General Psychology

1
General Psychology

• Chapter 8
• Development Through the Life Span

2
Prenatal Development

• Prenatal period from conception to birth
• Germinal stage zygote moves down fallopian tube
• Embryonic stage organ systems are forming and
  embryo is very vulnerable to external influences
• Fetal stage organs continue to grow and
  increase in complexity

3
Environmental Influences on Prenatal Development

• Maternal nutrition
• Smoking
• Alcohol
• Drugs

4
Environmental Influences on Prenatal Development

• Fetal alcohol syndrome cluster of symptoms
  (e.g., low birth weight, poor muscle tone, and
  intellectual retardation) associated with a child
  born to a mother who was a heavy alcohol drinker
  during pregnancy
• Heavy drinking 3 or more drinks per day, or
  binge drinking during organogenesis

5
What About Dad?

• Main issues concern the quality of the fathers
  sperm at conception
• Sperm from fathers beyond the age of 35 or 40 may
  be partly the source of the genetic defect
  involved in Downs Syndrome
• Fathers possible role in transmission of STDs

6
Sensory Perceptual Development

• Neonate (newborn) SIGHT
• Can focus on objects 1-2 ft. away
• Can discriminate among facial expressions of
  emotions
• Within a few hours of birth can recognize a
  picture of his or her own mother
• Prefer patterned over unpatterned stimuli
• Prefer patterns that look like human faces over
  patterns that do not

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Sensory Perceptual Development

• Other senses
• Neonates can hear nearly as well as adults
• Neonates can detect touch and temperature
  stimulation
• Neonates can feel pain

8
Cognitive Development

• The age-related changes in learning, memory,
  perception, attention, thinking, and
  problem-solving
• Information-processing approach
• Structural-functional approach

9
Cognitive Development

• Information-processing approach Focuses on the
  quantitative changes in basic information
  processing systems like memory, attention, and
  learning
• Structural-functional approach says that
  structures (schemas) change with development,
  while functions remain fixed

10
Structural-Functional Approach

• Jean Piaget
• Structures (schemas) change with development,
  while functions remain fixed
• Schema organized mental representation of the
  world that is adaptive and formed by experience
• Cognitive development is seen as a series of
  qualitative changes in intelligence

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Piagets Theory

• Organization predisposition to integrate
  individual schemas into organized units
• Adaptation adapting cognitive abilities to the
  demands of the environment. Comprises
• Assimilation incorporating new information into
  an existing schema
• Accommodation modifying schema to account for
  new experiences

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Table 8.1 Piagets stages of cognitive
development.
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Piagets Stages of Development

• Sensorimotor stage (birth to 2 years) children
  discover by sensing (sensori-) and doing (motor)
• Children learn about causality
• Children learn about object permanence
• Imitation develops

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Object Permanence

• An appreciation that an object no longer in view
  can still exist and reappear later

15
Piagets Stages of Development

• Preoperational Stage (2-6 years) a childs
  thinking is self-centered or egocentric

16
Piagets Stages of Development

• Concrete Operations Stage Children (7-11)
  begin to develop many concepts and show that they
  can manipulate those concepts
• Rule-governed behavior begins in this stage
• Conservation is evident in this stage

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Conservation

• Awareness that changing the form or the
  appearance of something does not change what it
  really is

18
Piagets Stages of Development

• Formal Operations Stage Children (12 and
  up) are beginning to be able to logically
  manipulate abstract, symbolic concepts

19
Reactions to Piaget

• The borderlines between his proposed stages are
  much less clear-cut than his theory suggests
• Piaget underestimated the cognitive talents of
  preschool children
• Object permanence appears earlier than age 2
• Little attention to the impact of language
  development and the gradual increase in memory
  capacity

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Information-Processing

• Development of Learning
• Classical and operant conditioning shown in
  neonates
• Imitation evident as young as 1 week!
• Development of Memory
• Memory demonstrated in very young infants
• Children as young as 3 can understand the
  temporal nature of events and form scripts of
  those events in memory

21
Moral Development

• Piaget believed that children could not make
  moral judgments until they were at least 3-4
  years old

