STUDY SHEET – EXAM #1
DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY
Chapter 1: History, Theory, & Research Strategies
Human development: a field of study devoted to understanding constancy and change throughout the lifespan
Theory: an orderly, integrated set of statements that describes, explains, and predicts behavior (D.E.P.)
Two Basic Issues in HD:
Continuous Development: a process of gradually augmenting the same types of skills that were there to begin with.
- the difference between immature and mature being is simply one of amount or capacity
- change is gradual and ongoing
Discontinuous Development: a process in which new and different ways of interpreting and responding to the world emerge at particular time periods
- infants and children have unique ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving—quite
different than adults
- development is in stages: qualitative changes in thinking, feeling and behaving that
characterize specific periods of a development (ex: climbing a staircase)
- change is sudden
Lifespan perspective: a complex vision of change and the factors that underlie it
Four assumptions of development:
1) Lifelong- no age period is supreme in its impact on the life course
2) Multidimensional: affected by an intricate blend of biological, psychological, and social forces
-multidirectional: growth and decline
3) Plastic- a metamorphosis with continued potential
4) Embedded in multiple contexts-
-Age-graded influence: events that are strongly related to age and therefore fairly predictable in when they occur and how long they last
-History-graded influences: explain why people born around the same time—called a cohort—tend to be alike in ways that set them apart from people born at other times
-Nonnormative influences: events that are irregular, in that they happen to just one or a few people and do not follow a predictable timetable; nonnormative influences have become more powerful & age-graded influences less so in contemporary adult development
3 DOMAINS OF DEVELOPMENT:
Physical Development: changes in body size, proportions, appearance, functioning of body systems, perceptual and motor capacities, and physical health.
Cognitive Development: changes in intellectual abilities, including attention, memory, academic and everyday knowledge, problem solving, imagination, creativity, and language.
Emotional & Social Development: changes in emotional communication, self-understanding, knowledge about other people, interpersonal skills, friendships, intimate relationships, and moral reasoning and behavior.
Major Periods of Human Development
Period Age Range Description
Prenatal Conception-birth The one-celled organism transforms into a human baby with remarkable capacities to adjust to life outside the womb.
Infancy & Toddlerhood Birth-2 years Dramatic changes in the body and brain support emergence of a wide array of motor, perceptual, and intellectual capacities and first intimate ties to others.
Early Childhood 2-6 years The play years, in which motor skills are refined, thought and language expand at an astounding pace, a sense of morality is evident, and children begin to establish ties to peers.
Middle Childhood 6-11 years The school years, marked by advances in athletic abilities; logical thought processes; basic literacy skills; understanding of self, morality, and friendship; and peer-group membership.
Adolescence 11-20 years Puberty leads to an adult-size body and sexual maturity. Thought become abstract and idealistic and school achievement more serious. Adolescents focus on defining personal values and goals and establishing autonomy from the family.
Early Adulthood 20-40 years Most young people leave home, complete their education, and begin full-time work. Major concerns are developing a career; forming an intimate partnership; and marrying, rearing children, or establishing other lifestyles.
Middle Adulthood 40-60 years Many people are at the height of their careers and attain leadership positions. They must also help their children begin independent lives and their parents adapt to aging. They become more aware of their own mortality.
Late Adulthood 60 years-death People adjust to retirement, to decreased physical strength and health, and often to the death of a spouse. They reflect on the meaning of their lives.
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Historical Foundations
Preformationism: in medieval Europe, once children emerged from infancy, they were regarded as miniature, already-formed adults—no philosophies of the uniqueness of childhood or separate developmental periods
-Puritan beliefs tried to promote reason in their sons and daughters so they could tell right from wrong and resist temptation
John Locke: British philosopher, forerunner of behaviorism
-tabula rasa: “blank slate”—children are, to begin with, nothing at all, and all kinds of experiences can shape their characters
-parents can mold the child in any way they wish through careful instruction, effective example, and rewards for good behavior
-led change from harshness toward children to kindness and compassion
-believed in continuous development, nurture (the power of the environment to shape the child), children are passive in the development
Jean Jacques Rousseau: French philosopher, child-centered philosophy
-noble savages: children were naturally endowed with a sense of right and wrong and with an innate plan for orderly, healthy growth
-maturation: refers to a genetically determined, naturally unfolding course of growth
-believed in discontinuous development, a stagewise process that follows a single, unified course mapped out by nature
Charles Darwin: the forefather of scientific child study
-began by studying plant and animal species
-theory of evolution; natural selection & survival of the fittest
G. Stanley Hall: founder of the child study movement Arnold Gesell
-normative approach: measures of behavior are taken on large numbers of individuals, and age-related averages are computed to represent typical development
Alfred Binet: first practical intelligence tests; used normative data
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The Psychoanalytic Perspective:
-people move through a series of stages in which they confront conflicts between biological drives and social expectations. The way these conflicts are resolved determines the individual’s ability to learn, to get along with others, and to cope with anxiety.
Sigmund Freud:
-psychosexual theory: emphasized that how parents managed their child’s sexual and aggressive drives in the first few years is crucial for healthy personality development.
-id (largest part-source of basic biological needs and desires), ego (conscious rational part), superego (conscience-moral reasoning)
Freud’s Psychosexual Stages (Discontinuous)
Stage Period Description
Oral Birth-1 year The new ego directs the baby’s sucking toward breast or bottle. If oral needs are not met, may develop such habits as thumb sucking, fingernail biting, and pencil chewing in childhood and overeating and smoking in later life.
Anal 1-3 years Enjoy holding and releasing urine and feces. Toilet training becomes a major issue between parent and child. If parents insist that children be trained before they are ready or make too few demands, conflicts about anal control may appear in the form of extreme orderliness and cleanliness or messiness and disorder.
Phallic 3-6 years Id impulses transfer to the genitals, and the child finds pleasure in genital stimulation. Oedipus conflict for boys and Electra conflict for girls—the young child feels a sexual desire for the other-sex parent. To avoid punishment, they give up the desire and, instead, adopt the same-sex parent’s characteristics and values. As a result, the superego is formed, and children feel guilty each time they violate its standards. The relations among id, ego, and superego established at this time determine the individual’s basic personality.
Latency 6-11 years Sexual instincts die down, and the superego further develops. The child acquires new social values from adults outside the family and from play with same-sex peers.
Genital Adolescence Puberty causes the sexual impulses of the phallic stage to reappear. If development has been successful during earlier stages, it leads to marriage, mature sexuality, and the birth and rearing of children.
Erik Erikson:
-psychosocial theory: the ego does not just mediate between id impulses and superego demands. At each stage, it acquires attitudes and skills that make the individual an active, contributing member of society.
-child rearing can be understood only by making reference to the competencies valued and needed by the individual’s society.
Erikson’s Psychosocial Stages (Discontinuous)
Stage Period Description
Basic trust vs mistrust (Oral) Birth-1 year From warm responsive care, infants gain a sense of trust or confidence that the world is good. Mistrust occurs when infants have to wait too long for comfort and or handled harshly.
Autonomy vs shame and doubt (Anal) 1-3 years Using new mental and motor skills children want to choose and decide for themselves. Autonomy is fostered when parents permit reasonable free choice and do not force or shame the child.
Initiative vs guilt (Phallic) 3-6 years Through make-believe play children experiment with the kind of person they can become. Initiative- a sense of ambition or responsibility- develops when parents support their child’s new sense of purpose. The danger is that parents will demand too much self-control, which leads to over-control, meaning too much guilt.
Industry vs diffusion (Latency) 6-11 years At school, children develop the capacity to work and cooperate with others. Inferiority develops when negative experiences at home, at school, or with peers leads to feelings of incompetence.
Identity vs identity confusion (Genital) Adolscence The adolescent tries to answer the question “Who am I? and What is my place in society?” Self-chosen values and vocational goals lead to lasting personal identity. The negative outcome is confusion about future adult roles.
Intimacy vs isolation Young adulthood Young people work on establishing intimate ties to others. Because of earlier disappointments, some individuals cannot form close relationship and remain isolated.
Generativity vs stagnation Middle adulthood Generativity means giving to the next generation through child rearing, caring for other people, or productive work. The person who fails in these ways feels an absence of meaningful accomplishment.
Ego integrity vs despair Old age In this final stage, individuals reflect on the kind of person they have been. Integrity results from feeling that life was worth living as it happened. Older people who are dissatisfied with their life fear death.
