Chapter 9 Human Development Notes PDF

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Chapter 9 Human Development Notes+

1. Exploring Human Development 1. Development 1. the pattern of continuity and change in human capabilities that occurs throughout course of life 2. mostly involves growth but concerns decline 3. Developmental Psychology 1. interested in how people change physically/psychologically as they age 2. 3 levels: 1. Physical Processes 1. involve changes in biological nature called maturation: 1. Genes from parents 2. hormonal changes of puberty/menopause 3. Changes throughout life in brain 4. Height/Weight 5. Motor Skills 2. Cognitive Processes 1. involves changes in thought, intelligence and language 2. ex. constructing a sentence about the future 3. Socioemotional Processes 1. involves changes in relationships between people, in emotions and in personalities 2. ex. infant smiling in response to mother 2. Research Methods in Developmental Psychology 1. Human development is about changes occurring with age 2. Cross-sectional studies 1. number of people of different ages are assessed at one point in time and differences are noted 2. Problems: 1. cohort effects 1. cohorts- generational group (people born in same time period) 2. differences between individuals stemming from the historical/social time period in which they were born/developed 3. Longitudinal Study 1. assesses same participants multiple times over a lengthy period 2. can find out whether individuals change as they age as well as whether/not age groups differ 3. Nature/Nurture Influence Development 1. Nature 1. individual's biological inheritance (genes) 2. Nurture 1. individual's environmental/social experiences 2. can help/harm developing person 3. Phenylketonuria (PKU) 1. Condition caused by two recessive genes 2. results in inability to metabolize amino acid phenylalanine

4. Developer's Role in Development 1. a key aspect in development may be seeking optimal experiences in life 2. Life Themes 1. activities, social relationships and life goals 5. Early/Later Life Experiences Importance in Development 1. Life Span Developmentalists 1. study children and adults 2. stress that too little attention is given to adult development and aging 3. early experiences contribute powerfully to development but aren't necessarily more influential than later experiences 2. Resilience 1. person's ability to recover from or adapt to difficult times 2. even in adversity, person shows signs of positive functioning 3. may refer to factors that compensate for difficulties or the moderate difficulties may even help promote development 2. Child Development 1. Prenatal Development 1. Conception 1. occurs when sperm cell fertilizes ovum to produce zygote (single cell with 23 chromosomes from mother and 23 from father) 2. Development of zygote to fetus is divided into 3 periods: 1. Germinal Period 1. weeks 1 and 2 2. begins w/ conception 3. after 1 week zygote is made up of 100 to 150 cells 4. end of 2 weeks has attached to uterine wall 2. Embryonic Period 1. weeks 3 through 8 2. cell differentiation intensifies 3. support systems for cells develop 4. beginnings of organs appear 5. 3rd week neural tube (spinal cord eventually) starts to shape 6. neural tube forms and closes w/in 28 days of conception and is encased in embryo 7. By end, heart begins beating, arms/legs more differentiated, face starts to form and intestinal tract appears 3. Fetal Period 1. months 2 through 9 2. fetus size of kidney bean 3. starts to move around 4. 4 months fetus is 5 inches long/weighs about 5 ounces 5. 6 months fetus grown to pound and a half 6. last 3 months pregnancy organ functioning increases/fetus puts on considerable weigh/size adding baby fat 3. Threats to Fetus 1. Teratogen 1. any agent that causes a birth defect 2. include chemical substances ingested by mother (nicotine/alcohol) 3. certain illnesses (rubella)

4. chemical effects depend on timing of exposure 5. body part/organ system developing when teratogen is introduced is most vulnerable 6. Genetic traits may buffer/worsen effects of teratogen 2. Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) 1. cluster of abnormalities/problems that appear in offspring of mothers who drink alcohol heavily during pregnancy 2. abnormalities include 1. small head 2. defects in limbs/heart 3. below-average intelligence 3. Preterm Infant 1. one born prior to 37 weeks are conception 2. may be at risk for developmental difficulties 3. Postnatal experience plays crucial role in determining effects of preterm birth 4. risk increased by many STIs 2. Physical Development in Infancy/Childhood 1. Reflexes 1. Newborns are born w/ wired reflexes crucial for survival 1. Ability to suck and swallow 2. Naturally hold breath when dropped in water 3. Contract their throats to keep water out and move their arms and legs to stay afloat even briefly 4. automatically grasping things touching fingers 2. Some reflexes persist through life 1. coughing 2. blinking 3. yawning 2. Motor/Perceptual Skills 1. W/in 12 months, infant becomes capable of: 1. sitting upright 2. standing 3. stooping 4. climbing 5. often walking 2. During 2nd year: 1. growth decelerates 2. rapid gains occur in activities (running/climbing) 3. Experience plays a role in motor development 4. Between 3 and 5 months, ability to reach for objects involves wide array of processes: 1. Sensory Capacities- being able to see/hear the object 2. Motivation- wanting to grasp object 3. Attention- being able to focus on a certain thing among all other interesting thing in baby's world 4. Bodily control- having ability to control posture, manage head movement and calibrate movement of one's arms 5. Learning-getting positive reinforcement from experience of getting object of their desire

