3.1: The Forces that Shape Development: Nature and Nuture

• Developmental psychology: The study of the normal changes in behavior that occur across the lifespan.

Nature: The Effects of Genetics

• Heredity (“nature”): The transmission of physical and psychological characteristics from parent to offspring through genes.

• Genome: Genetic heritage that will determine so many of our physical and psychological characteristics.

  The Genome

• Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA): A molecular structure that contains coded genetic information.

• Chromosomes: Rodlike structures in the cell nucleus that house an individual’s genes.

• Genes: Areas on a strand of DNA that carry hereditary information.

• Genetic disorders: Problems caused by defects in the genes or by inherited characteristics.

• Dominant gene: A gene whose influence will be expressed each time that the gene is present.

• Recessive gene: A gene whose influence will be expressed only when it is paired with a second recessive gene of the same type.

• Polygenic characteristics: Personal traits or physical properties that are influenced by many genes working in combination.

  Nuture: The Effects of Environment

• Environment (“nurture”): The sum of all external conditions affecting development, including especially the effects of learning.

  Prenatal Environment

• Teratogen: A harmful substance that can cause birth defects.

• Congenital problems: Defects that originate during prenatal development in the womb.

• Fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD): A collection of conditions occurring in children whose mothers consumed alcohol during pregnancy.

  Postnatal Environment

• Sensitive period: During development, a period of increased sensitivity to environmental influences. It is also the time during which certain events must take place for normal development to occur.

• Deprivation: In development, the loss or withholding of normal stimulation, nutrition, comfort, love, and so forth; a condition of absence.

• Enrichment: In development, deliberately making an environment more stimulating, nutritional, comforting, loving, and so forth.

  Epigenetics: Where Genes and Environment Meet

• Epigenetics: The study of changes in organisms that are caused by modifications to gene expression rather than alteration of the genetic code itself.

  Epigenetics and Development

• Maturation: The physical growth and development of the body, brain, and nervous system.

  3.2: Physical and Perceptual Development

  Physical Development in Infancy and Childhood

• Babies develop many adaptive reflexes

  • Grasping (grasping objects pressed into palm)

  • Rooting (reflexive head turning and nursing)

  • Sucking (rhythmic nursing)

  • Moro (hugging motion)

  Physical Development in Adolescence and Adulthood

• Puberty: Biologically defined period during which a person matures sexually and becomes capable of reproduction.

• Adolescence: The culturally defined period between childhood and adulthood.

  3.3 Emotional and Social Development

• Socioemotional development: Area of psychology concerned with changes in emotions and social relationships.

• Social smile: Smiling elicited by a social stimulus, such as seeing a parent’s face.

  Social Development

• Erik Erikson: Suggested would should face a psychosocial dilemma at every stage of life.

• Psychosocial dilemma: A conflict between personal impulses and the social world.

  Social Development in Infancy and Childhood

• Affectional needs: Emotional needs for care, love, and positive relationships with others

• Surrogate mother: A substitute mother (in animal research, often an inanimate object or a dummy).

• Contact comfort: A pleasant and reassuring feeling that human and animal infants get from touching or clinging to something soft and warm, usually their mothers.

• Separation anxiety: Distress displayed by infants when they are separated from their parents or principal caregivers.

• Temperament: General pattern of attention, arousal, and mood that is evident from birth.

  Attachment

• Attachment: Emotional bonding between an infant and its caregivers that results from infants’ feelings of security with the caregiver in times of stress or uncertainty.

• Secure attachment: A stable and positive emotional bond.

• Insecure-avoidant attachment: An anxious emotional bond marked by a tendency to avoid reunion with a parent or caregiver.

• Insecure-ambivalent attachment: An anxious emotional bond marked by both a desire to be with a parent or caregiver and some resistance to being reunited.

  Parenting Styles

• Parental styles: Identifiable patterns of parental caretaking and interaction with children.

• Authoritarian parents: Parents who enforce rigid rules and demand strict obedience to authority.

• Power assertion: The use of physical punishment or coercion to enforce child discipline.

