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Schacter
Gilbert
Wegner
PSYCHOLOGY
Chapter 10
Development
Slides prepared by:
Melissa S. Terlecki, Cabrini College
Schacter
Gilbert
Wegner
PSYCHOLOGY
10.1
Prenatality: A Womb with
a View
Developmental Psychology

Developmental psychology: the study
of continuity and change across the life
span.
Prenatal Development
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Prenatal stage: from conception to birth.
Zygote: a single cell that contains chromosomes
from both a sperm and an egg.
Germinal stage: the 2-week period of prenatal
development that begins at conception.
Embryonic stage: the period of prenatal
development that lasts from the 2nd week until
about the 8th week.
Fetal stage: the period of prenatal development
that lasts from the 9th week until birth.
Myelination: the formation of a fatty sheath around
the axons of a brain cell.
Figure 10.1: Prenatal
Development (p. 299)
Questions
 What
distinguishes an embryo from
a zygote and a fetus?
Prenatal Environment
The placenta links the mother’s
bloodstream to the developing embryo or
fetus.
 Teratogens: agents that damage the
process of development, such as drugs
and viruses.

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fetal alcohol syndrome: a developmental
disorder that stems from heavy alcohol use
by the mother during pregnancy.
Fetal Alcohol Syndrome
(p. 300)
Questions
 Can
a fetus learn?
Schacter
Gilbert
Wegner
PSYCHOLOGY
10.2
Infancy and Childhood:
Becoming a Person
Infancy

Infancy: the stage of development that begins
at birth and lasts between 18 and 24 mos.
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habituation occurs.
Motor development: the emergence of the
ability to execute physical action.
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reflexes: specific patterns of motor response that
are triggered by specific patterns of sensory
stimulation.
cephalocaudal rule: the “top-to-bottom” rule that
describes the tendency for motor skills to emerge in
sequence from the head to the feet.
proximodistal rule: the “inside-to-outside” rule that
describes the tendency for motor skills to emerge in
sequence from the center to the periphery.
Figure 10.2: Motor
Development (p. 303)
Questions
 How
do newborns respond to social
stimuli?
 In
what order do motor skills
develop?
Infancy and Childhood

Cognitive development: the emergence of
the ability to understand the world.
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sensorimotor stage (birth – infancy): schemas,
assimilation, accommodation, and object
permanence.
preoperational stage: (2 – 6 yrs.).
concrete operational stage (6 – 11 yrs.):
conservation and mental representations.
formal operational stage (11 yrs. – adulthood).
Childhood: the stage of development that
begins at about 18-24 mos. and lasts until
adolescence.
Table 10.1: Piaget’s Four Stages
of Cognitive Development (p. 303)
Figure 10.3: The Possible and the
Impossible Event (p. 305)
Questions
 How
are infants like scientists when
they learn about the world?
 What
do children come to
understand at the concrete
operational stage?
Discovering Other Minds

Egocentrism: the failure to understand that
the world appears differently to different
observers.
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false belief test.
Theory of mind: the idea that human behavior
is guided by mental representation, which
gives rise to the realization that the world is
not always the way it looks and that different
people see it differently.
Figure 10.4: The False Belief
Test Across Cultures (p. 307)
Questions
 What
does the false belief test
show?
 How
does language influence the
child’s understanding of the mind?
Discovering our Cultures
Cultural tools exert strong influence on
cognitive development (Vygotsky).
 Zone of proximal development is when a
child is capable of acquiring a range of
skills.
 At 9 – 15 mos. of age, babies can direct
their attention to a point in space to
which another’s eyes are directed, called
joint attention.