5. Infants motor/perceptual skills develop together and promote each other 1. actively participating in behaviors strongly influences development but passive ways (watching/modeling) can help develop motor skills 6. Preferential Looking 1. research technique involving giving an infant a choice of what object to look at 2. using this, researchers found infants as early as 7 days old are already engaged in organized perception of faces and are able to put together sights and sounds 3. Eye tracking equipment 1. used to study development in many other areas: 1. attention 2. memory 3. face processing 4. detect subtle differences that might reveal risks for disorders (autism spectrum disorder) 7. The Brain 1. During 1st 2 years of life, dendrites of neurons branch out and neurons become more interconnected 2. Myelination 1. process of encasing axons w/ fat cells 2. begins prenatally but continues after birth into adolescence and young adulthood 3. synaptic connections increase dramatically, becoming stronger while unused ones are replaced by other neural pathways/disappear 4. 3-6 years old, most rapid growth takes place in frontal lobe areas (planning/organizing new actions and in maintaining attention to tasks) 8. Cognitive Development in Infancy/Childhood 1. Cognitive Development-refers to how thought, intelligence and language processes change as people mature 2. Cognition- way individuals think/ their cognitive skills/abilities 3. Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development 1. believed children actively construct their cognitive world as they go through series of stages 2. use schemas to make sense of experiences 1. expressed as various behaviors/skills that child can exercise in relation to objects/situations 2. ex. suckling 3. 2 process responsible for schema development: 1. Assimilation 1. when an individual incorporates new info into existing knowledge 2. ex. adolescent applying learned video game skills to driving a car 3. using existing schemas in new way 2. Accommodation 1. when individuals adjust their schemas to new information 2. existing schemas can change and new schemas can develop 3. ex. infant who has been suckling everything might accommodate the schema by being more selective 3. Piaget- 4 stages to understanding the world: 1. Sensorimotor Stage 1. lasts from birth to about 2 years old

2. based on very limited capacities an infant has 1. sensation 2. movement 3. Infants construct understanding of the world by coordinating sensory experiences with motor actions (sensorimotor) 4. Newborns have little more than reflexive patterns 5. By end of this stage, 2 year olds show complex sensorimotor patterns, beginning to use symbols/words in thinking 6. Object Permanence 1. crucial accomplishment 2. Understanding tat objects/events continue to exist even when they cannot be seen, heard or touched directly 7. Operations 1. mental representations that are reversible 2. Preoperational Stage 1. lasts from about 2 to 7 years old 2. children in stage have difficulty understanding that reversing an action may restore the original conditions from which the action began 3. Conservation 1. belief in permanence of certain attributes of objects despite superficial changes 4. More symbolic than sensorimotor thought but symbolic thinking is limited 5. In preschool years, children represent their world w/ words, images and drawings 6. Thoughts are egocentric, intuitive (make judgments based on gut feelings rather than logic) 3. Concrete Operational Stage 1. from 7 to 11 years old 2. involves using operations and replacing intuitive reasoning w/ logical reasoning in concrete situations 3. most of the concrete operational operations of this stage are related to objects' properties 4. ability to classify things into different sets/subsets and consider their interrelations is an important skill of this stage 5. thought involves logic reasoning in concrete but not hypothetical contexts 4. Formal Operational Stage 1. 11 to 15 years old 2. continues through adult years 3. thought is more abstract and logical than concrete operational thought 4. Includes thinking about things not concrete, making predictions and using logic to come up with hypotheses about future 5. Idealistic 1. type of thinking 2. future abstract possibilities 3. involves comparing how things are to how they might be

