Developmental Psychology Flashcards
Measuring development
- Cross sectional
- Longitudinal design
- Microgenetic design - observed over a short period when a change occurs
Cross-sectional design pros and cons
Pros - fast and cheap
- identify differences in age groups
cons - uninformative on discontinuity of development and on individual differences
Longitudinal designs
pros - watch development unfold, examine stability of individual differences
cons - practice effects, attrition (drop out rates), long time, expensive
Microgenetic designs
pros - detailed, intensive observation clarifies process of change
cons - must know when change will occur, no long term data, narrow focus
Genetically informative designs
estimate and locate genetic contributions to development - eg. twin studies, adoption, DNA sequencing, molecular-genetic, genome wide scan
construct validity
who is to say that what researchers are measuring even exists?
Participatory techniques
timelines and social network maps, NSPCC research with children in care
Stages of antenatal/prenatal development
1 - The Germinal period (first couple weeks - implantation)
2 - Embryo - first 2 months
3 - Fetus - 2 months to birth
Germinal
morula (3-4 days), blastocyst (4-5 days)- cells can become anything (undifferentiated) - fertilised egg goes down fallopian tube, implanted in womb after 2 weeks
Embryo
- first period where main features of human body are formed - from undifferentiated cells to development of brain, eye, heart ect.
Fetal
growing what’s there, cells are differentiated
- 4 months - becoming psychological beings - touch, hearing 250-500 Hz (smaller range), movement
Variations from typical development
- congenital aberrations unknown in 50% of cases
- Chromosomal variations - having anything other than 46 chromosomes is typically incompatible with life
Aneuploidy
condition of having fewer/more than usual number of chromosomes - associated with significant developmental problems in various organ systems and learning difficulties
- including Trisomy 21 (Down’s syndrome), Trisomy 18 (Edwards syndrome), and Trisomy 13 (Patau syndrome).
Teratogens
different parts of the body more susceptible to different environmental changes at different times in fetal development (CNS susceptible for longer) (teratogen is factor causing malformation)
Thalidomide Tragedy
a drug developed in 1954 - 20,000 children in 46 countries born with severely misshapen limbs
- Early theory was due to atomic bomb testing, but drug was never approved in USA, thanks to Dr. Frances Oldham Kelse - led to drugs being more carefully given out - the drug was given in most vulnerable time of development
Fetal learning
- DeCasper and Spence - Babies who were familiar with cat in the hat story from womb, sucked harder on a dummy
- Can remember/learn in the womb - can’t make them smarter
Newborn sensory capabilities
touch, balance (vestibular system), smell, taste, hearing (lower frequencies - human voice), vision (improves to 20/20 at 6 months)
Neonatal behavioural repertoires:
- orient to faces - visual and auditory tracking
- Reflexes - clinging (more useful for primate ancestors), nursing (rooting/sucking), locomotion (crawling, stepping)
Neonatal behavioural repertoires are Vestigular:
reflexes are evolutionary holdovers - not necessarily functional for human babies now)
Neonatal reflexes examples
Moro reflex, tonic neck reflex, grasp reflex, crawl reflex, stop reflex - in the lower brainstem - very old reflexes (evolutionarily)
Post natal Brain growth
- (Most neurons present at birth but) glia continue to multiply - structural support, maintenance and myelin for axons
- Myelination - (schwann cells in PNS and oligodencytes in CNS)
- Synaptogenesis - formation of new connections between neurons
Brain damage in babies - deprivation - critical and sensitive periods
Can do damage through sensory deprivation (Hubel and Wiesel - sewed shut kitten’s eyes - neurons never sensed input)
social deprivation eg. language lost
leads to brain differences
Dynamic systems theory approach (DST)
behaviour changing over time (dynamic = change over time, system = many elements interacting)
Fine vs gross motor skills
Fine motor skills - smaller muscles - grasping, object manipulation
Gross motor skills - larger muscles - sitting, reaching, crawling
Stepping reflex
coordinated behaviour resembling walking - ‘disappears’ around 2 months of age
- Rapid weight gain causes legs to get heavier faster than stronger - leads to end of stepping reflex (Can still do it lying down and in water)
Figure ground assignment
- allows us to identify objects from the background - helps us understand depth and plan reaching
- Infants need figure/ground segregation to guide attention, eye movements and learning
Soft assembly
Putting everything together - baby has a stable base, locates goal and controls arm extension in order to grab
Sticky mittens
- velcro that allows infants who want to grab and are just swiping to investigate items
- After training this led to lasting improvements in grasping, after a time non-sticky mittens had higher performance (Williams, Corbetta & Guam (2015)
Piaget: A, not B
- “A-not-B” task
– Hide toy at A, infant finds (repeat ~6x)
– Hide toy at B, infant searches A, not B - Piaget reasoned infants do not have
object permanence until ~10mo - However, behaviour is the product of past history - they had practice reaching to A (changing posture reduced errors - less reliant on muscle memory)
(Self-) Locomotion
- At around 8 months infants can crawl
- Toddlers begin walking at 13-14 months (toddling gait)
Motor skills are context dependent - Adolph
- tracked infants weekly - does not transfer crawling to walking - 67% of children plunged down ALL slopes, but did become more cautious with experience
- Importance of falling-
- Falling didn’t alter subsequent behaviour, return to play
Road crossing
- children have higher rates of pedestrian injuries - mid-blocks
- 6-10yr children are much slower to enter a road and also enter smaller gaps in traffic