Figure 10.5: Twelve or Two-teen?
(p. 309)
Questions
 How
does language influence a
child’s ability to do math?
Culture and Community: Are Counting
Abilities Determined in Part by Culture?
The Piraha Tribe of Brazil has an
extremely simple counting system and
could not perform more complex
counting tasks.
 Culture-specific means of expression
alter our understanding of the world.
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Social Development
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Attachment: the emotional bond that forms
between newborns and their primary
caregivers.
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ambivalent and disorganized styles of attachment.
internal working model of attachment: a set of
expectations about how the primary caregiver will
respond when the child feels insecure.
Temperaments: characteristic patterns of
emotional reactivity.
Harlow’s Monkeys and
Attachment (p. 311)
Figure 10.6: Attachment Style
and Memory (p. 312)
Figure 10.7: Parents’ Attachment Styles Affect
Their Children’s Attachment Styles (p. 313)
Questions
 How
and why do infants form
attachments?
 How
do caregivers influence the
quality of a child’s attachment?
Moral Development
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Moral thinking shifts (Piaget):
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Kohlberg’s stages of moral development:
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from realism to relativism.
from prescriptions to principles.
from outcomes to intentions.
preconventional stage: the morality of an action is primarily
determined by its consequences for the actor.
conventional stage: the morality of an action is primarily
determined by the extent to which it conforms to social rules.
postconventional stage: the morality of an action is determined
by a set of general principles that reflect core values.
The moral intuitionist perspective states that we have
evolved to react emotionally to a small family of events
that are relevant to reproduction and survival.
Questions
 According
to Kohlberg, how does a
child’s moral thinking develop?
 How
do our emotions influence our
moral judgments?
The Real World: The Truth About
Day Care

Working parents often entrust their children in
daycare.
 Large-scale study of the effects of day care
reveal little detriment to attachment, yet
interaction between a child’s experience at
home and day care.
 Day care itself does not increase the risk of
emotional insecurity, but may when combined
with the effects of having an unresponsive
and/or insensitive mother, and can influence
cognitive and social competence.
Schacter
Gilbert
Wegner
PSYCHOLOGY
10.3
Adolescence: Minding the
Gap
Adolescence

Adolescence: the period of development that
begins with the onset of sexual maturity (about
11-14 yrs.) and lasts until the beginning of
adulthood (about 18-21 yrs.).
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puberty: the bodily changes associated with sexual
maturity.
primary sex characteristics: bodily structures that
are directly involved in reproduction.
secondary sex characteristics: bodily structures
that change dramatically with sexual maturity but
that are not directly involved in reproduction.
The period between childhood and adulthood
has become protracted.
Early Puberty (p. 318)
Figure 10.8: Secondary Sexual
Characteristics (p. 319)
Questions
 How
does experience change the
structure of the brain?
 What
does research say about the
popular view of stormy
adolescence?
Sexuality
Genetics play a role in sexual
orientation, while parenting does not.
 American teenagers typically choose to
have sex.
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Figure 10.9: Heterosexuals’ Attitudes
Toward Homosexuals (p. 320)
Questions
 Is
sexual orientation simply a choice
people make?
Parents and Peers
Development of adult identity occurs
(Erikson).
 Involves a shift from family relations to
peer relations, which is difficult.
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children cannot choose their parents but
can choose peers.
 adolescents strive for greater autonomy but
parents rebel.
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Table 10.2: Erikson’s Stages of
Human Development (p. 321)
Questions
 What
factors contribute to parentchild conflict in adolescence?
Schacter
Gilbert
Wegner
PSYCHOLOGY
10.4
Adulthood: The Short
Happy Future
Adulthood
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Adulthood: the stage of development that
begins around 18-21 yrs. and ends at death.
Marked changes in physical and cognitive
abilities.
Older adults compensate for age-related
declines in memory and attention by calling on
other neural structures to help out.
Socioemotional selectivity theory states that
younger adults rely on useful information while
older adults rely on positive information.
As adults age, positive affect remains
relatively stable while negative affect
decreases.
Figure 10.10: Bilaterality in Older
and Younger Brains (p. 325)
Figure 10.11: Memory for Pictures
(p. 325)
Figure 10.12: Happiness and Age
(p. 326)
Questions
 How
do we compensate for our
aging brains?
 Why
are older people generally
happier than younger people?
Adulthood and Changing Roles
Married people report being happier than
unmarried people for several reasons.
 Children slightly decrease parents’
happiness.
 Marital satisfaction fluctuates with life
events.
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Figure 10.13: ‘Til Death Do Us
Part (p. 327)
Figure 10.14: Marital Satisfaction
Over the Life Span (p. 328)
Questions
 Are
children really bundles of joy?
Where Do You Stand:
Licensing Parents
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Can we outlaw reproduction by citizens
or force them to be licensed to do so?
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similar to adoption practices.
People have a fundamental right to
reproduce.
 When parenting goes bad, everyone in
society pays a price.
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