lecture 7: developmental psychology- the nature of nurture

Question 1

What is developmental psychology?

Answer 1

The scientific study of all aspects of human growth (physical, emotional, social, cognitive, personality) Concerning

• What happens during development
• When it happens
• How and why it happens

Question 2

What is ‘development’?

Answer 2

Overton (2006)

• the notion that psychologists define development as age-related changes in observed behaviour is a popular characterisation
• Significant problems would emerge if psychologists actually used that definiton to guide their inquires

Question 3

Conceptual underpinnings of developmental psychology

Answer 3

• A human being is a complex whole which is a part of a larger system
• development means an increasing differentiation into subsystems and their organisation integration
• developmental differentiation and integration happens as the individual participants with others in cultural practices

Question 4

Seeing what and when:

Answer 4

• Seeing the ‘what’ and ‘when’:
• Charting age-related changes in observed behaviour (developmental milestones) helps to identify developmental lags.
• Seeing only the ‘what’ and ‘when’ doesn’t tell us the ‘how’ and ‘why’

Question 5

Describing How and why are formed in two particular worldviews

Answer 5

Traditional standpoint:
We see a child developing literacy skills that will enable her to particiate in cultural activities

Sociocultural standpoint:
We see a child participating in cultural activities that enable her to accquire literacy skills

Question 6

Developmental science vs psychoanalytic

Answer 6

Developmental science
- Academic

• Scientific interest in human nature
• Observations, experiements, surveys , interviews
• Knowledge about age-typical development can help edcuators and clinicans

Psychoanalytic
- Clinical

• Psychiatrists’ concern with mental health issues
• Clinical case studies
• Understanding ‘normal’ development can help to understand the ‘abnormal’ (visa versa)

Question 7

What happened in the early 20th century?

Answer 7

• The concept of child development as a natural ‘upward’ progress to maturity paralleled the concept of evolution that emerged in the 19the century

–> This notion was contested by the behaviourists, sociologists, and some phiosophers at the time

Question 8

The traditionalisat standpoint:

Answer 8

Development means a unidirectional sequence of age-graded milestones marking the mastery of developmental tasks

• each stage leads to a more advanced stage
• There is an endpoint: an ideal state of maturity

Human nature is biologically given though is enabled and shaped by the child’s enviroment
- The nature vs nurture debate

Question 9

What are the three most famous stage theories?

Answer 9

Sigmund Freud’s psychosexual stages:
- Personality is set by age 5 in stages during which pleasure-seeking energies become focused on certain erogenous areas of the body

Erik Erikson’s psychosocial stages
- Personality develops the whole lifespan in a sequence of stages whereby ego-identity develops through social interaction

Jean Piaget’s stages of cognitive development
- Systemanic changes in the child’s intellectual abilities, building upon initially concrete operations to progressively more abstract mental operations

Question 10

Freud- Psycho-sexual stages

Answer 10

• Oral stage
• Anal stage

-Phallic stage

• Latency
• Genital stage

Question 11

Erikson- Psychosocial stages of development

Answer 11

Trust vs Mistrust:

• birth to 18 months
• oral sensory stage- relationship with caregiver is central
  -links with Freud and Bowlby

Autonomy vs Shame:

• 18 months- 3 years
• learn to master skills walk,talk,toilet training
• significant relationship with caregivers
• shaming can result in low self-esteem

Initiative vs Guilt: 3 to 5 years:

• the Oedipus complex is resolved through social role identification
• significant relationship with family

Industry vs inferiority
- 6 to 12 years
- Freud period of latency- accomplishing new skills
- significant relationship family/school/locality

Identity vs isolation
- 18-35 years
- seeking companions and love
- significant relationship with friends and partners

Generativity vs stagnation

• 35-65
• care of others and contributing something worthwhile to society
• signficant relationship with family, work and community

Integrity vs Despair

• 65 years to death
• reflection
• significant relationship with mankind

Question 12

Piagets- stages of cognitive development

Answer 12

• each stage allows a different form of interaction between child/enviroment
• stages must proceed in a linear order, stages are universal, regression is impossible

1. Sensorimotor Period;
   2- Pre-Operational
   3- Concrete operational
   4- Formal Operational

Question 13

What is a clinical necessity?

Answer 13

Developmental psychopathology: an interdisciplinary field centred on child development with a focus on mental health issues

The medical model in child psychiatry

• Premised on a discontinuity of health vs illness (a categorical model)
• Defines mental disorder as a disease entity
• Concept of therapy: treating the condition (cure or symptom managment)

The developmental model- challenges the medical model

• Premised on a continuity from adaptive to maladaptive (a dimensional model)
• Redefines the problem as a dysfunctional deviation from age-typical norms
• concept of therapy: intervention to improve adaptation

Question 14

Pros anf cons of charting age-normative milestones

Answer 14

• important for diagnostic purposes, a clinical necessity
• important for setting age-appropriate educational targets
• The notion of an ideal state of maturity begs the question, whose ideal is it?

