Download Development Guide - Issaquah Connect

EVOLUTIONARY PSYCH
Natural Selection: inherited trait variations contributing to reproduction
and survival will most likely be passed on to succeeding generations
**Darwin’s finches (beaks) example
**wild wolves were naturally selected over time to become the dogs
we keep as pets today
**Other human behavior? Fear, taste preferences, etc.
**What about human sexual behavior? Males vs. females
Gender Differences
Men
Women
- 4/5 of adult video store
- cite affection rather than
customers are men
attraction as reason for first
- more likely to accept casual sex
intercourse
- report more sex than women do
- think about sex less often
- 50-75% would have sex with an
- report less sex than men do
unknown attractive stranger
- 0% would have sex with an
- more likely to perceive friendly
unknown attractive stranger
responses from women as
- Singles ad: offer looks; want
sexual come-ons
status
- Singles ad: offer status; want
looks
How would Evolutionary Psychologists explain these gender differences?
-each gender uses strategies to produce offspring – what are theses strategies?
What would be critiques of the evolutionary explanation?
How much of behavior is genetically influenced?
Behavior Genetics: the study of the power and limits of
genetic and environmental influences on behavior
Are identical twins behaviorally more similar than
fraternal twins? Evidence points to YES
- Extraversion and neuroticism genetically linked
- If identical twin divorced, 3x more likely to get
divorced yourself than if you had a fraternal twin
- Abilities, personality traits, and interests all shown to
have a genetic link
- Separated identical twins example
Key Critique Question: Does being genetically similar
also make your environment respond similarly?
Adoption Studies
Are adopted children more like their biological or adopted parents
personality-wise? BIOLOGICAL
So do adoptive parents do any good? YES
**children of adopted parents are less likely to experience child neglect
and/or abuse, score higher on intelligence tests, happier and more stable
Nature vs. Nurture debate
Heritability: proportion of variation among individuals that we can attribute
to genes
Environment (nurture) has an impact too! Let’s take the example of height:
- Height is highly heritable, but…nutrition plays a role too!
- Menarche (first period) example
Interaction: the effect of one factor (such as environment) depends on
another factor (such as heritability)
Key Point: almost nothing is just nature or just nurture… they work together
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Prenatal Development and the Newborn
“Prenatal” = conception  birth
Conception Process
Female releases egg (she is born with all she’ll have, but will release 1 in 5,000)
200 million sperm cells released (sperm cells are produced, beginning in puberty)
Just one gets in
o Does so by releasing a digestive enzyme to eat away egg protective coat
o Once one is in, egg pulls it in, and will not allow others.
Zygote – fertilized egg
Prenatal Development
½ of zygotes do not make it passed 2 weeks.
Cells divide – by 1st week it is 100 cells.
Cells then begin to differentiate – divide tasks of development.
After 10 days, the cells attach to uterine wall
o Outer cells become placenta
o Inner cells become the embryo
o Embryo – developing human organism from 2 weeks through 2nd month.
o (Releases hormone to stop uterus from shedding lining – period)
9 weeks – looks unmistakably human (fetus – 9 weeks  birth)
o 6 months – stomach developed and functions (lucky for preemies)
 Also, can hear mother’s muffled voice (preferred from birth)
Play Mind Clip - Teratogens
Teratogens – harmful agents such as viruses or drugs that reach the embryo or fetus during
prenatal development. (cause birth defects)
o Heroin, nicotine, AIDS
o Embryonic stages – major structural damage
o Fetal stage – usually stunt growth or interfere with organ functioning
Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) – marked by small, misproportional head and lifelong brain
abnormalities.
o Overall likelihood – 1 in 750 infants
o Obviously, alcoholics make it more likely - 4 in 10 babies born to alcoholic mothers
o 1 drinking binge can kill millions of fetal brain cells
o There is no known safe amount of alcohol consumption
Science still not conclusive on role of a woman’s psychological state during pregnancy.
o Some results say stress can lead to delayed motor development, increased emotionality,
learning deficits, and depression.
Competent Newborn
 Babies come equipped with reflexes suited for survival.
o Grasp reflex
o Babinski reflex – sole of foot touched, toes fan, turn inward
o Stepping reflex
o Moro reflex – startle response – infant arches back, throws back head, flings out arms and
legs – then rapidly closes arms and legs to body.
o Rooting reflex – if head touched, baby turns, searches, and sucks
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o Visual tracking
Crying – humans predisposed to find it unpleasant, relieving it is reward.
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How do we study newborns? How do we know what they like?
o He have to become behaviorists – let the behaviors do the talking.
o Habituation – decreasing responsiveness with repeated stimulation.
 As infants gain familiarity with repeated exposure to a visual stimulus, their interest
wanes and they begin to look away sooner.
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What do they like?
o Prefer sights/sounds that facilitate social responsiveness
 Turn head toward human voices
 Smell of mother
 Can find mother’s bra when given 2 choices
 Preferred distance from object 8” – 12”
 Eye contact distance while nursing
 Prefer facial pattern to non-facial pattern
 Prefer bull’s-eye (resembles eye) to blank disc.
Moral Reasoning
A.P. Psychology
**What is morality?
 Morality implies an ability:
o To know right from wrong (cognitive)
o To be able to act on this distinction (behavioral)
o To feel good about doing right and feel guilt about doing wrong (affective)
o ABCs – Affective, Behavior, Cognitive
Moral Action vs. Moral Reasoning
 Piaget’s final cognitive stage – formal operations – includes development of reasoning ability
o New ability to deduce consequences of hypothetical behaviors
o New ability to detect inconsistency and/or hypocrisy
 What is the difference between moral acts and moral thoughts?
 Can 1 be the same and the other different?
