Textbook Notes- Developmental Psychology PDF

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Ch 1: History, Theory, Research Strategies 1 A Scientific, Applied Interdisciplinary Field: and about development has been stimulated social pressures to improve lives (address practical problems), as well as scientific curiosity. beginning of public education in the early 20 th century led to a dem...

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Ch 1: History, Theory, & Research Strategies 1.1 A Scientific, Applied Interdisciplinary Field:

feeling and behaving, ones quite different from those of adults. The discontinuous perspective takes place in STAGES: qualitative changes in thinking, feeling and behaving that characterise specific periods of development. Each step corresponds to a more mature, reorganised way of functioning. Change is sudden.

and

-Research about development has been stimulated by social pressures to improve people’s lives (address practical problems), as well as scientific curiosity. -The beginning of public education in the early 20 th century led to a demand for knowledge about what and how to teach children of different ages. -Info about development is interdisciplinary. (Due to the need for solutions to everyday problems at all ages).

1.2 Basic Issues -Studies of children did not begin until the late 19th & early 20th centuries and investigations into adult development, aging and change over the lifespan emerged only in the 1960s and 70s. THEORY: an orderly, integrated set of statements that describes, explains, and predicts behaviour. -Good theories will describe (a behaviour), explain (how and why) and predict (the consequences of the behaviour). Theories provide organising frameworks for our observations of people (guide and give meaning to what we see) AND- if they are verified by researchprovide a sound basis for practical action. Three basic issues 1) is the course of development continuous or discontinuous? 2) does one course of development characterise all people or are there many possible courses? 3) what are the roles of genetic and environmental factors- nature and nurture- in development? CONTINUOUS / DISCONTINUOUS DEVELOPMENT: CONTINUOUS: a process of gradually expanding the same skills that were there to begin with. Development is a smooth, continuous process. Gradually add more of the same types of skills. DISCONTINUOUS: a process in which new ways of understanding and responding to the world emerge at a specific time. People change rapidly as they step up onto a new level and then change very little for a while. With each new step, the person interprets and responds to the world in a reorganised, qualitatively different way. Children have unique ways of thinking,

ONE COURSE OF DEVELOPMENT OR MANY? No one follows the same sequence of development; everyone lives in distinct contexts. CONTEXTS: unique combinations of personal and environmental circumstances that can result in different paths of change. E.g. a shy individual who fears social encounters develops in very different contexts from those of an outgoing agemate who readily seeks out others. These different circumstances foster different intellectual capacities, social skills, and feelings about the self and others. Personal: heredity and biological makeup Environmental: immediate settings (home, school) and circumstances more remote from everyday life (community resources, societal values and historical time periods) Mutually influential relations (between individuals and their contexts): People not only are affected by but also contribute to the contexts in which they develop. RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF NATURE AND NURTURE? NATURE-NURTURE CONTROVERSY: disagreement among theorists about whether genetic or environmental factors are more important influences on development. Nature: hereditary information we receive from our parents at the moment of conception Nurture: the complex forces of the physical and social world that influence our biological make up and psychological experiences before and after birth. -theorists who emphasize stability (That individuals who are high or low in a characteristic will remain so at later ages) stress the importance of heredity -if they emphasize early experiences as establishing a lifelong pattern of behaviour they usually stress environment. Stability vs plasticity: powerful negative events in the first years cannot be fully overcome by later, more positive ones vs the idea that development is open to change in response to influential experiences.

1.5 Mid Theories *

Twentieth

Century

European concern: individuals inner thoughts and feelings, contrasts with North American: academic focus on scientific precision and concrete, observable behaviour. PSYCHOANALYTIC PERSPECTIVE: Personality perspective: emphasized each individuals’ unique life history PSYCHOANALYTIC PERSPECTIVE: people move through a series of stages in which they confront conflicts between biological drives and social expectations. How these conflicts are resolved determines the person's ability to learn, to get along with others and to cope with anxiety.

society. A basic psychosocial conflict which is resolved along a continuum from positive to negative, determines healthy or maladaptive outcomes at each stage. 1.Basic trust vs Mistrust (birth-1) 2. Autonomy vs Shame & Doubt (1-3) 3.Initiative vs Guilt (3-6) 4.Industry vs inferiority (6-11) 5.Identity vs role confusion (adolescence) 6. Intimacy vs Isolation (early adulthood) 7. Generativity vs Stagnation (Middle Adulthood) 8. Integrity vs Despair (Old age)