Behaviorism and Social Learning Theory:
-Behaviorism: directly observable events—stimuli and responses
-John Watson & little Albert
-classical conditioning (Pavlov) & operant conditioning (BF Skinner)
-Social learning theory: (Bandura) emphasized modeling, (imitation or observational learning), as a powerful source of development (dev. is continuous)
-children acquire many favorable and unfavorable responses simply by watching and listening to others around them
-Behavior modification: procedures that combine conditioning and modeling to eliminate undesirable behaviors and increase desirable responses
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Piaget’s Cognitive-Developmental Theory:
-Cognitive-developmental theory: children actively construct knowledge as they manipulate and explore their world
-adaptation--structures of the mind are adapted to fit with, or represent, the external world
Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development (Discontinuous)
Stage Period Description
Sensorimotor Birth-2 years Infants “think” by acting on the world with their eyes, ears, hands, and mouth. As a result, they invent ways of solving sensorimotor problems, such as pulling a lever to hear the sound of a music box, finding hidden toys and putting objects in and taking them out of containers.
Preoperational 2-7 years Preschool children use symbols to represent their earlier sensorimotor discoveries. The development of language and make-believe play takes place. However, thinking lacks the logical qualities of the two remaining stages.
Concrete operational 7-11 years Children’s reasoning becomes logical. School-age children understand that a certain amount of lemonade or play-dough remains the same even after its appearance changes. They also organize objects into hierarchies of classes and subclasses. However, thinking falls short of adult intelligence. It is not yet abstract.
Formal operational 11 years on The capacity for abstraction permits adolescents to reason with symbols that do not refer to objects in the real world, as in advance mathematics. They can also think of all possible outcomes in a significant problem, not just the most obvious ones.
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Information Processing:
-the human mind is viewed as a symbol-manipulating system through which information flows
-information is actively coded, transformed, and organized
-regards people as active, sense-making beings BUT no stages of development
-thought process include: perception, attention, memory, planning strategies, categorization of information, and comprehension of written and spoken prose—similar at all ages but present to a lesser or greater extent (continuous)
Ethology and Evolutionary Developmental Psychology:
-Ethology: concerned with the adaptive, or survival, value of behavior and its evolutionary history
-imprinting (the early following behavior of some animals), critical period (limited time span during which the individual is biologically prepared to acquire certain adaptive behaviors)
-sensitive period: time that is optimal for certain capacities to emerge and in which the individual is especially responsive to environmental influences—boundaries are less defined than critical period
Evolutionary developmental psychology: seeks to understand the adaptive value of species-wide cognitive, emotional, and social competencies as those competencies change with age; sees development as discontinuous and continuous.
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Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory:
-examines the relationship of culturally specific practices to development—it focuses on how culture (the values, beliefs, customs, and skills of a social group) is transmitted to the next generation.
-Social interaction (cooperative dialogues with more knowledgeable members of society) is necessary for children to acquire the ways of thinking and behaving that make up a community’s culture
-cognitive development is a socially mediated process
- sees development as discontinuous and continuous
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Ecological systems theory:(Bronfenbrenner)
(this approach is not specified whether continuous or discontinuous)
-views the person as developing within a complex system of relationships affected by multiple levels of the surrounding environment
--a child’s biological dispositions join the environmental forces to mold development
--The environment has various layers:
**Microsystem: the innermost level of the environment
--consists of activities and interaction patterns in the person’s immediate surroundings
--all relationships are bidirectional
--ex: immediate family, day care or school, neighborhood, church
**Mesosystem: second level
--encompasses connections between Microsystems
--ex: parent support influences school performance and behavior
**Exosystem: social settings that do not contain the developing person but nevertheless affect experiences in immediate settings
--ex: extended family members, friends and neighbors, workplace, health services
**Macrosystem: outermost level
--not a specific context
--consists of cultural values, laws, customs, and resources
CHAPTER 2: Biological and Environmental Foundations
- phenotypes: direct observable characteristics of a person (height, weight, etc.)
- genotype: complex blend of genetic info that determines our species and influences all of our unique characteristics
- we are all made up of several cells; each cell has a control center called a nucleus
- inside each nucleus are rodlike structures called chromosomes which store and transmit genetic information; chromosomes are made up of a chemical substance called deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA)
- a gene is a segment of DNA along the length of the chromosome
- gametes: sex cells (sperm & ovum) they contain only 23 chromosomes
- gametes are formed through a process called meiosis, which ensures a constant quantity of genetic material is transmitted from one generation to the next
- zygote: when sperm ad ovum unite making the chromosomes
- 22 of the 23 pairs of chromosomes are matching called autosomes; the 23rd pair consists of sex chromosomes (Females are XX; Males are XY)
- fraternal twins are diyzygotic; the fertilization of two ova; identical twins are monozygotic; they have the same genetic make-up because the cluster of cells splits
- homozygous: if the genes from both parents are alike
- heterozygous: relationship between the genes determine the trait that will appear
- incomplete dominance: when the dominant doesn’t take over when it is supposed to
- dominant-recessive inheritance: (in heterozygous pairs) only one gene affects the child’s characteristics
- carriers: parents can pass the recessive gene to their children (under stress they can experience sxs)
- codominance: a pattern of inheritance in which both genes influence the person’s characteristics (when both experience themselves like AB Blood type)
- X-linked inheritance: when a harmful recessive gene is carried on the X chromosome, males are more likely affected because their sex chromosomes don’t match
- Genetic imprinting: genes are imprinted or chemically marked, in such a way that one member of the pair (either the mother’s or the father’s) is activated, regardless of its makeup
- mutation: a sudden but permanent change in a segment of DNA
- polygenic inheritance: traits like height, weight, intelligence and personality, many genes determine these
- most chromosome abnormalities result from mistakes during meiosis (most diseases from recessive genes)
- down syndrome: most common 1 out of 800 births; result of the 21st pair of chromosomes not separating at meiosis; sxs include: mental retardation, memory, speech problems, limited vocabulary & slow motor development
- adding or subtracting the usual number of X chromosomes results in particular intellectual deficits
- genetic counseling: a communication process designed to help couples assess their chances of giving birth to a baby with a hereditary disorder and chose the best course of action in views of risks and family goals, they prepare a pedigree, which gives a picture of the family tree and which relatives are affected
- prenatal diagnostic methods: medical procedures that permit detection of problems before birth (e.g. amniocentesis, chorionic villus sampling)
- over 90% of pregnancies in the U.S. result in the birth of healthy infants w/ a good change of life free of genetic disease
- genetic testing: concerns of letting people know they can become ill and have no methods of fixing it can be cruel
Environmental Contexts:
- direct influences: the behavior of one family member helps sustain a form of interaction in the other that either promotes or undermines psychology well-being
- indirect influences: the effects of 3rd parties
- adapting to change: a lot of changes in families like new job, birth of a child, grandparent moving in, etc.
