V. Developmental Psychology

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V. Developmental Psychology
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• Developmental Psychology
• A branch of psychology that studies physical,
  cognitive (linguistic), and social (emotional)
  change throughout the life span.
• Sometimes controversial
• How to raise a child?
• What to expect in late adulthood?
• Themes nature vs. nurture
• (Universal vs. individual developmental
  patterns)

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A. Prenatal Development...
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A. Prenatal Development

• 1. Physical/Biological development The sperm
  meets the egg
• zygote a fertilized egg. Conception to two
  weeks. Rapid cell division.
• embryo 2 8 weeks.
• organ systems develop.
• fetus 9 weeks to birth.

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A. Prenatal Development

• a. Zygote
• Sex Determination
• Mom - X-chromosome
• Dad - Y or X-chromosome
• i. Potential Problems
• Turners Syndrome (fs with X0)
• Kleinfelters Syndrome (ms XXY)
• Double Y Syndrome (ms XYY)

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A. Prenatal Development

• b. Embryonic stage Critical/Sensitive Period
• Cell differentiation (organ development)
• Possible problems/difficulties.
• Importance of Placenta
• But
• Smoking
• Drugs
• Alcohol Fetal Alcohol Syndrome
• Where influence of nurture is evident.

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A. Prenatal Development

• c. Fetal stage amazing!
• smelling, hearing, tasting, breathing, kicking,
  respond to light and touch.
• leading to.....

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B. Newborn/Early Development

• 1. Physical Development
• Newborns HIGHLY underestimated.
• Born with reflexes.
• Born with other preferences
• Moms smell
• Human faces and voices

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• How could we possibly know this?
• Habituation decrease in responding after
  repeated stimulation (e.g. gaze less at stimuli).

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Habituation
Time spent looking (seconds)
Presentation
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• c. Yet still immature brain
• Neurons bloom when prenatal.
• Neural connections bloom during infancy.
• Neural connections also pruned.
• Adaptive cerebral cortex becomes more complex and
  elaborated through the development of neural
  networks.
• Interconnected neurons are modified by feedback
  strengthened to produce a response (output) - to
  certain input.

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B. Newborn/Early Development

• 1. Physical Development
• d. Brain development plasticity.
• Plasticity Brains capacity for modification.
• Importance of cerebral cortex.

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Evidence of brain plasticity.
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B. Newborn/Early Development

• 1. Physical Development
• d. Brain development plasticity.
• Human examples.
• Use it or lose it
• Brain reorganization after injury/damage.

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B. Newborn/Early Development

• 2. Motor Development (see text).
• 3. Cognitive Development
• - Thinking, knowing, remembering, communicating.
• - Related to physical development
• (development of neural networks)
• JEAN PIAGET

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PIAGET

• a. Basics
• Use of Schemas.
• Assimilation incorporate new experiences into
  existing framework.
• Accommodation Also fit/modify/create schemas to
  incorporate new experiences.
• Development occurs in distinct stages not
  gradual change.
• To understand development, understand errors
  children make.

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PIAGET

• b. Stages of Cognitive Development
• i. Sensorimotor (birth - 2 years)
• Children cant think - know world through
  motor actions senses.
• Experience orderly increase in more complex
  cognition.
• Around 8 months
• Object Permanence The awareness that objects
  continue to exist when not perceived.

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Piaget Stages of Cog. Development

• - ii. Preoperational Stage (preschool - 6 years)
• Advances in memory more verbal
• able to pretend
• Not capable of mental operations.
• Conservation quantities remain the same
• despite superficial changes in appearance.
• Not capable of taking anothers point of view.
• Egocentric interpret world from perspective of
• self only.

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Piaget Stages of Cog. Development

• - iii. Concrete Operational Stage (7-11 years)
• Capable of logical reasoning.
• Able to take perspective of others.
• But - no thinking on abstract level.
• - iv. Formal Operational Stage (12 - adult)
• Can think abstractly. Use imagined realities.
• Engage in moral reasoning.
• Implications of the stages?

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PIAGET

• c. Review of Piagets Theory
• Concerns and Updates
• - Underestimated childrens abilities
• - object permanence at earlier age
• - conservation at an earlier age
• - egocentricity
• - Problem with all or none viewpoint
• What does stage theory imply about
  nature/nurture?
• Vygotsky scaffolding

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d. Emotional/Social Development

• Social reflexes
• Emotion/Social Development
• What is influential in emotional/social
  development?
• Early relationships with caregivers.
• a. Attachment Theory
• Attachment bond between child and parent (or
  caregiver). Originally thought...
• nourishment/ survival (evolution)
• But realized more to it ...

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• i. Harlows Monkey Studies
• Wire vs. cloth monkeys

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d. Emotional/Social Development

• i. Why such upset?
• For animals may be critical period for
  forming the attachment with caregiver.
• imprinting
• Lorenz
• Not quite as concrete for humans. Why?

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• See critical role environment or nurture plays
  in emotional/social development.
• For humans, what is a nurturing environment? What
  fosters healthy attachment?
• Began study of human attachment.
• ii. Bowlby WWII institutions.

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• iii. Mary Ainsworth
• Focus on moms behavior.
• Attachment serves to provide kids with secure
  base from which to explore.
• Put forth Moms response to baby determined the
  mom/infant relationship, babys behavior, and
  type of attachment.
• Used strange situation paradigm.

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Ainsworth - attachment

• 3 attachment styles
• 1. Securely attached
• 2. Anxious/ambivalent (resistant)
• 3. Anxious/avoidant.
• Do these attachment influence people later in
  life?
• secure more confidence, better problem solvers,
  emotionally healthier, more sociable

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Attachment

• iv. Hazan Shaver
• Early attachment influences how we deal with
  relationships as adults.
• Secure lovers happy, trusting, friends, etc.
• Anx/ambiv obsessed, extreme sexual attraction,
  jealousy.
• Anx/avoid fear of intimacy, emotional highs and
  lows, jealousy.

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Attachment

• Ainsworth focus on nurture - MOM
• What about nature?
• v. Influence of temperament
• Personality and emotional reactivity with which
  people are born.
• Evidence for influence of temperament.
• (longitudinal studies)
• Evidence for influence of nurture.
• Could nature and nurture interact?
• Goodness of Fit

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• For emotional/social development thus far, what
  factors seem to be missing?
• Ainsworth focus on mom.
• Different childrearing practices across cultures?
• Dad? Other caregivers?
• Very western, 50s perspective

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B. Issues to consider today for social/emotional
development.

• Day Care?
• Basic conclusion good day care has no negative
  effects on children.
• Divorce?
• Basic conclusion kids from divorced families
  sometimes have more problems.
• Other factors to consider?

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Conclusions about development.

• Trying to answer the question how did we get
  here?
• Prenatal development.
• Physically (brain development).
• Cognitively.
• Socially/ emotionally
• See influence of nature and nurture at each point.

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Piagets Stages of Cognitive Development