Chapter 4 - Development Over the Lifespan Flashcards
Developmental Psychology
Changes in biological, physical,
psychological, & behavioural processes across the lifespan
Nature and Nurture
Environment or heredity?
- how much genetics and environment are influential on human development
- how much does each one influence
Critical Period
Age where experiences MUST
occur
- brain must have certain environmental stimuli to develop properly, like with light
Sensitive Periods
Optimal age range
- learning a second language before age 12 as if it were a first
Cross Sectional Research Design
Compare DIFFERENT AGES at SAME TIME
– Different cohorts grew up in different time periods
– Different experiences, cultural changes, environmental changes
– Technology; growing up in depression; access to higher education etc.
Longitudinal Research Design
Test SAME cohort (same group of people) at different times
– Expensive and time consuming
– People drop out
– Are results generalizable to all people, just this group?
Sequential Research Design
COMBINATION of cross-sectional and
longitudinal design
– Test several cohorts as they age
- Very time consuming and expensive
Prenatal Development
- Germinal
- Embryonic
- Fetal
Gary Eats Figs
Germinal stage
– First 2 weeks
– Zygote attaches to uterine wall
- 1 sperm fertilizes an ovary
Embryonic Stage
– 2nd - 8th week
– Placenta & umbilical cord develop
What Function does the Placenta and Umbilical Cord have in prenatal development?
Enables nutrients and oxygen to pass from the mother’s blood to the embryo, and in
turn carry waste products back from the mother to the embryo
- this process speeds up prenatal development, and embryonic cells divide rapidly and become specialized
- bodily organs and systems begin to form,
and by week 8, the heart of the 2cm embryo is beating and the brain is forming
Fetal Stage
– Begins at 9th week
– 28 weeks = age of viability (fetus is likely to survive outside the womb in case of premature birth)
How many pairs of chromosomes do most human cells have?
23 pairs
What does each pair of chromosomes contain?
One chromosome from each parent (23 from mother, 23 from the father)
23rd chromosome for Females and Males
Females: XX Males: XY
What does the Y chromosome contain?
TDF (testis determining factor)
TDF (testis determining factor)
Initiates development of testes
– Testes secrete androgens (sex hormones that direct male pattern of organ development)
What is the Critical Period for TDF?
6-8 weeks
– Insufficient androgen activity = female
Teratogens
Environmental agents that may cause
abnormal fetal development
– Mercury, lead, radiation, nicotine, stress, alcohol
Maternal Malnutrition
Miscarriage, premature birth, stillbirth,
impaired brain development
Maternal Stress (stress hormones)
Premature birth, infant irritability, attentional
deficits
Sexually Transmitted Diseases
Can pass from mother to fetus and produce brain damage, blindness, and deafness, depending on the disease
Nicotine
Increase the risk of miscarriage,
premature birth, and low birth weight
– Second-hand smoke through fathers or the environment
Effect of Drug use
Babies of pregnant mothers who use heroin or cocaine are often BORN ADDICTED and experience withdrawal symptoms after birth
Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders
Cognitive, behavioural, and
physical deficits caused by
prenatal exposure to alcohol
Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS)
Disorder within the spectrum
involving a cluster of SEVERE DEVELOPMENTAL ABNORMALITIES
- Abnormal facial features, underdeveloped brains
- intellectual disability, attentional and perceptual deficits, impulsivity, and poor social skills
What did William James suggest about newborn children?
That the newborn’s world is a “buzzing, blooming confusion”
– They are passive, disorganized,
and have an empty mind.
- This view is NO LONGER VALID, given our knowledge of prenatal sensory-motor development; the tactile, auditory, and chemical perceptual systems have been stimulated and are operating at birth.
Newborn Sensation and Perception of Vision
Visual system is POORLY DEVELOPED at birth.
