Chapter 1 psych 220 - Lecture notes 1-3 PDF

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Developmental science: a field of study devoted to understanding constancy and change throughout the lifespan Major Issues in Developmental Psychology Is development a matter of quantitative or qualitative change? -Development is more about qualitative change...we think/feel different when we're kids vs adults. Stages: qualitative changes in thinking, feeling and behaving that characterize specific periods of development. Development is 1.lifelong 2. Multidimensional: affected by biological, psychological, social forces 3. Multidirectional: development includes growth and decline, it is not limited to improved performance. 4. Highly plastic: development being open to change 5. Affected by multiple interacting forces. Qualitative = change in time... what we think/feel is different when we're kids vs adults. - something about their personality/way they think -not bigger or smaller bu different (ex) bubble kids and dogs video -little kids think all kinds of things are funny -bubble wrap entertained a baby for 20-30 minutes, everything is new and amazing -for us we’re not as easily entertained -for babies everything is new and cool, for us we know it already Quantitative = more vs. less - we know more than a 3 year old - throughout development we learn more things Ex: vocabulary gets bigger, learn math and other subjects -vocabularies are smaller when younger (number based) Continuous or discontinuous? - theories tend to be polarized therefore, there’s no synthesis/binary theory of the two Discontinuous: a process in which new ways of understanding and responding to the world emerge at specific times. -STAGES -children have unique ways of thinking, feeling, behaving from adults. -Believe this way in popular culture “terrible twos” -Something unique about each level/stage/age -Freud: oral, etc. -Erikson: psychosocial Ex: Sofie could not yet perceive, remember, and categorize experiences as a mature person can. She moved through a series of developmental steps, each with unique features. Continuous: a process of gradually increasing the same types of skills that were there to begin with. -positive linear graph Ex: social learning theory - modeling, positive/negative reinforcement -Same no matter what age you’re at -Difficult to distinguish which is correct -deep debated controversy in psychology Are genetic or environmental factors the most important determinants of child development and behavior? NATURE-NURTURE CONTROVERSY -we want to understand why people do what they do

-Always want to do better at everything we do Ex: teaching reading in pre-school...are their brains ready for that no.... due to biological reason Alcoholism: genetically susceptible to addiction disorders....possible genetic link ****By nature, the hereditary information we receive from our parents is at the moment of conception. By nurture, the complex forces of the physical and social world that influence our biological makeup and psychological experiences before and after birth. Stability: individuals who are high or low in a characteristic (such as verbal ability, anxiety, or sociability) will remain so at later ages—typically stress the importance of heredity. Plasticity: individuals development being open to change in response to influential experiences. Importance of Context Context: unique combinations of personal and environmental circumstances that result in different paths of change. -where you grow up... rural/suburban/urban will have an impact on the amount of friends near by.. Mutually influential relations between individuals and their contexts: people are not only affected by but also contribute to the contexts in which they develop. Context subcategories: religion, culture, ethnicity, historical (different political environments) Ex: her grandparents grew up during the great depression....conservative with money and always had food around just incase. World view: fundamental theory of how you are going to view the world.... A lot of theories share world views

Organismic vs. Mechanistic What is a theory?

A theory is an orderly set of statements that describes, explains and predicts behavior. -misunderstandings of theories -provide organizing frameworks for our observations of people -guide, give meaning to what we see What is a human development theory? -A set of ideas or organizing principles ex: attachment theory -Relevant assumptions based on beliefs about a phenomenon some are big ex: Freud’s personality some are small ex: attachment theory -Systematically related to each-other • Assumptions are related: fall together into a cohesive theory What is the name of this survey? Behavioral change subscale included: • Lowered school or work performance • Take naps; stay in bed • Stay at home • Avoid social activities • Decreased efficiency Autonomic reactions subscale included: • Dizziness, faintness • Cold sweats • Nausea, vomiting • Hot flashes Negative affect subscale included: • Crying • Loneliness • Anxiety • Restlessness • Irritability • Mood swings • Depression • Tension Arousal subscale included: • Affectionate • Orderliness • Excitement • Feelings of well-being • Bursts of energy, activity Control subscale included: • Feeling of suffocation • Chest pains • Ringing in the ears • Heart pounding • Numbness, tingling • Blind spots, fuzzy vision Water retention subscale included: • Weight gain • Skin disorders • Painful breasts • Swelling