- socioeconomic status: researchers use this to asses a family’s status (1) years of education; (2) prestige and skill required by one’s job, both which measure social status, and (3) income, which measures economic status
- impact of poverty: 1) development is threatened; 2) U.S. has higher % of extremely poor children
Beyond the Family:
- neighborhoods: have more of an impact on economically disadvantaged than well-to-do young people (less dependency)
- towns & cities: more active role in the community if the town is smaller
- cultural context: cultures shape family interaction and community settings beyond the home
- subcultures: groups of people w/ beliefs and customs that differ from those of the larger culture
- extended family households: 3 or more generations live together; collectivism vs. individualism
- more public policies exist for elders than for children
- heritability estimates: measure the extent to which individual differences in complex traits, such as intelligence and personality, in a specific population are due to genetic factors
- concordance rates: % of instances in which both twins show a trait when it is present in one twin
- Kinship studies: compare characteristics of family members (most common among identical twin studies)
- used to infer the role of heredity in complex human characteristics
- epigenesis: means development resulting from ongoing, bidirectional exchanges between heredity and all levels of the environment
Limitations of Heritability & Concordance:
1. doesn’t account for places where environmental factors are very similar leaving the differences between intelligence and more genetic in nature and vice versa
2. the accuracy of these rates depend on the extent to which the twin pairs used reflect genetic and environment variation in the population
3. they can be misapplied
4. they give us no precise information about how intelligence and personality develop or how individuals might respond to environments designed to help develop as far as possible
CHAPTER 3: Prenatal Development, Birth & the Newborn Baby:
- conception: every 28 days an ovum burst from ovaries through one of the fallopian tubes; as it travels its called the corpus luteum; if it doesn’t fertilize then the uterus lining is discarded 2 wks later
Pregnancy is in 3 phases:
Phase One:
- zygote: abt 2 wks; from fertilization until the tiny mass of cells drifts down and out of the fallopian tubes and attaches to the wall of the uterus (called a blastocyst)
- implantation occurs between the 7th and 9th day after fertilization
- amnion: encloses the developing organism in amniotic fluid, which helps keep the temperature constant and protect like cushion from mother’s movements
- chorion: this surrounds the amnion, from the chorion tiny fingerlike ville or blood vessels begin to emerge as the ville dig in to the uteran wall; the placenta develops, it permits food and oxygen to reach the baby
- umbilical cord: contains one large vein that delivers blood loaded w/ nutrients & 2 arteries that remove waste products
Phase Two:
- embryo: 2nd through 8th week of pregnancy; most rapid changes groundwork laid for all body structures and internal organs
Forms 3 layers of cells:
- ectoderm: nervous system and skin
- mesoderm: develop the muscles, skeleton, circulatory system & other internal organs
- endoderm: becomes the digestive system, lungs, urinary tract and glands
Phase Three:
- fetus: “growth and finishing” phase; 9th week until end of pregnancy
- everything becomes organized and connected; the fetus kicks and moves
- prenatal development is sometimes divided into 3 trimesters (1st trimester from conception to 12 wks)
- 2nd trimester: mother can feel movements; a white, cheeselike substance called vernix develops to protects its skin from chapping during the long months spent bathing in the amniotic fluid; white downy hair called lanugo also appears over the entire body, helping the vernix stick to the skin; at the end of the 2nd trimester most of the brain’s neurons (nerve cells that store and transmit information) are in place
- 3rd trimester: during this time the fetus has a chance of surviving outside the womb referred to as the age of viability; the cerebral cortex enlarges; neurological organization improves; fetus takes on the beginnings of a personality
- teratogen: refers to any environmental agent that causes damage during the prenatal period (depends on factors such as: dose, heredity, other negative influences and age)
- Outside influences:
Prescription drugs
Non-prescription drugs
Tobacco
Alcohol
Crack, heroine and cocaine
- Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS): mental retardation, impaired motor coordination, attention, memory and language w/ physical abnormalities (widely spaced eyes, thin upper lip; short eyelid openings)
- Fetal Alcohol Effects (FAE): some abnormalities but not all (meant mom drank less)
- Other teratogens: radiation; environmental pollution; infectious disease call all cause defects or abnormalities
- Other maternal factors: nutrition: healthy weight gain for mom would be 25 to 30 lbs; need to avoid emotional stress; Rh factor compatibility: when the inherited blood types of the mother and fetus differ, occurrence relies on maternal age and previous births
Stages of childbirth:
1. dilation and effacement of the cervix (hours)
2. birth of the baby (20 – 50 mins)
3. delivery of the placenta
- cerebral palsy: impairments in muscle coordination that result from brain damage before, during, or just after birth
- infant mortality: an index used around the world to assess the overall health of a nation’s children. It refers to the number of deaths in the first year of life per 1,000 lie births
- newborn reflexes: inborn responses to a particular form of stimulation
- moro reflex: arch back, extend arms out and back, helps cling to mother
- states of arousal: degrees of sleep and wakefulness
- babies spend about 50% of sleep in REM mode; adults about 20%
- babies communicate through crying
- Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS): unexpected death, usually during the night of an infant under 1 yr of age and remains unexplained; may be from smoking in household or genetically weak
- Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale: looks at the baby’s reflexes, state changes, responsiveness to physical and social stimuli and other reactions
CHAPTER 5: Cognitive Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood
Piaget’s Cognitive Developmental Theory
• Piaget believed that infants and toddlers “think” with their eyes, ears, hands and other sensorimotor equipment. They cannot carry out many activities inside their heads
• Schemes: a specific structure, or organized way of making sense of experience, that changes with age.
• Two process account for change in schemes: adaptation and organization.
o Adaptation: the process of building schemes through direct interaction with the environment. Made up of two complimentary processes- assimilation and accommodation.
Assimilation: the part of adaptation in which the external world is interpreted in terms of current schemes.
Accommodation: the part of adaptation in which new schemes are created and old ones adjusted to produce a better fit with the environment.
A state of equilibrium occurs when children are in a steady comfortable condition- they assimilate more than accommodate.
They are in a state of disequilibrium when there is rapid cognitive change, and new info does not match current schemes- move away from assimilation toward accommodation.
o Organization: the internal rearrangement and linking together of schemes so that they form a strongly interconnected cognitive system. In information processing, the memory strategy of grouping together related items. Ex. Relating dropping to throwing
• Circular reaction: a means of building schemes in which infants try to repeat chance events caused by their own motor activity
o Circular reaction changes. First it centers around infants own body, then toward manipulation of objects, and then it becomes experimental and creative, aimed at producing novel effects in the environment.
Piaget’s Six Sensorimotor Substages
1. Reflexive schemes (birth-1month) - new born reflexes, babies suck, grasp, and look in much the same way, no matter what experiences they encounter.
2. Primary circular reaction (1-4months) - they start to gain voluntary control over their action, repeat chance bxs largely motivated by basic needs. Ex. Suck on fist, change the way they open their mouths
3. Secondary circular reaction (4-8months) – infants sit up and reach for and manipulate objects, they try to repeat events caused by their own actions
4. Coordination of secondary circular reactions (8-12months) – Intentional or goal directed behavior which is coordinating schemes deliberately to solve simple problems. Object permanence, the understanding that objects continue to exist when out of sight. Also, infants anticipate events or imitate bxs.
5. Tertiary circular reaction (12-18months) - repeat bxs with variation, provoking new results. They are better problem solvers.
6. Mental representation (18-24months) – internal depictions of information that the mind can manipulate. 1) Images, or mental pictures of objects, people and spaces and 2) concepts, or categories in which similar objects or events are grouped together. Deferred imitation- the ability to remember and copy the bx of model who are not present. Make-believe play- children act out everyday and imaginary activities.
• Violation of expectation method: a method in which researchers habituate infants to a physical event and then determine whether they recover to look longer at a possible event (a variation of the first event that conforms to physical laws) or an impossible event (a variation that violates physical laws). Recovery to the impossible event suggests that the infant is surprised at a deviation from reality and is aware of that aspect of the physical world. This suggests that infants display bxs earlier than Piaget believed.
• Core knowledge perspective: babies are born with a set of innate knowledge systems, or core domains of thought. Each of these prewired understandings permits a ready grasp of new, related information and therefore supports early, rapid development.
• Physical knowledge- includes object permanence, object solidity ( that one object cannot move through another object), and gravity (that an object will fall without support).
• Numerical knowledge – ability to distinguish small quantities
• Linguistic knowledge- etched into the structure of the human brain
• Psychological knowledge- understanding of mental states such as intentions, emotions, desires, and beliefs
Information Processing
• Researchers assume that we hold information in three parts of the mental system: the sensory register, working or short term memory, and long term memory.
• Mental strategies- procedures that operate on and transform info, increasing the chances that we will retain information and use it efficiently
• Sensory register- part of the mental system in which sights and sounds are held briefly before they decay or are transferred to working, or short term memory
• Working or Short term memory- the conscious part of the mental system, where we actively work on a limited amount of information to ensure that it will be retained
• Central executive- the conscious part of the working memory that directs the flow of information through the mental system by deciding what to attend to, coordinating incoming information with information already in the system, and selecting, applying, and monitoring strategies
• Long term memory- part of the mental system that contains our permanent knowledge base
• Attention: During the first year, infants attend to novel and eye-catching events. With toddlerhood children become increasingly capable of intentional bx. Attraction to novelty declines and sustained attention improves.
• Memory: As children get older their ability to remember things increases.
• Recognition: noticing when a stimulus is identical or similar to one previously experienced
• Recall: more challenging because it involves remembering something in absence of perceptual support. To recall, you must generate a mental image of the past experience.
• Categorization: As infants remember more info they store it in orderly fashion such as shape, size, food items, furniture, animals, vehicles, etc.