 Can an act be moral without moral reasoning or inverse?
o Acting in a way to be perceived as moral
o Bystander Effect
**Piaget’s Views on Morality
 Premoral (to age 4)
o No moral sense
o If it hurts it’s wrong, if not, it’s right.
 Heteronomous Morality (4-7 years)
o Rules are universal and unchangeable, not controlled by people
o Characteristic: “Immanent Justice” – punishment immediately follows transgression
o Ex: child can not accept playing a game differently than it was learned
 Autonomous Morality (10 – older)
o Awareness that rules and laws are created by people
o Realization that in judging action, one considers intentions and consequences
o Opposite Ex: child now creates his/her own rules to games
Lawrence Kohlberg
 Piagetian – sought to describe moral reasoning (developmentally)
 Studies: posed moral dilemmas to children, adolescents, and adults and analyzed answers for
evidence of stages of moral reasoning.
Kohlberg’s Moral Ladder
Preconventional Level (4- 9 or 10)
 Obey to avoid punishment or attain rewards.
 Key: Self interest
Conventional Level (10 - ?)
 Uphold laws and rules because they are the laws and rules.
 Key: Social approval
Postconventional Level (adulthood or never)
 Attainment of this level is controversial – see criticisms of Kohlberg
 Person follows what they personally perceive as ethical principles.
 Key: ethical principles
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Criticisms of Kohlberg
Cultural Bias? – Western societies more individualistic
o Studies of Postconventional level show it is most common in America and Western Europe
– possible difference in ideology not morality.
Carol Gilligan
o Especially critical of “Postconventional Stage” – maintains that the focus on the individual
and impersonal principles is biased against women, whose view of morality is more based
on caring relationships.
Morality as an Intuition
 Jonathan Haidt – “Social Intuitionist” account of morality
o Challenges idea that moral action comes from moral reasoning
o Rather, it is a “gut-feeling” which triggers moral reasoning mostly to convince others of
what we intuitively feel.
 Moral Dilemma (Moral Paradoxes provide support here)
o A Runaway trolley is headed for 5 people. All will be killed unless you throw a switch
that diverts the trolley onto another track, where it will kill 1 person. Should you throw the
switch?
o Now imagine the same dilemma – except now to save the 5, you are required to push a
large stranger onto the tracks to stop the trolley.
 Same logic (save 5, kill 1), different answers
 Brain imaging shows only 2nd instance utilizes emotional centers
Looking at it “Backwards”
 Moral action feeds moral attitudes
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Helping neighbors, tutoring, assisting the elderly, etc increases sense of competence and desire to
serve.
Become more productive, socially responsible, and academically successful
Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development
Typical Age
Range
Birth  2 years
Description of Stage
Sensorimotor
Experiencing the world through senses
and actions (looking, touching,
mouthing, and grasping)
2 years  6 or 7
years
Preoperational
6 or 7 years  11
years
Concrete Operational
12 years 
adulthood
Formal Operational
Representing things with words and
images; use intuitive rather than
logical thinking
Thinking logically about concrete
events; grasping concrete analogies
and performing arithmetical
operations
Abstract reasoning
Developmental Phenomena
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Object permanence
Stranger anxiety
Circular reactions
Self recognition (1 year – 18 months)
Pretend play
Scale errors
Egocentrism
Language Development
Animism
Conservation
Mathematical transformations
Seriation
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Abstract logic
Scientific reasoning
Potential for mature moral reasoning
PARENTING STYLES
Style
Emotional Involvement
Authority
Autonomy
Authoritative
Parent is warm, attentive, and
sensitive to child’s needs and
interests.
Parent makes reasonable
demands for the child’s
maturity level; explains and
enforces rules.
Parent is highly demanding;
may use coercion by yelling,
commanding, criticizing, and
reliance on punishment.
Parent makes few or no
demands – often out of
misplaced concern for child’s
self-esteem.
Parents make few or no
demands – often lacking
interest or expectations for the
child.
Parent permits child to make
decisions in accord with
developmental readiness;
listens to child’s viewpoint.
Parent makes most decisions
for the child; rarely listens to
child’s viewpoint.
Authoritarian
Permissive
Uninvolved
(Neglectful)
Parent is cold and rejecting,
frequently degrades the child.
Parent is warm but may spoil
the child.
Parent is emotionally detached,
withdrawn and inattentive.
Parent permits child to make
decisions before child is ready.
Parent is indifference to child’s
decisions and point of view.
Maturation – biological growth process, relatively influenced by environment
 Maturation sets course for development, experience adjusts it.
Newborn brain development (review)
 Plasticity – neurons are connecting and strengthening with each new experience
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Infant memory (amnesia) – underdeveloped hippocampus and cortex areas
o Result in lack of memory before 3-4
 They can remember some things for short time.
Newborn Motor Development
 Reflection of nervous system maturation
 Not all biological, environment plays a role
Major Milestones of 1st year (from barely holding heads to walking)
 Sitting without support
o Avg. – 5.5 months (Range 4.5 – 8)
 Crawling
o Avg. 10 months (Range 7 – 12)
 Walking
o Avg. 12.1 months (range 11.5 – 14.5)
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**Big idea – no amount of reward, punishment, or encouragement will get a baby to do something
it’s body systems (muscular and neural) are not mature enough to do.
o E.g. – walking, talking, object permanence, etc
Gross Motor Skills vs. Fine Motor Skills
 Gross – motor skills that involve large-muscle activities, such as walking
 Fine – Motor skills that involve more finely tuned movements, such as finger dexterity.
o Writing, sewing, piano
o Mastery around Kindergarten
o Pincer grasp – thumb and forefinger (around 9 months)
o Writing – Children can hold a pencil and make marks between 12-18 months
 Writing abilities don’t really improve until 5-6 years