Developmental Psychology Flashcards
What is developmental psychology:
The study of human behaviour as a function of age
How and why we change
Change as a function of: physical maturation, cognitive development, social experience
Current issues in treatment
- mental illness can vary in severity, can be episodic or persistent
- comorbidity for mental illness and physical disorder impacts 1/8 Australians
- need a multidisciplinary approach to holistic care
Who provides treatment?
- psychiatrists: Full AHPRA registration required (MD), diagnose and treat severe psychological through psychotherapy and medication
- clinical social workers and psychiatric nurses
- clinical psychologists: full AHPRA registration required, full-fledged disorders (DSM diagnostics)
- counsellors: not protected category
Areas of study in developmental psychology
Physical development: body changes, motor skills, puberty, physical signs of aging
Cognitive development: perception, language, learning, memory, problem-solving
Psychological development: personality, emotions, gender identity, moral behaviour, interpersonal skills, roles
Define change and continuities
Change: systematic changes are orderly, patterned and relatively enduring –> example = crawling to walking (seen in developmental milestones)
Continuities: refer to ways in which we remain the same or consistent over time (e.g. attachment from infancy to adulthood, temperament/personality)
Start of developmental psychology:
- egg and sperm (genes combine to form a zygote)
- blastocyst (days 5-9, cluster of cells start to divide and multiply)
- embryo (to 8 weeks, early stage: formation of body structures, tissues)
- foetus (the unborn offspring, has major body organs though not fully developed)
early experience: sensitive periods
- teratogens: any agent that can cause a birth defect and disrupt development (e.g. radiation, chemicals, nicotine, alcohol, recreational drugs)
- timing of exposure is important in terms of impact (e.g. Foetal alcohol spectrum disorder OR Rubella virus) (note: the period of greatest susceptibility is the embyronic period)
early experience: sensitive periods EMPIRICAL SUPPORT
Neurological development (1-3 years)
- extensive myelination of the nervous system
- language development
STUDIES: Romanian orphans who were later adopted AND the “wild boy of Averyon”
- development of biological systems can be time sensitive
- later cognitive impairments are also related to timing and duration
Developmental theories
- A framework: to organise thinking –> can sometimes be limiting (its not always biological or social)
- A lens –> guides collection of new facts (can also limit which facts we notice)
Different theories dominant at different times
Impact of parent’s theories: Folk psychology
- parental locus of control and efficacy
- representations of the child
- discipline approaches
Nature and nurture
- universal genetically determined capacities for language, motor development
- but expression is influenced by environments (and there are individual and cultural differences)
- nature (genes) and nurture (environment) work together
define maturation
unfolding of genetically programmed behaviour patterns
example of maturation
maturation = unfolding of genetically programmed behaviour patterns
but environment (childrearing customs) has an impact (whether it be swaddling, carrying on body, baby containers)
There’s a different postural situation that the child will develop from being swaddled or carried on the body, in comparison to separation
Major theories of development and associated scientists
Psychoanalytic theory: Freud and Erikson
Cognitive development theory: Piaget and Kohlberg
Social cognitive theory: early behaviourist theories through to bandura
Ethological theory: attachment theories of Ainsworth and Bowlby
Stages of psychosocial development: Erikson
Cognitive Development - Piaget
Revolutionary discovery that children’s minds have profound qualitative and quantitative differences from adult minds. The child is active - constructs an understanding of the world through exploration and experience.
Encourages us to cultivate creative and innovative minds.
Maturation/nature/innate drives
Developmental process
A process (equilibration) balance between new experieces and what we already know / think we know
- assimilation: new information assimilated into existing schemas (integrates and interprets new experiences in terms of existing schemes)
- accommodation: schemas updated to accommodate new information (modifying or creating new schemes in response to our experience - acquiring information from environment)
Piaget’s 4 Main stages of intellectual growth
- Sensori-motor intelligence (birth-2years): object permanence
- Pre-operational period (2-7years): mental representations, but pre-logical/egocentric, conservation a challenge
- Concrete operations (7-11years): mental operations, but nly for physical/concrete materials such as adding or subtracting
- Formal operations (11years-): hypothetical reasoning, mental operations on abstract concepts, hypothesising
Symbolic or representational thought
- emerging capacity from 18-24 months (one object can represent another, this capacity deferred imitation and make-believe play)
- preschool years (2-6): further gains in mental representation, symbols represent the concrete world, drawing
object permanence - piaget
Infants < 8 months
- out of sight, out of mind, no effort to retrieve hidden object
Infants ~ 9 months - 12 months
- search, but where last found (i.e. object does not exist independent of child’s actions)
Infants 12-18 months - breakthrough
- understnad not only that objects continue to exist (independent of the child’s interaction with them) but that they can be moved while out of sight - invisible displacements
conservation
- extension of object permanence
- the logical understanding that objects have a fundamental essence that continues to exist, irrespective of changes in form, presentation, appearance
- To “pass” the test, the child needs to identify that the fundamental traits have not changed just because the appearance has changed.