Question 15

The late 20th century critique

Answer 15

Critics urged reconstructing developmental psychology

• Notions of universal stages of development reflected normative patterns in euro-american cultures

Child development is ‘multidirectional’ because:

• Learning experiences are structured with cultural activities of particular societies and historical eras
• each culture has its own goal, socialisation values and practices.

Question 16

Traditional standpoint

Answer 16

Development means a unidirectional sequence os age-graded milestones marking the mastery of developmental tasks

• Each stage leads to a more advanced stage
• There is an endpoint: an ideal state of maturity
• Human nature is biologically given though is enabled and shaped by the child’s enviroment

Question 17

The biology-enviroment relationship

Answer 17

There is a biological ‘blueprint’ for human development

Actual development is shaped by the child’s enviroment–> the nature nurture debate

Question 18

Nature nurture debate

Answer 18

• The nature-nurtue question is about interaction (not either/or)

Question 19

Adoption study: Ge et al (1996) A mutual influence model

Answer 19

An adoption study.

• The presence of psychiatric disorders in the biological parents correlated with the children’s antisocial or hostile behaviours.
• The biological parents’ psychiatric disorders correlated also with the adoptive parents’ behaviours.
• Adoptees’ behaviours and adoptive mothers’ parenting practices influenced each other.

Question 20

The biological-enviroment relationship

Answer 20

Bronfenbrenner (1979)

Bronfenbrenner (1979): the ecological systems model of human development

• Describes the individual as embedded in nested systems of social influences.
  Bronfenbrenner later revised it as a bioecological model.

Current status
Bronfenbrenner’s model remains highly influential, widely applied.
Various eco-cultural models integrate ideas from Bronfenbrenner, Vygotsky, and anthropology.

Question 21

The sociocultural movement

Answer 21

• Emerged 1980s onwards within developmental psychology and education
• Inspired by the work of Lev Vyotsky (1930s) on learning and cognitive development
• Prompts research that investigates the particular social world into which a child grows

Question 22

Cultural differences

Answer 22

Yes theres a sociocultural movement but

Cultural activities differ, but participating in them rests on universal aspects of development:

• Biological maturation
• sensorimotor development (for example- hand-eye coordination)
• General processes (for example- imitation, trial and error)
• Basic cognitive functions (perception, attention, memory)
• Language acquisition

Question 23

21st century- sociocultural enviroment :

Answer 23

• The digital world is a new sociocultural enviroment
• outgoing challenges to describing child development as it unfolds at the intersection of biology and culture

–> greater awareness of the essential role of culture in child development
–> Greater knowledge of the biological basis of human nature (neuroscience and genetics)

** Arguably, we still need also a ‘science of the strange behaviour of children in strange situations with strange adults for the briefest possible periods of time’

Question 24

What is attachment

Answer 24

Attachment is ‘an affectional tie that one person or animal forms between himself and another specific one – a tie that binds them together in space and endures over time’ (Ainsworth & Bell 1970, p. 50).

Question 25

Kondrad lorenz: study of animal behaviour 1930s

Answer 25

• Origins of animals’ attachment to their parents
• Biological
• Evolutionary
• Imprinting
• Sensitive period
• Universal

Question 26

Lorenz field work study: reflections

Answer 26

–> Grey goslings were the most demanding and tiring charges

Question 27

Harry Harlow

Answer 27

’- Cupboard love’- satisfy basic needs or primary drives

• Attachment beyond ‘cupboard love’
• Formal experiment- cloth mother v wire mother –> comfort v food
• Hypothesis: preference demonstrated for cloth mother
• Hypothesis: seek contact with cloth monkey

Question 28

Harry Harlow: Maternal deprivation

Answer 28

Independent variable- presence of the mother

Dependent variable: social behaviour

Adulthood in the compound with monkeys brought up with their mothers

Frightened/withdrawn/unable to be mate/inadequate parents

Maternal or social deprivation??

–> Replication adjusting independent variable

–> 20 minuets a day to play with other motherless monekys of their age

–> Accquired normal skills play, mating, mothering

Question 29

The seperation response

Answer 29

• An instincitive reaction is present from birth, with characteristic behavioural and physiological correlates
• This has envolved to ensure the caregiver’s presence and attention

–> Average crying-seconds during the first 90 minutes after birth

Question 30

Who created the attachment theory?