● VERY NEARSIGHTED: 20/800 at birth (40 times worse than normal adult acuity of 20/20)
● Gets BETTER PROGRESSIVELY (20/100 by 6 months)
● Can focus on an object 20-40 cm away
Preferential Looking Procedure
Measures how long infant looks at a stimulus
* Newborns look longer at stimuli THEY FIND INTERESTING
– Determine when ‘detail’ becomes interesting
Colour vision in infants and children
Can see few colours as newborns, perceive full range of colours by 3 MONTHS
– Prefer patterned stimuli
– Prefer mother’s face
Newborn sensation and perception of Other Senses
Tactile, auditory, & olfactory senses operating at birth
* Orient to significant stimuli
- Will orient towards source of sounds, tactile stimuli, odours
- Most importantly, towards their MOTHER’S FACE, voice, and smell, optimizing their access to food, warmth, and social stimulation
Sound Localization
Ability to localize sounds
- U-shaped function, disappears at 4 months, reappears at 6 months
Phoneme Discrimination
Ability to detect changes in speech sounds (by 2 months age)
- Exceeds that of an adult, disappears by 1 year of age (as they become native speakers of their own language)
Music Perception
Shows similar responses to consonant & dissonant patterns as adults
- Can remember short melodies
Habituation Procedure
New stimulus presented (over and over again until the infant is habituated to it)
– Looking time declines 50%
* Recognize familiar faces
* Discriminate different speech sounds (orient toward the stimulus longer)
Classical and Operant Conditioning
Acquire classically conditioned responses
* Learn that they can “make things happen”
Imitation
Imitate adult facial expressions
- helps infants recognize people and engage with them
- 1 day old
Maturation
Genetically programmed biological process that governs our growth
- our bodies, brain and motor skills develop
Cephalocaudal Principle
Development is from head to foot
- head develops before the torso, torso develops before legs, so on
Proximodistal Principle
Development is from innermost to outer
- shoulder before arms, arms develop before hands and fingers
How much does the human brain weigh at birth?
Weighs 25% of adult brain
* 50% by 6 months
* Cells become larger and neural networks form
Stages of Brain Development
- First → brainstem (basic survival
functions) - Last → associative areas of cortex (decision making, reasoning)
Growth rate of the brain in Infants
- 5 years = 90% of adult size
- New synapses form, unnecessary
synapses are pruned back
Stage-like Development (motor development)
Age of acquiring skill differs, but the sequence is the same
- Some have U-shaped function → stepping reflex (involuntary stepping movement when placing their feet on a surface)
Environmental and Cultural
Influences on Physical Development
- Diet (consistent breast feeding - cognitive development)
- Enriched environments: interaction with people, access to toys… (helps them to thrive)
- Physical touch (develop physically and neurologically)
Environmental and Cultural
Influences on Sensory Development
Visual deprivation can permanently damage
visual abilities
General Principles of environmental and cultural influences
- Biology sets LIMITS on environmental influences
- Environmental influences can be POWERFUL (nurturing environments should not be underestimated)
- Biological & environmental factors INTERACT with each other
What is the purpose of Piaget’s Stage Theory?
Understanding the way how children
answer questions
* Natural-born “scientists”
What does the brain do in Piaget’s Stage Model
Brain builds schemas to achieve understanding
Schema
A concept or framework that the
child is using to understand a particular experience
- concepts we use to understand the world
Assimilation
New experiences incorporated into existing schemas
- see a dog, identify it as a dog. Horse is a dog (schema at infancy)
- Piaget
Accomodation
New experiences cause existing schemas to change
- learn and develop
Sensorimotor Stage (Piaget’s Stage Theory)
Understand world through SENSORY EXPERIENCES & PHYSICAL INTERACTIONS with objects
– Birth to 2 YEARS
– Begin to acquire language
- Object Permenance
Object Permanence
Understanding that objects continue
to exist even when they can no longer be seen
– Babies do not develop this until bout 8 months
– Peekaboo!
Preoperational Stage (Piaget)
– Ages 2-7
– World represented SYMBOLICALLY through WORDS and MENTAL IMAGES, which also enables pretend play
– Child does not understand conservation
– Preoperational children’s thinking also reflects egocentrism
Conservation
The object’s mass, quantity or volume does not change, although their outward appearance may change
Egocentrism
Difficulty in taking someone else’s
perspective
- not understanding that people have different mental states
Concrete Operational Stage (Piaget)
– Ages 7-12
– Easily perform basic mental operations involving tangible problems and situations about the PHYSICAL WORLD
– Understanding cause-and-effects
– Children can understand conservation and perspective taking
– Have difficulty with problems that require ABSTRACT REASONING
Formal Operational Stage (Piaget)
– Develops around 11 or 12
– Think logically about CONCRETE & ABSTRACT PROBLEMS (and flexibly)
– Form & test hypotheses
Universality Principle
Cognitive abilities associated with four stages of develop in same order across cultures
Assessment of Piaget’s Stage Theory
● Children acquire cognitive skills at earlier ages than Piaget believed
● Development within each stage proceeds inconsistently: Does cognitive development consist of distinct stages?