- With friends (O’Neal) - adolescents took riskier gaps with a friend than alone - entered and crossed faster with shorter gaps, when crossing separately first crosser was riskier
Motor development link to language
- Sitting correlates with vocab
- Walking linked to receptive and productive (spoken) vocabulary
- Children who walk make more bids for communication than those who crawl
- Remember new vocab better if they exercise after learning new words - 6-12 year olds
Intentional communication
- orientated to real or conceptual objects/events - denotative - about something e. words, pointing
pre-intentional is expressive (crying, laughing, babbling)
Communication in first year of life
Vocal - production and perception
Manual gestures eg. pointing
pointing to request
- protoimperative - asking for something
- protodeclarative - to elicit an emotional response (babies understand that their social partners have attitudes about objects in their shared space - human specific adaptation)
3 theoretical perspectives on pointing
native, cognitive, social learning
Nativist - (maturational, motivational) - pointing
Butterworth - human index finger pointing biologically based and species specific - we use gestures before words
(antithesis)
chimps in the wild point sometimes
Cognitive (computational, representational) - pointing
Liskowski et al - - study states that infants understand attention and the independent attentional perspective of others
- a different explanation suggests that this reaction from the babies comes from learning
Social learning - pointing
babies point as they have learned that this produces a response
Learning language
association, generalisation, recognition, retrieval
(domain general skills, pattern recognition)
Socio-economic status impacts on language
word gap - higher SES = higher vocab
- By 24 months there is a 6 month old language gap between SES groups
- Mathew effect - gaps between SES groups will widen over time
recognising language
- Foetuses can hear from 15-18 weeks, sounds are muffled
- Infants initially prefer muffled sounds and prefer their mothers voice ect. - prefer what is familiar
Recognising cadence
- The rhythm of language/speech
- Mothers recited stories twice a day in last 6 months of pregnancy, infants worked to produce the story they had heard over a different story
- Foetuses and infants can learn and recall cadence (and learn contingencies)
Breaks in-between words
- Infants learn where the breaks are via pitch, pauses and patterns (statistics/correlations)
- Words have transitional probability (patterns) - sounds that occur together often are more likely to be from the same word
Infant directed speech (IDS)
- Has characteristics to help children isolate words
- Higher pitch, simple structure, slower, lots of repetition
- exaggerates differences between vowels, helps children learn words, observed across language, not just mothers
- 7 month old infants learned the ‘words’ significantly better if IDS was used
Segmenting speech
- Infants can segment speech - 8 month olds listened to a language of 3 syllable pseudowords for 2 minutes - no pauses or pitch cues
- Infants preferred the part-words, could distinguish between words and part words, can use statistical regularities/patterns to learn language (statistical learning is domain general)
Child directed speech
- Older children learn better using it, children who hear more have larger vocabularies
- parents adjust their speech based on words they think their children do not know
- Helps adults learn words in a new language
Recognising words
- By 4.5 months infants recognise their name - orient to same
- those who didn’t recognise name (didn’t turn) more likely to have autism (Miller et al., (2017))
- By 6 months they recognise “mommy” and “daddy”
- By 6-9 months infants show understanding of some words for familiar objects
Success in Speech-processing tasks
Monolingual and bilingual children develop similarly, macrostructure shows flexibility and robustness pf language acquisition, microstructure may give insights to how children learn language
Language influences categorisation
Language used decided if a continuum formed or if they were seen as 2 groups - for selective images
Categorisation influences language
Most of the input children hear is for categories (nouns) - for solid, shape-based categories with count noun syntax
Samuelson - learning shape categories helped develop total vocabulary
Fast mapping - Carey 1978
- ability to quickly link a novel name to a novel object - applying known information
13/14 brought the olive green tray, 9/13 chose a green colour in a selection of other colours
Word learning as a dynamic system - nested timescales
(as a product of nested timescales)
- what child is seeing/doing, what the child just did, their developmental history
Word learning: now
- easier to point at something than say a new word
- harder to choose a known object in an unfamiliar colour
- easier to choose the correct object if nothing else was named
Word learning: recent past
- harder to learn words from books with more illustrations
- easier to remember object names if you were exposed to several examples from the category
- harder to do well if the experimenter changes
- children learn better from re-reading the same book
Vocabulary explosion
vocab spurt - 20 words a week, sudden increase is really late due to learning multiple words, some are more difficult and take longer
Combining words
speaking first sentences about 24 months, begin showing signs of syntax with telegraphic speech - simple sentences, 2 words, no function words
Late talkers
- late talkers learn 3-5 words a week
- Some catch up before school/others diagnosed with developmental language disorder
- 2 children per reception class have clinically significant language delays
- Poor language abilities puts them at risk of poor social abilities, self regulation, victimiation, poor self esteem
Overextension
Using a similar word when they don’t know it
Categorical relation (taxonomy), analogical relation (how things look), predicate-based relation (when things are linked)
morphology
how to change words to change meaning
English past tense
- Early - come/came, do/did ect.
