Child Development (with notes from readings) Flashcards
Development
Sequence of physical and psychological changes that humans undergo as they grow older
Developmental psychology
The scientific study of age-related changes in behaviour, thinking, emotion, and personality
Different types of data collection
Self-report
Observation
Experimental methods
Clinical interview methods
Self-report data
Usually gathered from parents, but there may be memory and/ or desirability problems
Research designs and definitions
- Longitudinal design: Takes same children and looks at them over time
- Cross-sectional design: Taking a range of individuals and comparing them
- Sequential design: Combines the cross-sectional and longitudinal approaches
Jean Piaget (1896-1980)
- Observed children (his own and at work)
- Proposed a sequence of development that typically-developing children follow (was a new idea at the time)
- Proposed four stages of cognitive development, all of which were clearly defined
Stages of development (Piaget)
- Sensorimotor stage
- Pre-operational stage
- Concrete operations stage
- Formal operations stage
Piaget’s stages by age
- Sensorimotor stage: Birth - 2 years
- Pre-operational stage: 2 to 7 years
- Concrete operations stage: 7 to 12 years
- Formal operations stage: 12 years upward
Formal operations stage is characterised by:
- Abstract reasoning
- Metacognition (thinking about your own thought processes)
What did Piaget say about people who reached the formal operations stage?
Piaget claimed that not everyone reached this stage; unlike the others, he believed that this stage involved an environmental contribution (dependent on exposure to principles of scientific thinking)
Concrete operations stage is characterised by:
- Ability to perform logical analysis (example: four’s an even number, four plus one is an odd number)
- Can empathise with others (egocentrism overcome)
- Can pass conservation task (understanding of cause-effect relations)
Pre-operational stage is characterised by:
- Ability to think logically, as well as symbolically
- Rapid development of language ability
- Classification and categorisation, counting, object manipulation
- Failure of conservation
- Egocentrism: Child’s belief that others see the world in precisely the same way as they do
Conservation
The understanding that specific properties of objects remain the same, despite apparent changes or arrangements of these objects
Criticisms of Piaget (two main ones)
- Babies don’t seem to start with nothing
- Cognitive development isn’t an all-or-nothing phenomenon
Sensorimotor stage is characterised by:
- Cognition closely tied to external stimulation
- Cognition consists of behaviour (learn by doing)
- Object permanence (diff stages)
- Schema formation
- Representational thought occurs towards the end of sensorimotor period; instrumental in imitation, deferred imitation, symbolic play, use of words to represent objects
- Children start talking towards end of this period
Two types of schema formation
- Assimilation: Process by which new information is modified to fit within an existing schema (example: child calling a rabbit a dog to fit within existing dog schema)
- Accommodation: Process by which an existing schema is modified or changed by new experience (example: child broadens schema into ‘animals’ and not just ‘dogs’ in order to accommodate existence of rabbit)
Deferred imitation
Child’s ability to imitate the actions they have observed in the past
Symbolic play
Example: Pretending a block is a phone
Stages of object permanence in the sensorimotor stage
- Birth - 3 months: Looks at visual stimuli, turns head towards noise - doesn’t typically track visual stimuli
- 3 months: Follows moving objects with eyes, stares at spot where object disappeared, but will not search
- 5 months: Grasps and manipulates objects, anticipates future position of object
- 8 months: Searches for hidden object, but shows ‘A not B’ error
- 1 year: Searches in the last place that they saw the object
‘A not B’ error
When babies search in the last place they found object, not the last time they saw it. Example: Losing your keys and going to Auckland to find them, because that’s the last place you lost and found them.