22
Moral Development

• Lawrence Kohlberg 3 levels
• Preconventional morality prime interest of
  child is with the punishment that comes from
  breaking a rule
• Conventional morality acceptance of social
  convention where approval matters as much or more
  than anything else
• Postconventional morality moral reasoning
  reflects complex, internalized standards

23
Table 8.2 Kohlbergs stages of moral development.
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Moral Development

• Carol Gilligan believes that the moral
  reasoning for women is different than that of men
• Women are more likely to focus on caring,
  personal responsibility and relationships
• Men focus on rules, justice, and individual rights

25
Eriksons Psychosocial View

• Eight-stage theory of life-span development
• Trust vs. Mistrust
• Autonomy vs. Self-Doubt
• Initiative vs. Guilt
• Competence vs. Inferiority

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Table 8.3 Eriksons eight stages of development.
27
Developing Gender Identity

• Once children can discriminate between the sexes,
  they develop schemas for gender-related
  information
• Encouraged by parents, children at an early age
  (1 year), have defined preferences for choices of
  toys
• By age 3 or 4, children tend to gravitate toward
  same-sex play groups

28
Developing Gender Identity

• Gender identity sense or self-awareness of
  ones own maleness or femaleness
• Most children develop this by the age of 2 or 3
• Once gender identity is established, it is very
  resistant to change
• By late childhood and early adolescence, peer
  pressure intensifies gender differences

29
Developing Social Attachments

• Attachment strong emotional relationship
  between a child and his or her mother or primary
  caregiver

30
Attachment Theory

• Strong attachments are most likely to be formed
  if the parent is optimally sensitive and
  responsive to the needs of the child
• Two-way process
• More than just spending time with child
• Not just mother
• May have life-long ramifications

31
Spotlight Parenting Styles

• Classic model Diana Baumrind
• Indulgent
• Authoritarian
• Authoritative

32
Adolescence

• Period between childhood and adulthood, often
  begun at puberty and ending with full physical
  growth
• Biological perspective puberty
• Psychological perspective
• Social perspective

33
Challenges of Puberty

• Growth spurt dramatic increase in height and
  weight
• Usually occurs earlier in girls than boys
• Puberty capability of sexual reproduction
• Menarche in girls
• Boys seldom know when it begins exactly

34
Challenge of Identity Formation

• Identity crisis a struggle to define a sense of
  self, what to do in life, and what ones
  attitudes, beliefs, and values should be
• Marcia 4 ways identity issues can be resolved
• Identity Achievement
• Foreclosure
• Identity Diffusion
• Moratorium

35
Marriage and Family

• Erikson Early adulthood revolves around the
  choice of intimacy or isolation
• Mate selection involves availability,
  eligibility, and attractiveness (physical and
  psychological)
• Approx. 50 of marriages end in divorce!

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Table 8.4 Characteristics sought in mates.
37
Transition to Parenthood

• Generativity concern for family and for ones
  impact on future generations
• Marital satisfaction tends to drop during the
  child-rearing years of marriage
• Marital satisfaction increases again once the
  children leave the nest

38
Career Choice

• Ones choice and satisfaction of occupation
  affects self-esteem and identity
• Career selection is driven by family influence
  and the potential for earning money

39
Challenges of Drug Use

• Many adolescents experiment with drugs
• Smoking (79) and drinking alcohol (81) lead the
  list of drug-related activities teens have tried
  at least once by ninth grade!
• Correlational study 18year-olds in experimenter
  category were more psychologically healthy than
  frequent users or abstainers

40
Challenges of Sexuality

• 49.9 of high-school teens have engaged in sexual
  behavior
• Teen pregnancy is a significant social problem

41
Development During Middle Adulthood

• One must adjust to the physiological changes of
  middle age
• Dealing with teens and elderly parents places
  some middle-aged adults in what has been called
  the sandwich generation
• Another task of this age is determining how to
  leave a mark on future generations

42
What it Means to be Old

• Ageism discrimination and prejudice against a
  group on the basis of age
• Adults over age 65 can be divided into young-old
  and old-old groups
• Fewer than 15 of Americans over the age of 65
  live in nursing homes, but it increases to 25 by
  age 85
• With increased age often comes increased physical
  problems, but only 28 of the elderly report
  their health as fair to poor

43
Death and Dying

• 5 stages of facing death
• Denial
• Anger
• Bargaining
• Depression
• Acceptance