Menstrual distress: bias...assumes they’re female and feeling terrible. Questions on: •High spirits •Increased sexual desire •Vibrant activity •Revolutionary zeal •Intense concentration •Feelings of affection •Self-confidence •Feelings of euphoria •Creativity •Feelings of power •Empirical (what we think) and operational(what is true) definitions 1/23 Psychoanalytic Perspective -Discontinuous -Stages are universal -Follow nature-nurture -people move through stages in which they confront conflicts between biological drives and social expectations. -how these conflicts are resolved determines the persons ability to learn, get along with others and to cope with anxiety. Freuds theory: Psychosexual Theory: emphasizes how parents manage their child's sexual and aggressive drives in the first few years is crucial for healthy personality development. -Discontinuous -move through stages Id: largest portion of the mind, source of basic biological needs/desires, unconscious. Ego: conscious, rational part of personality, also wants to maximize gratification Superego: conscious, voice of morals and values, forces ego to chose right from wrong Eriksons Theory: Psychosocial theory: events in early childhood leave a permanent stamp on adult personality.! " -Stages are discontinuous ! -Personality continues to evolve over the entire life span.! -Strengthens emotional and social development: infant-caregiver attachment, sibling relationships, gender roles, adolescent identity.! ! ! ! ! !

Empirical definitions (operational definitions)- older theories lack this bc didn’t know this was required, newer ones have a lot of this through much research. -Freud and Piaget - didn’t know they needed -Statistics help support claims through research Freudian fixation: OPERATIONAL -stuck in a certain stage -fixation on a particular stage in development that relates to some form of sexual freudian stage. Ex: oral—>genital...stuck in a particular stage from an adult’s development that they progressed through but regress back to when in times of stress/anxiety. Ex: bitting nails (oral) How to discover if someone is fixating: can create a survey for specific stage the individual may be stuck in •Ex: anal retentive - overly orderly neat/ or overly messy -All operationalize in different ways - didn’t specify a particular stage to determine if the individual was fixating or not. PMS: general public doesn’t understand the need for operationalizing something so that we can truly understand “The terrible twos": have temper tantrums at certain times of the day. Colic: operational, painfully upset stomach, babies have different types of cries for various emotions OPERATIONAL- a certain amount of time that the baby is crying every day for 3 hours for at least 3 weeks •Pediatrician invented a colic hold that helps some babies, sometimes its what the babies eat- their formulas.

Typically in about a month, colic subsides - sometimes people think whatever they did worked but really it just subsided. • Weird we don’t know more about this b/c it’s very stressful • Parents knowing that their baby has/doesn’t have colic can be VERY helpful -Empirical definition - what we think, general inferences -Operational definition - set of rules that are actual reasons and proven -Sexual promiscuity....empirical: make a judgement about how many sexual partners someone would have that would “raise eyebrows” Developmental Theories allow us to: •Describe - precise operational (actual) definitions of development so we can explain development •Explain •Predict - ultimate goal ex: scanning kids brains and predicting those that would develop a brain problem in the future -Development is in the following domains: multiple domains physical: we change physically over our lifespan cognitive: thinking, reasoning, problem solving emotional/social: all the social parts of the interactions we make Are these domains separate? •They can be separated but they all relate together •Most developmental psychologist focus on one domain, but they always overlap. Example: Otitis Media Otitis Media Symptoms: •Snotty nose •Eye drainage •Cranky •Frequent night waking •Unwillingness to lie flat - b/c the pressure will increase in ears and make the pain worse •Crying, screaming combined with cold symptoms •Drainage from ear •Sudden worsening of cold symptoms •Fever •But! May have none of these - Little kids more prone to this b/c kids have smaller holes in ear and a more narrow and horizontal connection from ear to nose. - Little kids don’t know how to blow their nose and their coughing and mucus gets everywhere OM issues •OM not contagious but respiratory infections are. •OM is more common in daycares •OM is less common in breastfed babies - some of the antibodies in the mother’s milk helps protect the baby. •If they drink formula at night in bed with them, the milk can pool and create an infection. There is currently concerns about effective treatments... •Antibiotics: sometimes the kid will start to feel better and they stop the antibiotics or they can build up a resistance to the antibiotics. •A large chunk of O.M. is viral not bacterial therefore antibiotics won’t help them at all. -Tubes: inserts tubes through the eardrum - allows the goo to come out through the tubes and reduces the

