their vast experience, adults employ better cognitive strategies
These strategies help make-up for cognitive decline
Changes in memory
**Memory declines in adulthood, but different types of memory decline at different rates
Episodic memory – the ability to remember past events
How did you spend your 16th birthday? (would be easier to answer at 16, rather than 75)
Semantic memory – the ability to remember general information
What is the capital city of New Brunswick?
Increase in semantic memory throughout age
Slight decline after 60s
Decline in episodic memory
Remembering past events becomes more challenging into older adulthood
Changes in selective attention
Older adults pay attention to stimuli differently than children and younger adults do
Older adults tends to remember positive stimuli better than negative stimuli
Older adults’ amygdalae (emotional processing centres) are more activated by positive emotions than by negative ones
Older adulthood is one of the most positive, happiest, satisfying periods of life
Older adults experience a decline in negative emotions (stress, worry, anger)
Changes in relationships
Older adults change the way in which they interact with others
Adolescents and young adults tend to value having large social groups
Older adults value having close social groups
Decline in the number of social partners
Increase in the quality of social relationships
This difference may be related to adults’ shorter futures (aware of the limited time they have left)
The same patterns are seen in young individuals with terminal medical conditions
Lecture 6: Intelligence and Language II
January 24, 2025
Human language
Symbols
Arbitrary pairings → no real-world connection between the idea that the symbol represents (e.g., the word ‘cat’)
There are some exceptions! (onomatopoeia)
Generativity
“Green rabbits hop through the night on their way to school.”
E.g., Fictional stories
Parts of language
Phonemes
Basic sounds, specific gestures in sign language
Smallest units of speech that are recognized as speech rather than random noise
Each of the world’s languages have a unique set of phonemes
Not all languages use all phonemes
Morphemes
Combination of sounds that have meaning (don’t have to be words)
Smallest meaningful units of languages
How can you tell whether a group of sounds is a morpheme or not?
Whether it has meaning or not (e.g., texting – 2 morphemes, giraffe – 1 morpheme)
Semantics
Definition of words, what they mean
Syntax
Grammer, rules used to combine words
The rules governing how words are combined to form meaningful phrases and sentences
Syntactical rules differ across languages
Pragmatics
Change meaning of words based on context and tone used
Metalinguistics
Talking about language
Bilingualism
Types of bilingualism
Simultaneous (early) bilingualism
Sequential bilingualism (learning one language after the other)
Heritage bilingualism (understand the language that your family speaks but not speaking it yourself)
Adult second-language bilingualism (learning a language later on)
Intelligence
Formal Definitions
The ability to learn or understand, or deal with new or challenging situations
The ability to apply knowledge to manipulate one’s environment
The ability to think abstractly as measured by objective criteria
Kyle’s definition: “A set of abilities that increase an organism’s likelihood of survival and reproduction.”
Modern views of intelligence
Three-tiered model
General intelligence (g) — encompasses all forms of intelligence; broad
Basic intelligence – different types of intelligence (e.g., crystallized and fluid intelligence; general memory and learning)
A set of specific abilities (testable/measurable)
How do we measure intelligence?
Intelligence itself is not observable but correlates of it are
Alfred Binet (1957-1911)
Developed the first IQ test using trial & error
Binet-Simon intelligence test (1904)
Puzzles, object naming, counting (testing specific abilities)
Modern IQ tests
Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) and Wechsler Adult Intelligence (WAIS)
Test specific skills that correlate with academic, professional, and social success
IQ Tests*
Created to produced a standard score in the age group and location in which they are presented
E.g., Tests differ by age and where individuals live
Mean score on IQ tests is designed to be 100
Standard deviation is designed to be 15
IQ scores follow a normal distribution (a.k.a the bell curve)
*Memorize the normal distribution figure (percentages at each deviation)
Intelligence text examples
Intelligence tests are different for different ages
Ideational fluency for 7-year-olds:
When you see the word PLANT, what else do you think of? Name as many words as you can.
Naming facility for 5 year-olds:
What is going on in this picture?
Lecture 7: Motivation and Emotion I
January 29, 2025
Continuing on Intelligence…
Why is intelligence important?
Many humans are not faced with frequent threats to their physical survival on an everyday basis
So why does intelligence matter?
In humans, intelligence might predict …
Academic success
Economic success
Occupational success
“Success begets success” and “the rich get richer”
The effects of intelligence are self-perpetuating
There may be more opportunities for those who are more intelligent, which allows them to deviate even further from the mean and build more intelligence/more access to certain resources
Why is intelligence important? con’t
Some older data suggests that wages are directly proportional to intelligence scores …
Does intelligence equal wealth?
Newer data refute the claim that wages are directly proportional to intelligence scores
In a U.S. sample, each additional point in IQ is equal to roughly $202 in additional wages each year, but this effect is not statistically significant
Instead, EDUCATION appears to matter more
Where does intelligence come from?