Answer 30

• First formulated by John Bowlby in the 1940s
• Later elaborated Psychologist Mary Slater Ainsworth working with Bowlby

Question 31

Protest and despair : observational: method

Answer 31

PROTEST:

The initial phase of protest, may begin immediately or may be delayed; it lasts for a few hours to a week or more. During it the young child appears acutely distressed at having lost his mother and seeks to recapture her by the full exercise of his limited resources. He will often cry loudly, shake his cot, throw himself about and look eagerly towards any site or sound which might prove to be his missing mother

DESPAIR:

During the phase of despair, which succeeds protest, the child’s preoccupation with his missing mother is still evident, though his behaviour suggests increasing hopelessness. The active physical movements diminish or come to an end, and he may cry monotonously or intermittently. He is withdrawn and inactive, makes no demands on the people in the environment, and appears to be in a deep state of mourning (Bowlby 1969 cited in Miller 2011)

Question 32

Infant-Caregiver Attachment

Answer 32

• General theory of ethology
• Two way evolutionary perspective
• Biological pre-disposition to maintain proximity
• Innate signalling mehcanisms- smiling, crying, babbling
• Synchronised
• Attachment behaviour system

Question 33

What is maternal deprivation

Answer 33

• Disrupted relationship between mother and infant often leads to the infant’s protests, then despair, characterised by grief and mourning; then detachment; and finally in some cases psychopathology
• Seperations of even one fortnight will lead to serious harm
• Children deprived of continous materal care are likely to develop antisocial tendencies
• Mother love is as important for mental health as are vitamins and proteins for physical health

Question 34

What is the Internal working model

Answer 34

• A set of mental representations of oneself and others that is formed in infancy based on relationship with caregivers
• The IWM subsequently guides one’s beliefs and expectations about intimate relationships
• A concept developed by Bowlby to explain lifespan continuities from the biobehavioural system in infancy to the quality of relationships in adulthood

Question 35

Mary Ainsworth

Answer 35

• Canadian psychologist
• Drew on Bowlby
• Maternal sensitivity - the mother’s ability to respond sensitively to the child’s signals.
• Maternal sensitivity is the most important factor determining whether an infant becomes securely or insecurely attached

Question 36

Ainsworth: strange situation experiment 1971,1978

Answer 36

The Strange Situation Experiment

• Researchers observed mothers and one-year-old infants in a play room through a two-way mirror
• Sample of 100 middle class American families

1. Mother and child enter the room.
2. Mother and child are left alone; child can play with the toys.
3. A stranger enters the room; talks to the mother.
4. Stranger approaches the child with a toy.
5. Mother leaves stranger alone in the room; stranger engages the child with toys.
6. Mother returns; child’s response is noted.
7. Child is left in the room on its own.
   Stranger returns, tries to engage the child.
8. Mother returns; child’s response is noted.
   The stranger leaves

Question 37

The strange situation observation

Answer 37

• The observers looked at four particular behaviours:
• Separation anxiety
• The infant’s willingness to explore
• Stranger anxiety
• Reunion behaviour

Question 38

Strange situation: attachemnt styles

Answer 38

1. Securely attached: 66% –> the rest of the children were classified as insecurely attached

• explored
• sad when mother left
• pleased to see mum when returned

2. Avoidant insecure: 22% - did not care when mother was there or not
   - were not enthusatic on her return
3. Resistant insecure: 12% - showed intense distress
   - rejected the mother on her return

Question 39

What is the basis of attachment style

Answer 39

• Ainsworth and Bell suggested that behaviour in the strange situation classification was determined by the behaviour of the primary carer (in this case the mother)
• Securely attached infant are associated with sensitive and responsive primary care
• Insecure Avoidant infants are associated with unresponsive primary care. The child comes to believe that communication of needs has no influence on the mother
• Insecure Resistant attached infants are associated with inconsistent primary care. Sometimes the child’s needs and met and sometimes they are ignored by the mother

Question 40

What is attachment styles

Answer 40

individual differences in attachment security

Question 41

what does secure base mean

Answer 41

The child’s feeling of safety provided by an attachment figure

Question 42

what is Maternal sensitivity

Answer 42

The mother’s ability to respond sensitively to the child’s signals

Question 43

What are the sensitivity security link

Answer 43

If caregiver can;t provide a sense of safety, the child’s exploration is compromised. Over time, this impacts on the child’s autonomy and personality development

Question 44

Critiques of the strange situation

Answer 44

• Experimental condition
• Low ecological validity
• Single, universal definition of maternal sensitivity
• Excludes role of family and community

Feminist critqiues:
- Attachment theory has socio-political implications

• Myths of monotropic relationships and early experience have negative influences on women
• Narrow focus of attachment theory holds mothers responsible for the totality of their children’s social and emotional lives
• Is the mother central in attachment?

Question 45

what is the Socio-political impact

Answer 45

Demonization mothers (working and working-class)

• Scrutiny of mothers (Scourfield 2006)
• Displacement of fathers
• ‘Fathers tend to be excluded and ‘invisible’ participants in the child welfare system’ (Dominelli et al. 2011, p.351)
• Incomplete picture of the family’s resources, strengths and challenges (Storhaug 2013)

Question 46

Birns- blaming of mothers

Answer 46

• Perhaps the most negative effect of considering attachment to form the basis of future mental health is the fact that in blaming mothers and the quality of their care for all the problems of their children, it minimizes the importance of all the other factors that influence how our children grow.