Babies don’t seem to start with nothing: Space and objects
- Visual cliff
- Effect of occlusion
- Understanding of support (develops gradually by 6 months)
- ‘A not B’ error
Visual cliff
Children appear to be able to perceive depth around the time they can crawl (show reluctance to crawl onto side of the ‘cliff’ that looks as though they could fall off it), and even pre-crawling infants may be able to discriminate between the two sides of the ‘cliff’
Effect of occlusion (when one object is blocking the view of another object)
Effect can be investigated through the habituation procedure (infants pay attention to new stimuli more than old stimuli → can use this pattern to determine which stimuli is more novel to infants); found that even 4-month-olds seem to understand the principle of occlusion (even though you can’t see something, doesn’t mean it’s not there)
‘A not B’ error explained as criticism of Piaget
Error seems to simply be difficulty overriding a motor habit (infant knows where the object is, but body hasn’t caught up to its mind yet)
Babies don’t seem to start with nothing: Number and mathematical reasoning
Piaget said that infants had no concept of number and couldn’t conserve number until they were around 6-years-old, but it now appears that even 6-month-olds show some understanding of number
Babies don’t seem to start with nothing: Social cognition
- Newborns would rather look at faces than scrambled faces
- At 3 weeks, infants will attempt to imitate facial expressions
- 9-month-olds will look in the direction of their mother’s gaze
- Intentions: Even 6-month-olds appear to understand actions in terms of intention
Cognitive development isn’t an all-or-nothing phenomenon: Numerical skills in pre-schoolers
- Counting: Even when not using the correct numbers, toddlers have an understanding of counting
- Numerical reasoning: Piaget’s assertion that children can’t conserve number could be due to repeated questioning (children may just be changing their response if they think their response is ‘incorrect’); children younger than 6 can generally conserve number when the task is relevant
Cognitive development isn’t an all-or-nothing phenomenon: Social cognition in preschoolers
- Egocentrism
- Theory of mind
- True and false beliefs (aspect of theory of mind)
Egocentrism
Piaget thought that children were egocentric until 7, but even at 3 and 4-years-old, children can pass a diorama perspective task if it’s relevant. At 2 1/2 to 3 1/2, children will turn a book around so that an adult can view it, and will bend down when talking to younger children. Children under a year will turn to see what their mother is looking at.
Theory of mind
Definition: A group of skills relating to the understanding of the existence of other people’s minds, allows us to be effective in social situations; broccoli vs. crackers study found that 18-month-olds gave the experimenter what she liked, while 14-month-olds gave the experimenter what they liked
Theory of mind: True and false beliefs
On average, 4-year-olds pass the false belief task and 3-year-olds don’t (allows researchers to distinguish between the child’s true belief and their awareness of someone else’s false belief)
Social learning theory
Learn through observation
Cognitive developmental theory
Cognition drives social development
Parents’ role in development
Parents’ behaviour shapes social development of child; parenting style is a two-way street → child’s behaviour may drive parenting style
Peer relationships
Early peer relationships (2 to 3-years-old) are based on what the other can offer
Emotional development
- Expressing emotions: Basic emotions (sadness, happiness) are present from early on, others take time to emerge (require cognitive development; example: embarrassment)
- Empathy: The more parents enquire about how others might feel to the child, the more this drives understanding
- Emotional regulation: Infants are reliant on adults/the environment to soothe them, self-soothing ability develops over time; display rules govern the degree to which emotions need to be regulated in a given situation
Moral development: ‘Not doing wrong’
- Initially entirely guided by consequences
- Internalisation of rules
- Principle of Minimal Sufficiency: If you want children to internalise rules, the consequence should be strong enough to alter behaviour, but not so strong that they feel forced
Moral development: ‘Doing right’
- Empathic distress (not necessarily helpful, but upset at others’ misfortune)
- Offers of help are initially egocentric (help will be what they would want in that situation)
- Prosocial behaviour (voluntary behaviour intended to benefit another)
Kohlberg (1927-1987)
- Studied boys aged between 10- and 17-years-old
- Presented subjects with scenarios (moral dilemmas)
Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development: Preconventional level
Definition: Behaviour is based on external sanctions, such as authority and punishment. Stages:
1. Obeying authority and avoiding punishment
2. Behaviour is guided egocentrically by the pleasantness of its consequences to them/fulfilment of needs
Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development: Conventional level
Definition: Includes an understanding that the social system has an interest in people’s behaviour. Stages:
3. Wanting to be regarded as a good, well-behaved individual
4. Laws and moral rules maintain social order and must be obeyed
Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development: Post-conventional level
Stages:
5. Rules are social contracts, not all authority figures are infallible, individual rights can sometimes take precedence over laws
6. Rules and laws are justified by abstract ethical values, such as the value of human life and the value of dignity
Gender-development: 18 months
Beginnings of gender-typed preference
Gender-development: 3-years-old
- Knowledge of own gender
- More firm preference for toys and friends of own sex
- Ability to assign gender to pictures is limited (tend to go on things like length of hair and clothing)
Gender-development: 5-years-old
Knowledge of gender constancy (prior to 5-years-old, children don’t tend to grasp that gender doesn’t change much throughout an individual’s lifetime)
Bio explanations for gender differences: Exposure of the developing brain to male sex hormones has behavioural effects
- Gandelman, Vom Saal, & Reinisch (1977): Prenatal exposure to testosterone results in more ‘male-like’ behaviour in female mice
- Ward (1972): Male rats deprived of prenatal testosterone behave more like female rats
Bio explanations for gender differences: Anatomy of the human brain shows some ‘gender’ differences thought to be due to different patterns of hormone exposure during development
Broca and Wernicke’s area more developed for ‘females’
Bio gender differences: ‘Sex’ differences in cognitive ability
Example: Verbal ability tends to be better for ‘females’ and spatial ability tends to be better for ‘males’; differences due to hormones
Congenital adrenal hyperplasia
Adrenal glands release ‘too much’ testosterone → ‘clitoris’ may in fact be a ‘penis’
Bruce Reimer
Had complications during surgery and was raised as a ‘girl’
Environmental explanations for gender difference: Montemayor (1974)
- 6- and 8-year-olds invited to play a game
- Some were told it was gender appropriate (example: ‘girls’ told it was a ‘girl’ game), some were told it was gender-neutral (example: described as a game), and some were told it was gender-inappropriate (example: ‘girls’ told it was a ‘boy’ game)
- Found that label changed how much children enjoyed the game, as well as how well they performed
Environmental explanations for gender difference: Morrongiello & Dawber, 1999 (gender socialisation begins with parents)
- Examined parents’ communication with children aged 2-4 years
- Two conditions: During free-play or when teaching playground safety behaviour
- Found that sons received more directives, fewer explanations, and more physical pressure than girls → parents communicate with young children in a way that may promote increased risk-taking by boys and greater perceived injury vulnerability among girls
Environmental explanations for gender difference: Smith and Lloyd (1978)
- Mothers of young infants were introduced to a 6-month-old infant and asked to play
- Infant’s gender label was manipulated
- Participants behaved differently according to the assigned gender label
Environmental explanations for gender difference: Weisner and Silson-Mitchell (1990)
Parents who do not subscribe to gender differences in socialisation tend to have children whose attitudes and behaviour reflect fewer gender stereotypes
Scribbling stage of art
- Happens by 2-3 years
- Not representative (not drawing to represent something, might claim to draw a dog but will instead draw the movements of a dog)
Preschematic stage
- First attempts at drawing human figures by 3-4 years
- Tadpole drawings: Circle/ellipse representing head, typically two, but sometimes four, protruding lines representing limbs (children more likely to miss out arms than legs)
Schematic stage of art
- By 5-6 years
- Child develop a schema for how to draw people
- Now they separate trunk from the head (more reliable separation of head and body)
- Still struggle with arms (might be omitted or misplaced)
Later on in schematic stage
- Instead of lines for limbs, we get substance for limbs
- Arms correctly placed
- Increased detail
- Neck appears last
Realistic stage
- From around 9 years
- More detail, more expressions, better use of space, use of profile
