Download Early Adulthood and Beyond

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Nature and Nurture
Stage 1: Womb – 12 months
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Motor Functions and security
Stage 2: 6 months – 2 years old
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Mobility and emotion
Stage 3: 18 months – 4 years old
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Will and action
Stage 4: 4 – 7 years old
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Social Identity
Stage 5: 7 – 12 years old
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Social contract
Stage 6: Adolescence
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Reconstitution
Stage 7: Early Adulthood and Beyond
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Self-knowledge
Stage 7: Self-knowledge
Transpersonal Psychology: The movement
of self from exclusively individual identities
(unique and single organisms) toward a
universal commonality.
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Individuality is transformed and absorbed into
the Universal.
Individual personality is seen as part of a
unified and integrated whole
Adult Development
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Development will only occur with conscious
intent.
Many people will stay in programmed
instinctual patterns (dependency,
powerlessness)
Adult may never discover their potential as it
involves challenge and anxiety
Potentially adults go through a similar set of
developmental stages
Adult Development
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Developmental stages are not the same for
everyone and are rarely experienced in the
same order.
Unresolved childhood conflict may arrest adult
development
Assessment is through understanding of the
whole person (rather than isolation of
particular incidents).
Adult Development
1. Survival, place to live, caring for
oneself, independent income, self-sufficiency
2. Sexual relationships – awareness of
other becomes more acute, partnership may
be of primary importance. Emotional
frustration may be projected onto partner
which may sabotage early relationships
Adult Development
3.
Individuality under our own power and
will. Separation from having to conform to
expectations of culture, family, etc.
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Dependency, powerlessness, obedience 
creation of our own path
Relationships defined by needs of the other,
Enslavement in meaningless jobs  personal
career, skill-building, sense of control, affinity with
others in political or psychological groupings
Power over others  Power with others
Adult Development
4. Individuation: Re-evaluation of
behaviour towards others
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Empathy and altruism, substantial relationships
Emphasis on family dynamics
Balance between inner masculine and feminine
5. Creativity: Contribution to
community (e.g. midlife)
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Creating a business, writing a book/thesis,
building a house, pursuing artistic hobby, public
service
Adult Development
6. Reflection and study of patterns of
behaviour (e.g. children are grown)
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Introversion and exploration of mythology,
philosophy
Travelling or renewal of past study
7. Wisdom and teaching. May involve
leaving previous lifestyle or dropping
material possessions
Developmental Stages: Summary
Stage 1: Motor Functions
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Foundation of security that enables selfpreservation and forms the physical identity
Stage 2: Emotions
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Emotional identity interested in selfgratification
Stage 3: Language
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Ego identity develops inner authority and
freedom
Developmental Stages: Summary
Stage 4: Social relationships
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Social Identity formed to establish wider relationship
models and self-acceptance
Stage 5: Creativity
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Career/Self expression forms creative identity
Stage 6: Self-reflection
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Archetypal identity ascends from egoic personality
Stage 7: Knowledge
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Self-knowledge forms a universal identity, learning and
teaching
Stage 8: Adult Development
Nature and Nurture
How are individuals
different?
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Naturally occurring differences reveal the
structure of psychological function
Organisms may only differ in the efficency of
specific mechanisms and the frequency of use
of different mechanisms
Environment
What is environment?
