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Reflecting on Piaget’s Theory

Piaget’s stage theory has been influential globally, validating a number of ideas regarding growth and development in many cultures and societies. However,

today’s researchers believe the following:

1. Development is a continuous process.2. Children express their mental abilities and

operations at an earlier age.3. Formal logic is a smaller part of cognition.

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Social Development

Stranger anxiety: fear of strangers develops at around 8 months.

This is the age at which infants form schemas for familiar faces and cannot assimilate a new face.

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So how does attachment develop?

• Harry Harlow– One of the first to study attachment– http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrNBEhzjg8I – Where do ethics play a role in this experiment?

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Origins of Attachment

Harlow’s conclusion: infants bond with surrogate mothers because of bodily contact and not because of nourishment.

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Secure Attachment

Relaxed and attentive caregiving becomes the backbone of secure

attachment.

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Insecure Attachment

Harlow’s studies showed that monkeys experience great anxiety if their terry-

cloth mother is removed.

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Attachment Differences: Why?

Why do these attachment differences exist?

Factor Explanation

Mother

Both rat pups and human infants develop secure attachments if

the mother is relaxed and attentive.

Father

In many cultures where fathers share the responsibility of raising

children, similar secure attachments develop.

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Baumrind: Child-Rearing PracticesPractice Description

AuthoritarianParents impose rules and

expect obedience.

PermissiveParents submit to children’s

demands.

AuthoritativeParents are demanding but responsive to their children.

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Parenting types can affect self-concept

• ______________: demands unquestioned obedience. Do as I say!! Tend to be unresponsive.

• ______________: allow children to make own decisions without supervision. Submit to children’s whims, get them what they want.

• Rejecting-neglecting: disengaged, vest little, give little.

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Parenting types

• Authoritative: both demanding and responsive. Exert control by setting limits, but encouraging input from the child and negotiation of rules, particularly with older children. Encourages discussion and cooperation.

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Behavioral Outcomes correlated with Parenting style

• Authoritarian: lacks good decision-making, tend to be moody, low self-esteem. Will cooperate with the group.

• Permissive: lack self-discipline and confidence; trouble making decisions.

• Authoritative: self-reliant, friendly and self-confident. Higher self-esteem. Feel in control of their lives.

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Parental style and behavioral outcome: Correlational, so...

• Not necessarily causation.

• Perhaps temperament creates parenting style or the combination of parental temperament and children’s temperament creates parenting style.

• Do your parents treat your siblings differently?

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Parental Influence

• Children heavily influence attitudes toward faith, politics and other social attitudes. (excluding sex and drug use).

• Parents provide children with much of their non-family environment (neighborhood, schools, friends, etc.)

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Criticism of Parental Influences

• Recent studies of questioned the affects of child rearing on human development: generally, within extremes, other environmental influences have more power than parents: (friends, personal experiences, teachers, etc.)

• Which two theories fit into this social theory of development?

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Authoritative Parenting

Authoritative parenting correlates with social competence — other factors like common genes

may lead to an easy-going temperament and may invoke an authoritative parenting style.

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Crafting an essay response -

• Can you explain how Ainsworth’s attachment research can lead to a self-reliant child?

• Can you explain how Baumrind’s research in parenting styles can lead to a positive outcome in terms of self-esteem?

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Adolescence

Adolescence is defined as a life

between childhood and adulthood.

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Physical Development

Adolescence begins with puberty (sexual maturation).

Puberty occurs earlier in females (11 years) than males (13 years). Thus height in females increases before males.

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Primary Sexual Characteristics

During puberty primary sexual characteristics — the reproductive organs and external genitalia — develop rapidly.

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Secondary Sexual Characteristics

Also secondary sexual characteristics—the nonreproductive traits such as breasts and

hips in girls and facial hair and deepening of voice in boys develop. Pubic hair and armpit

hair grow in both sexes.

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Puberty Landmarks

• first period for girls (menarche)

• first ejaculation by boys (spermarche).