● Culture influences cognitive development: Cognitive development is considered based on interpersonal skill or social intelligence in different cultures.
● Cognitive development is complex and variable: All children may not follow the same developmental path.
Theory of Mind
A person’s beliefs about the mind and the ability to understand other people’s mental states. On how the mind works and what others are thinking
- Lying, deception provide evidence for theory of mind
- relates to egocentrism
What does Vygotsky think is important?
Social Interaction
- relation with the biological maturation of the brain
Zone of Proximal Development
Difference between what children can
do independently & what they can do
with assistance (Vygotsky)
– Provides insight into cognitive abilities
that are in process of maturation
– Others can facilitate child’s cognitive
development within limits of biological
maturation
What kind of process is Cognitive Development?
A continuous, gradual process rather
than occurring stage by stage
How does Cognitive Growth occur?
As information processing abilities gradually become more efficient
What improves with age in children?
- PROCESSING INFORMATION
- ATTENTION SPAN and MEMORY
What are emotions and what do they reflect?
An array of reactions/responses. Emotions reflect our affective states, and could be intense or mild, brief or extended
- Emotions can be reflected in behavior, subjective experience or physiological
reactions
Social-Emotional and Personality
Development in infants
- 18 months develop SENSE OF SELF
Age 2
– Learn RULES & performance standards
– Display more COMPLEX EMOTIONS such as guilt, shame, embarrassment, envy, or pride
Emotional Regulation
The processes by which we evaluate and modify our emotional reactions
Term for emotional regulation that increases with age
Emotional competence (i.e., emotional
expressiveness and emotion regulation skills)
What plays a role in gaining emotional competence?
Social interaction with their environment
Erikson’s Psychosocial Theory
– 8 major psychosocial stages
– Various crises are relevant at specific ages
– ‘Crisis’ for each stage needs to be resolved
- conflict of each age period is different - related to how we see each other in relation toother people and the world
- Not conceptualized as the distinct theories in Piaget’s theory
- A crisis or a conflict can
be present at any time, but would have special importance in certain age periods
What does each stage in Erikson’s Psychosocial Theory create?
New Opportunities
– Personality is not fixed in childhood
– Themes / patterns that emerge early in
childhood = important later in life
Erik Erikson’s Psychosocial Theory Crises
Age (years) Major Psychosocial Crisis
First year: Basic trust vs. basic mistrust (basic needs are met or not)
1-2: Autonomy (desire to experience individuality and for others to notice it) vs. shame and doubt
3-5: Initiative vs. guilt (children are curious about the world. Ask questions about how things work. If curiosity is encouraged, they feel initiative. If punished for curiosity, they feel guilty)
6–12: Industry vs. inferiority (if children feel encouragement for their achievements in their tasks, or receive praise, they develop industry - striving for achievement; repeated failures or discouragements, lack of praise can
lead to a feeling of inferiority)
Attachment
Strong emotional bond between children &
primary caregivers
Imprinting
Biologically primed form of attachment
Harry Harlow’s work with attachment
Contact with comfort more important than
nourishment in fostering attachment
What are the 3 phases in John Bowlby’s Attachment Process?