Question 47

Anna Freud and Sophie Dann

Answer 47

• Bulldogs Bank Children – Case Study
• Word War II – six German-Jewish orphans rescued from a concentration camp
• Cold indifference/ hostility to staff – inseparable
• Closely knit group with equal status
• Companions were ‘love objects’ – protected and cared for one another
• Resilience? Multiple attachments?
• Links with Harlow – 20 minutes play

Question 48

Schaffer and Emerson (1964) - glasgow babies

Answer 48

• Longitudinal study of 60 babies from a largely working-class area of Glasgow; the infants were observed 4 weekly until they reached 1 years old, and then again at 18 months
• Mothers were interviewed at each visit and asked about when and where the infants showed separation distress and to whom they were directed at
• Findings - The onset of attachment occurred at around 6-9 months. Intensity of attachment varied and intensely attached infants had mothers who responded quickly.
• Mothers were generally the objects of attachment but soon after one main attachment was formed the infants became attached to other people
• In 39% of cases the person who fed bathed and changed the infant was not the child’s primary carer. By 18 months only few attached babies were attached to one person, 31% had 5 or more attachments

Question 49

Rutter: maternal deprivation revisted

Answer 49

Maternal deprivation revisited

• Boys aged 9-12 years – correlation study
• Early life disruption and inadequate parenting (not the separation as such) are common causes of poor social adjustment and relationship difficulties later
• BUT separation from mothers when younger did not necessarily mean that the boys would be maladjusted adolescents
• Type of separation; wider support networks

Question 50

cultural criqutes of attachment studies

Answer 50

• Universalist position
• Sociocultural position
• Attachment is a quality of close relationships
• Evidence for cross-cultural differences in childrearing practices
• Attachment researchers need to develop ecologically valid, theory driven observational and interview methods that are tailored to specific cultures (Neckoway et al. 2007)

Question 51

Cross cultural research

Answer 51

• Studies in Japan, India, Africa, Israel, USA (various ethnic groups), South America, Australia, and Germany (reviewed in Keller 2013).
• Some predictions of attachment theory are not borne out across cultures.
• Attachment and culture: Security in the United States and Japan. American Psychologist, 55, pp. 1093–104.

Takahashi (1986)

• No ‘avoidant’ Japanese infants in the Strange Situation Test.
• Her explanation: traditional Japanese childrearing practices impacted also on the mothers’ own reactions in the SST.

Question 52

Carlson and Hardwood (2003)

Answer 52

• Anglo American and Puerto Rican mothers
• Challenges the application of a single definition of maternal sensitivity
• Sensitive caregiving behaviours are culturally constructed

Question 53

Rothbaum et al (2000)

Answer 53

• Attachment theory is ethnocentric despite its proponents’ cross-cultural research.
• It embodies the traditional view of culture as ‘an “overlay” on biologically determined nature’ (p. 1096).
• According to the new view, ‘biology and culture are inseparable aspects of the system within which a person develops’ (p. 1095-6).

Question 54

Application of attachment theory

Answer 54

Real world applications

• Positive impact Bowlby’s work reorganisation of children’s wards
• Emphasis on the importance of attachment
• Remains highly influential in developmental psychology and psychotherapy

Question 55

What is Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD)

Answer 55

Formally defined in 1980.
- Follan and Minnis (2010): cases described by Bowlby in 1946 could have been RAD.

Associated with grossly negligent care:

• Persistent disregard for the child’s emotional needs for comfort, stimulation, and affection;
• Persistent disregard of the child’s physical needs;
  Repeated changes of caregivers.
• ## The child’s strategies for obtaining comfort and protection are confused, contradictory, incomplete, or absent.

Question 56

Attachment in the 21 century

Answer 56

• Neuroscience provides insights regarding the biology of attachment in human and nonhuman mammals.
• The quality of parenting impacts on the child’s developing brain.
• The infant’s brain has specialised neural circuitry enables infant mammals to attach quickly to a caregiver.
• In the parental brain, infant behaviour activates brain circuits that handle specific nurturing responses.

Question 57

Summary for lecture

Answer 57

• Stage theories in developmental psychology
• Development of attachment theory is closely linked with ethology
• Early work was based on direct observation and experiments with animals and humans
• Attachment theory has become one of the most influential models guiding parent-child relationships in programs of prevention, treatment, and education
• Criticisms – ethnocentric, universal, deterministic and centred on mothering
• Contemporary research often develops a more holistic sociocultural approach
• Neuroscience reinforces the biological basis of attachment
• Biology and culture are inseparable aspects of the context of child development