• Feelings associated?

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Frontal CortexDuring adolescence, neurons in the frontal cortex grow myelin,

which speeds up nerve conduction. The frontal cortex lags behind the limbic system’s development. Hormonal surges and the limbic

system may explain occasional teen impulsiveness.

If this is true, how do you biologically explain Piaget’s formal operational stage?

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Cognitive Development

Adolescents’ ability to reason gives them a new level of social awareness. In particular,

they may think about the following:

1. Their own thinking.2. What others are thinking.3. What others are thinking about them.4. How ideals can be reached. They

criticize society, parents, and even themselves.

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Developing Morality

Kohlberg (1981, 1984) sought to describe the development of moral reasoning by posing moral dilemmas to children and adolescents, such as “Should a person

steal medicine to save a loved one’s life?” He found stages of moral development.

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• Preconventional (Before 9) based on rewards and punishments.

• Will I get into trouble?

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Conventional : Early adolescence, rules are rules, right and wrong. What would your friends think?

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Postconventional (formal op). Larger universal issues of morality and right and wrong, justice and fair play enter the process. What’s right? What’s fair?

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Formal Operational morality questions

• You go through the checkout at Harris Teeter and give a 10 dollar bill and receive change for a 20?

• Is cheating wrong?• Do you copy homework?• Do you ask for questions on a test?• Would you mark that you’d given money to

church/charity to receive money back on your taxes?

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Social influence and expediency will change behavior that is reasoned to be moral.

• Have you ever cheated because you saw others cheating?

• Is cheating right? Why or why not?

• Have you ever cheated?

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Kohlberg Critics

• There is a discrepancy between moral thought and action

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• cognitive dissonance: we act to reduce the discomfort we feel when two of our thoughts are inconsistent– Smoking and cancer

– End of the world cult members

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Cultural Criticisms• postconventional reasoning appears mainly in

– Educated

– Western middle and upper class

– Males

– value individualism.

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Interdependent/collectivist cultures

• respect group norms more than western individualistic cultures and therefore are less likely to post-conventional moral reason.– Group cohesion more important than

individual codes.

• African, Asia, Middle East more interdependent in thinking.

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Moral Development, and Gender

• while men tend to make judgments based on their view of justice, women tend to make decisions based on relationships.

• Ex: Who chooses a movie? Who’s likely to cave first in arguments?

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Other Kohlberg Complaint: Haidt’s Social Intuitionist

• Are there some things that are viscerally disgusting, or innately immoral?

• Do they require moral reasoning?

• Examples?

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Social Intuitionist Theory

• Moral paradoxes

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Morality and Social Influences

• Doing the right thing dependent on social situations– Nazi concentration camp guards

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Gender Bias in Kohlberg

• Gilligan complains that girls are more concerned with relationships and therefore develop identity through their relationships

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Gilligan’s Stages of Ethic CareApprox. Age Range

Stage Goal

Not listed Preconventional Individual survival

Not listed Conventional Self sacrifice is goodness

Maybe never Postconventional Principle of nonviolence; do not hurt others or self

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Erik Erikson: Social Development

• psychosocial task to complete at each level of development throughout our lifetimes.

• If we do not achieve one level, it creates problems in our lives.

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Stage 1: Trust vs Mistrust

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Stage 2: Autonomy vs. Shame and doubt• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqLMcyU

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Stage 3: Initiative vs. Guilt

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9nZ4j1yLmk

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Stage 4: Industry vs. Inferiority

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Stage 5: Identity vs. role confusion

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Forming an Identity

In Western cultures, many adolescents try out different selves before settling into a consistent

and comfortable identity. Having such an identity leads to forming close relationships.

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Parent and Peer Influence

Although teens become independent of their parents as

they grow older, they nevertheless relate to

their parents on a number of things,

including religiosity and career choices. Peer approval and

relationships are also very important.