• Early categories Perceptual – based on similar overall appearance or prominent object part, such as legs for animals and wheels for cars.
• By the end of first year conceptual- based on common function and bx.
The Social Context of Early Cognitive Development
• Zone of proximal development (concept of Vygotsky): a range of tasks that the child cannot yet handle alone but can do with the help of more skilled partners.
• The adult provides guidance and support, then the child joins in the interaction and picks up mental strategies increasing competence. Adult steps back and lets the child acquire more responsibility. Cultural variations and social experience affects mental strategies.
Individual Differences in Early Mental Development
• Infant Intelligence Tests
• Hard to measure because they cannot answer questions or follow directions
• Predict later performance poorly, because they get distracted and become irritable therefore their true abilities cannot be accurately measured
• Development quotient: a score on an infant intelligence test based on perceptual and motor responses
• Early Environment and Mental Development
• Childcare is common and has an impact on mental development.
• Early Intervention for At-Risk Infants and Toddlers
• Children living in poverty are likely to show declines in IQ due to stressful home environment.
• Interventions include center based where children attend and organized childcare program or preschool program and receive nutritional, educational, and health services.
Language Development
• Three theories of language development
1. The Behaviorist Perspective
- Skinner proposed that language is acquired through operant conditioning.
- Parents reinforce babies words with smiles and hugs.
- Children also rely on imitation to acquire complex utterances such as words and phrases
- Con- young children repeat utterances that they have never heard before. Reinforcement and imitation are best viewed as support
2. The Nativist Perspective
- Chomsky proposed that a child’s amazing language skill is etched into the structure of the human brain.
- All children are born with language acquisition: an innate system that contains a set of rules common to all languages. It permits children, no matter which language they hear, to understand and speak in a rule-oriented fashion as soon as they pick up enough words.
- Studies of isolated and abused children who experienced little human contact in childhood reveal lasting deficits in language, especially grammar and communication skills- evidence indicating that childhood is a sensitive period of language learning.
- Con- Partial account for language; difficulty id. Single system of grammar that Chomsky believes underlies all languages; mastering sentence construction is a gradual process not immediate.
3. The Interactionist Perspective
- Interactions between inner capacities and environmental influences
- Native capacity, a strong desire to interact with others, and a rich language and social environment combine to help children build a communicative system.
- Overall, biology, cognition, and social experience operate differently with respect to various aspects of language.
• Getting ready to talk
• Cooing and Babbling: around 2 months, babies begin to make vowel like noises called cooing because of their pleasant “oo” quality. Gradually, consonants are added and around 4 months babbling appears, in which infants repeat consonant vowel combinations in long strings.
• Babbling seems to develop because of maturation, but to further babies must hear human speech. Delayed for hearing impaired and deaf children
• Underextension: an early vocabulary error in which a word is applied too narrowly, to a smaller number of objects and events and events that is appropriate.
• Overextension: an early vocabulary error in which a word is applied to broadly, to a wider collection of objects and events than is appropriate. Illustrates the distinction between language production and language comprehension
• Telegraphic Speech: toddlers’ two word utterances that, like a telegram, leave out smaller and less important words
• Referential Style: a style of early language learning in which toddlers produce many words that refer to objects. They use language mainly to name things.
• Expressive Style: a style of early language learning in which toddlers frequently produce pronouns and social formulas, such as stop it, than you, and I want it. They use language mainly to talk about the feelings and needs of themselves and other people.
• Child directed speech: combinations of parenting bxs that occur in a wide range of situations, thereby creating an enduring child rearing climate
CHAPTER 6: Emotional & Social Development in Infancy & Toddlerhood
Erikson's Stages:
- Basic Trust vs. Mistrust: Freud called it the oral stage; a healthy outcome depends on the quality of the caregiver's behavior during this feeding stage
- Autonomy vs. Shame & Doubt: Freud called the anal stage; healthy when parents provide young children with suitable guidance and reasonable choices and let them be more independent
Basic Emotions:
- are universal in humans and other primates and have a long evolutionary history of promoting survival, and can be directly inferred from facial expressions. They include happiness, interest, surprise, fear, anger, sadness, and disgust
- 3 basic emotions have received the most research:
- Happiness: between 6 to 10 wks babies develop a broad grin called the social smile; 3 to 4 mths laughter occurs
- Anger and Fear: 6 to 8 mths anger & fear appear; stranger anxiety; survival mechanism
Emotional Development
Temperament: (Thomas & Chess) NOTE: 35% of children don’t fall into any category
1. Easy child (40%) quickly establishes regular routines, cheerful, adapts easily
2. Difficult child (10%) is irregular and slow to accept new experiences, tends to react negatively and intensely.
a. Sparked most interest. High risk for infants for adjustment problems, anxious and withdrawal types of bx, and aggression seen more in this temperament style.
3. Slow to warm-up (15%) inactive, show mild, low key reactions to environmental stimuli, negative mood, and adjust slowly to new experiences.
a. Don’t present many problems in early years. Tend to show excessive fearfulness and slow constricted bx in late preschool years.
Traits studied in temperament research: activity level, distractibility, approach/withdrawal, attention span, intensity of reactions, responsiveness, mood, affect. Etc.
Also: inhibited or shy child, uninhibited or social child
Temperament is thought to be fairly stable over time.
Goodness of Fit model: explains how temperament and environment can together produce favorable outcomes. Goodness of fit involves creating child-rearing environments that recognize each child’s temp while encourage more adaptive functioning (184)
Exchange of Emotions: Emotions play a powerful role in organizing the attainments that Erikson regarded as so important: Social relationships, exploration of the environment, and discovery of the self. (p. 175)
Development of Attachment: Defined: Attachment is the strong, affectional ties we have with special people in our lives that lead us to experience pleasure and joy when we interact with them and to be comforted by their nearness during times of stress (185).
• Freud Psychoanalytic: Feeding as primary context for forming attachments
• Erikson Neo-Freudian: Emphasizes comfort contact while feeding, caresses, warm smiles, tender words
• Harlow: Behaviorism: Drive-reduction explanation of attachment. Contact comfort. Can explain why infants attach to more than one person and even to a blanket.
• Lorenz Ethological: Emotional tie as survival mechanism. Infants endowed with built-in bx that protect and provide for infant. Imprinting with the baby geese
• Bowbly Ethological: Set of innate signals baby sends to adult. True affection develops over time. Bowbly says that out of these 4 stages children construct an enduring affection for caregivers. This serves as an internal working model for expectations and availability of attachment figures in times of stress. And guides future relationships.
Bowbly’s FOUR Phases:
1. Pre-attachment: birth to 6 wks
a. signals: crying, smiling, grasping, gazing
2. Attachment in the making: (6wks – 6-8 mos)
a. develop sense of trust
3. clear-cut attachment: (6-8 mos – 18-2yrs)
a. display separation anxiety, Use parent as secure base
4. Formation of reciprocal rlshp: (18 mos – 2 yrs and on)
a. Rapid growth in representation and language increases
understanding between toddler and parent.
SEE Attached for full strange situation practice exercises! Strange Situation: Ainsworth (1978)
Things that effect attachment in children: Pg 188-194
Does the baby have an opportunity to attach to a caregiver? “Institutionalized babies” left between ages 3-12 months at an orphanage: wept and withdrew from surroundings, lost weight, and had difficulty sleeping. Also showed emotional difficulties/depression. Later displayed emotional and social problems: excessive desire for adult attention and affection, over friendly to strangers, had few friendships.
Sensitive Care giving: responding promptly, consistently, and appropriately to infants.
Interactional synchrony: separated securely attached from insecurely attached infants. Best described as a sensitively tuned “emotional dance” in which caregiver responds to infant signals in a well-timed, appropriate fashion. Baby & Mother “match” emotional states, especially the positive ones. Laughing, smiling, etc.
• Quality of attachment is usually stable for middle SES children.
• Some insecurely attached infants will move into secure attachments if parents are positive and have good support in place
• Securely attached babies maintain their attachment more often than do insecurely attached infants.
• Longitudinal study found that preschool teachers viewed children who were securely attached as having high self esteem, socially competent, cooperative, and popular.
o Viewed avoidant attached: isolated, disconnected
o Resistant attached: disruptive and difficult.
o Findings may indicate that securely attached improves cognitive, emotional and social competence in later years, but more evidence is needed.
DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY
Chapter 1: History, Theory, & Research Strategies
Human development: a field of study devoted to understanding constancy and change throughout the lifespan
Theory: an orderly, integrated set of statements that describes, explains, and predicts behavior (D.E.P.)
Two Basic Issues in HD:
Continuous Development: a process of gradually augmenting the same types of skills that were there to begin with.
- the difference between immature and mature being is simply one of amount or capacity
- change is gradual and ongoing
Discontinuous Development: a process in which new and different ways of interpreting and responding to the world emerge at particular time periods
- infants and children have unique ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving—quite
different than adults
- development is in stages: qualitative changes in thinking, feeling and behaving that
characterize specific periods of a development (ex: climbing a staircase)
- change is sudden
Lifespan perspective: a complex vision of change and the factors that underlie it
Four assumptions of development:
1) Lifelong- no age period is supreme in its impact on the life course
2) Multidimensional: affected by an intricate blend of biological, psychological, and social forces
-multidirectional: growth and decline
3) Plastic- a metamorphosis with continued potential
4) Embedded in multiple contexts-
-Age-graded influence: events that are strongly related to age and therefore fairly predictable in when they occur and how long they last
-History-graded influences: explain why people born around the same time—called a cohort—tend to be alike in ways that set them apart from people born at other times
-Nonnormative influences: events that are irregular, in that they happen to just one or a few people and do not follow a predictable timetable; nonnormative influences have become more powerful & age-graded influences less so in contemporary adult development
3 DOMAINS OF DEVELOPMENT:
Physical Development: changes in body size, proportions, appearance, functioning of body systems, perceptual and motor capacities, and physical health.
Cognitive Development: changes in intellectual abilities, including attention, memory, academic and everyday knowledge, problem solving, imagination, creativity, and language.
Emotional & Social Development: changes in emotional communication, self-understanding, knowledge about other people, interpersonal skills, friendships, intimate relationships, and moral reasoning and behavior.
Major Periods of Human Development
Period Age Range Description
Prenatal Conception-birth The one-celled organism transforms into a human baby with remarkable capacities to adjust to life outside the womb.
Infancy & Toddlerhood Birth-2 years Dramatic changes in the body and brain support emergence of a wide array of motor, perceptual, and intellectual capacities and first intimate ties to others.
Early Childhood 2-6 years The play years, in which motor skills are refined, thought and language expand at an astounding pace, a sense of morality is evident, and children begin to establish ties to peers.
Middle Childhood 6-11 years The school years, marked by advances in athletic abilities; logical thought processes; basic literacy skills; understanding of self, morality, and friendship; and peer-group membership.
Adolescence 11-20 years Puberty leads to an adult-size body and sexual maturity. Thought become abstract and idealistic and school achievement more serious. Adolescents focus on defining personal values and goals and establishing autonomy from the family.
Early Adulthood 20-40 years Most young people leave home, complete their education, and begin full-time work. Major concerns are developing a career; forming an intimate partnership; and marrying, rearing children, or establishing other lifestyles.
Middle Adulthood 40-60 years Many people are at the height of their careers and attain leadership positions. They must also help their children begin independent lives and their parents adapt to aging. They become more aware of their own mortality.
Late Adulthood 60 years-death People adjust to retirement, to decreased physical strength and health, and often to the death of a spouse. They reflect on the meaning of their lives.
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Historical Foundations
Preformationism: in medieval Europe, once children emerged from infancy, they were regarded as miniature, already-formed adults—no philosophies of the uniqueness of childhood or separate developmental periods
-Puritan beliefs tried to promote reason in their sons and daughters so they could tell right from wrong and resist temptation
John Locke: British philosopher, forerunner of behaviorism
-tabula rasa: “blank slate”—children are, to begin with, nothing at all, and all kinds of experiences can shape their characters
-parents can mold the child in any way they wish through careful instruction, effective example, and rewards for good behavior
-led change from harshness toward children to kindness and compassion
-believed in continuous development, nurture (the power of the environment to shape the child), children are passive in the development
Jean Jacques Rousseau: French philosopher, child-centered philosophy
-noble savages: children were naturally endowed with a sense of right and wrong and with an innate plan for orderly, healthy growth
-maturation: refers to a genetically determined, naturally unfolding course of growth
-believed in discontinuous development, a stagewise process that follows a single, unified course mapped out by nature
Charles Darwin: the forefather of scientific child study
-began by studying plant and animal species
-theory of evolution; natural selection & survival of the fittest
G. Stanley Hall: founder of the child study movement Arnold Gesell
-normative approach: measures of behavior are taken on large numbers of individuals, and age-related averages are computed to represent typical development
Alfred Binet: first practical intelligence tests; used normative data
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The Psychoanalytic Perspective:
-people move through a series of stages in which they confront conflicts between biological drives and social expectations. The way these conflicts are resolved determines the individual’s ability to learn, to get along with others, and to cope with anxiety.
Sigmund Freud:
-psychosexual theory: emphasized that how parents managed their child’s sexual and aggressive drives in the first few years is crucial for healthy personality development.
-id (largest part-source of basic biological needs and desires), ego (conscious rational part), superego (conscience-moral reasoning)
Freud’s Psychosexual Stages (Discontinuous)
Stage Period Description
Oral Birth-1 year The new ego directs the baby’s sucking toward breast or bottle. If oral needs are not met, may develop such habits as thumb sucking, fingernail biting, and pencil chewing in childhood and overeating and smoking in later life.
Anal 1-3 years Enjoy holding and releasing urine and feces. Toilet training becomes a major issue between parent and child. If parents insist that children be trained before they are ready or make too few demands, conflicts about anal control may appear in the form of extreme orderliness and cleanliness or messiness and disorder.
Phallic 3-6 years Id impulses transfer to the genitals, and the child finds pleasure in genital stimulation. Oedipus conflict for boys and Electra conflict for girls—the young child feels a sexual desire for the other-sex parent. To avoid punishment, they give up the desire and, instead, adopt the same-sex parent’s characteristics and values. As a result, the superego is formed, and children feel guilty each time they violate its standards. The relations among id, ego, and superego established at this time determine the individual’s basic personality.
Latency 6-11 years Sexual instincts die down, and the superego further develops. The child acquires new social values from adults outside the family and from play with same-sex peers.
Genital Adolescence Puberty causes the sexual impulses of the phallic stage to reappear. If development has been successful during earlier stages, it leads to marriage, mature sexuality, and the birth and rearing of children.
Erik Erikson:
-psychosocial theory: the ego does not just mediate between id impulses and superego demands. At each stage, it acquires attitudes and skills that make the individual an active, contributing member of society.
-child rearing can be understood only by making reference to the competencies valued and needed by the individual’s society.
Erikson’s Psychosocial Stages (Discontinuous)
Stage Period Description
Basic trust vs mistrust (Oral) Birth-1 year From warm responsive care, infants gain a sense of trust or confidence that the world is good. Mistrust occurs when infants have to wait too long for comfort and or handled harshly.
Autonomy vs shame and doubt (Anal) 1-3 years Using new mental and motor skills children want to choose and decide for themselves. Autonomy is fostered when parents permit reasonable free choice and do not force or shame the child.
Initiative vs guilt (Phallic) 3-6 years Through make-believe play children experiment with the kind of person they can become. Initiative- a sense of ambition or responsibility- develops when parents support their child’s new sense of purpose. The danger is that parents will demand too much self-control, which leads to over-control, meaning too much guilt.
Industry vs diffusion (Latency) 6-11 years At school, children develop the capacity to work and cooperate with others. Inferiority develops when negative experiences at home, at school, or with peers leads to feelings of incompetence.
Identity vs identity confusion (Genital) Adolscence The adolescent tries to answer the question “Who am I? and What is my place in society?” Self-chosen values and vocational goals lead to lasting personal identity. The negative outcome is confusion about future adult roles.
Intimacy vs isolation Young adulthood Young people work on establishing intimate ties to others. Because of earlier disappointments, some individuals cannot form close relationship and remain isolated.
Generativity vs stagnation Middle adulthood Generativity means giving to the next generation through child rearing, caring for other people, or productive work. The person who fails in these ways feels an absence of meaningful accomplishment.
Ego integrity vs despair Old age In this final stage, individuals reflect on the kind of person they have been. Integrity results from feeling that life was worth living as it happened. Older people who are dissatisfied with their life fear death.
