Development

1
Development

• Chapter 10

2
Development

• Part I Piaget and Cognitive Development
• Part II Attachment Theory
• Part III Parenting Styles

3
Piagets Theory

• Mental development is an adaptive process that
  has its origins in the childs own actions on the
  environment
• Schemas
• Mental models of the world that people use to
  guide and interpret their experiences
• Cognitive development occurs as we acquire new
  schemas and our existing schemas become more
  complex

4
Piagets Theory

• Assimilation
• New experiences are incorporated into existing
  schemas
• Accommodation
• New experiences cause existing schemas to change
• Every time a schema is modified it creates a
  better equilibrium between environment and
  childs understanding of it

5

• Four major stages of cognitive development, each
  with a qualitatively different form of thinking

Sensorimotor
Preoperational
Concrete Operational
Formal Operational
6
Sensorimotor Stage (Birth-2years)

• Child understands world through sensory
  experience and physical interactions with objects
• Eventually realize can make things happen
• Early in first year, lack object permanence
• ability to think of objects not in sight

7
Object Permanence Clips
8
Preoperational Stage (2-7 years)

• Well developed ability to symbolize the world
  through words and mental images
• Often see
• Animism
• Egocentrism
• Lacking
• Cannot think operationally
• An operation is a reversible action, can be
  undone by another action
• Do not truly understand cause and effect
• Fail to understand conservation

9
Conservation Clips
10
Concrete Operational (7-12 years)

• Children can perform basic mental operations for
  problems involving tangible (concrete) objects
  and situations
• If cant see, hear, touch, taste, or smell
  concrete children cannot easily consider it
• Concrete operational schemes allow a person to
  manipulate knowledge without losing track of its
  original form

11
Concrete Operation Clip
12
Formal-Operational Stage (12 years)

• Can think logically and systematically about both
  concrete and abstract problems, form hypotheses,
  test them in meaningful ways
• AKA hypothetico-deductive reasoning
• Can apply operational thinking to actions that
  are not reversible in actuality but in theory
• Transition occurs gradually over many years not
  achieved by everyone

13
Criticisms of Piagets Theory

• Stages occur in same order across cultures, but
  not same timetable
• Many children acquire cognitive skills at earlier
  age than Piaget believed
• Cognitive development within each stage seems to
  proceed inconsistently
• Vygotsky
• Zone of proximal development

14
Part II Attachment Theory
15
Attachment Theory

• Bowlby
• Developed to explain the tendency to form strong
  bonds to particular others and young childrens
  responses to loss of caregivers
• Attachment close, affectional bond that is
  formed with another

16
Components of Attachment
17
Attachment in Infancy

• Indiscriminate Attachment behavior
• Newborns cry, vocalize, smile at everyone
• Discrimination Attachment behavior
• Around 3 months, infants direct attachment
  behaviors towards more familiar caregivers rather
  than strangers
• Specific Attachment behavior
• By 7 or 8 months of age, develop first meaningful
  attachment to caregivers. Caregiver becomes
  secure base

18
Individual differences in Child Attachment

• Secure attachment
• Effectively uses AF as safe haven secure base
• Avoidant attachment
• Avoids/Ignores AF when under stress
• Anxious-ambivalent attachment
• Seeks AF, but difficult to calm
• Avoidant/ambivalent Disorganized
• High anxiety both approach avoidance of AF

19
What predicts each style?

• Secure attachment
• Predicted by sensitive parenting
• Avoidant attachment
• Predicted by insensitive, rejecting parenting
• Anxious-ambivalent attachment
• Predicted by insensitive, inconsistent parenting
• Avoidant/ambivalent Disorganized
• Predicted by most disturbed parenting

20
Measuring Attachment Strange Situation Test

• Conducted with 10-24 month old children
• Looking for infants response to parent
• Basic Strange Situation Format
• Step 1 Parent nonparticipant while baby
  plays
• Step 2 Stranger enters. Silent. Talks Parent.
  Approaches Baby.
• Step 3 First Separation. Parent leaves.
  Stranger focuses on Baby.
• Step 4 Reunion. Parent comforts Baby. Stranger
  leaves.
• Step 5 Parents says bye again.
• Step 6 Stranger re-enters
• Step 7 Second Reunion. Parent re-enters.

21
Strange Situation How do babies with different
attachment orientations act?

• Secure
• Distressed when mother leaves but happily greet
  her upon return
• Avoidant
• Show few signs of attachment, seldom cry when
  mother leaves
• Anxious/Ambivalent
• Highly distressed when mother leaves, not soothed
  when she returns, may angrily resist her attempts
  at contact
• Avoidant/ambivalent Disorganized
• Does not characterize any of above 3 responses.
  Mixture of both approach and resistance behaviors

22
Stability in Child Attachment

• Continuity over childhood moderate
• High when caregiving environment stable
• Low when major changes in caregiving environment
• Easier to change earlier in life
• The more established the pattern, the harder to
  change
• The older, the greater the impact of the child on
  its social environment, exerting a conservative
  force

23
Common Misconceptions

• Quality only a function of caregiving quality
• Role of temperament child-caregiver match
• Consistent across relationships
• Consistent over time
• Varies with stability of caregiving environment

24
Moving to adulthood Working Models

• Childhood attachment relationships internalized
  in working models (Bowlby, 1973)
• the model of the other
• Whether or not the attachment figure is judged
  to be the sort of person who in general responds
  to calls for support or protection
• the model of the self
• Whether or not the self is judged to be the sort
  of person towards whom anyone, the attachment
  figure in particular, is likely to respond in a
  helpful way
• Working models carried forward into adult
  attachment relationships