6. Hypothetical-deductive reasoning 1. devising plans to solve problems and systematically testing solutions 2. denotes adolescents' ability to systematically deduce best path for problem solving as opposed to previous use of trial and error 4. Nativist Approach to Infant Cognition 1. infants possess primitive expectancies about events/objects that are less dependent upon experiences than Piaget imagined 2. Empiricist Approach 1. Emphasizes role of experience in world as central driver of cognitive/perceptual development 5. Vygotsky's Sociocultural Cognitive Theory 1. children are apprentice thinkers who develop as they interact in dialogue w/ more knowledgeable others (parents/teachers) 2. these thinkers spur cognitive development by interacting w/child in a way that is just above level of sophistication child has mastered 3. these interactions provide scaffolding, allowing children cognitive abilities to be built higher 4. goal of cognitive development is to learn skills that will allow individual to be competent in their culture 5. learning to think about their world 6. Information Processing Theory 1. focuses on how individuals encode info, manipulate it, monitor it and create strategies for handling it 2. focuses on specific cognitive processes rather than broad stages 3. ex. focusing on whether infants/children can master certain cognitive skills like the emergence of autobiographical memory 4. Working Memory 1. mental work space used for problem solving 2. linked to many aspects of children's development 3. better working memory leads to more advancement in reading comprehension, math skills and problem solving 5. Executive Functioning 1. important aspect of cognitive development 2. higher order complex cognitive processes (thinking, planning and problem solving) 3. involves managing one's thoughts to engage in goal directed behavior and exercise self control 4. In preschoolers involves holding back on automatic impulses, being cognitively flexible, setting goals and forgoing immediate gratification 5. can predict development of social cognitive abilities including theory of mind 1. understanding that other people experience private knowledge and mental states 6. Parents/teachers play important roles in development of 4. Socioemotional Development in Infancy and Childhood 1. Temperament 1. an individual's behavioral style and characteristic way of responding

2. Alexander Chess/Stella Thomas three basic types of temperament in children: 1. Easy Child- usually in positive mood, quickly establishes regular routines in infancy, easily adapts to new experiences 2. Difficult Child- tends to react negatively and cry frequently, engages in irregular daily routines and is slow to accept new experiences 3. Slow to Warm Up Child- low activity level, somewhat negative, inflexible, very cautious when it comes to new experiences 3. Other Infant Temperaments 1. Effortful Control/self regulation 1. controlling arousal/not being easily agitated 2. Inhibition 1. being shy/showing distress in unfamiliar situations 2. Positive/Negative Affectivity tending to be happy/even tempered or frustrated/sad 2. Attachment 1. Contact comfort crucial to infant's attachment to caregiver 2. Infant Attachment 1. close emotional bond between infant and caregiver 2. Bowlby 1. theorized mother and infant institutionally attached 2. infant comes into world prepared to stimulate caregiver responses ex. crying, clinging,smiling and cooing 3. Internalized early relationships with primary caregiver and served as schema for our sense of self and social world 3. Strange Situation Test (Ainsworth) 1. Ainsworth 2. Measures children's attachment alone caregivers leave infants alone w/ stranger then return 3. Responses classify children in one of 3 attachment styles 4. Secure Attachment- infants use caregiver as secure base from which to explore environment. Infant will be upset when caregivers leave but will calm down/appear happy when they return important to development 5. Insecure Attachment infants don't use caregiver as secure base from which to explore, instead viewing relationship as unstable/unreliable 2 types: Avoidant- infant may not notice caregiver has gone Anxious/Ambivalent-infant responds w/ intense distress only to rage at caregiver upon return 6. Attachment Theory criticized for: not adequately accounting for cultural variations fails to take infant temperament into account fails to acknowledge caregivers and infants like share genetic traits (attachment relationship may be product of shared genes)