- INDISCRIMINATE attachment
behaviour (newborns)
- anyone to meet their needs - DISCRIMINATE attachment behaviour (3 months)
- gets familiar with the primary caregiver, expects them to meet their needs - SPECIFIC attachment behaviour (7-8
months)
- knows their caregiver is secure
Separation Anxiety
Distress over being separated from
primary caregiver
– Begins at 12-16 months of age and decreases through 2-3 years
– Shows similar pattern across cultures
Strange Situation Test (Mary Ainsworth
et al., 1978)
– Mother plays with baby (12-18 months
old) - stranger enters
– Mother leaves (examines how the baby reacts)
– Stranger leaves - baby alone
– Mother returns
Secure Attachment
– Explore & react positively to strangers
– Distressed when mother leaves
– Happy when mother returns
Anxious-resistant
– FEARFUL when mother present
– DEMAND ATTENTION of the mother
– DISTRESSED when mother leaves
– NOT SOOTHED when she returns
Anxious-avoidant
– Show few signs of attachment
– Seldom cries when mother leaves
– Doesn’t seek contact upon mother’s return
Infancy is what kind of period for attachment?
A sensitive period
- It is an important component of early social development
– Secure infants are better socially adjusted.
What can create problems in social-emotional and personality development?
Unfavorable environments and prolonged attachment deprivation (e.g. isolation)
– Not all in deprived environments at risk resilience.
– Placed in nurturing environment at early age leads to improvement in cognitive and social development.
What 2 dimensions are the Styles of Parenting determined along?
- Warmth vs. hostility (warmth: love and caring, and responds with more empathy towards the child’s feelings; Hostility: express rejection and behave as if they do not care for the child)
- Restrictiveness vs. permissiveness
Authoritative Parents
– Controlling but warm
– Set rules and clearly communicate and enforce them, but also reward children’s compliance with warmth and affection. They communicate high expectations. Caring and support
– Most positive childhood outcomes
Authoritarian Parents
– Exert control but cold, unresponsive, or rejecting
– Poorer self-esteem, popularity, school performance
Indulgent Parents
– Warm and caring, but don’t provide guidance and discipline (that helps them learn responsibility and concern for others)
– Children immature, self-centered
Neglectful Parents
– Not warm, No rules of guidance
– Simply do not care
– Most negative developmental outcomes
- insecurely attached, low achievement motivation, and disturbing relationships
with peers and adults at school, impulsive and aggressive
At what age does Gender Identity Develop?
Develops arounds 2-3 years of age
– Some sense of gender becomes part of personal identity
What is Gender Constancy and when does it develop?
Around 6-7 years, understand gender as
something permanent
Sex-typing
Involves treating others differently based on whether they are female or male
– Certain expectations of expected behaviours, learn them and become ingrained, part of our gender identity
– From infancy onward, girls and boys are viewed and treated differently
How can sex-typed stereotypes be learned?
Through observation and conditioning
● By age 7-8, stereotyped thinking is firmly in place.
● It becomes more flexible in adolescence
Level 1 of Kohlberg’s Stage Theory
Level 1: Preconventional Reasoning
– Judgments of ‘right’ & ‘wrong’ based on actual or anticipated PUNISHMENT & REWARD rather than internalized moral values
– Stage 1: Punishment/obedience orientation
(should not steal the drug because he would go to jail)
– Stage 2: Instrumental/hedonistic orientation
(would be gratified and happy)
Level 2 of Kohlberg’s Stage Theory
Level 2: Conventional Reasoning
– Moral judgments based on CONFORMITY to EXPECTATIONS of social groups
(desire to do good so that others can you as good)
– Stage 3: Good child orientation
(expected to do so because of his wife)
– Stage 4: Law and order orientation
(steal the drug, but go to prison because he broke the law)
Level 3 of Kohlberg’s Stage Theory
Level 3: Postconventional Reasoning
– Moral judgments based on GENERAL PRINCIPLES; following one’s conscience
– Principles have been internalized & are part of person’s value system
– Stage 5: Social contract orientation
(agreements on general principles that foster overall welfare and individual rights, but also recognition that society can decide to modify laws that lose their utility)
– Stage 6: Universal ethical principles
(heinz should steal the drug, but should not
go to jail)
What influences internal regulatory mechanism – (conscience)
– Internalizing societal values from parents
– Temperament (fearful inhibited children tend to internalize parental values earlier and easier than less fearful children - gentle discipline)