- Marks the end of art as a spontaneous activity
Period of indecision for art
Art is something to be done or left alone
Projective measures for children’s drawings: Intelligence
Florence Goodenough (1920s):
1. Proposed that you could take children’s drawings, look at how they drew, and make an estimate of their IQ
2. Came up with the Draw-A-Person Test (top 10 tests used by U.S. psychologists)
3. Test can differentiate between groups, but isn’t good at identifying individual cases needing special help
Draw-A-Person-Test (Goodenough)
- Told to draw self, mother, father
- Assign points based on drawings (might get points for having arms in the right place)
Projective measures for children’s drawings: Psychological well-being
- Draw-A-Family Test, Kinetic Family Drawings, House-Tree-Person Test; all of these still looking at how child draws
- Interpreted in context of psychoanalytic therapy
- No studies have shown ability of raters to differentiate between drawings of well-adjusted children and those who are not well-adjusted
Projective measures for children’s drawings: Sexual abuse
Researchers have yet to find a consistent pattern of graphic indicators that can distinguish the drawings of abused children from those of their non-abused counterparts
Drawings as a verbal communication aid: Butler, Gross, & Hayne (1995)
- Took 5- and 6-year-old children to the fire station
- Interviewed them a day later
- Half of children asked to draw and tell, half asked only to tell; all were asked a free recall question followed by directed recall
- Found that children who drew and tell reported twice as much information in the directed recall phase than the tell-only children. There was no difference between groups in the free recall stage or accuracy.
Beneficial effect of drawing extends to:
- Emotionally laden events (Gross & Hayne, 1998; Patterson & Hayne, 2011)
- Children as young as 3 years and as old as 12 years (Gross & Hayne, 1998; Patterson & Hayne, 2011)
- Delays of up to a year (Gross & Hayne, 1999)
- Real clinical settings (Drucker et al. 1997)
Why might drawing work for memory recall?
- Children provide their own retrieval cues - each thing they’re drawing reminds them of something else
- Reinstates mental context - helps children put themselves back to the time of event, helps memory
Child sexual abuse dilemma
- Difficult to measure disclosure rate, estimated to be at only 10%
- Medical/physical evidence might tell us that something has happened, but won’t usually identify the person who committed the crime
Children’s memories are better than once thought: DeCasper & Fifer (1980)
Found that newborns would alter their thumb-sucking pattern to hear their mother’s voice reading Dr. Seuss (one sucking pattern would give them their mother’s voice and the other would not)
Children’s memories are better than once thought: Hayne & Rovee-Collier
- Looked at approx. 6-month-old babies, babies learn that when they kick their foot the mobile moves
- Found that babies exposed to that condition had a higher rate of kicking than those not exposed (effect only lasted a couple of weeks)
Early memories are limited by:
- Short duration
- Strong context dependence
- Language competence
- Knowledge base (difficult to remember things when you can’t link them to existing knowledge)
At what age can children provide forensically relevant info about past events?
Age 4 or 5
Free recall
Highly accurate, but brief (not detailed enough)
Directed recall/leading questioning
Children give more detail, but also make more errors
Suggestibility
Degree to which one’s memory and/or recounting of an event is influenced by suggested information or misinformation - Reed, 1996
Cognitively-driven vs. socially-driven suggestibility
- Memory changes to accommodate misinformation
- Verbally accepts suggestion, but doesn’t actually believe it
Kelly Michaels case
Leading questioning, interviewer didn’t listen to children rejecting the questions
McMartin preschool case
Over time, after children were interviewed again and again in a very suggestive manner, it ended up being seven teachers accused of sexual abuse
Criminal cases heard under an adversarial system (essentially ‘battling it out’)
Involves:
1. Direct examination: Examined by a lawyer working for the Crown
2. Cross-examination: Defence lawyer then tries to discredit the child
3. Re-Examination (sometimes): When the prosecution lawyer gets up and tries to rectify any issues
No corrobation laws for child witnesses
Definition: A corroboration law is when a child can’t give evidence unless there’s another witness or physical evidence corroborating that
Competency requirement for child witnesses
Judge has to be happy that the child is safe to give evidence (child asked questions, example: “Am I wearing a hat?”)