FREUD'S PSYCHOSEXUAL THEORY: emphasises that how parents manage their child's sexual and aggressive drives in the first few years is crucial for heathy personality development (id, ego, superego, Oral, Anal, Phallic, Latency Genital psychosexual stages) STRENGTHS: first to stress the influence of the early parent-child relationship on development. WEAKNESSES: overemphasized the influence of sexual feelings in development. Based on the problems of sexually repressed well-off adults in the 19 th century, doesn’t apply to other cultures, also, Freud had not studied children directly.

STRENGTHS: emphasis on individual's unique life history as worthy of understanding, accept the clinical/case study method (obtaining a complete picture as possible of one individual’s psychological functioning), inspired research on development WEAKNESSES: isolated, failed to consider other methods, too vague to be tested BEHAVIOURISM AND SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY: BEHAVIOURISM: an approach that regards directly observable events- stimuli and responses- as the appropriate focus of study and views the development of behaviour as taking place through classical and operant conditioning.

ERIKSON'S PSYCHOSOCIAL THEORY: emphasises that the ego makes a positive contribution to development, acquiring attitudes and skills that make the individual an active, contributing member of

WATSON, inspired by PAVLOV and his dogs, wanted to see if classical conditioning could be applied to children’s behaviour so he traumatised Little Albert for shits and gigs! However, he concluded that environment is the supreme force in development and that adults can mould children’s behaviour by carefully controlling stimulus-response actions.

B.F SKINNER- operant conditioning theory: the frequency of a behaviour can be increased by following it with a reinforcer (food/praise), or decreased through punishment (Disapproval/withdrawal of privileges). SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY-BANDURA: Stresses the role of (social) COGNITION. an approach that emphasises the role of modelling, also known as imitation or observational learning, as a powerful source of development. Children come to develop personal standards for behaviour and a sense of self-efficacy. Diverse factors affect children’s motivation to imitate: their own history of reinforcement or punishment for the behaviour, the promise of future reinforcement or punishment, and observations of a model being reinforced or punished. STRENGTHS: helpful in treating a wide range of adjustment problems, helpful in eliminating undesirable behaviours and increasing desirable responses WEAKNESSES: too narrow a view of important environmental influences, underestimates people's contributions to their own development. PIAGET'S COGNITIVE-DEVELOPMENTAL THEORY: -Children actively construct knowledge as they manipulate and explore their world. Dev is in stages. Cognitive development begins in the sensorimotor stage, with the baby's use of the senses and movements to explore the world. (Birth -2) These action patterns evolve into the symbolic but illogical thinking of the pre-schooler in the preoperational stage. (2-7) Then cognition is transformed into the more organised, logical reasoning of the school aged child in the concrete operational stage. (7-11) Finally, in the formal operational stage, thought becomes the abstract, systematic reasoning system of the adolescent and adult. (11+) STRENGTHS: convinced the field that children are active learners, sparked research on children's conceptions of themselves and others. WEAKNESSES: underestimated the competencies of infants and pre-schoolers. Pays insufficient attention to social and cultural influences on development. HORIZONTAL DÉCALAGE is a concept in Jean Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development and refers to the observation that once a child has the capability to perform a certain task or function they don't know how to immediately apply the concept to other functions or tasks that share the same conceptual ideation.