• Withdrawal of love: Withholding affection to enforce child discipline.

• Self-esteem: Regarding oneself as a worthwhile person; a positive evaluation of oneself.

• Permissive parents: Parents who give little guidance, allow too much freedom, or do not require the child to take responsibility.

• Authoritative parents: Parents who supply firm and consistent guidance combined with love and affection.

  Social Development in Adolescence and Adulthood

• Emerging adulthood: A socially accepted period of extended adolescence that is now quite common in Western and Westernized societies.

  3.4: Language, Cognitive, and Moral Development

  Nature and Nuture in Language Development

• Biological predisposition: The presumed hereditary readiness of humans to learn certain skills, such as how to use language or a readiness to behave in particular ways.

• Signals: In early language development, behaviors, such as touching, vocalizing, gazing, or smiling, that allow the nonverbal interaction and turn-taking between parent and child.

• Motherese (patentese): A pattern of speech used when talking to infants, marked by a higher-pitched voice; short, simple sentences; repetition; slower speech; and exaggerated voice inflections.

  Cognitive Development in Childhood and Adolescence: Piaget’s Theory

• Jean Piaget: Proposed that children’s cognitive skills progress through a series of maturational stages

• Schema: A mental structure composed of an organized learned body of knowledge or skills about a particular topic, according to Piaget.

• Assimilation: The application of an established schema to new objects or problems, according to Piaget.

• Accommodation (learning): Modification of an established schema to fit a new object or problem, according to Piaget.

  Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development

• Sensorimotor stage (0-2 Years): Piaget’s initial stage of development, when the infant’s mental activity is only sensory perception and motor skills.

• Object permanence: Recognizing that physical things continue to exist, even when they are no longer visible.

• Preoperational stage (2-7 Years): Piaget’s second stage of cognitive development, characterized by the use of symbols and illogical thought.

• Transformation (Piagetian): The mental ability to change the shape or form of a substance (such as clay or water) and the perceive that its volume remains the same.

• Egocentrism: The belief that everyone sees exactly what you see in the physical world, or that they think about the world in the same way that you do.

• Theory of mind: The understanding that people have mental states, such as thoughts, beliefs, and intentions and that other people’s mental states can be different from one’s own.

• Concrete operational stage (7-11 Years): Piaget’s third stage of cognitive development, characterized by logical thought.

• Conservation: Piaget’s term for the awareness that physical quantities stay constant despite changes in shape or appearance.

• Formal operational stage (11 Years and Up): Piaget’s fourth stage of cognitive development, characterized by the ability to engage in thinking that includes abstract, theoretical, and hypothetical ideas.

  An Alternative to Piaget: Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory

• Lev Vygotsky: Proposed cognitive development was not universal for all children but instead depended heavily on culture and environment where the child grew up.

• Zone of proximal development: A term referring to the range of tasks that a child cannot yet master alone, but that she or he can accomplish with the guidance of a more capable partner.

• Scaffolding: The process of adjusting instruction so that it is responsive to a beginner’s behavior and supports the beginner’s efforts to understand a problem or gain a mental skill.

  Moral Development

• Moral development: The development of values that, along with appropriate emotions and cognitions, guide responsible behavior.

• Preconventional moral reasoning: Moral thinking based on the consequences of one’s choices or actions (punishment, reward, or an exchange of favors).

• Conventional moral reasoning: Moral thinking based on a desire to please others or to follow accepted rules and values.

• Postconventional moral reasoning: Moral thinking based on carefully examined and self-chosen moral principles.

Chapter in Review:

3.1 The Forces That Shape Development: Nature and Nurture

Explain how genes impact human development

Genes reside on deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) in the nucleus of each cell. The DNA is twisted into chromosomes, and the DNA in each of the body’s cells is identical. The genes in each cell carry hereditary instructions. Most characteristics are polygenic and reflect the combines effects of dominant and recessive genes.