25
PositiveModel of Other
Negative Model of Self
Positive Model of Self
NegativeModel of Other
26
Two-dimensional, four-prototype model of adult
attachment
PositiveModel of Other
SECURE
PREOCCUPIED
Comfortable with intimacy and autonomy in close
relationships
Preoccupied with close relationships Overly
dependent on others for support and self-esteem
Negative Model of Self
Positive Model of Self
DISMISSING
FEARFUL
Downplays importanceof close relationshipsCompul
sive self-reliance
Fearful of intimacydue to fear of
rejectionSocially avoidant
NegativeModel of Other
27
Limitations of working model framework

• Working models cant be observed
• Instead Patterns of emotional behavioural
  responses
• Model of self linked to experience of
  attachment-related anxiety Anxiety (emotional)
• Model of other linked to seeking out or avoiding
  support when needed Avoidance (behavioural)
• Advantages
• Easier to assess
• Child adult attachment patterns in same
  framework

28
Revised two-dimensional, four-prototype model of
adult attachment
LowAvoidance
Preoccupied(Ambivalent)
Secure (Secure)
HighAnxiety
LowAnxiety
Dismissing(Avoidant)
Fearful(Anxious/avoidantDisorganized)
HighAvoidance
Note Infant patterns in parentheses
29
Secure attachment
Snoopy

• It is easy for me to become emotionally close to
  others. I am comfortable depending on them and
  having them depend on me. I don't worry about
  being alone or having others not accept me.

30
Secure attachment

• Defining features
• Capable of intimacy independence
• Positive views of close others, internalized
  positive self-image
• Flexible coping, including reliance on others for
  support
• Coherent realistic in discussing relationships
• Background
• Tend to report reasonable to good family
  background

31
Secure attachment cont.

• Outcomes
• Good personal social adjustment
• Common misconceptions
• Perfect, successful relationships
• Likely to be in a romantic relationship
• Never anxious or insecure
• Outgoing extraverted
• Successful in other aspects of life

32
Fearful attachment

• I am uncomfortable getting close to others. I
  want emotionally close relationships, but I find
  it difficult to trust others completely, or to
  depend on them. I worry that I will be hurt if I
  allow myself to become too close to others.

33
Fearful attachment

• Defining features
• Avoids closeness due to fear of hurt rejection
• Negative expectations of others dependent on
  others for self-worth
• Withdraws when upset avoidant coping
• Background
• Tend to report the most difficult family
  backgrounds

34
Fearful attachment cont.

• Outcomes
• Relatively poor personal social adjustment
• Interpersonal problems
• Shy, unassertive, difficulty expressing feelings
• Common misconceptions
• Incapable of forming close relationships
• High anxiety always evident
• Unsuccessful in other aspects of life

35
Preoccupied Attachment

• I want to be completely emotionally intimate
  with others, but I often find that others are
  reluctant to get as close as I would like. I am
  uncomfortable being without close relationships,
  but I sometimes worry that others don't value me
  as much as I value them.

36
Preoccupied Attachment

• Defining features
• Preoccupation with close relationships
• Not confident in others support prone to
  attachment anxiety excessive reliance on others
  for self-worth
• Turns to others when upset approach orientation
• Demanding of closeness, attention, approval in
  relationships (jealous, possessive, etc.)
• Emotional, elaborative, incoherent in
  discussing relationships
• Background
• Tend to report conflicted, enmeshed family
  backgrounds

37
Preoccupied Attachment cont.

• Outcomes
• Relatively poor personal social adjustment
• Interpersonal problems
• Intrusive, demanding, dominating, overly
  disclosing
• Common misconceptions
• Predominantly women
• Necessarily histrionic
• Relationships necessarily poor
• Unsuccessful in other aspects of life

38
Dismissing Attachment

• I am comfortable without close emotional
  relationships. It is very important to me to
  feelindependent and self-sufficient, and I
  prefer not to depend on others or have others
  depend on me.

39
Dismissing Attachment

• Defining features
• Value self-reliance downplay importance of
  attachment relationships
• Low expectations of close others, high
  self-worth
• Deals with upsets on own
• Low elaboration, low introspection, defensive
  in discussing relationships
• Background
• Tend to report distant family relations

40
Dismissing attachment cont.

• Outcomes
• Generally good personal social adjustment
• Close relationships relatively problematic
• Interpersonal problems
• Hard to get close to others, distance in
  relationships
• Common misconceptions
• Predominantly men
• Unlikely to be in close relationships
  Uninterested in close relationships Dont need
  anyone
• Incapable of love or commitment afraid of
  intimacy
• Immune to attachment anxiety
• Cold, aggressive, arrogant

41
Snoopy
PREOCCUPIED
SECURE
DISMISSING
FEARFUL
42
Part III Parenting Styles
43
Styles of Parenting

• Baumrind identified two dimensions of parental
  behavior
• Warmth and hostility
• Restrictiveness/permissiveness

44
Parenting Styles
Warmth/Acceptance
Hostility / Rejection
Demanding, but caring good child-parent
communication
Assertion of parental power without warmth
Authoritarian
Authoritative
Restrictive
Indifferent and uninvolved with child
Indulgent
Neglecting
Warm toward child, But lax in setting limits
Permissive
45
Child Outcomes
Warmth/Acceptance
Hostility / Rejection

Authoritarian
Authoritative
Higher self esteem, higher achievers in school,
fewer conduct problems, more considerate of
others.
lower self esteem, less popular with peers,
perform much more poorly in school
Restrictive
Indulgent
Neglecting
Insecurely attached, have low achievement
Motivation, disturbed relationships with peers
and adults at school, impulsive, aggressive
Children tend to be more immature and
self-centered.
Permissive