Behaviorism and Social Learning Theory:
-Behaviorism: directly observable events—stimuli and responses
-John Watson & little Albert
-classical conditioning (Pavlov) & operant conditioning (BF Skinner)
-Social learning theory: (Bandura) emphasized modeling, (imitation or observational learning), as a powerful source of development (dev. is continuous)
-children acquire many favorable and unfavorable responses simply by watching and listening to others around them
-Behavior modification: procedures that combine conditioning and modeling to eliminate undesirable behaviors and increase desirable responses
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Piaget’s Cognitive-Developmental Theory:
-Cognitive-developmental theory: children actively construct knowledge as they manipulate and explore their world
-adaptation--structures of the mind are adapted to fit with, or represent, the external world
Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development (Discontinuous)
Stage Period Description
Sensorimotor Birth-2 years Infants “think” by acting on the world with their eyes, ears, hands, and mouth. As a result, they invent ways of solving sensorimotor problems, such as pulling a lever to hear the sound of a music box, finding hidden toys and putting objects in and taking them out of containers.
Preoperational 2-7 years Preschool children use symbols to represent their earlier sensorimotor discoveries. The development of language and make-believe play takes place. However, thinking lacks the logical qualities of the two remaining stages.
Concrete operational 7-11 years Children’s reasoning becomes logical. School-age children understand that a certain amount of lemonade or play-dough remains the same even after its appearance changes. They also organize objects into hierarchies of classes and subclasses. However, thinking falls short of adult intelligence. It is not yet abstract.
Formal operational 11 years on The capacity for abstraction permits adolescents to reason with symbols that do not refer to objects in the real world, as in advance mathematics. They can also think of all possible outcomes in a significant problem, not just the most obvious ones.
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Information Processing:
-the human mind is viewed as a symbol-manipulating system through which information flows
-information is actively coded, transformed, and organized
-regards people as active, sense-making beings BUT no stages of development
-thought process include: perception, attention, memory, planning strategies, categorization of information, and comprehension of written and spoken prose—similar at all ages but present to a lesser or greater extent (continuous)
Ethology and Evolutionary Developmental Psychology:
-Ethology: concerned with the adaptive, or survival, value of behavior and its evolutionary history
-imprinting (the early following behavior of some animals), critical period (limited time span during which the individual is biologically prepared to acquire certain adaptive behaviors)
-sensitive period: time that is optimal for certain capacities to emerge and in which the individual is especially responsive to environmental influences—boundaries are less defined than critical period
Evolutionary developmental psychology: seeks to understand the adaptive value of species-wide cognitive, emotional, and social competencies as those competencies change with age; sees development as discontinuous and continuous.
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Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory:
-examines the relationship of culturally specific practices to development—it focuses on how culture (the values, beliefs, customs, and skills of a social group) is transmitted to the next generation.
-Social interaction (cooperative dialogues with more knowledgeable members of society) is necessary for children to acquire the ways of thinking and behaving that make up a community’s culture
-cognitive development is a socially mediated process
- sees development as discontinuous and continuous
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Ecological systems theory:(Bronfenbrenner)
(this approach is not specified whether continuous or discontinuous)
-views the person as developing within a complex system of relationships affected by multiple levels of the surrounding environment
--a child’s biological dispositions join the environmental forces to mold development
--The environment has various layers:
**Microsystem: the innermost level of the environment
--consists of activities and interaction patterns in the person’s immediate surroundings
--all relationships are bidirectional
--ex: immediate family, day care or school, neighborhood, church
**Mesosystem: second level
--encompasses connections between Microsystems
--ex: parent support influences school performance and behavior
**Exosystem: social settings that do not contain the developing person but nevertheless affect experiences in immediate settings
--ex: extended family members, friends and neighbors, workplace, health services
**Macrosystem: outermost level
--not a specific context
--consists of cultural values, laws, customs, and resources
CHAPTER 2: Biological and Environmental Foundations
- phenotypes: direct observable characteristics of a person (height, weight, etc.)
- genotype: complex blend of genetic info that determines our species and influences all of our unique characteristics
- we are all made up of several cells; each cell has a control center called a nucleus
- inside each nucleus are rodlike structures called chromosomes which store and transmit genetic information; chromosomes are made up of a chemical substance called deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA)
- a gene is a segment of DNA along the length of the chromosome
- gametes: sex cells (sperm & ovum) they contain only 23 chromosomes
- gametes are formed through a process called meiosis, which ensures a constant quantity of genetic material is transmitted from one generation to the next
- zygote: when sperm ad ovum unite making the chromosomes
- 22 of the 23 pairs of chromosomes are matching called autosomes; the 23rd pair consists of sex chromosomes (Females are XX; Males are XY)
- fraternal twins are diyzygotic; the fertilization of two ova; identical twins are monozygotic; they have the same genetic make-up because the cluster of cells splits
- homozygous: if the genes from both parents are alike
- heterozygous: relationship between the genes determine the trait that will appear
- incomplete dominance: when the dominant doesn’t take over when it is supposed to
- dominant-recessive inheritance: (in heterozygous pairs) only one gene affects the child’s characteristics
- carriers: parents can pass the recessive gene to their children (under stress they can experience sxs)
- codominance: a pattern of inheritance in which both genes influence the person’s characteristics (when both experience themselves like AB Blood type)
- X-linked inheritance: when a harmful recessive gene is carried on the X chromosome, males are more likely affected because their sex chromosomes don’t match
- Genetic imprinting: genes are imprinted or chemically marked, in such a way that one member of the pair (either the mother’s or the father’s) is activated, regardless of its makeup
- mutation: a sudden but permanent change in a segment of DNA
- polygenic inheritance: traits like height, weight, intelligence and personality, many genes determine these
- most chromosome abnormalities result from mistakes during meiosis (most diseases from recessive genes)
- down syndrome: most common 1 out of 800 births; result of the 21st pair of chromosomes not separating at meiosis; sxs include: mental retardation, memory, speech problems, limited vocabulary & slow motor development
- adding or subtracting the usual number of X chromosomes results in particular intellectual deficits
- genetic counseling: a communication process designed to help couples assess their chances of giving birth to a baby with a hereditary disorder and chose the best course of action in views of risks and family goals, they prepare a pedigree, which gives a picture of the family tree and which relatives are affected
- prenatal diagnostic methods: medical procedures that permit detection of problems before birth (e.g. amniocentesis, chorionic villus sampling)
- over 90% of pregnancies in the U.S. result in the birth of healthy infants w/ a good change of life free of genetic disease
- genetic testing: concerns of letting people know they can become ill and have no methods of fixing it can be cruel
Environmental Contexts:
- direct influences: the behavior of one family member helps sustain a form of interaction in the other that either promotes or undermines psychology well-being
- indirect influences: the effects of 3rd parties
- adapting to change: a lot of changes in families like new job, birth of a child, grandparent moving in, etc.