pain, may increase the possibility of getting it again. Study: Otitis Media and Daycare Attending Toddlers Feagans, Kipp, & Blood • Purpose to examine the effects of OM on children in three daycare situation differing in quality. • Children (12-18 months) were divided into chronic OM and non-chronic groups. • Children were given a picture book reading task • Mothers were given questionnaires about children’s behavior. Results: • Mothers of children with chronic OM rated them as less attentive • cognitive difference • Children with Chronic OM in low quality daycare settings, attended less and showed more off task behavior on the picture book task. • Social and cognitive differences - something about the daycare altered this • Major Issues in Human Development • Physical issue that’s creating social and cognitive differences in their cognitive and social developments Development: Age graded influence: events that are strongly related to age and fairly predictable in when they occur and how long they last. Ex: 18 all can vote, 16-17 get their license, expected of children to walk shortly/ around their 1st birthday. History graded influence (Cohort Effect): explain why people born around the same time period tend to be alike in ways that set them apart from people born at other times. -something that happens to everyone during that time period Ex: Great Depression: her parents would store food and were VERY conservative and careful with money. -Before birth control pills, not unusual for families to be larger - reproductive problems were typical - (ex) uterine prolapse - having 5-10 children causes this Introduction of pill: testing of it was awful - used women of color, lower economic class women -this changed sexual behavior and family size Non-normative influence: events are irregular, they happen to 1 person or a few people but do not follow a predictable timetable. -Enhance the multidirectional aspect of development (multidirectional, development includes growth and decline) EX: taking piano lessons Normative Period: measures of behavior are taken on large numbers of individuals, and age related averages are computed to represent typical development.... Predictable Importance of Context Multidimensional and multidirectional- development is happening in many different ways Multidimensional: many factors affecting development in life are an intricate blend of biological, psychological, and social/emotional Multidirectional: going forward/ backward •Growth and Decline •When advancing cognitively, may decline a little socially or visa versa.

•When people are getting older - vision changes - muscle in your eye isn’t as accommodating for different needs (close up vs. distance reading) - wearing bifocals makes eyes work harder to have to bend light more - gets tired faster and may not want to read as much. Organismic vs. Mechanistic Theories - difficult to get a compromise btwn the 2. Organismic - monarch butterfly - starts as an egg, hatches into a caterpillar, grows and eventually forms a chysallus, and finally changes into a butterfly. - acknowledges quantitative change, but FOCUS on QUALITATIVE • qualitative change - what we think/feel is different as children vs adults • active development - looking for food, forming chrysalis..... Active in the environment • movement towards a goal - can tell when the butterfly is a butterfly Discontinuous Mechanistic - watch - machine kind of model - no qualitative change, ONLY QUANTITATIVE: through development we learn more things • passive reaction...environment is guiding development NO movement towards a goal learning theory: everyone learns more things - a 3 year old, a 19 year old, a 80 year old it’s a reaction to the environment Continuous Theres merits to both of these: -Fault in Freud and Petoje (sp) - reach development around 14-16..so a 16 year old is the same as an 80 year old? NOOOO Contextual - one of the most popular theories in development right now -context in time, space, social interaction - THE thing that is most important in development - all impact on us and how we grow up environmental factors -(ex) historical context: Great Depression -(ex) number of parents Darwins Theory: Theory of Evolution -Natural Selection -Survival of the Fittest -Certain species survive in particular environments because their characteristics are adapted to their surroundings. Classical Conditioning (Watson) - pavlov’s dogs Type of learning in which a stimulus acquires the capacity to evoke a response that was originally evoked by another stimulus. "Passive learning" Watson’s experiment of baby Albert - “Little Albert Study” First thing to establish: what were babies inherently afraid of... Being dropped and loud noises Unconditioned stimulus - loud noise Conditioned stimulus - rat Conditioned response - crying to the rat Teaching him a relation between the two not a new behavior. Albert generalized: furry coats scared him as well (stimulus generalization) Operant (Instrumental) Conditioning