Explain how the environment impacts human development

Prenatal development is influenced by intrauterine environmental factors, such as various teratogens, including diseases, drugs, and radiation, as well as the mother’s diet, health, and emotions. After birth, a variety of environmental factors (access to good food and health care, schooling, family members, peer groups, media, and so on) contribute to the child’s development while enriched environments will optimize it.

Explain how epigenetic factors impact human development

Through the genetic instructions in every cell are the same, those instructions can be “read” differently depending on epigenetic markers that are the product of environmental influences. For this reason, developmental psychologists say that heredity (nature) and environment (nurture) are interacting forces that are both necessary for human development.

3.2 Physical and Perceptual Development

Describe key aspects of physical development across the lifespan

Physical development tends to look similar across people, as evidenced by common infant reflexes and physical development that proceeds in a cephalocaudal and proximodistal manner. Physical changes that characterize puberty (e.g. development of sex characteristics) and adulthood (e.g. muscle and bone weakness) are also relatively similar across individuals. Though such similarities suggest an important role for “nature” or genetic factors, environmental factors (e.g., opportunities to practice motor skills in infancy; maintaining a healthy lifestyle in adulthood also contribute to physical development.

Explain key aspects of perceptual development across the lifespan

While most of our senses (hearing, taste, touch, smell) are well developed at birth, infants’ vision is not as good as that of older children and adults. However, environmental stimulation and maturation of the visual system lead to rapid improvements, such that babies will see as well as adults by the age of one year. Depending on environmental factors (e.g., reading in poor light; listening to loud music), declines in perception (hearing loss; poor vision) may be seen as early as adolescence, and continue in adulthood.

3.3 Emotional and Social Development

Describe key aspects of emotional development across the lifespan

Basic emotions emerge very early in childhood and include happiness, sadness, fear, anger, surprise, and disgust. In contrast, some complex emotions such as embarrassment, shame, guilt, and pride require a sense of the self as separate from others and thus do not develop until later (approximately 18 months). Emotions are often more intense in adolescence than they were in childhood. Though positive emotions are common, survey data suggest that recent generations of adolescents appear to be managing higher levels of sadness (depression) and fear (anxiety) than has been the case in the past. In terms of adulthood, there is little truth to the common adage that all adults experience an emotional midlife crisis. Instead, adulthood—and particularly older adulthood—is often characterized by high levels of positive emotion that may be related to the positivity effect (the tendency to pay attention to, and remember, more positive than negative information). Aging is also associated with an improved ability to regulate emotions. Some negative emotions, including anger and despair, appear to characterize the responses to imminent death, though such responses are by no means universal.

Describe key aspects of social development across the lifespan, including:

a) the eight psychosocial dilemmas describes by Erikson

Erik Erikson identified a series of specific psychosocial dilemmas that occur as we age. Successful resolution of the dilemmas produces healthy development, whereas unsuccessful outcomes make it harder to deal with later crises. In order, the dilemmas are: trust vs. mistrust, autonomy vs. Shame/doubt, initiative vs. doubt, industry vs. inferiority, identify vs. role confusion, intimacy vs. isolation, generativity vs. Stagnation, and integrity vs. Despair.

b) The importance of temperament and attachment in childhood

While it is clear that parents have an important role in shaping the quality of relationships, infants also make a contribution. In particular, infants’ temperament (which can be classified as easy, difficult or slow-to-warm-up) influences caregivers’ responses to them. Research suggests that infants’ attachment to their caregivers is associated with their feelings of security and confidence that the caregiver will help them in times of stress. The quality of attachment can be classified as secure, insecure-avoidant, or insecure-ambivalent. Good-quality relationships are promoted when caregivers are sensitive to their babies signals. Whereas mothers typically emphasize caregiving, fathers tend to function as playmates for infants.

(c) What is known about parenting styles, and how they differ across cultures

Studies suggest that parental styles have a substantial impact on emotional and intellectual development. Three major parental styles are authoritarian, permissive, and authoritative (effective). Authoritative parenting, relying more on management techniques rather than power assertion or withdrawal of love, appears to benefit children the most, though this conclusion is most likely to hold true in Western countries. Other parenting styles may be more advantageous in other cultures.