1.6 Recent Perspectives *

Theoretical

INFORMATION PROCESSING: (Cognitive psychology) human mind viewed as a symbol- manipulating system through which information flows. Flow charts are used. Regards people as actively making sense of their own thinking. Thought processes studied are similar at all ages but present to a lesser or greater extent -- CONTINUOUS change (perception, attention, memory, categorisation of information, planning, problem solving and comprehension of written and spoken prose). STRENGTHS: commitment to rigorous research methods. WEAKNESSES: better at analysing thinking into components than putting them back together into a comprehensive theory. Not much information on imagination/ creativity. DEVELOPMENTAL NEUROSCIENCE: DEVELOPMENTAL COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE: brings together researchers from psychology, biology, neuroscience, and medicine to study the relationship between changes in the brain and the developing person's cognitive processing and behaviour patterns. DEVELOPMENTAL SOCIAL NEUROSCIENCE: studies relationship between changes in the brain & emotional & social development. ETHOLOGY & EVOLUTIONARY DEV PSYCH Aims to understand the person-environment system throughout the lifespan. ETHOLOGY: concerned with the adaptive/ survival value of behaviour and its evolutionary history. Roots can be traced to the work of Darwin. IMPRINTING: the early following behaviour of certain baby birds that ensures the young will stay close to the mother and be fed and protected from danger. CRITICAL PERIOD: limited time span during which the individual is biologically prepared to acquire certain adaptive behaviours but needs the support of an appropriately stimulating environment. SENSITIVE PERIOD: a time that it is biologically optimal for certain capacities to emerge because the

individual is especially responsive to environmental influences. EVOLUTIONARY DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY: seeks to understand the adaptive value of specieswide cognitive, emotional and social competencies as those competencies change with age. VYGOTSKY'S SOCIOCULTURAL THEORY: SOCIOCULTURAL THEORY: Vygotsky's theory, in which children acquire the ways of thinking and behaving that make up their community's culture through social interaction- in particular cooperative dialogues with more knowledgeable members of society- which is necessary for children to acquire the ways of thinking and behaving that make up a community's culture. CULTURE: values, beliefs, customs, skills of a social group Vygotsky agreed with Piaget that children are active, constructive beings, but whereas piaget emphasised children’s independent efforts to make sense of their world, Vygotsky viewed cognitive development as a socially mediated process, in which children depend on assistance from adults and more expert peers and they tackle new challenges. Children undergo certain stage-wise changes. ECOLOGICAL SYSTEMS THEORY: Bronfenbrenner EGOLOGICAL SYSTEMS THEORY: views the person as developing within a complex system of relationships affected by multiple levels of the surrounding environment. Because the child's biologically influenced dispositions join with environmental forces to mould development, Bronfenbrenner characterised his perspective as a bioecological model. MICROSYSTEM: innermost level of the environment, consisting of activities and interaction patterns in the person's immediate surroundings Relationships are bidirectional, adults and children affect each other's behaviour Third parties also affect the quality of any two person relationship. If they are supportive, interaction is enhanced. MEOSYSTEM: encompasses connections between microsystems. (a child's academic progress depends not just on activities that take place in classrooms, but also on parent involvement in school life and on the extent to which academic learning is carried over to the home. EXOSYSTEM: consists of social settings that do not contain the developing person but nevertheless affect experiences in immediate settings. (workplace, community, flexible work schedules, social networks, MACROSYSTEM: consists of cultural values, laws, customs, and resources. ECOLOGICAL TRANSITIONS: whenever individuals add or let go of roles or settings in their lives, the breadth

of their microsystems changes. The shifts in context are called ecological transitions, which are important turning points in development (starting school, becoming a parent etc). CHRONOSYSTEM: chrono means time. Life changes can either be imposed externally or, alternatively can arise from within the person.

1.7 Comparing theories

and

evaluating

STANCES OF MAJOR THEORIES ON BASIC ISSUES IN HUMAN DEVELOPMENT EMPHASIS ON EMOTIONAL AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT: psychoanalytic perspective, ethology. EMPHASIS ON CHANGES IN THINKING: Piaget's cognitive-developmental theory, information processing, Vygotsky's sociocultural theory. MANY ASPECTS: behaviorism, social learning theory, evolutionary developmental psychology, ecological systems theory, the lifespan perspective PSYCHOANALYTIC PERSPECTIVE Continuous or Discontinuous Development? Discontinuous: Psychosexual and psychosocial development takes place in stages. One Course of Development or Many One course: Stages are assumed to be universal. Relative Influence of Nature and Nurture? Both nature and nurture: Innate impulses are channelled and controlled through child-rearing experiences. Early experiences set the course of later development BEHAVIORISM AND SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY Continuous or Discontinuous Development? Continuous: Development involves an increase in learned behaviours. One Course of Development or Many? Many possible courses: Behaviours reinforced and modelled may vary from person to person. Relative Influence of Nature and Nurture?

