PSYU2235 - Developmental Psychology

Palmar grasp reflex

in response to stroking a baby's palm, the baby's hand will grasp. This reflex lasts a few months

autonomous phase

ruled by ideas of fairness

Scaffolding (Vygotsky)

support of learning allows students to complete tasks they are not able to complete independently

Epigenetics

the process through which experience and environment can influence gene expression

Representative

this kind of sample accurately reproduces the characteristics of the population a researcher is studying

Chromosomes

threadlike structures made of DNA molecules that contain the genes

Socio-Emotional Competence

Components of Emotional Competence (Denham, 1998) 1) Emotional Expression 2) Emotional Understanding 3) Emotion Regulation

Electra complex

Conflict during phallic stage in which girls supposedly love their fathers romantically and want to eliminate their mothers as rivals

4) Uninvolved Pattern: "Neglectful Parenting" Child Outcomes

• Compromised child competence, self-perceptions, behaviour, psychological distress o Disruptions in attachment - Disorganised "D" Pattern (? Role reversal) o Poor self control - impulsivity, aggression, noncompliance o Low self-esteem o Poor peer relationships o In adolescence, more severe delinquency

Domain-general approach

Developmental theories in which all aspects of children's cognition are assumed to develop across stages in an integrated fashion (eg Piagetian theory).

policy oriented action

Developmental theory can influence policy oriented action • E.g, carer/child ratios in childcare, screentime

Memory Infancy

• Deferred imitation of novel behavior shows rudimentary memory • Demonstrated at 6 months • After 24 hrs by 9 months • Simple sequences by 12 months • After 7 days at 14 months • Complex sequences of behaviour by 2 years • Habituation • Shows storage of memory from birth • Recognition only (cued by stimulus) • Lasts only a few seconds • Across several perceptual stimuli • Auditory • Visual • Tactile • Operant conditioning • Conditioned to pull ribbons on mobile at birth • At 2 months remember to pull ribbons after 3 days • At 3 months after 8 days • At 5 mths just 5-10 secs. exposure needed • At 6 months after 21 days • Recognition (cued) from birth vs. • Recall (uncued) at 8-11 months • Complex and durable memories by 2 years

Freud's Psychoanalytic Approach

• Development of conscience or superego • Process of identification - Oedipal complex - boys - Electra complex - girls - Gender differences

Reasons for not being able to "pass" a test

• Failure to attend to relevant aspects of the problem • Inability to hold all the relevant pieces of information in working memory • Learning tired, cognitive tipping point • Lack strategies for transferring information to long-term memory • Unable to retrieve relevant information from long term memory • Inadequate executive control to manage steps in problem solving

Thinking about theories

• Focus: What does the theory seek to explain? • Predictions: What does the theory predict? • Clinical Applications? Is the theory useful in the real world?

Universality of Kohlberg's Model

• Gender Differences: Gilligan's challenge: morality of care versus morality of justice • Jaffee & Hyde (2000) concluded from a meta-analysis involving 113 studies that men and women use care and justice reasoning.

Arguments for the Influence Temperament

• Good parenting: Poor outcomes and vice versa • Differences among children reared by the same parents (but note, parenting may vary in families) • Even when parental dysfunction is the obvious cause of child problems.... o There is no consistent pattern between parent behaviour (e.g., abuse, neglect) and types of problems demonstrated by the child

Psychoanalytic Theory

• Identification with same-sex parent • Oedipus complex (boys) • Electra complex (girls)

Synchronised Interactions

Function • Elicit infant attention • Aid in behaviour organisation and state control • Regulate information input so as not to overload the system • Affirm infant's emerging sense of self/agency • Temporal - timing of speech reciprocity seems to be innate • Energetics - loudness is matched • Physiognomic - match body movements and facial expressions

Olfaction (Smell)

Highly acute at birth • Head turning used as index of preference for breast pad of own mother vs. another mother (McFarlane, 1975; Porter et al., 1992) • 2-day-olds respond randomly • 6-day-olds 22/32 days infants turned toward own mother's breast pad

Sucking reflex

Reflex that causes a newborn to make sucking motions when a finger or nipple if placed in the mouth

Sensorimotor 2: Primary Circular Reactions (1-4 months)

Repetition of actions centred on infant's own body • Accidentally engages in an action with an interesting outcome & repeats - beginnings of voluntary control of actions • Interesting outcome is centred on own body e.g., thumbsucking, blowing raspberries, playing with own hands, voice range - eg., squealing

P-index

Represents a person's post-conventional reasoning on Rest's Defining Issues Test

Encoding specificity:

Retrieval better if the external environment is similar to that experienced at the time of encoding.