Piaget’s Theory: Strengths and limitations
Strengths:
- landmark theory - fascinating aspects of pre-logical thinking
- learning as an active process - influences on education
- processes cross domains - conservation of liquid, mass, area
Critiques:
- stages are too rigid / prescriptive
- underestimated children’s abilities (methodological issues - task demands / language)
- universality? (is there a western bias)
Summary of Piaget
- Piaget contributes to cognitive development, including key discoveries about how children think
- Discovery: children actively construct an understanding of the world through exploration and experience (using equilibration through processes of assimilation and accommodation)
- 4 Main stages of intellectual growth: sensorimotor intelligence, pre-operational period, concrete operations, formal operations
- Symbolic or representational thoughts emerge from 18 months
- object permanence breakthrough occurs in the 12-18 months
- conservation is the understanding that objects have a fundamental essence that continues to exist despite changes in form
Other theoretical approaches to cognitive development
Sociocultural: Vygotsky
- learning collaborative (it is socially defined)
- role of siblings and peers (scaffolding - how can we work within what a child knows and move to increasing their knowledge in a supported way?)
- zone of proximal development
Information processing approach
- increased capacity of neural systems: processing of information, effortful to automatic, more sophisticated memory strategies
Social cognition
- Thinking about other minds
- 18 months of age
- Developing a sense of self: a young person starts to appreciate that they are an individual, and other people are also individuals who may see the world differently
- E.g. young children are fascinated by mirrors but at 18 months they realise that is themselves
- Example: The Rouge Experiment
Theory of Mind
- The appreciation that other people may think differently, and that what they think will guide their behaviour, rather than how things really are
- Example: the broccoli experiment
- False beliefs: the basis of deception, manipulation, and empathy
- Example: the ‘Sally-Anne’ task (Sally putting her ball in the basket, Anne moving it to the box, Sally comes back –> if established theory of mind, the child knows that Sally will look in the basket)
Influences of developing a theory of mind
- brain maturation
- relation with language development (nature and nurture)
- pretend play
Social interactions
- parental use of mental state language - parents who explain and discuss
- quality of parent-child relationship
- presence of older siblings
Summary of Social Cognition
- Social cognition: thinking about other minds
- Developing a sense of self at 18 months–> tested by the “rouge” experiment (noticing the red dot)
- Theory of Mind: other people may think differently, and what they think guides their behaviour –> tested by broccoli experiment
- False beliefs –> tested by the Sally Anne task
- Influenced by brain maturation, relations with language development, pretend play, and social interactions
Attachment Theory: origins
Animal work –> ethology (species specific behaviour for survival value)
Evolutionary biology
- Lorenz: work done on imprinting (first indicators of attachment theory)
- Harlow: showed that infant chimps didn’t just need a caregiver for food, but also for comfort and support
- Bowlby: first attachment theorist, interested in distress experienced by children who were separated from caregivers
- Ainsworth: naturalistic observations of mother-child interactions (when they were separated and reunited)
Overview of attachment theory: Ainsworth and Bowlby
Bowlby and Ainsworth
Attachment: a lasting psychological connectedness between two human beings
Primary function = protection of the young
- attachment system in child is activated by threat - hcild is predisposed to innate drive to engage in attachment behaviours by a caregiver
- caregiving system in the adult
Species specific attachment behaviour systems with proximity to the caregiver (safety / protection) as set goal
Balance between exploratory and attachment systems (safe haven and secure base)
- when a caregiver left the infant alone, the infant was less exploratory as their attachment system aws activated
These individual differences are assessed the Strange Situation Procedure
Categories of attachment
A: insecure avoidant (exploration)
- 15-20% limited separation distress, limited response to mother on reunion, exploration focus
B: secure (flexible)
- 50-60%, separation distress, reunion terminates distress, flexibly resumes exploration
C: insecure anxious ambivalent (proximity)
- 15-20% extreme separation distress, not terminated by reunion, unable to resume exploration
D: disorganised (5-10%)
Attachment - Limitations and Conceptual Clarifications
A “relationship construct”- different attachment to different parents is possible
Stability of SSP classification varies: especially if life circumstances / caregiving quality change
Challenge in activating attachment system in older children
How do individual differences in attachment come about?
