Download Developmental Psychology

Warm up- page 6

Id these words in your own words
X chromosome
 Testosterone
 Gender role
 Gender Identity
 Gender typing
 Norm
 Social Learning Theory
 Gender Schema Theory

Chapter 4: Developmental
Psychology pt. 1
Developmental Psychology
 Branch
of psychology that studies
physical, cognitive, and social
changes through out the life span.
 Look for commonalities between us.
 Look at issues of:
Nature/nurture
Continuity/Stages
Stability/Change
Prenatal Development
Zygote: fertilized
egg…eventually develops
into a embryo after 2
weeks.
 Cells rapidly start dividing
to create a multicellular
organism and differentiate
to create organs.
 Fewer than half survive to
become embryos.

Prenatal Development
Embryo: developing
human organism.
Considered embryo from
2 weeks to 2nd month.
 This stage is when
pregnancy is officially
established…woman will
miss period.
 Week 4-8 are when all
major organs begin
functioning.

When teratogens have
greatest effect.
Prenatal Development
Fetus: developing human
organism from 9 weeks
after conception until birth.
 After 12 weeks most of
major development is
“finished” except for brain
and lungs.
 Responsive to sound
 After 6 months…premature
babies’ organs sufficiently
formed to allow chance of
survival.

Week 16
Week 20
Teratogens
 Agents such as chemicals
and viruses that can
reach the embryo or
fetus during prenatal
development and cause
harm.
Examples: AIDS virus,
drugs, alcohol can all
be passed onto baby
and cause damage.
Fetal Alcohol
Syndrome

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome
 No
safe amount of alcohol
 1 in 750 infants
 Small, misproportioned
head, brain abnormalities
 Leading cause of mental
retardation
Newborn Capacities
 Come
equipped with
reflexes ideally suited
for survival. Ex:
rooting reflex:
baby’s tendency
when touched on the
cheek to open the
mouth and search for
food.
Newborn Capacities
 Habituation:
describes infants’
decreasing
responsiveness to
repeated stimuli.
Infer that newborns
have cognitive ability
to differentiate
between different
visual stimuli.
Maturation
Biological growth processes that enable orderly
changes in behavior, relatively uninfluenced by
experience.
Genetic blueprint unfolding
Stand before walking
 In terms of brain development, natural
maturation causes neural interconnection to
multiply rapidly after birth.
 However, severe deprivation and abuse will
retard development. Furthermore, increased
stimulation will cause early neural connections.
 Maturation sets the basic course of
development; experience adjusts it.

Maturation and Memory
 Earliest
memory is
hardly before age 3
 After age ¾ we
organize memories
different
Normal Maturation
Maturation and Motor Skills
Maturation also influences
motor development.
 The sequence of complex
physical skills, from sitting,
standing, walking, are nearly
universal are across the world.
 Overall, experience has a
limited effect until certain
muscular or neural maturation
occurs. Ex: Potty Training.

Cognitive Development
Jean
Piaget
 Developed stages of cognitive
development
 Mental activities associated with
thinking, knowing, remembering and
communicating
 Schemas: concepts of phenomena
developed by humans that increase with
development. Adjusted by:
 Assimilation:
interpreting one’s new
experience in terms of one’s existing
schemas. Ex: kids and “doggies”
 Accommodation: adapting one’s current
understandings (schemas) to incorporate
new information. Ex: new schema for
groundhog.
Know This Chart
Piaget’s Stages
Stage 1: Sensorimotor: birth to 2,
experience world mostly through your senses
and movement.
Major Development During this stage:
A. Stranger Anxiety
B. Object Permanence: awareness that things
continue to exist even when not perceived.
Why Babies like peek-a-boo.

Piaget’s Stages
Stage 2: Preoperational: 2-6, child
learns to represent things with language
but does not understand concrete logic.
Major Development During this stage:
1. Pretend Play
2. Language Development
3. Egocentrism: inability to take another
point of view.

Theory Of Mind
Although still egocentric they begin to
form a theory of mind
 Realizing that people have minds and
think
 Ask Why?
 Begin to empathize,tease, take another
perspective

Autism
A
disorder
characterized
by deficient
communication
and social
interaction

Lev Vygotsky
 Age
7 children
no longer need
to always think
out loud
 Pre
operational
and operational
 Use
inner speech
Piaget’s Stages
Stage 3: Concrete Operational: 7 to 11,
child begins to think concretely and complete
math operations.
Major Development During this Stage:
1. Conservation: principle that mass, volume,
and number remain the same despite their
form.