3. Erikson's Theory of Socioemotional Development 1. Erik Erikson 1. Proposed 8 psychosocial stages of development spanning infancy and old age 2. First four stages take place in childhood 3. last four in adolescence/adulthood 4. view socioemotional development as lifelong process w/ important developmental milestones 5. each stage is a task that must be mastered at certain place in life span 6. Represented by two possible outcomes: 1. greater strength/competence 2. greater weakness/vulnerability 3. Outcomes depend on whether needs at each stage are met/frustrated 4. Socioemotional Development in Infancy/Childhood: Trust To Industry 1. Four Childhood Stages 1. Trust vs Mistrust 1. trust built in infancy (birth -18 months) 2. baby's basic needs (comfort, food, warmth) met by responsive, sensitive caregivers 3. infant depends on caregiver to establish sense that world is predictable/friendly 4. Once trust is established, toddler begin seeing themselves as independent agents in world 2. Autonomy vs Shame/Doubt 1. Toddlerhood (18 months through 3years) 2. Children develop either positive sense of independence/autonomy or negative feelings of shame/doubt 3. Initiative vs Guilt 1. Early Childhood (3-5 years) 2. Preschoolers experience what it is like to forge their own interests/friendships and take responsibilities 3. Experiencing responsibility develops initiative otherwise they may feel guilt/anxious 4. Industry vs Inferiority 1. Middle/Late Childhood (6 years to puberty) 2. Can achieve industry by mastering knowledge/intellectual skills when they don't, can feel inferior 3. At end of early childhood, can develop sense of being incompetent/unproductive 4. Beginnings of elementary school, children learn value of industry gaining competence in academic skills/acquiring ability to engage in self discipline/hard work 2. Erikson's perspective children should grow toward greater levels of autonomy/self confidence as they progress from infancy to school age and beyond 3. At each stage, parents should facilitate child's growth or can thwart it by being overly protective/neglectful 5. Parenting/Childhood Socioemotional Development

1. Erikson said main task for young adults is to resolve conflict between intimacy and isolation 2. 4 basic styles of interaction between parents/their children: 1. Authoritarian Parenting 1. strict punitive style 2. parent firmly limits/controls child w/ little verbal exchange 3. In argument parents might say “You do it my way or else” 4. Children of these parents sometimes lack social skills, show poor initiative and compare themselves w/ others 5. culture influences effects of authoritarian parenting 6. suggested authoritarian parenting may express culturally valued childrearing goals like family, respect and education 2. Authoritative Parenting 1. encourages child to be independent but still places limits/controls on behavior 2. more collaborative 3. extensive verbal give and take is allowed 4. Parents warm/nurturing toward child 5. Children whose parents are authoritative tend to be socially competent, self reliant, and socially responsible 3. Neglectful Parenting 1. Distinguished by lack of parental involvement in child's life 2. Children of neglectful parents might develop sense that other aspects of their parents' lives are more important than they are 3. Children of neglectful parents tend to be less competent socially, handle independence poorly and show poor self control 4. Permissive Parenting 1. involves place few limits on behavior 2. Lets child do what they want 3. Some parents deliberately rear child this way Believe combo of warm involvement/few limits will produce creative, confident child 4. Children typically rate poorly in social competence, often fail to learn respect for others, expect to get own way and have difficulty controlling their behavior 3. Moral Development in Childhood 1. Involves changes over time in thoughts, feelings and behaviors regarding principles/values that guide what people should do 2. Kohlberg's Theory 1. began study of moral thinking by creating series of stories/asking children, adolescents and adults questions about stories 1. Example story- A man, Heinz, whose wife is dying of cancer, knows about a drug that might save her life. He approaches the pharmacist who has the drug, but the pharmacist refuses to give it to him without being paid a very high price. Heinz is unable to scrape together the money and eventually decides to steal the drug. 2. 3 general levels of moral development: 1. Preconventional- individual's moral reason based primarily on consequences of behavior/punishments/rewards from external world.

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Moral reasoning is guided by not wanting Heinz to go to jail or concern for the druggists’ profits 2. Conventional- individual abides by standards learned from parents/society's laws 1. At this level the person might reason that Heinz should act in accord with expectations or his role as a good husband or reason that Heinz should follow the law no matter what 3. Postconventional- individual recognizes alternative moral courses, explores options and then develops increasingly personal moral code 1. At this level, the person might reason that saving Heinz’s wife is more important than a law. 3. Moral development advances because of maturation of thought, availability of opportunities for role taking, and chance to discuss moral issue w/ a person who reasons at a stage just above one's own. 4. Overestimates role of logical reasoning in moral judgments 5. Research suggests Kohlberg missed very large role of emotion/intuition in moral decision making 6. Sense of justice at heart of moral reasoning which it was believed laid the foundation ...