Chapter 9: Human Development Across the

Life Span

Objective

I will be able to apply the concepts and theories learned about human development on tests, and on individual and group assignments.

Essential Questions

1. What is meant by development through the life cycle?

2. What are the major theories of human psychological, cognitive, social and moral development?

3. How do children form attachments?

New on Sample Exam

• 1. Twin studies show a genetic predisposition to homosexuality=biological basis

• 2. instrumental aggression=goal oriented aggression- I grab your toy because I want to play with your toy

• 3. hostile aggression=intended to hurt others• 4. Father determines sex of child

How do you think people change through the life

cycle in:1. Cognitive,

2. Social, and 3. Moral Development?

Developmental Psychology

Study of age-related changes that occur in a person from conception to death.

Maturation

• Growth of an organism that occurs on its own based on predetermined timetable without the aid of environment

• Unfolding of a genetic blueprint

The BIG issue in developmental psychology: Nature v. Nurture (learned)

-Maturation is natureJohn B. Watson (founder of behaviorism) believed…tell

me what he believed

Progress Before Birth:Prenatal Development 3 phases

germinal stage (zygote)= first 2 weeks after conception

conception,

implantation, formation of placenta

Progress Before Birth:Prenatal Development

embryonic stage (embryo) = 2 weeks –

2 months

vital organs and systems formed

Can see eyes, limbs, feet, hands, ovaries or testees

Progress Before Birth:Prenatal Development

3 stages

– fetal stage = 2 months – birth• bodily growth continues/brain cells

multiply• age of viability (22-26 weeks-can

survive)• *neonate=new born

Figure 11.1 Overview of fetal development

Dad determines a child’s sex

mother gives X (female) chromosome

dad gives either another X or a Y (male chromosome)

XX=girl; XY=boy

These sex chromosomes are the 23rd pair (46 chromosomes total)

Up until 7 weeks after conception, you are anatomically (genital) neutral

*Prenatal Risks

• Placenta provides protection and nutrients, but is not impermeable to diseases/toxic agents.

• teratogen=any agent that will harm the development of the fetus:

1.Alcohol (*most abused pregnancy drug)

2.Tobacco

3.Cocaine

*1. Alcohol Impaired cognitive functioning, child more likely to be alcohol dependent in later life

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome=mental impairment/retardation, facial abnormalities

What affects the unborn child?

FAS FAS

2. Smoking

Underweight, premature, irritability, attention difficulties, possible nicotine addiction/withdrawal

*CocaineUnderweight, premature, impaired cognitive and motor development, ADDICTED, WITHDRAWAL

Newborn Reflexes-involuntary, unlearned motor skills

1. Grasping/Palmar

2. Rooting

3. Sucking

4. Babinski

5. moro- flinging arms outward then inward as if to grab when startled or dropped

6. Swallowing

7. Stepping

The Childhood Years: Motor Development

• Developmental norms – median age at which children display various behaviors and abilities

The Childhood Years: Motor Development

• 3 months-lift head• 4 months-smile• 5 1/2 months-role over

grasp objects• 8-9 months stand• 10-15 months walk

Developmental Researchers Use These Studies

1. Longitudinal vs. cross-sectional designs

- cohort (a group of people born during same historical time period)

• Know the advantages/disadvantages of the above research methods (number 1)

• 2. Biographical or retrospective study (going back into a subject’s history-education., medical, etc..-to gather info.)

Figure 11.6 Longitudinal versus cross-sectional research

Temperament

Easy and Difficult Babies:Differences in Temperament

longitudinal study showed:– 3 basic temperamental styles

(Temperament=mood, activity level and emotional reactivity or emotional dispositions of infants-INNATE and stable over time)

– At three months-good predictor at age 10

• *easy (happy and cheerful, regular sleep and eating habits)- 40%

• *slow-to-warm-up (more withdrawn and moody, not good in new situations) – 15%

• *difficult – 10% (fussy/fearful, more intense reactions

• -*mixed – 35%

Goodness of Fit

• environments that accommodate children’s’ temperaments is important for well being

• The behavioral fit describes how well the behavior fits with the environment.

• The emotional fit describes how well the child’s temperament fits with the people in his environment and how likable the people in the environment consider the child to be.