Operant conditioning is a form of "active learning": the organism must perform operants (behavior) in order to learn. Behavior Modification - shaping a new behavior/teaching a trick Reinforcement/Punishment •Reinforcement is anything that increases a behavior •Punishment is anything that decreases a behavior •Negative - taking something away •Positive - adding something Both are strengthening a stimulus -Were not patient enough to track how something works -Takes a long time (months even) - We have a tendency to medicate children instead of being patient enough to use operant conditioning and behavior modification. Social Learning Theory (Bandura) - Albert Bandura experiments -Emphasizes modeling, also known as imitation or observational learning. • Interested in whether kids could learn by watching someone else - modeling • experiment: filmed adults assaulting a bobo the clown doll very aggressively • Had kids watch this video then put them in a roomful of toys • Kids that saw the adult assaulting the doll video modeled them Conclusion: kids learn by imitation.... Kids are watching and will do what we do, direct observation -Importantly this showed that kids can learn symbolically from movies, video games, and other things that don’t have to be in person. Self efficacy: belief that a child's own abilities and characteristics will help them succeed. Applied behavior analysis: careful observations of individual behavior and related environment events, followed by changes in those events due to modeling. The goal: eliminate undesirable behaviors and increase desirable ones. Piagets Cognitive-Developmental Theory -Children actively construct knowledge as they manipulate and explore the world. 1. The sensorimotor period (birth-age 2) ! Coordination of sensory input and motor responses; development of object performance ! Ex: mental image of a favorite toy ! ! 2." Preoperational period (2-7)! -Development in symbolic thought marked by concentration, irreversibility.! -Emphasis in shortcomings in this period.! ! 3." Concrete operational period (7-11) (playing chess)! -Mental operations applied to concrete events, mastery of conservation, hierarchical classification.! -Teaches child there are several ways to look at something.! " Reversibility: permits child to mentally undo an action. ! " Decentration: allows child to focus on more than one feature of a problem.! ! 4." Formal operational period (11 and up)! -Mental operations, applied to abstract ideas; logical and systematic thinking.! -youngsters graduate to relatively adult modes of thinking

Information processing: information flows....as its presented its known as an input until it emerges as a behavioral response at output, info is coded, transformed and organized. Ethology- the adaptive or survival, value of behavior and its evolutionary history. -What kinds of behaviors may be prewired? -What we are born with genetically, what parts of the brain are involved -Emphasis on the relevance of environmental contexts - biological for the most part but there’s also contextual learning. -Seeks to understand the adaptive or survival value of behavior and its evolutionary history -We do certain things bc historically it has helped us pass on our genes in some way and reproduce Important ethological concepts.... Imprinting: behavior patterns that promote survival....Conrad Laurence’s experiment -Grey leg goose.... When they hatch they imprint on their parents and form a bond, being able to recognize, follow, and stay close to them - this goes to self recognition. When they grow up they look for other grey leg geese to mate with. Sensitive/critical periods: limited time span which the individual is biologically prepared to acquire certain adaptive behaviors but needs the support of a stimulating environment. Time that is important for certain capacities to emerge. -24 hours after they hatch they are biologically prepared to imprint on their parents • If they hatch in isolation and wait 48 hours they will never imprint • Conrad Laurence was there when geese hatched and they imprinted on him • Not just with geese - sheep, cattle, other mammals • Sheep imprint on their lambs and their lambs imprint on them - they do it by sense of smell • Think of her story of her own sheep • Seals imprint and find each other through sense of hearing Bonding - human version of imprinting •Controversial- of importance or if this even exists •Klause and Kennell- mothers were typically given a medicine that made them not remember pain and fathers weren’t allowed in the hospital ****Babies that were allowe...