- irregular verbs
Three phases:
1. Correct irregular usage
2. Overgeneralisation
3. Correct usage – “gave”
Early language skills are important for:
- readiness for school
- qualifications gained at school
- earnings, literacy skills and mental health in adulthood
Language ability test
- A normal distribution
- most widely used test - Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals (CELF) - understanding and use of language (receptive and expressive) - compared to peers (percentile rank)
Evidence of nature and nurture of language: twin studies
- Monozygotic (MZ) - 100% same, Dizygotic (DZ) - 50% same
- Can compare resemblance of MZ and DZ on a specific trait looking at correlations
- heritability estimates high - but not 100%
Evidence of nature and nurture of language: KE family with members with language disability fMRI and phenotypes
- for verbal dyspraxia children - deficits in basal ganglia, vocal tract and broca’s area
- neural phenotype - VBM analyses showed some areas have reduced grey matter
behavioural phoentype
Evidence of nature and nurture of language: genetic association studies
- individual differences in language abilities - most will have some genetic variation - not inherited
- polygenic inheritance
Evidence of nature and nurture of language: KE family with members with language disability - FOXP2 gene
- language gene - FOXP2 - a mutation leads to haploinsuffiecncy (insufficent for normal brain development)
- fixed in modern humans
Human nest
soothing perinatal experience (no separation from mother) - feelings of safety
- breastfeeding on request for 2-5 years in tribes
- touch, responsively, free play - takes a village to raise children - socailly embedded
Empathy has deep roots - darwin
- emotional bridge between organism and environment (freud - infants empathatic, can read environment) (Ferrerira)
- little empirical attention to infant’s affective capacities until 1970s and 80s
Intersubjective infant
- experience expectant
- infant sensory organism high receptive to stimuli - can distinguish mother’s breast milk - smell
- engages dyadic, affectively charged exchanges and interactions - communications without language
‘Social fittedness’ - parental brain
- parent is equipped for connection with infant - programmed to connect with infant - brain is plastic when someone becomes a parent
Infant as a mirror
- infant can know themselves through connecting with someone and seeing themselves
- Winnicott - “when I look, I am seen, so I exist”
- “I See You”, “I exist for you” - african zulu - important to see for communcation
Syncronisation
important- dyadic relationships (parent-child) - direct and enduring effects on child’s brain development and behaviour
- best functioning relationships have some mis-matchless - repair mistakes as can build stress
Paladino study of synchronisation
when q-tip brushed in synchrony with someone else they liked them more, thought they looked more similar, same personality (effect doesn’t happen for an infant upside down to them - has to bodily relate)
Still face paradigm
mother stops making expressions and stops responding - baby tries to get mother’s attention - reacts negatively - violates infant’s expectations for communication and this acts as a stressor
Co-regulation is critical in child-caregiver dyads
- neocortical regions can alter limbic activity
- immaturity likely to highlight vulnerability to environmental influences - without someone to connect to
- maternal stimulus buffers against high amygdala activity - stress - good for emotion regulation
Dimensions of parenting
expressed affection, involvement, conflict, control, monitoring, teaching, security
Impact of having a depressed mother on infant
- mother focuses more on themselves - overrides ability to read environmental cues, more time lags
- depressed mothers had significantly lower odds for breastfeeding and social interaction
- impact infant temperament - higher stress, less exploratory ect.
Impact of having a more difficult infant
- A more difficult infant can make it harder for the parent to bond - can lead to depression in the parent
- bi-directional relationships
Representation of infant
Infant forms a representation of their relationship with the care giver - this forms the representation of the infant itself
- infants without the parental nest are more likely to become self aware earlier - adaptation
infants are meaning-makers (Tronick)
- so loss of co-experiencing leads to a loss of safety and trust - the emotionally unavailable adult no longer violates infant expectations as the infants adapt
- Relational hurt leads to a fragile self system (infants of depressed mothers) - subtle alterations have massive consequences
Diana Baumrind
- looking at mothers and children in natural home environment, only researched in US (affluent families) - not generalised
- 4 dimensions of parenting - control, nurturance, clarity of communication, maturity demands
Baumrind’s parenting styles: authoratative
- (warm, sensitive but high expectations - good at communicating why the boundaries are in place)
- ‘perfect’ style in literature - children most competent
Baumrind’s parenting styles: permissive
- (high and warm, good commuicators, less demanding and less boundaries)
- tend to be aimless, immature, lack impulse control and self-reliancee, lacking in social responsibility and independence
Baumrind’s parenting styles: authorotarian
- high control and demandingness, assert power, low nurturance and responsiveness
- poorer outcomes for children, lower independence and social responsibility, lower educational results, children will comply but won’t understand
Baumrind’s parenting styles: neglectful
- (added later, referred to as uninvolved and rejecting neglective)
- most harmful to children, low levels of cognitive and social competence
Dornbusch - parenting style → adolescent school performance
- nearly 8000 teens in san Fran - questionnaires on parenting - how their parents behaved towards them
- only 50% of families could be ‘purely’ classified - top 1/3 of only 1 index - would have to be classified in top third to be labelled purely (many were mixed)
- authoritarian predicted negative grades
In Western samples - authoratative parenting styles linked to:
- adaptive behaviours and fewer behaviour problems
- higher subjective wellbeing
- higher self-esteem and life satisfaction
- lower depression
- lower substance and alcohol (mis)use in adolescence
- ect.