Potential problems for child witnesses
- Formal attire: Children are more susceptible to misinformation from people dressed in suits/formal attire
- Cross-examination: During cross-examinations, most children change at least one part of their earlier testimony (in the lab, questioning that mimics cross-examination is detrimental to accuracy)
Three options for children giving evidence in sexual abuse trial:
- In courtroom, with a screen shielding witness from accused
- From another room in the court, via CCTV
- Give direct examination evidence via pre-recorded videotape
U.S. stats for TV
- Children watch an average of 5.11 hours of TV per day
- When asked to choose between watching TV and spending time with their fathers, 54% of 4 to 6-year-olds choose TV
- The average American child spends 900 hours per year at school, and 1200 hours per year watching TV
U.S. stats for TV: Preschoolers
- 90% of children watch television before the age of 2
- 40% of 3-month-olds watch TV
NZ stats for TV
- 64% of children aged 5-14 watch more than 2 hours of TV per day
- 35% of secondary school students watch TV for 3 or more hours per day
Recommended hours of TV watching: American Academy of Paediatrics
- Birth to 2: No TV
- 3-8: 1 hour
- 8+: 1.5-2 hours
Learning from TV
- Even 6 to 8-month-olds can imitate some actions seen on TV
- Improved performance if demonstration is live
- Infant DVDs no match for direct interaction with parents
Sesame Street
- Targeted to 3- to 5-year-olds
- Designed for children from disadvantaged backgrounds
- Broadcast for 50 countries
Evaluation of Sesame Street: Ball & Bogatz (1970)
- Measured alphabet and writing skill for 950 3- to 5-year-olds before and after a 26-week season of Sesame Street
- Found that the more they watched, the more they improved
- Children from low socio-economic families showed the biggest gains; children learned even when they watched Sesame Street alone
Claims against TV for children:
- TV mesmerises children - untrue, children look away frequently
- TV displaces other valuable cognitive activities, including homework - untrue
- TV decreases children’s reading achievement - little bit of data to support that, but not too problematic
- TV disrupts children’s sleep - true
TV violence: Boyatzis, Matillo, & Nesbitt (1995)
- Half of children put in ‘Power Rangers’ condition (22 minutes, 140 aggressive acts); other half put in control condition
- Each child observed for a 2-minute period, with the number of aggressive acts they engaged in recorded
- Found that boys were more aggressive than girls, and those watching ‘Power Rangers’ committed seven aggressive acts for every aggressive act committed by a control child
TV violence: Huessman et al. (1984)
- Looked at 198 8-year-old boys and their parents
- Assessed preference for violent TV, re-interviewed boys at age 30 and accessed criminal records for all participants
- Children who exhibited a higher preference for violent TV age 8 committed more serious crimes by age 30 than those with a lower preference
What makes children more likely to imitate TV violence?