Je ne regrette rien?

Review and regret take different forms Regret • Shame, rumination? • A motivator for change, capacity to find new meanings? • Depends on situational & dispositional factors • Stewart & Vandewater (1999) • Acknowledging life regrets may begin in early middle age & can motivate goal setting & even revisiting identity/intimacy issues • Those who ruminate & don't make changes are unhappy in midlife & subsequently So Life Review is happening in midlife, yet as we will see, Erikson predicts it will occur predominantly in later life.

Scaffolding (Vygotsky; see also Bruner, 1983)

Scaffold on a building • Provides support until the building is selfsupporting • Extends the range of the worker • Allows worker to accomplish a task not otherwise possible • Used selectively to aid worker where needed on the building site • Removed when uneccessary

Developmental Progress

Schemas change over time via adaptation Process of building schemas by direct interaction with the environment • Assimilation - new information "assimilated" into existing schemas • Accommodation - schemas updated to accommodate new information • Organisation - schemas become connected into an increasingly complex cognitive framework

Theories of late adulthood

Self Theories (eg Maslow, Erikson) n Stratification Theories - importance of social & cultural forces n Disengagement theory n Activity Theory n Modern theories n Continuity Theory (Atchley) n Selective Optimization with Compensation (Baltes) n Dual Process Model (Brandstadter) n Motivational Theory of Life-Span Development n Integrative Model of Developmental Regulation (Hasse, Heckhausen & Wrosch, 2013)

More Complex Emotions in Preschoolers

Self-Conscious and Social Emotions (empathy, pride, guilt, shame, embarrassment, envy, contempt) • Cognitive foundations • Social foundations (Denham, 1998)

Voluntary Control of Emotional Expressions: Preschoolers

Self-Protective Expression Strategic regulation of emotion: Down-regulation or Up-Regulation • Social display rules need to be followed - E.g., polite smile at unwanted gift • Capacity to deceive/hide negative feelings - E.g., "I'm not scared", "It didn't hurt" (sense of bravado) To avoid guilt, shame, and possible punishment ... (moral disengagement)

During Pregnancy Risks: Exposure to teratogens

Teratogen—any agent that causes a birth defect (eg. drugs, x-rays, toxic chemicals) Impact depends on • Timing - critical periods in organogenesis • Dosage & duration • Genetic make-up of unborn child & mother • Environment - other aspects

Canalisation

The 'channelling' of children towards toys and activities seen as normal for their sex.

Learning About Other People 2 years: Egocentricity

The child still thinks that: • We see the same objects they do • Peek-a-boo • We do the same things with those objects • Use containers for toys • We like the same things they do • Birthday presents

*Goodness-of-fit

The extent to which the individual's capacities, abilities, motivations, and temperament are matched to environmental (parent/cultural) demands and expectations Chess and Thomas 1984; Thomas et al. 1968; Lerner et al., 2011

Performance

The manner in which something or somebody functions, operates, or behaves

Moral versus Social Conventional Reasoning

Turiel: • Moral rules - basic rights of others (hitting, stealing, lying) • Social-Conventional rules - rules that are appropriate in different contexts e.g., social etiquette and rules of games

Theories of Gender-Role Development

• Biological Theory • Psychoanalytic Theory • Cognitive Developmental Theory • Gender Schema Theory • Social Cognitive Theory

production deficiency

a failure to spontaneously generate and use known strategies that could improve learning and memory

sickle cell anemia

a genetic disorder that causes abnormal hemoglobin, resulting in some red blood cells assuming an abnormal sickle shape

Direct memory

a memory that a person can consciously recall

microgenetic design

a method of study in which the same children are studied repeatedly over a short period

information processing theory

a perspective that compares human thinking processes, by analogy, to computer analysis of data, including sensory input, connections, stored memories, and output

Social Scaffolding

• Child develops more complex ways of thinking and problem solving • Children learn more sophisticated cognitive skills through interaction with more mature thinkers (eg., vertical groupings, composite classes) • Different from explanation and demonstration • Level of support changes as tasks progress and child learns (scaffolding removed bit by bit as the child needs it less)

Lie- and Truth-Telling

• Children can correctly identify a lie from a truth as early as 4 years of age and know that lying is worse than truth-telling. • Definitions of lying and truth telling - initially overinclusive - all false statements are lies until eventually only intentional false statements are defined as lies.