Infant Perceptual Abilities

How Do Researchers Determine What Infants See and Remember?

• Habituation-(on AP Exam) a decrease in responding with repeated stimulation (or presenting the same thing again and again and infants do not respond or become excited)

How do you think this would work?

Give me an example using an object and infant.

Perceptual Abilities

Infants prefer:

• new picture or pattern than one seen many times before

• more simple patterns

• Faces (even at one hour old)

• Mother’s face over a stranger

Depth Perception-seeing three (3) dimensions

Visual Cliff Experiment: have depth perception and see the world in three dimensions once they crawl (6-12 months)

See page 153

Early Attachment

Harry Harlow

Development of Emotional Attachment

Pages 426-427

*Harry Harlow’s Contact Comfort

Early Emotional Development: Attachment (strong bond between primary caregivers

and infant)

Harry Harlow -attachment had to do with more than caregiver providing food/nutrition

• Studied monkeys- separated them from mothers=Contact comfort (physical touch)was important

• Terrycloth raised monkeys avoided other adult monkeys, were violent, anxious

Other Motives-The Need for Contact

Harry Harlow-Contact Comfort (1958)

• Primates possess a strong need for contact

• The need for affection, cuddling and closeness associated with contact motive

• Failure to thrive• Premature infants

Attachment-ImprintingKonrad Lorenz

Felt there was a critical learning period (an optimal developmental

time)for attachment

-goslings, minutes after being born, follow the first thing they saw, esp. moving objects (himself or other objects)-it is difficult to reverse this

Early Emotional Development: Attachment

• Developing secure attachment

– Bonding at birth

– Separation anxiety (infants emotional distress when separated from caregiver)

– This is normal for babies at 6 -18 months

Early Emotional Development: Attachment• Separation anxiety observed

– Mary Ainsworth- the “strange situation” experiment (1979)-looked at attachment between mother and child-had caregivers leave the room:

• Secure (cries when mom leaves; happy to see mom when returns) results from mothers who attend to needs-used caregiver as a home base

• Anxious-ambivalent (moms are inconsistent -anxious when mom is near, protests when she leaves, is not comforted when she returns)

• Anxious-Avoidant (results when mom does not respond to child’s needs=ignores caregiver when returns)

Stage Theories of Development

Major Controversy in Developmental Psych. Besides Nature (genetics) v.

Nurture (environment):

• Continuity v. Discontinuity (Stages)

Do we develop continually, from birth to death, being able to develop a skill throughout development (Continuity), or do we develop in stages, where development of a skill happens at a certain age/stage, and only in that stage (Stage Theory)?

Figure 11.10 Stage theories of development

Stage Theories of Development: Development/ Personality

• Stage Theories three components :

– progress through stages in order

– Progression through stages related to age

– major task brings in a transitions in behavior

• Erik Erikson (1963)

– Eight Psychosocial Stages spanning the lifespan

Erik Erikson's Psychosocial Development-page 451

Came after, and as a response to, Freud’s

Psychosexual stages.

Erickson’s Stage TheoryAt each stage: a psychosocial crisis determines personality-Each crisis is a struggle between two opposing tendencies.-crisis is either resolved or unresolved.

Figure 11.11 Erikson’s stage theory

Erickson

Stage 1-Trust verses Mistrust, deals with social competence

Cognitive Development

Jean PiagetCognitive Development=Transitions in thinking (reasoning, remembering and problem solving)

Stage Theories: Cognitive Development

• Jean Piaget (1920s-1980s)• He said children view the world through

schemata/schema (-mental representation or map of the environment/world based on experience)– Assimilation= an attempt to integrate new info

into an existing schema (dogs bark too)– Accommodation= modifying an existing schema

into a new one (ex. dogs do not purr-these are cats)

ex. Not everything round is a ball

Stage Theories: Cognitive Development-Jean Piaget (1920s-1980s)

– 4 stages and major milestones

1. Sensorimotor –birth to 2-experiences world through sences

– Object permanence– Stranger/separation anxiety develops after

Object permanence

2. Preoperational- 2 to 7– Centration (focus on one part of a problem

only-look only at height of the water and not the width), Egocentrism (can not see others perspective), Animism (inanimate objects have human characteristics, feelings-Example=……….)