- socioeconomic status: researchers use this to asses a family’s status (1) years of education; (2) prestige and skill required by one’s job, both which measure social status, and (3) income, which measures economic status
- impact of poverty: 1) development is threatened; 2) U.S. has higher % of extremely poor children
Beyond the Family:
- neighborhoods: have more of an impact on economically disadvantaged than well-to-do young people (less dependency)
- towns & cities: more active role in the community if the town is smaller
- cultural context: cultures shape family interaction and community settings beyond the home
- subcultures: groups of people w/ beliefs and customs that differ from those of the larger culture
- extended family households: 3 or more generations live together; collectivism vs. individualism
- more public policies exist for elders than for children
- heritability estimates: measure the extent to which individual differences in complex traits, such as intelligence and personality, in a specific population are due to genetic factors
- concordance rates: % of instances in which both twins show a trait when it is present in one twin
- Kinship studies: compare characteristics of family members (most common among identical twin studies)
- used to infer the role of heredity in complex human characteristics
- epigenesis: means development resulting from ongoing, bidirectional exchanges between heredity and all levels of the environment
Limitations of Heritability & Concordance:
1. doesn’t account for places where environmental factors are very similar leaving the differences between intelligence and more genetic in nature and vice versa
2. the accuracy of these rates depend on the extent to which the twin pairs used reflect genetic and environment variation in the population
3. they can be misapplied
4. they give us no precise information about how intelligence and personality develop or how individuals might respond to environments designed to help develop as far as possible
CHAPTER 3: Prenatal Development, Birth & the Newborn Baby:
- conception: every 28 days an ovum burst from ovaries through one of the fallopian tubes; as it travels its called the corpus luteum; if it doesn’t fertilize then the uterus lining is discarded 2 wks later
Pregnancy is in 3 phases:
Phase One:
- zygote: abt 2 wks; from fertilization until the tiny mass of cells drifts down and out of the fallopian tubes and attaches to the wall of the uterus (called a blastocyst)
- implantation occurs between the 7th and 9th day after fertilization
- amnion: encloses the developing organism in amniotic fluid, which helps keep the temperature constant and protect like cushion from mother’s movements
- chorion: this surrounds the amnion, from the chorion tiny fingerlike ville or blood vessels begin to emerge as the ville dig in to the uteran wall; the placenta develops, it permits food and oxygen to reach the baby
- umbilical cord: contains one large vein that delivers blood loaded w/ nutrients & 2 arteries that remove waste products
Phase Two:
- embryo: 2nd through 8th week of pregnancy; most rapid changes groundwork laid for all body structures and internal organs
Forms 3 layers of cells:
- ectoderm: nervous system and skin
- mesoderm: develop the muscles, skeleton, circulatory system & other internal organs
- endoderm: becomes the digestive system, lungs, urinary tract and glands
Phase Three:
- fetus: “growth and finishing” phase; 9th week until end of pregnancy
- everything becomes organized and connected; the fetus kicks and moves
- prenatal development is sometimes divided into 3 trimesters (1st trimester from conception to 12 wks)
- 2nd trimester: mother can feel movements; a white, cheeselike substance called vernix develops to protects its skin from chapping during the long months spent bathing in the amniotic fluid; white downy hair called lanugo also appears over the entire body, helping the vernix stick to the skin; at the end of the 2nd trimester most of the brain’s neurons (nerve cells that store and transmit information) are in place
- 3rd trimester: during this time the fetus has a chance of surviving outside the womb referred to as the age of viability; the cerebral cortex enlarges; neurological organization improves; fetus takes on the beginnings of a personality
- teratogen: refers to any environmental agent that causes damage during the prenatal period (depends on factors such as: dose, heredity, other negative influences and age)
- Outside influences:
Prescription drugs
Non-prescription drugs
Tobacco
Alcohol
Crack, heroine and cocaine
- Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS): mental retardation, impaired motor coordination, attention, memory and language w/ physical abnormalities (widely spaced eyes, thin upper lip; short eyelid openings)
- Fetal Alcohol Effects (FAE): some abnormalities but not all (meant mom drank less)
- Other teratogens: radiation; environmental pollution; infectious disease call all cause defects or abnormalities
- Other maternal factors: nutrition: healthy weight gain for mom would be 25 to 30 lbs; need to avoid emotional stress; Rh factor compatibility: when the inherited blood types of the mother and fetus differ, occurrence relies on maternal age and previous births
Stages of childbirth:
1. dilation and effacement of the cervix (hours)
2. birth of the baby (20 – 50 mins)
3. delivery of the placenta
- cerebral palsy: impairments in muscle coordination that result from brain damage before, during, or just after birth
- infant mortality: an index used around the world to assess the overall health of a nation’s children. It refers to the number of deaths in the first year of life per 1,000 lie births
- newborn reflexes: inborn responses to a particular form of stimulation
- moro reflex: arch back, extend arms out and back, helps cling to mother
- states of arousal: degrees of sleep and wakefulness
- babies spend about 50% of sleep in REM mode; adults about 20%
- babies communicate through crying
- Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS): unexpected death, usually during the night of an infant under 1 yr of age and remains unexplained; may be from smoking in household or genetically weak
- Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale: looks at the baby’s reflexes, state changes, responsiveness to physical and social stimuli and other reactions
CHAPTER 5: Cognitive Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood
Piaget’s Cognitive Developmental Theory
• Piaget believed that infants and toddlers “think” with their eyes, ears, hands and other sensorimotor equipment. They cannot carry out many activities inside their heads
• Schemes: a specific structure, or organized way of making sense of experience, that changes with age.
• Two process account for change in schemes: adaptation and organization.
o Adaptation: the process of building schemes through direct interaction with the environment. Made up of two complimentary processes- assimilation and accommodation.
Assimilation: the part of adaptation in which the external world is interpreted in terms of current schemes.
Accommodation: the part of adaptation in which new schemes are created and old ones adjusted to produce a better fit with the environment.
A state of equilibrium occurs when children are in a steady comfortable condition- they assimilate more than accommodate.
They are in a state of disequilibrium when there is rapid cognitive change, and new info does not match current schemes- move away from assimilation toward accommodation.
o Organization: the internal rearrangement and linking together of schemes so that they form a strongly interconnected cognitive system. In information processing, the memory strategy of grouping together related items. Ex. Relating dropping to throwing
• Circular reaction: a means of building schemes in which infants try to repeat chance events caused by their own motor activity
o Circular reaction changes. First it centers around infants own body, then toward manipulation of objects, and then it becomes experimental and creative, aimed at producing novel effects in the environment.
Piaget’s Six Sensorimotor Substages
1. Reflexive schemes (birth-1month) - new born reflexes, babies suck, grasp, and look in much the same way, no matter what experiences they encounter.
2. Primary circular reaction (1-4months) - they start to gain voluntary control over their action, repeat chance bxs largely motivated by basic needs. Ex. Suck on fist, change the way they open their mouths
3. Secondary circular reaction (4-8months) – infants sit up and reach for and manipulate objects, they try to repeat events caused by their own actions
4. Coordination of secondary circular reactions (8-12months) – Intentional or goal directed behavior which is coordinating schemes deliberately to solve simple problems. Object permanence, the understanding that objects continue to exist when out of sight. Also, infants anticipate events or imitate bxs.
5. Tertiary circular reaction (12-18months) - repeat bxs with variation, provoking new results. They are better problem solvers.
6. Mental representation (18-24months) – internal depictions of information that the mind can manipulate. 1) Images, or mental pictures of objects, people and spaces and 2) concepts, or categories in which similar objects or events are grouped together. Deferred imitation- the ability to remember and copy the bx of model who are not present. Make-believe play- children act out everyday and imaginary activities.
• Violation of expectation method: a method in which researchers habituate infants to a physical event and then determine whether they recover to look longer at a possible event (a variation of the first event that conforms to physical laws) or an impossible event (a variation that violates physical laws). Recovery to the impossible event suggests that the infant is surprised at a deviation from reality and is aware of that aspect of the physical world. This suggests that infants display bxs earlier than Piaget believed.
• Core knowledge perspective: babies are born with a set of innate knowledge systems, or core domains of thought. Each of these prewired understandings permits a ready grasp of new, related information and therefore supports early, rapid development.
• Physical knowledge- includes object permanence, object solidity ( that one object cannot move through another object), and gravity (that an object will fall without support).
• Numerical knowledge – ability to distinguish small quantities
• Linguistic knowledge- etched into the structure of the human brain
• Psychological knowledge- understanding of mental states such as intentions, emotions, desires, and beliefs
Information Processing
• Researchers assume that we hold information in three parts of the mental system: the sensory register, working or short term memory, and long term memory.
• Mental strategies- procedures that operate on and transform info, increasing the chances that we will retain information and use it efficiently
• Sensory register- part of the mental system in which sights and sounds are held briefly before they decay or are transferred to working, or short term memory
• Working or Short term memory- the conscious part of the mental system, where we actively work on a limited amount of information to ensure that it will be retained
• Central executive- the conscious part of the working memory that directs the flow of information through the mental system by deciding what to attend to, coordinating incoming information with information already in the system, and selecting, applying, and monitoring strategies
• Long term memory- part of the mental system that contains our permanent knowledge base
• Attention: During the first year, infants attend to novel and eye-catching events. With toddlerhood children become increasingly capable of intentional bx. Attraction to novelty declines and sustained attention improves.
• Memory: As children get older their ability to remember things increases.
• Recognition: noticing when a stimulus is identical or similar to one previously experienced
• Recall: more challenging because it involves remembering something in absence of perceptual support. To recall, you must generate a mental image of the past experience.
• Categorization: As infants remember more info they store it in orderly fashion such as shape, size, food items, furniture, animals, vehicles, etc.