Visual scanning

movements of the eyes from one location or object to another

Both Activity & Disengagement theories:

n Are prescriptive - describe an "optimal" normal way to age n Both fail to pay sufficient attention to individual differences n Assume a change in human value takes place with age and illness n Seldom empirically test the assumption against reality n Have implications for what is done to and for elderly people

Ageing of the population

n Australia like most western countries, has an ageing population n the proportion of people aged over 65 years in Australia growing each year n In 2016, 15% (3.7 million) of Australians were aged 65 and over and this is projected to grow steadily over the coming decades n Thus more & more psychology jobs will be working in Geropsychology (i.e., with older adults)

(2) Dual Process Model: Stroebe & Schut (1999)

n Oscillating between a 'Loss-oriented' state & a 'Restoration-oriented' state n Loss-oriented: more emotional work of grief n Restoration-oriented: more taskfocussed grief work n Also recognises: Adaptive denial and distraction from grief work

Implications of Demographic Changes on Adult Transitions

n Young adults postpone life transitions such as completing education, selecting a partner, having a child n People will have decades of healthy retirement, including: n More time to do activities of their own choice e.g., travel or volunteer for the community or be involved with grandchildren etc

Variability in ageing

n Young-old - 65-< 75 healthy, vigorous, welloff, integrated in family & community life n Old-old - 76-<85 more likely to suffer physical, mental & social losses e.g., chronic illnesses more common. n Oldest-old - > 85 more likely to be frail & hence dependent on others - ? Shifting

Level 2: (Pre-Operational/ Concrete Operations: 5-9)

n irreversibility of death is accepted But: n Death only happens to some people - you can be lucky and escape i.e., avoidability of death n Majority of 10-12 yr olds still think the dead can think & feel (Bering & Bjorklund, 2004)

prosocial behavior

positive, constructive, helpful behavior. The opposite of antisocial behavior

"Desire Psychology" & "Belief Psychology"

"Desire Psychology" • Begins about 2 • Talking about what you want • Explaining behaviour in terms of wants, desires "Belief Psychology" • Comes later - at about 4 • Understand that behaviour is guided by what people believe and think

Applications: Temperament as a "Protective" or "Risk" Factor

"Easy" Temperament as Protective • Evidence that affectionate, responsive, moderately active infants are more resilient through life • ? More likely to elicit positive interactions from parents, teachers and others - evocative gene environment correlations • In situations with a high level of psychosocial stress an easy temperament may be protective

Metacognition

"Thinking about thinking" or the ability to evaluate a cognitive task to determine how best to accomplish it, and then to monitor and adjust one's performance on that task

Emotion regulation

"all of the conscious and nonconscious strategies we use to increase, maintain, or decrease one or more components of an emotional response" (Gross, 1998) o Up regulating: Increasing components of an emotional response o Down regulating: Decreasing components of an emotional response requires understanding causes and consequences of emotions (role of parenting)

Emotion regulation

"all of the conscious and nonconscious strategies we use to increase, maintain, or decrease one or more components of an emotional response" (Gross, 1998) o Up regulating: Increasing components of an emotional response o Down regulating: Decreasing components of an emotional response ...Role of parenting/social influences

Gene expression: Ancient Greeks

"likeness" transmitted parents to children - Pythagoras - via male semen? Aristotle - women also involved

Egocentric thinking

seeing the world from only your own point of view; the inability to take another person's perspective

Standardized tests

tests given, usually nationwide, under uniform conditions and scored according to uniform procedures

Sustained attention

the ability to maintain attention to a selected stimulus for a prolonged period of time

Deferred imitation

the ability to remember and copy the behavior of models who are not present

Empathy

the ability to understand and share the feelings of another

object permanence

the awareness that things continue to exist even when not perceived

Maturation

the biological unfolding of the individual according to a plan contained in the genes - nature