Parenting and attachment
- parents differ in how they respond to their infants
- infants differ in what they bring to relationships (temperament)
- Example: the ‘still face’ procedure
Gender development - stereotypes
gender stereotypes; set of beliefs about being a boy or a girl, relating to behavioural patterns, associated with gendered parental practices, etc
In Infancy:
- even though there is no objective difference, baby boys are seen as ‘stronger, larger features, and coordinated’ in comparison to girls ‘weaker, finer featured, more awkward’
- jack in box study (boy seen as angry, girl as fearful)
Gender Theories:
- Psychoanalytic theory: identification, oedipust complex, electra complex)
- Biological basis: chromosomes, hormones, evolutionary theory
- Cognitive developmental theory (kohlberg- gender constancy)
- Gender schema theory: martin and halverson - gender schemas
- Social cognitive theory: bussey and bandura, social influences affect personal factors
Gender Constancy - Kohlberg
Gender constancy: concept that a person’s sex is a permanent attribute that is tied to underlying biological properties - it does not depend on surface characterisitcs
Composed of 3 components
- gender identity
- gender stability
- gender consistency
Social cognitive theory in gender
Bussey and Bandura
Social influences: parents, peers, media
Modes of influence: enactive experience, direct tuition, modelling
Personal factors or self-regulators: outcome expectations, self-evaluation, self-efficacy beliefs
operate within a model of triadic reciprocal determinism
Moral development
- societal prohibitions (learning not to do wrong)
- internalization and self-punishment
- parenting practices
- doing good
- empathy
- prosocialness
Moral conduct
- children learn the roles of moral conduct initally from their parents
- what they should do and what they shouldn’t do
Piaget’s theories of morality
Morality of constraint
Morality of cooperation
Intensions versus consequences
Kohlberg’s theory
Gilligan’s challenge: morality of justic e and morality of care
- moral development proceeds through a universal and invariant sequence of three broad moral stages, each is composed of 2 levels
- stage 1: preconventional morality: focus on satisfying their own needs (avoiding punishment and obtaining personal awards –> avoid punishment, reward)
- stage 2: conventional morality: focus on social approval (right and wrong is defined by convention - gain approval, rigid codes of law and order
- stage 3: post conventional morality: focus on abstract ideals (broad principels of justice and internalisation of personal moral principles - social contract agreed upon by public good, abstract ethical principles that determine one’s own moral code)
- only males were used
social cognitive theory of moral agency
moral behaviour is regulated by:
- social sanctions
- self-evaluative sanctions
moral standards are developed by:
- enactive experience
- direct tuition
- modelling
moral standards are aligned with behaviour through the engagement of self-evaluative sanctions
moral reasoning vs moral conduct
can we predict how people will act if we now how they reason morally?
espousing moral principles does not mean abiding by them
moral disengagement
explains the mismatch between adopting moral standards and not behaving in accord with those standards
selective activation and disengagement of internal control permits different types of conduct with the same moral standards
self-sanctions can be disengaged from harmful conduct by:
- reconstruing the conduct (moral justification, advantageous comparison)
- obscuring personal causal agency (displacement/diffusion of responsibility)
- misrepresenting or disregarding the injurious consequences of one’s actions (distorting consequences)
- vilifying the recipients of maltreatment by blaming and devaluing them
Types of parenting styles (Baumrind’s parenting styles)
Authoritative: high warmth, high control (democratic control, perspective taking, reasoned discipline) - most optimal of parenting styles
Authoritarian: low warmth, high control, may become abusive
Permissive: high warmth, low control
Uninvolved: low warmth, low control
Critiques of developmental psychologists and parenting
- historically been overly mother-child focused, heteronormative, gender-normative
There are many people in children’s lives
- socio cultural change (women working more, fathers more involved, same-sex parenting)
- childcare, or being cared for by family
- other adult-child relationships have importance
Role of the father
- significant break in research
- do father’s make unique contributions?
- single parent families - children are more at risk but co-occuring factors like financial stress?
Adolescence
- teenagers first described in 1950s (beginning of “highschool)
- became an extended phase of lifespan in the 21st century (demographic factors and delayed adult milestones)
Key changes in adolescece
Biological:
- hormonal, puberty, menarche
- timing varies some genetic contribution but also environmental
Psychological
- identity - who am i?
- cognitive - thinking - piaget - formal operations, no absolutes - frontal lobes not fully mature, limited impulse control
Social
- peers
- ormnatic relationships
Key developmental task of adolescence
Erikson - developmental task
IDENTITY VS ROLE CONFUSION
- coined ‘identity crisis’
- a pre-requisite for the next phase “intimacy vs isolation”
Adult transitions view:
- focus on understanding and describing development in terms of milestones, rather than age
- emphasis on typicality and timing of events
–> on time: events that occur at a typical or expected point in the lifespan for members of a given population
–> off time: events that occur at a non-typical or unexpected point - normative timing is culturally determined