Genetics
IQ scores are more similar between identical than between fraternal twins (90% vs 60%)
IQ scores of adopted children are more similar to their biological parents’ than to their adoptive parents’ scores
Family environment
IQ scores are positively correlated with protective factors (high parental involvement, stimulating physical environment, etc.)
IQ scores negatively correlated with risk factors (low SES, low maternal education, etc.)
Education
School improves children’s intelligence
IQ scores are higher during the school year than in the summer (for some children)
Alternative views of intelligence
IQ tests do not capture all forms of intelligence
They may underestimate humans’ intelligence in certain domains
One solution: Gardner’s alternative theory of multiple intelligences
People have 8 types of intelligence necessary for functioning and survival
Not based on aptitude tests
Based on self-report measures and behavioural observation
Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences
Linguistic intelligence
Logical math intelligence
Spatial intelligence
Body-kinesthetic intelligence
Musical intelligence
Nature intelligence
Interpersonal intelligence
Intrapersonal intelligence
Evidence for Gardner’s approach
These areas for intelligence have different developmental patterns (emerge at different ages)
Damage to a specific brain areas may impact only one type of intelligence and not others
Emotional intelligence
IQ tests only attempt to measure some types of intelligence
Emotional intelligence is NOT tested by traditional IQ tests
The ability to reason about emotions and to use emotions to enhance reasoning
Identification of one’s own emotions
Description of one’s own emotions
Management of one’s own emotions
Detection of other’s emotions
Individuals have different levels of emotional intelligence
Individuals with HIGH emotional intelligence show LESS brain activation when solving emotional problems
Lecture 8:Motivation and Emotion II
January 31, 2025
What is emotion?
Neural response
Subjective feelings (different people feel differently)
Physiological response (e.g, fear – fast heart rate)
Cognitive response (thoughts associated with emotions)
Desire to take action
A positive or negative experience in response to a stimulus and associated with a particular pattern of physiological activity
Two dimensional
Valence (positive or negative)
Psychological arousal (severity)
Major brain structures involved in emotional processing
Many neural structures are involved in most brain processes (emotion is no exception)
TWO major neural structures related to emotion are:
The amygdala
Relatively primitive part of the limbic system that quickly processes biologically relevant information
The prefrontal cortex
A relatively advanced part of the brain that slowly processes information rationally
Why do emotions exist
Allow us to be more functional in our environmental space
Set of behaviours that allows us to survive
Facial expressions
Charles Darwin argued that facial expressions are evolved and therefore may be somewhat universal in the human population
The Universality hypothesis
He believed that facial gestures were evolved in order to help us survive
Universality hypothesis
Support for the universality hypothesis:
Individuals with visual impairments that have never seen a human face smile similarly to seeing humans
2 day-old infants produce disgusted facial expressions similar to those of adults
Isolated cultures evaluate facial expressions the same way* that non-isolated cultures do
Arguments against the universality hypothesis
Different use of eye expression across cultures
*Many studies have suffered from confirmation bias
Facial feedback hypothesis
The facial feedback hypothesis argues that emotional facial expressions can cause/change an individual's emotional experience
Deceptive expression
Many different reasons for which we may want to hide our emotions and there are various strategies in doing so
Intensification
De-intensification
Masking
Neutralizing
How to catch a fake
There are a number of ways to determine whether facial expressions are real or not
Morphology – certain facial muscles are RESISTANT to conscious change (the reliable muscles)
Symmetry – asymmetric facial gestures are often insincere
Duration – sincere facial gestures last between 0.5 s and 5s
Temporal patterning – microexpressions appear first and are sincere
Sincere facial gestures appear and disappear gradually rather than suddenly
Emotional regulation
As adults, we are quite good at regulating our emotions; but it’s a complex task
There are a lot of factors to deal with while regulating emotion
Internal feeling states (how we feel)
Emotion-related cognition
Emotion-related physiological process
Emotion-related behaviour
The more emotional we are (particularly for certain emotions), the harder they are to control
Emotional regulation throughout the lifespan
Emotional regulations involves both instinctive and learned strategies
For the first 6 months:
Most regulation comes from the parents
Some basic gaze aversion occurs
After 6 months, more learned self-regulation appears:
Self-soothing
Increased gaze aversion
Locomotion (moving away from negative stimuli)
Emotional regulation
What emotional regulation strategies are there in adulthood?