• Early categories Perceptual – based on similar overall appearance or prominent object part, such as legs for animals and wheels for cars.
• By the end of first year conceptual- based on common function and bx.
The Social Context of Early Cognitive Development
• Zone of proximal development (concept of Vygotsky): a range of tasks that the child cannot yet handle alone but can do with the help of more skilled partners.
• The adult provides guidance and support, then the child joins in the interaction and picks up mental strategies increasing competence. Adult steps back and lets the child acquire more responsibility. Cultural variations and social experience affects mental strategies.
Individual Differences in Early Mental Development
• Infant Intelligence Tests
• Hard to measure because they cannot answer questions or follow directions
• Predict later performance poorly, because they get distracted and become irritable therefore their true abilities cannot be accurately measured
• Development quotient: a score on an infant intelligence test based on perceptual and motor responses
• Early Environment and Mental Development
• Childcare is common and has an impact on mental development.
• Early Intervention for At-Risk Infants and Toddlers
• Children living in poverty are likely to show declines in IQ due to stressful home environment.
• Interventions include center based where children attend and organized childcare program or preschool program and receive nutritional, educational, and health services.
Language Development
• Three theories of language development
1. The Behaviorist Perspective
- Skinner proposed that language is acquired through operant conditioning.
- Parents reinforce babies words with smiles and hugs.
- Children also rely on imitation to acquire complex utterances such as words and phrases
- Con- young children repeat utterances that they have never heard before. Reinforcement and imitation are best viewed as support
2. The Nativist Perspective
- Chomsky proposed that a child’s amazing language skill is etched into the structure of the human brain.
- All children are born with language acquisition: an innate system that contains a set of rules common to all languages. It permits children, no matter which language they hear, to understand and speak in a rule-oriented fashion as soon as they pick up enough words.
- Studies of isolated and abused children who experienced little human contact in childhood reveal lasting deficits in language, especially grammar and communication skills- evidence indicating that childhood is a sensitive period of language learning.
- Con- Partial account for language; difficulty id. Single system of grammar that Chomsky believes underlies all languages; mastering sentence construction is a gradual process not immediate.
3. The Interactionist Perspective
- Interactions between inner capacities and environmental influences
- Native capacity, a strong desire to interact with others, and a rich language and social environment combine to help children build a communicative system.
- Overall, biology, cognition, and social experience operate differently with respect to various aspects of language.
• Getting ready to talk
• Cooing and Babbling: around 2 months, babies begin to make vowel like noises called cooing because of their pleasant “oo” quality. Gradually, consonants are added and around 4 months babbling appears, in which infants repeat consonant vowel combinations in long strings.
• Babbling seems to develop because of maturation, but to further babies must hear human speech. Delayed for hearing impaired and deaf children
• Underextension: an early vocabulary error in which a word is applied too narrowly, to a smaller number of objects and events and events that is appropriate.
• Overextension: an early vocabulary error in which a word is applied to broadly, to a wider collection of objects and events than is appropriate. Illustrates the distinction between language production and language comprehension
• Telegraphic Speech: toddlers’ two word utterances that, like a telegram, leave out smaller and less important words
• Referential Style: a style of early language learning in which toddlers produce many words that refer to objects. They use language mainly to name things.
• Expressive Style: a style of early language learning in which toddlers frequently produce pronouns and social formulas, such as stop it, than you, and I want it. They use language mainly to talk about the feelings and needs of themselves and other people.
• Child directed speech: combinations of parenting bxs that occur in a wide range of situations, thereby creating an enduring child rearing climate
CHAPTER 6: Emotional & Social Development in Infancy & Toddlerhood
Erikson's Stages:
- Basic Trust vs. Mistrust: Freud called it the oral stage; a healthy outcome depends on the quality of the caregiver's behavior during this feeding stage
- Autonomy vs. Shame & Doubt: Freud called the anal stage; healthy when parents provide young children with suitable guidance and reasonable choices and let them be more independent
Basic Emotions:
- are universal in humans and other primates and have a long evolutionary history of promoting survival, and can be directly inferred from facial expressions. They include happiness, interest, surprise, fear, anger, sadness, and disgust
- 3 basic emotions have received the most research:
- Happiness: between 6 to 10 wks babies develop a broad grin called the social smile; 3 to 4 mths laughter occurs
- Anger and Fear: 6 to 8 mths anger & fear appear; stranger anxiety; survival mechanism
Emotional Development
Temperament: (Thomas & Chess) NOTE: 35% of children don’t fall into any category
1. Easy child (40%) quickly establishes regular routines, cheerful, adapts easily
2. Difficult child (10%) is irregular and slow to accept new experiences, tends to react negatively and intensely.
a. Sparked most interest. High risk for infants for adjustment problems, anxious and withdrawal types of bx, and aggression seen more in this temperament style.
3. Slow to warm-up (15%) inactive, show mild, low key reactions to environmental stimuli, negative mood, and adjust slowly to new experiences.
a. Don’t present many problems in early years. Tend to show excessive fearfulness and slow constricted bx in late preschool years.
Traits studied in temperament research: activity level, distractibility, approach/withdrawal, attention span, intensity of reactions, responsiveness, mood, affect. Etc.
Also: inhibited or shy child, uninhibited or social child
Temperament is thought to be fairly stable over time.
Goodness of Fit model: explains how temperament and environment can together produce favorable outcomes. Goodness of fit involves creating child-rearing environments that recognize each child’s temp while encourage more adaptive functioning (184)
Exchange of Emotions: Emotions play a powerful role in organizing the attainments that Erikson regarded as so important: Social relationships, exploration of the environment, and discovery of the self. (p. 175)
Development of Attachment: Defined: Attachment is the strong, affectional ties we have with special people in our lives that lead us to experience pleasure and joy when we interact with them and to be comforted by their nearness during times of stress (185).
• Freud Psychoanalytic: Feeding as primary context for forming attachments
• Erikson Neo-Freudian: Emphasizes comfort contact while feeding, caresses, warm smiles, tender words
• Harlow: Behaviorism: Drive-reduction explanation of attachment. Contact comfort. Can explain why infants attach to more than one person and even to a blanket.
• Lorenz Ethological: Emotional tie as survival mechanism. Infants endowed with built-in bx that protect and provide for infant. Imprinting with the baby geese
• Bowbly Ethological: Set of innate signals baby sends to adult. True affection develops over time. Bowbly says that out of these 4 stages children construct an enduring affection for caregivers. This serves as an internal working model for expectations and availability of attachment figures in times of stress. And guides future relationships.
Bowbly’s FOUR Phases:
1. Pre-attachment: birth to 6 wks
a. signals: crying, smiling, grasping, gazing
2. Attachment in the making: (6wks – 6-8 mos)
a. develop sense of trust
3. clear-cut attachment: (6-8 mos – 18-2yrs)
a. display separation anxiety, Use parent as secure base
4. Formation of reciprocal rlshp: (18 mos – 2 yrs and on)
a. Rapid growth in representation and language increases
understanding between toddler and parent.
SEE Attached for full strange situation practice exercises! Strange Situation: Ainsworth (1978)
Things that effect attachment in children: Pg 188-194
Does the baby have an opportunity to attach to a caregiver? “Institutionalized babies” left between ages 3-12 months at an orphanage: wept and withdrew from surroundings, lost weight, and had difficulty sleeping. Also showed emotional difficulties/depression. Later displayed emotional and social problems: excessive desire for adult attention and affection, over friendly to strangers, had few friendships.
Sensitive Care giving: responding promptly, consistently, and appropriately to infants.
Interactional synchrony: separated securely attached from insecurely attached infants. Best described as a sensitively tuned “emotional dance” in which caregiver responds to infant signals in a well-timed, appropriate fashion. Baby & Mother “match” emotional states, especially the positive ones. Laughing, smiling, etc.
• Quality of attachment is usually stable for middle SES children.
• Some insecurely attached infants will move into secure attachments if parents are positive and have good support in place
• Securely attached babies maintain their attachment more often than do insecurely attached infants.
• Longitudinal study found that preschool teachers viewed children who were securely attached as having high self esteem, socially competent, cooperative, and popular.
o Viewed avoidant attached: isolated, disconnected
o Resistant attached: disruptive and difficult.
o Findings may indicate that securely attached improves cognitive, emotional and social competence in later years, but more evidence is needed.
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