– Learning
– Attachment
– Emotional regulation
Physical Development in Puberty
– Hypothalamus signals the pituitary gland to increase its hormonal secretions
– Rapid maturation in which person becomes capable of reproduction
– Primary & secondary sex characteristics mature
* Menarche & production of sperm occur
Psychological Outcomes of Physical Changes
– Effects on mood and behaviour
– Early maturation generally more positive for
boys than for girls
– Timing & perception of whether maturation is early or late is important
Brain Growth in adolescence
Overall brain growth is slower than childhood
– fMRI techniques -> brain activity is different in children, adolescents, and adults
– Increase in areas important for impulse control and abstract thought
– Maturation of neural networks
– Corpus callosum increases in area by 10%
Physical Development in Young Adulthood
- Peak of physical, sexual, and perceptual functioning
- Maximum muscle strength
– In the legs, arms, and other parts of the body is reached at age 25 to 30 - Vision, hearing, reaction time, and coordination
– Peak levels in the mid-20s
Physical Development in Middle and Late Adulthood
- Physical status declines at mid-life
– Muscles become weaker and stiffer,
especially among sedentary people - Visual acuity – declines with age
- Basal Metabolic rate - slows after 40
- Efficiency of oxygen consumption decreases
– Bones may become brittle – slow to heal
Brain changes in middle and late adulthood
- We do lose brain tissue
– Frontal and Parietal lobes show greatest loss - Many changes offset by lifestyle, nutrition, attitude
Cognitive Development in Adolescence with brain maturation
Brain maturation continues.
* Adolescent Egocentrism – OVERESTIMATION of uniqueness of feelings, experiences
(personal fable)
– OVERSENSITIVITY to social evaluation (imaginary audience)
Other factors in Cognitive Development in Adolescence - type of thinking and abilities
- Increase in abstract reasoning abilities
- More flexible, creative thinking
– FORMAL OPERATIONAL THOUGHT – They can use deductive reasoning to solve scientific problems systematically
● The advancing is more slowly than childhood.
● However, their memory becomes more efficient and attention span becomes longer.
Changes in Cognitive Development in Adulthood - what kind of thinking?
- POST-FORMAL OPERATIONAL THINKING
– Allows for new and more complex ways people can reason logically about opposing points of view
– Accept contradictions and irreconcilable
differences
More Changes in Cognitive Development in Adulthood
Changes in INFORMATION PROCESSING and memory – see decline but amount varies
– Reaction time (Perceptual speed)
(starts to increase. Time to respond takes longer)
– Memory for new information
– Spatial memory (where things are)
– Changes to prospective memory – less clear
(having difficulty in remembering what they plan to do in the future)
Intellectual Changes in Adulthood
- Crystallized Intelligence
– Peak in middle adulthood and then decline - Fluid Intelligence
– Begins to decline in early adulthood - Cognitive function
– Remain physically and intellectually active - Older but wiser?
– Studies suggest wisdom increases with age
Identity Diffusion
No identity crisis yet; uncommitted to a
role
- teens and adults seemed unconcerned about identity issues
- James Marcia
Foreclosure
Adopting a role or identity without going through identity crisis
- James Marcia
Moratorium
Current identity crisis; not resolved
- James Marcia
Identity Achievement
Gone through identity crisis; successfully resolved
- James Marcia
Social-Emotional & Personality Development factors in adolescence
- Parental relationships
– Storm & stress = the rule or exception ?
– Degree of agreement with parents - depends on issue
– Conflict generally low - Conflict
– Misconduct
– Anti-social behaviour
– Hopelessness
– Low self-esteem
Correlation does not equal Causation
Transition to Adulthood - Erikson’s Psychosocial Stages
Age (years) Major Psychological Crisis
20–40 Intimacy vs. isolation (ability to
open ones self to other people)
40–65 Generativity vs. stagnation
(careers, raising children, doing
things for others)
65+ Integrity vs. despair
(review their lives and look at their meanings. Feel resolved there is integrity; despair if they have not lived their lives in a more fulfilling way)
Retirement and the “Golden Years”
Adjustment depends on many factors
○ Physical health
○ Leisure interests
○ Financial security
○ Family relationships
○ Is retirement voluntary?
People with strong work values miss jobs
most
Death
– Approach impending death in many ways
– Affected by beliefs and customs
– Elderly most accepting of own impending death
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s Stages of Dying
– Denial
– Anger
– Bargaining
– Depression
– Acceptance