Stage Theories: Cognitive Development *Jean Piaget (1920s-1980s)

– 4 stages and major milestones

3. Concrete Operational – 7 to 11– Decentration (can see more then one

feature of a problem simultaneously), Reversibility (concepts can be reversed and stay the same-Sally understands her sister has a sister or 3 + 4= 4+3), Conservation, Seriation -put objects into a series (small to large) or putting objects that share similar characteristics (color or size) into same category

–What does this most relate to in the memory chapter?

Figure 11.14 The gradual mastery of conservation

Figure 11.13 Piaget’s conservation task

Stage Theories: Cognitive Development *Jean Piaget (1920s-1980s)

4. Formal Operational - 11 to adulthood– Thinks abstractly and hypothetically, mature

moral reasoning; thinks about future consequences

Hypothetic/abstract reasoning is the benchmark

Figure 11.12 Piaget’s stage theory

Cognitive DevelopmentPiaget’s Theory and Current Thinking

Problems with Piaget’s Theory

1. Children enter stages earlier and go through faster

2. Skills continue to develop, and not only at a certain age/stage

3. What he contributed to cognitive stages may have been result of attention span increases with age

4. His tests depended too much on language skills

Social Influences on Cognitive Development

• Vygotsky placed more emphasis on social contributions (one’s environment) to the process of development.

• According to Vygotsky (1978), much important learning by the child occurs through social interaction with a skillful tutor.

• Felt child’s inner language important to work out problem’s solution

Lev Vvgotsky-

Learning Theories on Development

• 1. Conditioning

Rewarded for appropriate behaviors

Punished for “bad” behaviorsAlbert Bandura (Social Learning Theory a.k.a-socio-

cultural learning theory)• 2. Imitation-learn social rules by observing others

(BoBo Doll Experiment)

What do you think happened when an actress

a. was given candy and soda for behavior

b. was scolded

Both work together-I imitate behaviors that I think will get rewards, and visa-versa

Moral Development

What would you do and why?

• In Europe, a woman was near by death from a special kind of cancer. There was one drug that the doctors thought might save her. It was a form of radium that a druggist in the same town had recently discovered. The drug was expensive to make, but the druggist was charging ten times what the drug cost him to make. He paid $200 for the radium and charged $2000 for a small dose of the drug. The sick woman's husband, Heinz, went to everyone he knew to borrow the money, but he could only get together about $1000, which is half of what it cost. He told the druggist that his wife was dying and asked him to sell it cheaper or let him pay later. The druggist said, "No, I discovered the drug and I'm going to make money from it." So Heinz got desperate and broke into the man's store to steal that drug for his wife.

SHOULD THE HUSBAND HAVE DONE THAT? WHY?

The Development of Moral Reasoning

• Kohlberg-Key Figure (1976)• Moral dilemmas

– Measured nature and progression of moral reasoning

– Asked different aged children about specific moral situations

– The Heinz Dilemma-should he steal a drug he can not afford to save his wife’ life

The Development of Moral Reasoning

– 3 levels• Preconventional (no-he may get caught and

go to jail)• Conventional (moral choice based on how

others will view them-they want to be seen as good-steal the drug so others would see him as a hero)

• Postconventional=(morality of social rules are evaluated rather then blindly accepted-steal because wife’s right to life is more important than the storeowner’s right to property/ transcends beyond society rules-ex., conscientious objector)

Figure 11.17 Kohlberg’s stage theory

Criticism of Kohlberg

1. Levels one and two are universal

2. Level three is culturally based

3. Study based on responses of boys/There may be gender differences in moral decisions

Carol Gilligan, Social Psychologist- two forms of Moral Reasoning

1. One based on a sense of justice

2. One based on a sense of caring-

males focus on the rights of others and not interfering with those rights;

Females are concerned with the needs of others, avoid hurting others, are less judgmental, seek compromise

Parenting Styles

Parenting Styles-How they Effect Development Outcomes

• Diana Baumrind-3 parenting styles:

1.Authoritarian-strict/ un-sympathetic, “Because I said so”

2.Permissive- child does as he pleases, few boundaries, fends for self

3.Authoritative (democratic)-compromise, compassionate, independence with limits, child’s input is given

Parenting Styles-How they Effect Development Outcomes

Results:

1.Authoritarian and Permissive- socially inept children who may become aggressive, uncooperative, unfriendly, disrespect others

2.Authoritative- well adjusted, cooperative, respectful, good decision makers, independent

Adolescents

Adolescence: Physiological Changes

• Pubescence (two years before puberty)• Puberty-sexual function reaches maturity, starts

Adolescence

-presence of primary sex characteristics=essential for reproduction (ovaries, testis, menarche-12, sperm production-14)

Secondary sex characteristics (physical features that distinguish boys from girls- not essential for sexual reproduction)

boys- face hair, deeper voice changes, longer upper torso, broader shoulders

girls-breasts, widening pelvic bones, fatter hips

Adolescence: Physiological Changes

Growth Spurt= most obvious adolescent milestone (10 ½ girls, 12 ½ boys)

Asynchrony-uneven growth in adolescence; big hands and feet, out of proportion

Adolescence: Physiological Changes– Maturation: early sexual maturation correlates

with family stress

Sex differences in effects of early maturation:

-Girls who mature early and boys who mature late have more emotional difficulties with transition to adolescence. Girls get teased more. Boys mature early=more popular

-Both have more drug/alcohol use, more risky behavior

-Girls have more unwanted pregnancies, poorer -school performance

-Early maturation thrusts both sexes to adulthood too soon

The Search for Identity

• Erik Erikson (1968)– Key challenge - forming a sense of identity (Stage

5=identity verses role confusion)

Can be a time of turmoil due to physical changes and self image, moods, risky behavior, conflict with parents-not rule of all adolescence, however

About 2% of males and 4 % of females attempt suicide in US each year

Boys more successful

Personal Fable (invincible, his ideas are unique)

Imaginary Audience (everyone is looking at you and knows thoughts notices you)

The Search for Identity

James Marcia (1988)

4 identity statuses according to Marcia• Identity Foreclosure-premature commitment to values,

visions, roles, usually the ones of the parents• Identity Moratorium-delay commitment to explore; this

is valuable if it is temporary• Identity Diffusion-apathetic, lack direction• Identity Achievement

Cliques=3 to 9 member same sex friendship groups in early adolescence

In adolescence-peer group important and leads to conformity (the glue that holds the peer group together) due to the fear of being disliked

Terms to Know• Sex=biological basis of male and female• Gender=culturally constructed distinctions between

feminine and masculine• Gender Constancy=The realization that gender

cannot be changed with age• Gender Stereotypes=widely held beliefs about

females’ and males’ abilities, traits, behaviors• Gender Differences=actual differences between

sexes in typical behavior or average ability (physical aggression is noted difference)

• Gender Roles=expectations about what is appropriate behavior for each sex

• Behavioral androgyny =participation in activities/roles usually associated with the opposite gender (boy cheerleader)

Other ConceptsCopy this Slide

Autism –pages 424-425• Problems with communication, social

interactions, and understanding others’ states of mind.

• Our Mirror Neurons help us to imitate others, feel what they feel

Other Concepts:

Right s of passage-events, ceremonies that signal transition to another stage of life (graduation, marriage, etc..)

Terms/Things to KnowSolitary Play=child plays alone, earliest form of

play

Parallel Play=play side by side, but do not interact much (1 ½ to 2)

Cooperative Play=requires interaction (3 to 3 ½)

Role Taking-mom, dad, explorer, rock star, etc…helps children understand different points of view

Theory of mind=can read others emotions/intensions

Social Clock-cultural specific timetable for events to occur (marriage, child birth, etc…)

Infantile amnesia=belief that children do not have memories of events before age three

Death and Dying Stages

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross (stages of death and dying-terminal illness):

DABDA

Denial

Anger

Bargaining

Depression

Acceptance

The Expanse of Adulthood

• Personality development continues through life-different conclusions

• Social development

Question of the mid-life crisis. There is a reflection on the remainder of life, not necessarily a crisis

Empty nest syndrome –couples report high satisfaction in life, until a spouse dies; marriage relationships improve

Our attitudes on aging-Decramental model of aging decline in functioning

Adulthood and On

Cognitive changes:

Small decline in IQ after 60

Crystallized Intelligence=already attained knowledge, facts (no decline, may increase)

Fluid Intelligence=problem solving (declines)

Continuity and Stages