Non-genetic influences
All non-heritable factors including any pre/postnatal illnesses and biological events
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Shared and non-shared environments
Family
Peers
Individual life events
Chance
Quantitative Genetics
History
Francis Galton (1822-1911)
Founder of psychometrics (measuring mental
faculties)
Pioneer of eugenics, evolution, fingerprinting
Heredity is the passing of traits to offspring
(from its parent or ancestors)
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Quantitative Genetics
Merriman (1924) – First twin studies
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Monozygotic (identical, MZ) twins
share 100% of genes
Dizygotic (fraternal, DZ) twins
share 50% of genes
Nazi war crimes associated with eugenics
Emergence of behaviourism
 genetic research blocked
Genetics
Watson & Crick (1953): Deoxyribonucleic
acid (1966): Guanine, Thymine, Cytosine,
Adonine
Creates 3 letter words
Codes 20 amino acids
Amino acids build proteins
Human Genome Project (2001)
Sequence of 3 billion letters
Quantitative Genetics
Identifying specific DNA sequences
responsible for genetic influence on
common behavioural disorders, such as
mental illness
Studies complex behavioural dimensions
such as personality
Quantitative Genetics
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Many DNA variants of small effect size
QTL (Quantitative Trait Loci)
QTL set – multiple QTLs in a set can be used
as a genetic risk index (like environmental
risk index)
Twin and Adoption studies
Shows genetic influence in nearly every area
of behaviour that has been studied
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Mental Illness
Personality & Intelligence
Self-esteem
Interest
Attitudes
School achievement
Drug use and abuse
Physical abuse
Genetics in Culture
90% of parents and teachers reported
genetics as being at least as important as
the environment for mental illness,
personality, learning difficulties and
intelligence
Concordance: The presence of the same
trait in both members of a pair of twins
Schizophrenia:
• Until 1960s, believed to be environmental
• Twin studies showed 45% concordance for schiz
• DZ twins show 17% concordance
Adoption studies
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Comparison of Monozygotic twins reared in
different environments studies how alike the
children become through development and into
adulthood
Genetically unrelated children growing up in an
adoptive family scarcely resemble each other
for personality, psychopathology and cognitive
abilities after adolescence
Risk of schizophrenia is just as great when
children are adopted away from their
schizophrenic parents at birth as when they are
reared by them
Twin & Adoption studies
Genetic influences
Shared environment (makes siblings similar)
Nonshared environment
Non-shared environment
The most effective environmental influences
are those that make children in the same
family different, not similar
So how does the environment work to
influence behaviour?
The Nature of Nurture
Genotype-environment Correlation:
Differential exposure to experience
Genotype-environment Interaction:
Differential sensitivity to experience
Genotype: Genetic constitution
Phenotype: Observable characteristics
e.g. physiological properties, development,
behaviour, environmental variation and
epigenetic factors
Nature of Nurture
Epigenetics: Changes in phenotype or
gene expression caused by non-genetic
influences
Environment can be considered as an
extended phenotype
e.g. differences in parenting could be the
genetic result of child psychopathology,
rather than the cause
Extended Phenotype
Genetic factors substantially influence how
we measure environments such as parenting,
stress or social support
The environment represents a direct response
to genetically influenced characteristics
Individuals select, modify and construct (in
memory) their own experience of the world
TOP-DOWN
Behaviour of the whole organism
Development of the organism
G-e interaction and correlation
THE BRAIN
Cell systems
Cells
Gene product function
DNA Sequence
Bottom-up
Developmental Change and
Continuity
Genetic effects at one age differ from
genetic effects at another age
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Behavioural markers for schizophrenia are
difficult to find in children who later become
schizophrenic
 Genes may only express hallucinatory or
paranoid effects after adolescent brain
development enables highly symbolic
processing
Developmental Change and
Continuity
Magnitude of Genetic influence on
general cognitive ability (intelligence)
increases steadily from infancy to
adulthood
A) more genes may come into play during
development
B) Same genes have greater effects
Multivariate Heterogeneity and
Comorbidity
Heterogeneity: multiple origins causing the same
disorder in different individuals
Comorbidity: the effect of all other diseases a
person might have other than the primary
diagnosis
Genetic overlap across learning, language, reading
and mathematics disabilities
Same genes largely effect verbal, spatial and
memory abilities
Multivariate Heterogeneity and
Comorbidity
Correlation between traits is considered above
individual traits
Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD)
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Diagnosis requires deficits in both social and nonsocial behaviours
Different genes affect social and non-social traits
Multivariate genetic analysis will change diagnosis
and also treatment and prevention
Phenotypic behaviour does change brain
structure and function (stimulating
environments)
Genes do change behaviour
Behaviour does not change genes
Behavioural Genetics
Rare single-gene disorders are treatable by
gene identification
Complex traits (multi-gene + multienvironment) are influenced by many genes
with small effect size
The Postgenomic Era
QTL sets are being identified to account for
a useful proportion of variance in complex
behaviour
This will force reorganisation of diagnosis,
education, legal systems and hospitals