INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOLOGY

UNIT TWO: THE LIFE SPANCHAPTER THREE- INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD

The Developing PersonDevelopmental Psychology

study of physical, cognitive, and social changes across the life span

DEVELOPMENTAL ISSUES

Nature versus NurtureHow much is human development influenced by our

heredity (nature) and how much by our experience (nurture)?

Continuity versus Stages Is development gradual and continuous or does it

proceed through a sequence of separate stages?

Stability versus ChangeDo our early personality traits persist through life,

or do we become different persons as we age?

UNION OF EGG AND SPERM

PRENATAL DEVELOPMENT Zygote

fertilized egg enters a 2-week period of rapid cell division develops into an embryo

Embryo developing human organism from 2 weeks through

second month Fetus

developing human organism from 9 weeks to birth

PRENATAL DEVELOPMENT

Teratogensagents that can reach the embryo or

fetus during prenatal development and cause harm chemical, e.g., alcohol, some medicines, cocaine, nicotine

viral, e.g., HIV, Rubella Fetal Alcohol Syndrome

physical and cognitive abnormalities in children caused by a pregnant woman’s heavy drinking

THE COMPETENT NEWBORN Rooting Reflex

tendency to turn head, open mouth, and search for nipple when touched on the cheek

Preferences human voices and faces smell and sound of mother preferred

INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD

Maturation biological growth

processes that enable orderly changes in behavior

relatively uninfluenced by experience

sets the course for development while experience adjusts it

At birth 3 months 15 months

Cortical Neurons

INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD

Schema a concept or framework that organizes and interprets

information Cognition

mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, and remembering

Sensorimotor Stage stage during which infants know the world mostly in

terms of their sensory impression and motor activities

INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD Object Permanence

the awareness that things continue to exist even when not perceived

Preoperational Stage stage during which a child learns to use language but

does not yet comprehend mental operations of concrete logic

Conservation the principle that properties such as mass, volume,

and number remain the same despite changes in the forms of objects

part of Piaget’s concrete operational reasoning

PIAGET’S THEORY OF COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

Typical Age Range

Description of Stage

Developmental Phenomena

Birth to nearly 2 years SensorimotorExperiencing the world through senses and actions (looking, touching, mouthing)

•Object permanence•Stranger anxiety

About 2 to 6 years

About 7 to 11 years

About 12 through adulthood

PreoperationalRepresenting things with words and images but lacking logical reasoning

•Pretend play•Egocentrism•Language development

Concrete operationalThinking logically about concrete events; grasping concrete analogies and performing arithmetical operations

•Conservation •Mathematical transformations

Formal operationalAbstract reasoning

•Abstract logic•Potential for moral reasoning

PIAGET’S THEORY OF COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

Egocentrism the inability of the preoperational child to take another’s

point of view Theory of Mind

people’s ideas about their own and others’ mental states Concrete Operational Stage

stage during which children gain the mental operations that enable them to think logically about concrete events

Formal Operational Stage stage during which people begin to think logically about

abstract concepts

SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT

Stranger Anxiety fear of strangers that infants commonly display beginning by about 8 months of age

Attachment an emotional tie with another person shown in young children by seeking closeness to the

caregiver and showing distress on separation

HARRY HARLOW’S SURROGATE MOTHER EXPERIEMENT infant monkeys were separated from their mothers at six to

twelve hours after birth

raised instead with substitute or 'surrogate' mothers made either of heavy wire or of wood covered with soft terry cloth

In one experiment both types of surrogates were present in the cage, but only one was equipped with a nipple from which the infant could nurse

Some infants received nourishment from the wire mother, and others were fed from the cloth mother. Even when the wire mother was the source of nourishment, the infant monkey spent a greater amount of time clinging to the cloth surrogate.

Principles of General Psychology (1980 John Wiley and Sons)

SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT

Harlow’s Surrogate Mother Experiments Monkeys preferred contact

with the comfortable cloth mother, even while feeding from the nourishing wire mother

HARLOW -RESULTS "...the actions of surrogate-raised monkeys became bizarre

later in life. They engaged in stereotyped behavior patterns such as clutching themselves and rocking constantly back and forth; they exhibited excessive and misdirected aggression..."

Sex behavior was, for all practical purposes, destroyed; sexual posturing was commonly stereotyped and infantile.

"The behavior of these monkeys as mothers -- the 'motherless mothers' as Harlow called them -- proved to be very inadequate ... These mothers tended to be either indifferent or abusive toward their babies. The indifferent mothers did not nurse, comfort, or protect their young, but they did not harm them. The abusive mothers violently bit or otherwise injured their infants, to the point that many of them died."

SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT

Critical Period an optimal period shortly after birth when an

organism’s exposure to certain stimuli or experiences produces proper development

Imprinting the process by which certain animals form attachments

during a critical period very early in life

SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT

Monkeys raised by artificial mothers were terror-stricken when placed in strange situations without their surrogate mothers

SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT

Groups of infants who had and had not experienced day care were left by their mothers in a unfamiliar room

0

20

40

60

80

100

3.5 5.5 7.5 9.5 11.5 13.5 20 29

Percentage of infantswho criedwhen theirmothers left

Age in months

Day care

Home

SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT

Basic Trust (Erik Erikson)a sense that the world is

predictable and trustworthysaid to be formed during infancy by

appropriate experiences with responsive caregivers

SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT The correlation between authoritative parenting and

social competence in children

Parentingstyle

(e.g.,authoritative)

Child’s traits(e.g., self-reliant

socially competent)

Harmonious marriage,common genes, orother third factor

PARENTING STYLES

Authoritarian (child can not express his/her opinion or exercise his/her own judgment)

Democratic/Authoritative (children are most confident; stems from responding to the child and setting boundaries for the child; children gain responsibility slowly; independence gradual)

Permissive/Laissez-Faire (child has responsibility too soon, child has no boundaries, difficulty with ethics and morals)

CHILD ABUSE

Physical or mental injury, sexual abuse, neglect, or mistreatment of a child under the age of 18 by adults entrusted with the child’s care (pg. 81 in textbook)

Many abusive parents were abused children. Overburdened or stressed parents are more

likely to abuse their children. Low birth weight and hyperactive children

are more likely to be abused (more difficult to work with/handle; parent has few parental rewards)

EFFECTS OF CHILD ABUSE

Loss of childhood Loss of trust, guilt, anti-social behavior,

depression, identity crisis, loss of self-esteem Severe emotional problems Potential abuser later in life

SOURCE:

Kasschau, Richard, A. Understanding Psychology. McGraw-Hill, Glencoe, New York, New York, 2008.

NEXT CLASS

Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development Freudian Psychosexual Development Language Development