WEIRD samples
White, Educated, Industrialised, Rich and Democratic.
cross cultural differences of parenting styles
- weird samples
- cultures could endorse different styles (Sahithya et al’s (2019)) even though all styles found across collectivist and individualist cultures (Sorkhabi (2005))
- authoritative parenting associated with better outcomes across cultures (Pinquart & Kauser (2018))
Current perspectives of parenting styles
- research shifting towards studying parenting in terms of dimensions than global
- domain-specific models - parents multifaceted and situationally determined
- affect of child on parenting eg. legitimacy beliefs
bidirectionally between conduct problems and negative parenting - Oliver
- cross-lagged effect - how much each type predicts the other
- showed associations between conduct problems and negative parenting - bi-directionality from 4 to 7
- significant prediction from parenting to conduct problems 7 - 9 but not vice versa
Family systems theory
(Minuchin, 1985) - wholeness, integrity of subsystems, circularity of influence, stability and change
- multiple relationships that interrelate and have spill-over effects in a family
Marital functioning → child adjustment (Stroud et al 2015)
- testing ‘spillover’ effects - marital relationships to family interactions and child adjustments
- 2 parent families with young children - 2 lab visits
- more adaptive marital functioning was related to greater triadic warmth, which was related to lower levels of internalising and externalising behaviour - for boys and girls
functioning vs structure for families
- Dominant focus on two-parent heterosexual family structures
- Key findings in family research apply to different family forms
- Family functioning and relationship quality (e.g. warmth / communication) is more important for child adjustment than family structure
Gene expression
the process by which the DNA sequence of a gene is converted into functional protein structures (Gene → RNA → Protein)
Genetics determine which specific proteins are synthesised, epigenetics determines how much of the protein is made and where and when it is synthesised
DNA Methylation
methyl groups attach to DNA, compacting it and preventing its code being read/made into proteins - epigentics
Maternal licking and offspring behaviour - Weaver, et al., 2004
- the nurturing behaviour of a mother rat shapes her pup’s epigenomes - more nurturing leads to lower anxiety and vice versa
- in offspring of low-nurturing mother (a), glucocorticoid receptor gene (Nr3c1) is switched off and leads to higher level of stress and anxiety.
- stays even after the pups grow up
Gene-Environment Correlation
- Humans select, modify and create environments in line with their genetic propensities - people choose or create environments that support the expression of a trait that they have a genetic propensity for (passive, evocative, active)
Passive gene-environment correlation
- parental genes influnce parental behaviours that influence the environment they provide for their children
eg. high IQ leads to an enriched rearing environment such as more books
Evocative gene-environment correlation
Child genes influence child behaviours that play a role in evoking different types of responses in other people
eg. children with genetic risk for behavioural problems evoke negative reactions in parents and peers
Active gene-environment correlation
Child genes influence child behaviours that play a role in determining how children shape and select their environments
eg. athletic individual seeks out athletic endeavours (rich get richer effect)
Janet Hyde - gender similarities hypothesis
- more similar than different
- large physical/biological differences - height, muscle mass ect.
Cognitive differences in gender
- practically identically in IQ scores
- differences in verbal skills - shrinks with age - girls start with better verbal skills
- reading advantage is small, writing advantage is medium
- with spatial skills boys outperform girls - difference increases throughout childhood (largest effect for mental rotation)
Activity level of gender differences
- Activity level spoke about with temperment
- boys tend to be more active - small difference in babies - differences grow as they age
Academic differences in gender
- Girls outperform girls in all subjects except for stem/mathsy subjects - boys more likely to take
- boys more likely to leave education earlier
Social differences in gender
- moderate to large self-regulation - emption regulation
- girls more compliant (Smith et al 2004)
- girls better resist temptation (Silverman 2003 - marshmallow test)
- show more empathy and sympathy (Eiseberg and Fabes 1998 - girls will say something tastes nice when it doesn’t - lying/empathy?)
hormones on gender differences
Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (CAH): prenatal exposure to excess androgens (testosterone) lead XX children to play in more “masculine” ways (Nordenstrom, et al, 2002).
- testosterone leads to aggressive play - not just a tomboy
Aggression in gender differences
Direct – physical or verbal acts designed to harm. - more boys
Indirect – social exclusion and gossip designed to damage social relationships. - more girls
- Toddlers are violent and expressive - both boys and girls
Biological influences - evolutionary approaches - Eg. Buss 1999 - gender differences
- Behavioural tendencies have evolved that offer reproductive advantage.
- Girls - fostering close relationships, avoiding conflict, and controlling impulses.
- Boys - more physically active and aggressive - better for finding/keeping resources
Socialisation theories - Social cognitive theory (Bussey and Bandura 1999)
- Three key influences:
(1) Modelling in immediate environment
(2) Enactive experience
(3) Direct tuition (e.g. boys don’t cry - told not to cry) - Importance of children’s outcome expectancies as a socio-cognitive regulator (eg boys praised for kicking a football)
- social and cognitive factors
Behavioural Genetic approach (Iervolino et al, 2005)
- Twins Early Development Study (TEDS), sampled all twins born in England and Wales in 1994-1996.
- Parents asked about their children’s sex-types behaviour at ages 3 & 4 - toys, activities, characteristics
- girls behaviour more explained by heritability compared to boys, shared environment doesn’t affect girls
Socialisation theories - social learning theory - Mischel 1966
- Children learn gender roles because social agents teach them (e.g., parents, teachers, peers)
- Child is passive
- Key processes are: reinforcement and modelling
Problems with socialisation theories
- Adevelopmental: doesn’t account for developmental changes inchildren’s gender-stereotyped beliefs
- Major mechanisms of the theory haven’t been supported consistently by research
- BUT, it does acknowledge the role of the social environment
Cognitive theories - cognitive developmental theory - Kohlberg
- understanding of gender initiates gender development
- but children prefer same sex toys before they have a full understanding of gender
Stages of gender understanding (Slaby and Frey 1976)
(1) Gender identity: ability to label each by 2½ years
(2) Gender stability: understand sex is stable over time by 3½ years
(3) Gender constancy: understand permanence of sex by 6 years.