Piaget’s Stages
Stage 4: Formal Operational:
12 to adulthood, ability to
abstractly reason and use
abstract logic.
Major Developments During This
Stage:
1. Abstract Logic: hypothetical
situations, ideas like communism
2. Mature Moral Reasoning: ideas
like “right to life,” “right to
liberty,” Etc.

Current Thinking

Piaget’s sequence is right but timing is not
exact.

Some cognitive events occur earlier than he
thought and process as a whole is more
continuous.

Did not give children enough credit
Warm up
pick up warm up off of the
overhead. Work in groups to
complete it
 All work must be complete in 10
minuets

Social Development
Attachment
 Emotional
tie with
another person;
shown in young
children by their
seeking closeness to
the caregiver and
showing distress on
separation.
Harlow’s Theory of Attachment
Attachment is based
on:
1.
2.
3.
Body Contact
Familiarity
Responsive
Parenting
Body Contact
Infants become
intensely attached to
entitities that provide
comfortable body
contact to them. Things
like rocking, warmth, and
feeding make attachment
stronger.
 IMPORTANCE: NOT
nourishment that
provides attachment as
originally thought.

Familiarity
Also key in understanding attachment.
 A.) Critical Period: optimal period shortly
after birth when certain events must take
place to facilitate proper development.
Ex: First moving object a duckling sees it will
attach to as its mother…would follow person,
moving ball, etc.
 B.) Imprinting: process by which certain
animals form attachments during a critical
period very early in life. NOT FOR
HUMANS. However do become attached to
what they know.

Responsive Parenting
Responsive Parenting leads to secure
attachment.
 Secure Attachment: in mother’s presence
will explore new territories and play
comfortably. When mother leaves will
become distressed, when returns will
seek contact with her.

60
% of all infants
Responsive Parenting
 Insecure
Attachment: in
mother’s presence are
less likely to explore
their surroundings;
cling to mother. When
leaves, cry loudly
and remain upset or
seem indifferent to
their mother’s comings
and goings.
Why Secure or Insecure

Mary Ainsworth
 Studied 1 year olds in “strange
situations” without mothers
 Found- sensitive, responsive
mothers had secure children
 Found- insensitive, unresponsive
mothers, mothers who respond when
convenient, had insecurely attached
children
Secure Attachment predicts social
competency

Securely attached
children approach
life with basic trust
A
sense that
the world is
predictable
and reliable

Attachment also
reflects romance
styles
Consequences of Insecure
Attachment
Under conditions of abuse and neglect,
humans are often withdrawn, frightened,
even speechless.
 Harlow’s monkeys often incapable of mating
or extremely abusive, neglectful, or
murderous towards first-born.
 Most abusers were abused; abused are
more likely to abuse…even though the
majority of them don’t.

Disruption of Attachment
 Separation
from loved ones can have
devastating results
 If removed and placed in a more
stable environment most effects of
the separation disappear
 Adults also suffer when attachment
bonds are severed
Daycare and Attachment
 Children
need
consistent,
warm
relationships
with people they
can trust
 Daycare has both
good and bad
effects
Self –Concept
 Self-
Concept- a
sense of their own
identity and
personal worth
 Develops by age 12
 The next big step
after attachment
Parental Authority Questionnaire
1. Permissive- relatively warm, non demanding,
noncontrolling parent
 #s-
1,6,10,13,14,17,19,21,24,28
2. Authoritarian- parents who value
unquestioning obedience and attempt to
control their children’s behaviors, often
through punitive disciplinary practices
#’s-
2,3,7,9,12,16,18,25,26,29
3. Authoritative- parents who use firm ,clear
but flexible and rational modes of child
rearing
#’s-
4,5,8,11,15,20,22,23,27,30
4. Total them up
Social Development: Child Rearing
Practices- Baumrind
Authoritarian
 parents impose rules and expect
obedience
 “Don’t interrupt”
 “Why? Because I said so.”
 Permissive:
 submit to children’s desires
 make few demands
 use little punishment

Social DevelopmentChild-Rearing Practices
Authoritative
 parents are both demanding and
responsive
 set rules, but explain reasons
 encourage discussion
 Children have highest self esteem and
social competence
 Rejecting-neglecting
 disengaged
 expect little
 invest little