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Stage 6: Intimacy vs. isolation

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Stage 7: Generativity vs. stagnation

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pc6e5igbUds

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Stage 8: Integrity vs. despair

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIysXLiA5s0

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Marcia’s Levels of Identity Achievement

• Extends Erikson’s work – identity determined by choices and

commitments rather than social traits

• Marcia believed that teens fall into four categories in their search for identity

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Marcia’s Stages of Development

• Diffused: not really searching, living day to day, no direction.

• Foreclosed: a little parent, unquestioning, never searched for personal identity.

• Moratorium: actively searching and trying on new roles routinely.

• Achieved: developed a separate and unique identity they feel comfortable with.

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Emerging Adulthood

Emerging adulthood spans ages 18-25. During this time, young adults may live with their

parents and attend college or work. On average, emerging adults marry in their mid-twenties.

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Adulthood

Although adulthood begins sometime after

a person’s mid-twenties, defining

adulthood into stages is more difficult than defining the stages of

childhood or adolescence.

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Physical Development

The peak of physical performance occurs around 20 years of age, after which it declines imperceptibly for most of us.

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Middle Adulthood

Muscular strength, reaction time, sensory abilities and cardiac output begin to decline

after the mid-twenties. Around age 50, women go through menopause, and men experience decreased levels of hormones and fertility.

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Old Age: Sensory Abilities

After age 70, hearing, distance perception, and the sense of smell diminish, as do muscle strength, reaction time, and

stamina. After 80, neural processes slow down, especially for complex tasks.

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Old Age: Motor Abilities

At age 70, our motor abilities also decline. A 70-year-old is no match for a 20-year-old individual.

Fatal accidents also increase around this age.

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Cognitive Development

Do cognitive abilities like memory, creativity, and intelligence decline with age

the same way physical abilities do?

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Aging and Memory

As we age, we remember some

things well. These include recent past events and events that happened a

decade or two back. However, recalling

names becomes increasingly

difficult.

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Aging and Memory

Recognition memory does not decline with age, and material that is meaningful is

recalled better than meaningless material.

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Aging and Intelligence

It is believed today that fluid intelligence (ability to reason speedily) declines with

age, but crystalline intelligence (accumulated knowledge and skills) does

not. We gain vocabulary and knowledge but lose recall memory and process more

slowly.

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Aging and Intelligence

A number of cognitive abilities decline with age.

However, vocabulary and

general knowledge increase with age.

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Social Development

Many differences between the young and old are not simply based on physical and cognitive

abilities, but may instead be based on life events associated with family, relationships, and work.

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Adulthood’s Ages and Stages

Psychologists doubt that adults pass through an orderly sequence

of age-bound stages. Mid-life crises at 40 are

less likely to occur than crises

triggered by major events (divorce, new marriage).

Neuroticism scores, 10,000 subjects(McCrae & Costa, 1996).

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Adulthood’s Commitments

Love and work are defining themes in adult life. Evolutionary psychologists believe that

commitment has survival value. Parents that stay together are likely to leave a

viable future generation.

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Adulthood’s Commitments

Happiness stems from working in a job that fits your interests and provides you with a sense of competence and accomplishment.

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Well-Being Across the Life Span

Well-being and people’s feelings of satisfaction are stable across the life span.

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Successful Aging

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Death and Dying

The “normal” range of reactions or grief

stages after the death of a loved one varies widely. Grief is more

severe if death occurs unexpectedly. People who view their lives

with a sense of integrity (in Erikson’s

terms) see life as meaningful and

worthwhile.

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Reflections on Two Major Developmental Issues

Researchers who view development as a slow, continuous process are generally those who emphasize experience and learning. Those with a biological perspective, on the other

hand, view maturation and development as a series of genetically predisposed steps or stages. These include psychologists like

Piaget, Kohlberg and Erikson.

Continuity and Stages

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Developmental Issues

Lifelong development requires both stability and change. Personality gradually stabilizes as people age. However, this does not mean that our traits do not change over a lifetime. Some temperaments are more stable than

others.

Stability and Change