Cognitive theories - Gender schema theory - (Martin and Halverson 1981)
- gender identity has central role rather than gender constancy
- networks of gender-related information - guide processing and behaviour
- develop own-sex schema before other-sex schema
- But, there are no differences in boys’ and girls’ knowledge of gender-stereotypes - doesn’t explain differences
Cogntive theories - problems
- Cognitive theories don’t address why males and females are valued differentially (a boy doing ballet seen worse than a girl playing football)
- Ignore social context
- The predicted relationship between gender-stereotypes and gender-typed behaviour is typically not found - preferences before stereotypes
Development of gender-stereotyped preferences
- emerge about 3 years of age
- by 4-5 children avoid other-sex toys
- Boys’ masculine preferences increase with age
- Girls’ feminine preferences increase until 5/6 years, then they show less interest in feminine activities, and increasing interest in masculine activities
Why do girls’ gender stereotyped preferences occur like they do?
- this is due to heritability - lack of a socialisation pressure leads girls to enact pre-dispositioned traits
Levy et al (1995) - gender stereotyped preferences
boys and girls view boys with feminine preferences more negatively than girls with masculine preferences
Gender boundary maintenance’ (Sroufe, Bennett, & Best, 1993)
process by which gender group boundaries are maintained. Boys are more likely to initiate and maintain group boundaries than girls
Parental influences:
- mixed as parents aren’t the only influence
- parents treat boys and girls differently
- conceptual vagueness
Development of gender-stereotype knowledge
- learn stereotypes around 3 years of age
- stereotype knowledge increases 3-5 - celling at 7
- stereotypes emerge later - about 5
Studies into parental influences of gender stereotypes
- wills et al (1976) - parents smiled more at ‘Beth’ than ‘Adam’
- Rubin et al (1974) - babies described specifically - eg. girls more delicate ect.
- Fagot (1978) - parents encouraged different activities for girls and boys - danced vs football
Evidence for parental influences is very mixed
- Maccoby & Jacklin (1974): meta-analysis found no evidence of sex differences for parental influence
- Lytton & Romney (1991): - only activities differed with sex with parents - age affected level of influence
Parents influencing activities
(i) the goals & expectations that they have for their children
(ii) how they perceive their children’s interests
(iii) how they interact with their children
Eccles - gender stereotypes
theoretical model for how gender is linked to parents’ beliefs and link to activities (involvement, competence, beliefs about)
- beliefs affect judgments of competence -> affect expectations -> affect opportunities
Parental influence - gender and achievement
- Michigan study of childhood and beyond
- longitudional study of 600 children - differences in competence ratings
- girls more competent in English and instruments, sons more in sports
- not because of aptitude differences - gendered patterns - mediators of perceptions of competence
Yee & Eccles (1988) - gender differences
parents of boys rated natural talent as more important reason for maths success than effort.
Parents of girls rated effort as more important reason for maths success than natural talent
Father’s influence on gender development
- Block 1976 - father’s absence doesn’t make much of a difference
- more critical of boys taking part in girly activities
Stevenson and Black - 1998 - meta-analysis of present and absent - preschoolers in father-absent families were less stereotyped BUT older boys in father-absent families were more stereotyped
Stevens, Golombok, Beveridge and ALSPAC sudy team 2002
- Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALPAC)
- general population study of 14000 mothers and children since early pregnancy - 3½ year-olds
- lone mother - subdivided into those in which child had contact with father, and not
- No differences in gender-role behaviour between lone-mother families with/without contact, and two-parent families
- parents not the only influence
Role of siblings on gender stereotypes - Golombok, Hines and Johnston (2000)
- Sex of older sibling was associated with gender-role behaviour of the younger sibling
- same sex older sibling most gender-typed
- having an older brother - more masculine behaviour and less feminine behaviour for both boys and girls
- boys with an older sister were more feminine but not less masculine, girls with an older sister were less masculine but not more feminine
Role of siblings on gender - McHalae, Updegradd, Helms-Erikson and Crouter (2001)
- Longitudinal study of sibling and parental influence
- older child more influenced by parent, younger children more by older sibling
- first borns go through deidentification - older siblings moves away from similarities with younger one
- First born sibling qualities influenced younger siblings - even when controlling for parents
Preferential looking test
stimuli on screen next to blank screen - looking for 10 seconds at cat means babies can see the stimuli, can see if there is a bias for one stimuli vs another if they spend longer staring
- familiarise baby with examples of something eg. cats, test phase with something vs a new thing e.g. dogs
Novelty preference test
familiarise baby with examples of something eg. cats, test phase with something vs a new thing e.g. dogs
infant preference
- babies would rather look at something than nothing, preferred dot arrangement and preferred faces to scrambled faces
- Head turns in utero to lights in a particular configuration - (Reid et al 2017 (configurations below - choose dots which are more face like)
Critical period for visual acuity explain
- increasing visual acuity as the children age
- If you don’t learn to pay attention to the layout in a critical period then you will be worse in later life
- people who have had cataracts when young removed are bad at spotting differences (eg. in faces above) - comparing features not layout of face
Baby colour abilities
- Infants can see some colour at birth, pathways are immature - similar mechanisms to adults by 3 ish months old
- need colours to be very saturated to see the colours properly - colour vision gets twice as good as every doubling of age to late adolescence
preference for specific faces
- for mother’s face
- at 4 days old, infants look longer at mum’s face than a stranger’s face - but not when it’s just the internal features, only after multi-modal exposure