(d) The characteristics of emerging adults and older adults’ social networks

• Relationships outside the family become increasingly important during adolescence, and parents often support their children’s identity explorations into their twenties. This extended adolescence is referred to as emerging adulthood, and it is most characteristic of wealthy nations. Social networks expand in middle adulthood but diminish in size in order adulthood. This reduction in size appears to some extent, a function of older adults actively choosing to prune their networks and socialize only with people whose company they enjoy.

3.4 Language, Cognitive and Moral Development

Describe key aspects of language development across the lifespan

Language development proceeds from crying to cooing, then babbling to the use of single words, and then to telegraphic speech. The underlying patterns of telegraphic speech suggest a biological predisposition to acquire language. However, learning augments this innate tendency. In particular, both prelanguage communication between parent and child (which involves shared rhythms, nonverbal signals, and turn-taking) and motherese/parentese (a simplified, musical style of speaking that parents use with very young children) help with language learning.

Describe key aspects of cognitive development across the lifespan, including

a) The central ideas that underlie Piaget’s theory of development

Piaget believed that children go through a fixed series of cognitive stages. The stages and their approximate age ranges are sensorimotor (0-2 years), preoperational (2-7 years), concrete operational (7-11 years), and formal operational (11 years-adult). Several concepts were important in his theory, including assimilation, accommodation, object permanence, egocentrism, and conservation. Assimilation refers to a situation in which children encounter something novel and can successfully integrate it with a concept (or schema) that situation in which something novel does not fit into an existing schema and a new one must be established.

Object permanence refers to children’s ability to understand that people and objects continue to exist even children’s inability to understand that the world looks different to other people. Egocentrism can relate to that people standing in other locations may not see what they can see from where they are situated. It may also relate to the mental world, when children do not understand that others have their own unique thoughts and mind. Conservation refers to the understanding that physical quantities stay the same even if they change their shape or appearance.

At least three criticisms of Piaget’s work have emerged more recently. First, contrary to Piaget’s ideas, many psychologists now believe that cognitive rather in sharply defined stages. Second, more recent research suggests that children acquire cognitive milestones earlier than Piaget believed. Finally, underestimated the role of the environment (including culture) in guiding cognitive development.

b) The central ideas that underlie Vygotsky’s theory of cognitive development

Lev Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory places a particular emphasis on the role of culture and the environment in guiding cognitive development. In particular, he stressed that a child’s mental abilities are advanced by interactions with more-competent partners. Mental growth takes place in a child’s zone of proximal development, where a more skillful person may scaffold the child’s progress.

c) The focus of more recent work concerning cognitive development

More recent work in the area of cognitive development has focused on areas such as executive functions, mastery of academic subjects, memory and intelligence.

Describe key aspects of moral development across the lifespan, including Kohlberg’s three stages of moral development and Carol Gilligan’s criticism of this theory

Kohlberg’s theory included the following stages:

Preconventional: moral thinking is guided by consequences (e.g., reward, punishment).

Conventional: moral thinking is guided by a desire to please others or follow rules.

Postconventional: moral thinking is guided by self-chosen ethical principles.

Young children function at the preconventional level. Most people function at the conventional level of morality, but some never get beyond the preconventional level. Only a minority of people attain the highest, or postconventional, level of moral reasoning. Carol Gilligan distinguished between Kohlberg’s fairness (justice) perspective and a harm (caring) perspective. Because Kohlberg’s theory placed a high value on justice, she argued that women—who reason more frequently from a caring perspective—wrongly appeared to demonstrate less moral maturity than men. Now, most researchers believe that mature adult morality likely involves reasoning from both perspectives, and cultural research suggests that there may also be other moral foundations that underlie people’s values.

Psychology and Your Skill Set: Ethical Behavior

Create a plan to challenge your own values

Challenges to your ability to behave ethically can be managed by recognizing the potential for everyday ethical challenges, considering the conditions that will help or hinder ethical behavior in the face of those challenges, creating a plan for managing ethical challenges tendency of others to behave in unethical ways.