Emphasis on nurture: Development is the result of conditioning and modelling. Both early and later experiences are important. PIAGET’S COGNITIVE-DEVELOPMENTAL THEORY Continuous or Discontinuous Development? Discontinuous: Cognitive development takes place in stages. One Course of Development or Many? One course: Stages are assumed to be universal. Relative Influence of Nature and Nurture? Both nature and nurture: Development occurs as the brain grows and children exercise their innate drive to discover reality in a generally stimulating environment. Both early and later experiences are important. INFORMATION PROCESSING Continuous or Discontinuous Development? Continuous: Children and adults change gradually in perception, attention, memory, and problem-solving skills. One Course of Development or Many? One course: Changes studied characterize most or all children and adults. Relative Influence of Nature and Nurture? Both nature and nurture: Children and adults are active, sense-making beings who modify their thinking as the brain grows and they confront new environmental demands. Both early and later experiences are important.

ETHOLOGY AND EVOLUTIONARY DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY Continuous or Discontinuous Development? Both continuous and discontinuous: Children and adults gradually develop a wider range of adaptive behaviours. Sensitive periods occur, in which qualitatively distinct capacities emerge fairly suddenly. One Course of Development or Many? One course: Adaptive behaviors and sensitive periods apply to all members of a species. Relative Influence of Nature and Nurture? Both nature and nurture: Evolution and heredity influence behavior, and learning lends greater flexibility and adaptiveness to it. In sensitive periods, early experiences set the course of later development. VYGOTSKY’S SOCIOCULTURAL THEORY Continuous or Discontinuous Development? Both continuous and discontinuous: Language acquisition and schooling lead to stagewise changes. Dialogues with more expert members of society also

lead to continuous changes that vary from culture to culture. One Course of Development or Many? Many possible courses: Socially mediated changes in thought and behavior vary from culture to culture. Relative Influence of Nature and Nurture? Both nature and nurture: Heredity, brain growth, and dialogues with more expert members of society jointly contribute to development. Both early and later experiences are important. ECOLOGICAL SYSTEMS THEORY Continuous or Discontinuous Development? Not specified. One Course of Development or Many? Many possible courses: Biologically influenced dispositions join with environmental forces at multiple levels to mold development in unique ways. Relative Influence of Nature and Nurture? Both nature and nurture: The individual's characteristics and the reactions of others affect each other in a bidirectional fashion. Both early and later experiences are important. LIFESPAN PERSPECTIVE Continuous or Discontinuous Development? Both continuous and discontinuous: Continuous gains and declines and discontinuous, stagewise emergence of new skills occur. One Course of Development or Many? Many possible courses: Development is influenced by multiple, interacting biological, psychological, and social forces, many of which vary from person to person, leading to diverse pathways of change. Relative Influence of Nature and Nurture? Both nature and nurture: Development is multidimensional, affected by an intricate blend of hereditary and environmental factors. Emphasizes plasticity at all ages. Both early and later experiences are important.

Ch 4: Physical Development in Infancy & Toddlerhood 4.5 Learning Capacities Learning refers to changes in behaviour as the result of experience. (Classical and operant conditioning.) CLASSICAL CONDITIONING: a form of learning that involves associating a neutral stimulus with a stimulus that leads to a stimulus that leads to a

reflexive response. Once connection is made between the two stimuli, the neutral stimulus alone produces the behaviour. Newborn reflexes make classical conditioning possible in a young infant.  Helps infants recognise which events usually occur together in the everyday world, so they can anticipate what is about to happen next. As a result, the environment becomes more orderly and predictable.  Young infants can be classically conditioned most easily when the association between two stimuli has survival value.  Fear is difficult to condition in young babies. No motor skills to escape unpleasant events, no biological need to form associations. OPERANT CONDITIONING: a form of learning in which a behaviour is followed by a stimulus that changes the probability that the behaviour will occur again. REINFORCER: a stimulus that increases the occurrence of a response. (sweet liquid reinforces the sucking response in newborns) PUNISHMENT: removal of a desirable stimulus or presentation of an unpleasant one to decrease the occurrence of a response. - Operant conditioning with mobiles is frequently used to study infants memory and their ability to group similar stimuli into categories...