Baby face discrimination between humans and monkeys
- At 6 months old, babies are just as good at discriminating human and monkey faces, at 9 months old they take longer to discriminate monkey faces than human
- training between 6 and 9 months makes a difference
- similar to ‘other ethnicity effect’
- perceptual narrowing
Perceptual narrowing: - colour perception and phoneme discrimination
colour perception - changes depending on different visual environments growing up
Phoneme discrimination - babies lose ability to discriminate some sounds unless they grow up with them - specific languages
Preferential looking and novelty preference
Preferential looking - stimuli on screen next to blank screen - looking for 10 seconds at cat means babies can see the stimuli, can see if there is a bias for one stimuli vs another if they spend longer staring (Fantz 1956)
Novelty preference - familiarise baby with examples of something eg. cats, test phase with something vs a new thing e.g. dogs
Preferential looking in utero - Reid
Head turns in utero to lights in a particular configuration - chose dots which looked more face like
cataracts in development
- If don’t learn to pay attention to layout in critical period then worse in later life
- cataracts when young removed bad at spotting differences - comparing features not layout of face
Baby colour vision
- cannot access all colours, pathways are immature
- babies need colours to be very saturated to see them properly
- colour vision gets twice as good as every doubling of age to late adolescence
face preferences
- babies have recognition and preference for specific faces - mother
- at 4 days old, infants look longer at mum’s face than a stranger’s face - but not when it’s just the internal features, only after multi-modal exposure
baby monkey face discrimination
- At 6 months old, babies are just as good at discriminating human and monkey faces, at 9 months old they take longer to discriminate monkey faces than human
- training between 6 and 9 months makes a difference
- similar to ‘other ethnicity effect’
Perceptual narrowing:
colour perception - changes depending on when you are born as a different visual environment) - above or below arctic circle
Phoneme discrimination - babies lose ability to discriminate some sounds unless they grow up with them - specific languages
Bauer - fears changing over age
- most fears decrease with age except injury fears
Fear survey schedule for children - Ollendick 1983
80 item measure of children’s fear in response to a range of specific stimuli/situations
- Measures number, severity and type of normal fears children experience
- Five reliable factors: danger and death, failure and criticism, unknown, animals, stress and medical fears
Ollendick et al (1989) - fears
- US and Australia
-14 average fear stimuli - Top fears relate to dangerous situations and physical harm - hit by a car ect.
- Girls reported more fear than boys - highest fears for death/danger items
Moderators of childhood fears
- Gender
- cultural variation
- Socioeconomic effects
Gender effects of fear
- Gullone & King (1993) - different fears between boys and girls - e.g. rats, spiders, snakes
- biological sex differences and gender role orientation
cultural variations
- western countries consistent (decreasing with age, girls more fearful)
- variation from cultural differences
- US ethnic minorities more fear than white people
Ollendick et al - cultural differences in fear
- Nigeria > China > America = Australia
- Girls > boys, apart from Nigeria
- decrease in age in US and Australia only, collectivist fuelling fear
Socioeconimic effects on fears
- lower SES reporting more fears (environment)
- may be content differences - needs more research
- Low SES: animals, strange people, abandonment by parents, death, violence, knives
- Middle/Upper SES: heights, ill health, rollercoasters, pet’s safety
Developmental pattern of fears
- predictable pattern through growth?
- environmental stimuli -> ghosts ect. -> social fears
- mixed results for pattern mapping
- bauer 1976 - monsters and ghosts fear decreasing but physical danger fear increases with age
- cognitive development
different fear pathways
- conditioning
- some learning fears in specific periods more easily
- innate fears/learn easily young
Evolutionary approach to fears
- natural selection favours those who learn quickly - facilitating survival
- Focus of threats at ages when children are most at risk
- some fears innate - no learning
snake and spider fear
infants develop negative responses and rapid visual detection - innate/very early learned fear - avoiding animals threatening survival
- rapid attention, perceptual bias
Muris et al 2002 - fear development
- 248 children ages 3-14
- main worry using interview and ability to catastrophise, Cognitive maturation measured using using Piagetian conservation tasks
- Increased age and cognitive maturation -> further worry elaboration -> increasing risk of personal worry
genetic factors of anxiety
- social anxiety runs in families - ~30% heritable from twin studies (does vary based on population)
- GWAS (genome wide association scans) - genetic variants of anxiety disorders - complex polygenic trait - many genes with a small effect
environmental factors of anxiety
- unclear on weight of environmental and genetic
- family links from home environment - direct environmental transmission
- non-shared environmental factors play a larger role than genetic (eg. school)
Etiological model of social anxiety
how high social anxiety can appear, more likely to be diagnosed from higher level of continuum
- series of interacting factors (behavioural, cognitive, genes, environment, culture)
Storch et al (2005) - measured overt and relational victimisation and social anxiety
- 13-15 year olds, more girls
- longitudinal study - after 1 year
- gender non significant
- higher social anxiety predicted later social anxiety - continuity of social anxiety
- relational but not overt victimisation linked to increased social anxiety
Blote et al 2015 - example impact of SAD and social performance on peer judgments
- recorded speech and was evaluated by peers
- rated high and low SAD
- rejection, attractiveness and performance
- vs adult rating
- high SAD more rejected, lower performance and less attractive
- association between SAD and rejection
Homophily
the tendency of like-minded individuals to be attracted to one another
divert/overt victimisation vs relational
Divert/overt victimisation - physical bullying/aggression - aimed at causing harm