Distraction
Suppression
Affect labelling
Re-appraisal
Changing the way one thinks about the emotion-inducing stimulus
Different individuals use different strategies more or less effectively
Lecture 9: Personality I
February 5, 2025
Continuing from Motivation and Emotion
Motivation
Motivation is the psychological reason for producing an action
Mainly driven by emotion
One of the primary ways that emotion changes our actions is by giving us information about an object, event, or individual
Even “rational decisions” are emotional ones
Brain damage to emotional regions of the brain (e.g., the amygdala) can cause severe indecision in patients
Emotion also provides us with instructions on what to do with new information
Ancient philosophers (including Plato and Aristotle) believed that human motivation is centred on the hedonic principle
All motivation extends from attraction to pleasure and avoidance of pain
According to this principle, our primary motivator for everything we do is pleasure
We can trace even unpleasant activities to this pleasure goal
Maslow’s Needs Hierarchy
The hedonic principle explains human motivation at a basic level
Psychologists have attempted to break down human motivation into more specific categories
E.g., Maslow’s Needs Hierarchy
Biological Needs
Humans share with other animals the basic needs for nutrition (food) and sex
These are at the bottom of the needs hierarchy and generally must be satisfied before other needs are even noticed
These needs are technically called drives, which are satisfied with incentives
Food
Drive = hunger; incentive = food
Sex
Drive = reproduction; incentive = sex
Other human motivations
Another way of understanding motivation is via three psychological dimensions
Intrinsic vs. extrinsic (internal vs. external)
Conscious vs. unconscious
Approach vs. avoidance
Intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation
Intrinsic motivation – a motivation to take actions that are themselves rewarding
E.g., eating ice cream
Extrinsic motivation – a motivation to take actions that (eventually) lead to a separate reward
This reward is often social or monetary
E.g., Attending university to attain a degree → attaina well-paying job
Extrinsic motivation tends to be relatively weak in early childhood and among non-human animals
Approach vs. avoidance
Approach motivation – motivation to experience a positive outcome
Avoidance motivation – motivation to not experience a negative outcome
Which is stronger? Usually avoidance
But the relative strength of avoidance and approach motivations differs across individuals
Lecture 10: Personality I
February 7, 2025
Personality
An individual’s characteristics style of:
Behaviour
Thought
Feeling
The study of personality is the study of both individuals (idiographic approach) and common trends in the population (nomothetic approach)
The study of personality has TWO main components
Measuring personality
What are the characteristics of an individual’s personality?
Personality inventories
Projective techniques
Explaining personality
Why does an individual have the personality that they do?
How does an individual’s personality affect their behaviour?
Personality theories
How to measure personality?
Observing the individual’s behaviour
Drawbacks:
Resources
Biases from the observer
Changing behaviour with the knowledge of being watched
Instead, personality measurements usually take one of two forms:
Personality inventories (a.k.a. Personality tests/scales)
Projective techniques (relate to Psychodynamic theory)
Personality inventories
One of the simplest ways to assess personality
Rely on self-report
Subjective answers about one’s own behaviours, thoughts, and feelings
Usually administered in an interview or written questionnaire
Most online personality tests have very LOW validity and reliability
Validity: a test measures what it says it measures
Reliability: a test produces the same results each time
Some personality inventories, however, have HIGH validity and reliability
E..g, the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) is a widely reliable, clinically valid personality test
True/false/can’t answer questions
Forces participants to choose a definitive answer; provides more information
A lot of questions (many versions of the same question)
Criticisms of personality inventories
Test taker can be biased
Test takers may report socially desirable traits
Tests have ‘validity scale’ questions to ensure validity
E.g., questions that all people should answer “yes” to
Test taker may not know everything about themselves
Personality theories
A number of theories have emerged to help psychologists describe and explain personality including:
Traits approach (Big Five)
Social-cognitive approach
Psychodynamic approach
Humanist approach
Traits approach
The trait approach to personality attempts to describe personalities as a series of traits
A relatively stable disposition to behave in a particular and consistent way
The list of traits is practically infinite
Researchers use factor analysis to reduce this list to the lowest possible set of traits
Individuals rate themselves on hundreds of traits
Traits that are highly correlated are combined into factors
Traits with no correlation to one another
The Big Five (trait approach)
Today, most researchers agree upon a five-factor model of personality
These Big Five personality traits are not correlated with each other (orthogonal)**
Openness – creative, artistic, curious, imaginative, nonconforming
Conscientiousness – ambitious, organized, reliable
Extraversion – talkative, optimistic, social, affectionate
Agreeableness – good-natured, trusting, supportive
Neuroticism – worried, insecure, anxiety-prone (propensity for negative emotions)
Personality traits are relatively stable and this stability increases across the lifespan
Rank-order stability
Our rank-order in personality traits stays mostly the same
Especially as we age
However, SOME change does occur
Mean-level changes
Although our rank-order remains fairly consistent … the mean levels of traits in our cohort change
There can also be intraindividual change
Significant changes in a person’s personality from one time to the next
This is more rare
Occurs after life-changing experiences, including trauma
Where do traits come from? (Biological explanation)
Genetics is the largest single factor
The Big Five traits have a heritability factor of between 0.35 and 0.49
A heritability factor of 0.00 means that genetics plays no role in a physical/psychological trait (there are virtually none of these in psychology)
A heritability of 1.00 means that genetics is completely responsible for a trait (e.g., eye colour)
So values between 0.35 and 0.49 are quite HIGH
But ~50% of variability in personality is still due to various life experiences
If traits are so informed by genetics, it should not be surprising that we show evidence of our personalities in infancy!
Temperament is an infant’s characteristic activity level, mood, attention span, and distractibility
Infants’ temperaments are predictive of their adult personalities