- If they view shows in which violence is realistic, repeated, and/or unpunished
- If they have emotional, behavioural, learning, or impulse control problems
Video game stats
- Childhood-adolescence: time spent playing video games per week is 5.5 hours for girls and 13 hours for boys
- 20% of NZ male secondary school students play video games for more than 3 hours per day (compared to 5% for females)
- Preschoolers aged between 2-5 play for an average of 28 minutes per day
Violent video game play: Anderson & Dill (2000) - Experiment 1
- Measured aggressive personality, delinquency (aggressive or non-aggressive), and video game use
- 91% reported video game use (avg. 2.14 hours); found that video game use correlated to aggressive personality, aggressive and non-aggressive delinquency
Violent video game play: Anderson & Dill (2000) - Experiment 2
- Used results from aggressive personality questionnaire to equally distribute aggression between groups
- Group 1 played a nonviolent game, Group 2 played a violent one
- Found that women delivered longer blasts than men, aggressive personalities delivered longer blasts than those with less aggressive personalities, and individuals who played the violent video game delivered longer blasts than those who played the non-violent video game (this effect occurred even when other variables were accounted for)
Data for imaginary friends
- Up to 65% of preschool children have one or more imaginary companions (ICs)
- Average age of appearance of an IC is between 2-4 years (need to be at a certain stage of cognitive development to have an IC)
- First-born and only children are most likely to have an IC
Gender differences for ICs
- Tend to be slightly more common in ‘girls’ than ‘boys’
- Type of ICs tend to differ between ‘boys’ and ‘girls’; ‘boys’ tend to have ICs that are more competent than they are, while ‘girls’ are more likely to have ICs that are less competent than them that they have to nurture
History of ICs
- Late 1800s: ICs emerge in psychological literature
- 1930s onwards: parents were informed that ICs were not to be encouraged
History of ICs: Dr. Spock
- Urged parents to interact more with their children if they had ICs
- If ICs persisted after age 4, parents were told to consult a mental health professional
Characteristics of ICs: Marjorie Taylor
- Examined ICs of children aged 3-12
- Found that most ICs are people, and usually children who would make good playmates
- Around 16% of ICs are based on real people; 20% of ICs are animals, but usually have human characteristics
- Not all ICs are friendly, around 3% are enemies
Why might children have ICs?
ICs are intermediate steps to controlling own behaviour (sat between being ruled by consequences and completely internalising those rules)
Examining non-clinical populations with ICs:
- Children with ICs do not differ on a wide range of behavioural problems
- No difference in shyness or ability to make friends
ICs and children’s communication: Manosevitz et al, 1973
Found that children with ICs are better at communicating with adults
ICs and children’s verbal ability: Taylor, 1999
Children with ICs score more highly on verbal tests
ICs and children’s theory of mind: Taylor & Carlson, 1997
Children with ICs tend to have a more developed theory of mind at age 4
ICs and reality differentiation
- Boudin & Pratt (2001) - probably more likely that these children are just particularly good at ‘playing pretend’
- Taylor, Cartwright, & Carlson (1993) - found that there’s no evidence that children can’t distinguish between what’s real and not
Object attachment: Mahalski (1983)
- NZ sample, assessed between ages of 1.5 (90% of children had an attachment object) and 7 years (43% had an attachment object)
- Object attachment peaked at around 2 years
Why do children develop attachments to objects?
- Transitional objects: attachment objects bridge the gap between you and the rest of the world
- Attachment objects ease the passage between sleeping and waking
- Attachment objects may act as substitutes for a primary caregiver in some situations
Attachment objects: Ybarra et al., 2000
Reduce distress; when children have medical procedures, if they have their attachment object with them, they have lower blood pressure and heart rate
Attachment objects: Passman & Weisberg, 1975
Facilitate exploration - young children tend to explore from a safe space, this has a similar effect to having a non-involved parent present
Maturation
The genetically programmed biological processes that govern our growth
Cephalocaudal principle
Reflects the tendency for development to proceed in a head-to-foot direction
Proximodistal principle
States that development begins along the innermost parts of the body and continues towards the outermost parts
Zone of proximal development
Difference between what a child can do independently and what the child can do with assistance from adults or more advanced peers
Scaffolding
Support provided by an adult to a child within the zone of proximal development
Temperament
A biologically-based style of reacting emotionally and behaviourally to the environment
Psychosocial stages: Erikson (1968)
- Basic trust vs. basic mistrust
- Autonomy vs. shame and doubt
- Initiative vs. guilt
- Industry vs. inferiority
- Identity vs. role confusion
- Intimacy vs. isolation
- Generativity vs. stagnation
- Integrity vs. despair
Stranger anxiety
Distress over contact with unfamiliar people, often emerges around 6-7 months and ends around 18 months
Separation anxiety
Distress over being separated from a primary caregiver, typically begins a little later than 6-7 months and peaks at around 12-16 months, mostly dissipates between 2 and 3
Strange situation
Developed by Ainsworth, a standardised procedure for examining infant attachment