Relational victimisation - harms social standing and reputation
Pabian and Vandebosch 2015 - short term longitudinal relationships between social anxiety and traditional and cyber bullying
- 10-17 year olds
- higher social anxiety increased both bullying risk, but more bullying at time 1 didn’t predict later social anxiety
- social anxiety is a risk factor of victimisation - easy target, being a bully increases risk for social anxiety (others disliking you)
Trauma and life events on social anxiety
- adverse life events increase risk of SAD
- mainly retrospective or cross-sectional research
- why do some develop SAD and others don’t? - not known
Aune et al 2021- whether social support and social self-efficacy predict SAD with those with significant negative life events
- more negative life events, lower support and self-efficacy linked to more SAD
- social support as an important protective mechanism for SAD, associated with lower SAD
Rapee et al 2011 - negative impact of shyness on liveability and career prospects
- US/European vs east Asia
- rated impact of hypothetical behaviours on social likability and job prospects
- more likeable if outgoing (more in west)
- shy poorer career prospects overall
culture on social anxiety
- culture impacts - expression of social anxiety, thresholds for clinical diagnosis and prevalence, societal reactions and impact of behaviour
- TKS - culturally specific SAD in japan (collectivist) - fear of causing offence or harm to others due to bodily actions/appearance
- SAD in individualistic
Measuring bullying
self report, peer report, parent/teacher
Theory of mind of bullying
- attribute mental states to others to predict/explain behaviour
- best bullying when bully has a strong grasp of the internal mental states of victims
- bully has highest theory of mind, assistant bully slightly lower than classroom average
Social information processing of bullying
- links between social adjustment and social information processing in hypotheticals
- aggressive children show distinct pattern of bias in processing
- attend to fewer social cues, more inclined to attribute hostile intentions to others, goals of social dominance, choose aggressive solution to social problem
Moral understanding and engagement of bullying
moral sensitivity and disengagement
Moral sensitivity: understanding right and wrong and the emotional repercussions of moral transgressions (bullies lowest - Gasser and Keller)
Moral disengagement = tendency to use cognitive mechanisms that can (disengage self-sanctions and) justify the use of violent and aggressive behaviours
(Gini - bullies in more moral disengagement)
Social bullying origins
- diverse bullying roles
- agentic social goals
- perceived popularity of bully
- worse school climate linked to bullying
- school inequality - country-level inequality linked to bullying
Traditional vs cyber bullying - Halliday
- cyberbullying less and not increasing over time
- were the people being bulled and cyberbullied the same?
- peak in pandemic of cyber bullying - high overlap of cyberbullying
Outcomes of cyberbullying
larger negative outcomes for cyberbullying and the most for cyberbullying and traditional bullying (eg. sadness, less school liking, higher drug use, less real life friends)
Deviancy Training
Excacerbating and encouraging negative/aggressive behaviour - reinforcement of breaking rules
patterson et al 1967 - success of aggression on playground (+ snyder et al 1997)
- aggressive children make aggressive friends -> aggressive groups
Selection and socialisation (homophily)
- Selection: children affiliate and befriend peers who are similar to themselves on a variety of behavioural or physical characteristics
- Socialisation: processes of influence or contagion among peers
- Peer contagion = mutual influence process that occurs between an individual and a peer, including behaviours that undermine development and cause harm.
Aggressive children
- aggressive children more likely to be rejected from the peer group -> means more behaviour like that - no opportunities for social skills ect.
- Peer rejection at 5 independently predicts conduct disorders at 10
Deviancy training in adolescence
- increases in weapon carrying if your friends do
- drifting into a deviant peer group can lead to serious violence from antisocial behaviour (cascading progression)
- Friendships characterised by deviant stories and attitudes (better conversation and deviant talk -> better friendship) (Dishion et al., 1995; 1996; 1997)
Peer contagion - body image
- appearance based teasing - from friends and school-level rates - predicts increases in body dissatisfaction
- modelling of peer behaviour - body dissatisfaction and dieting clustered in particular friendship groups
- Fat talk - self depreciating comments common, associated with increased body dissatisfaction (between female friends more)
Ehrenreich et al 2014 - deviant talk and anti-social behaviour
- each given phone captured messages - sent a lot of messages - picked randomly from 4 days
- talk about antisocial behaviour commonly, predicted increased in rule-breaking and aggressive behaviour
- similar results for boys and girls
- no link with number of texts - content mattered
Peer contagion - depression
Adolescents’ own depressive symptoms are associated with their friends’ over time - best friend (Stevens & Prinstein, 2005)
- Potential mechanisms include
- co-rumination – repeated discussion on interpersonal ambiguities
- excessive reassurance seeking
- negative feedback seeking
moderates peer contagion
- target characteristics
- peer characteristics
- relationship features or characteristics
In defence of peer influence - Laursen & Veenstra (2023)
- Peer influence is an adaptive strategy – conformity helps with friendships
- Peers are clearly a powerful socialising force in childhood and adolescence
- Need more research
Historical puberty
- Age at puberty has declined dramatically over last few hundred years
- in Norway in 1840 the mean age of menarche (periods) was 17 and is 13 today
- increased standard of living, nutrition, health, heredity and body mass (triggered by reaching key body mass)
- different ages now in different countries depending on standards of living
Puberty - general processes
- 7 year range for onset, full range lasts 4 years
- starts a few years earlier for girls
- growth spirt of 10 inches, 40 pounds
- hormone changes (testosterone and estradiol)
- Estradiol – one of 3 estrogen hormones naturally produced in the body. Involved in menstruation.
Psychological aspects of puberty
- less satisfied with body image - girls less than boys (Brooks-Gun and Paikoff)
- changes to mood - males increased anger and irritability, females increased anger and depression (different due to life events) (due to hormones - Brooks-Gunn and Warren)
Puberty timing - 3 hypotheses
Stressful change hypothesis (simomons and Blyth)
Off-time hypothesis (Livson and Peskin)
Early timing hypothesis (Stattin and Magnusson)
Stressful change hypothesis (simomons and Blyth)
stress of pubertal change will cause stress during the period of most rapid change
Off-time hypothesis (Livson and Peskin)
events encountered earlier or later than expected and than peers will cause additional distress
Early timing hypothesis (Stattin and Magnusson)
maturing early may cause inappropriate maturity demands from others - causing distress
Girls and puberty - Caspi and Moffitt
- early (12 or younger), early middle, late middle, late (14-15)
- looked at behavioural problems like motor tension, antisocial behaviour, aggression, anxiety ect.
- supported early timing hypothesis - those who matured earliest had most behavioural problems
Pubertal timing
- girls - reaching puberty before cognitive maturation - dislike maturing earliest, less socialiable, poorer body image, lower self esteem, lower educational attainment, more likely to engage in risky behaviour
- boys - maturing early (not as negative as girls) - like maturing early, gains in self esteem, more popular, leaders, more cautious and bound by rules and routines
- late maturers more dependent, rebellious, insecure
Puberty and depression - Stumper and Alloy 2021
- review of studies, adolescents 9-20
- similar rates of depression in childhood but girls twice as likely during puberty
- gender gap persists across lifespan
- Advanced pubertal stage → increased risk for depression (after controlling for age) - stronger and more consistent in girls
Parent-child relationships in puberty - 2 theories
- adolescents individuate from parents (Freud) - more emotionally and behaviourally independent
- parent-child relationship changes over adolescence - psychological independence - continued connectedness
Larson et al 1996 - Parent-child relationships in puberty
- 220 middle and working class adolescents from Chicago suburbs
- when pagers randomly went off they had to provide reports - who, what, where, emotional state, friendliness of partner, leader of interaction
- 10-11 spent more time with family (33%), less with 18 year olds (14-15%) - time spent one on one with parents consistent, less time with other family
- no correlation between time spent with family members and quality of family relationships
Gardner et al 2012 - changing parenting - 1986-2006
parents monitor adolescents more closely and have higher expectations of children
Parenting and adolescent anxiety + depression - Gorostiaga et al., 2019
- psychological control and harsh control → higher anxiety
- higher parental warmth → lower levels of anxiety
- association between anxiety and family dysfunction and overprotection
- higher warmth, behaviour control and autonomy - authoritative parenting style - lower depression
- psychological control and harsh control - higher depression, neglectful and authoritarian parenting style - higher depression
Identity in adolescents
thinking about themselves in different ways, self reflections, brain development → cognitive development
- Self-concept, self-esteem & identity formation
Self esteem - James (1892)
results from good performance in domains deemed important (how we think about ourself)
- empirical work demonstrates this for individuals and groups
Self esteem - Cooley (1902)
looking-glass self-opinions - imagining what other people think about you
- Additive model supported by data from older children and adolescents
Development of self concept - Harter 1999
- from concrete to abstract self-portraits
- from social comparisons and normative standards during childhood/early adolescence to internalised standards in later adolescence
- differentiation of self into multiple domains
- final task as an integration of multiple selves into a unified self-concept
Imagined selves
- adolescents can distinguish between actual and ideal selves - great discrepancy in middle adolescents (true vs false)
- possible selves - balance between ideal and feared self
- identity formation and have ti describe self in terms of attributes (self-concept) and roles within society
Erik Erikson - psychosocial stages
- departed from Freud by emphasising societal factors in development
- the theory of psychological development across lifespan
- 8 stages - each with a ‘crisis’ to resolve
- in adolescence the crisis is identity, men must achieve a stable identity before intimacy, women’s identity formed through roles of wife and mother
Marcia’s 4 identity statuses
Crisis + Commitment = Achievement
- emerge from exploration emerge with firm identity commitment
Crisis + No Commitment = Moratorium
- Moratorium - exploration when individuals examine alternatives in an attempt to arrive at a choice
No Crisis + Commitment = Foreclosure
- adopted identities without ever exploring options
No Crisis + No Commitment = Diffusion
- little sense of commitment, not actively seeking to make decisions
development of identity continuing into adulthood
- parental influences
- attachment with freedom to voice opinions (achievement/moratorium)
- overly close bonds without separation (foreclosure)
- low warmth with open communication (diffusion)
- cultural/historical influences - current events can alter course
Self concepts and life outcomes:
positive - general wellbeing, quality of life, confidence in actions and abilities -
negative - adjustment problems, externalising problems, internalising problems
Self concept and emotional disorders
- relationship between emotional disorders and negative self-concept
- problems with self-perceptions reflected in diagnostic criteria for anxiety and depression
- positive self-concepts as a protective factor - buffer negative life experiences
Self concept in social anxiety - Delgado
- spanish adolescents
- Adolescents with social anxiety more likely to perceive relationship with peers as more negative.
- Consider selves to be less attractive, less athletic and more emotionally unstable.
Self concept and depression
- adolescents view themselves more negatively and less positive when depressed
- ratings of self perceptions good at identifying a depression diagnosis
- poor self-image in adolescence predicts depression later in life
Early onset psychosis (from self concepts)
- negative beliefs of self linked with chronic psychosis - (dysfunctional self-concept)
- adolescents at high risk of psychosis endorse negative self-beliefs more than healthy controls
- relationship between changes in self-concept between childhood and adolescence and risk of psychotic experiences
role in gender difference in self concepts
- females have more negative self concepts
- could be why mental health problems are more significantly prevalent in women