Learning About Other People 3 years: Reality Psychologists

• 3-year- olds • Can tell you what an object looks like from different perspectives (are moving beyond spatial egocentricity) • Are reality psychologists - understand the representational nature of beliefs but can't yet understand misrepresentations of reality • Assume the mind is like a photocopier and always reflects how the world really is

Behavioural Genetics: The Study of Gene-Environment Contributions in Humans

1) Kinship Studies 2) Adoption Studies 3) Twin Studies Why are twins similar? Why are siblings (including twins) different? How do we explain why adopted children are similar? Longitudinal studies (test for genes, measure caretaking, environmental factors, look for interaction effects)

Three Basic Stages of Moral Reasoning

1. Fear of punishment or desire for gain ("If you let your wife die, you'll get in trouble") 2. Right and wrong are defined by convention and by what people will say: ("Your family will think you're inhuman if you don't help your wife") 3. Internalization of personal moral principles: ("If you didn't steal the drug, you wouldn't have lived up to your own standards of conscience")

The world of babies

1. Moment to moment - temporary disequilibrium when babies encounter new properties of objects 2. There is a period of disequilibrium around transitions

Freud's psychosexual stages

1. Oral Stage 2. Anal Stage 3. Phallic Stage 4. Latency Stage 5. Genital Stage

Why does memory capacity increase with age?

1. Processing time gets shorter - older child can manipulate more information at once in working memory 2. Memory strategies change 3. Knowledge base changes - metamemory 4. Knowledge about the world - familiar material is easier to remember

Infant reactions to significant separations

1. Protest 2. Yearning and searching 3. Anger 4. Despair (after a week or so) 5. Apathy, sadness, appetite, sleep disturbances 6. Seek new relationships

Erikson's stages of psychosocial development

1. trust vs. mistrust 2. autonomy vs. shame and doubt 3. initiative vs. guilt 4. industry vs. inferiority 5. identity vs. role confusion 6. intimacy vs. isolation 7. generativity vs. stagnation 8. integrity vs. despair

Concrete operational

7-11 years Mastery of logic, rational thinking

Affect Attunement (Daniel Stern)

= Performing behaviours that express the quality of a shared affect state, but without imitating the exact behavioural expression of the inner state Characteristics of attuned behaviours • Some form of matching occurs - inner states (unconscious) • The matching is largely cross-modal (modality of expression used by mother to match is different from the modality used by the infant e.g., vocalisation vs behaviour) • Most common dimension matched is intensity Function of attunement behaviours • To "commune with" the baby • "intersubjectivity"

Applications: Parenting

• Appealing to logic? • Appealing to empathy? • Too much reasoning/explanation? • Overly verbal? • Capacity for decision-making?

Ethological Attachment Theory Attachment Behaviours

A behavioural system through which humans regulate their distress when under threat by seeking proximity to another person • Seeking to be near the other person • Search behaviours • Signalling - crying, smiling, reaching to achieve proximity • Contact maintaining behaviours (clinging on, cuddling in) • Being oriented toward the other person when not in close proximity • Distress on separation • Joy or relief on reunion

Piaget's Method

A flexible discovery-oriented approach, rather than a highly standardised approach • Clinical method • Observation in natural settings • Manipulation of objects by experimenter in "lab" setting His infant work was longitudinal, but work with older children was cross-sectional

hypothetico-deductive thinking

A form of formal logic achieved during the formal operational stage Piaget identified as the ability to generate and test hypotheses in a logical and systematic matter.

Flowcharts

A graphical representation of the steps in a process; details all of the elements in a process and the sequence in which these elements occur.

Ageism

Ageism - the tendency to categorise and judge people solely on the basis of their age (a stereotype like sexism, racism) Demeaning language "doddering" or patronising language "spry" Ageism can target people of any age - "teenagers" get a lot of bad press Ageism allows policies and attitudes that reduce pride, activity & social involvement

Random allocation

Allocating participants to experimental groups or conditions using random techniques

Temperament Patterns "Difficult Child"

• Irregularity in biological functions • Withdrawal/inhibited in new situations • Slow adaptability to change • Intense mood expressions (often negative) • C.f. Stuart Shanker - Reframing Temperament: "Difficult" vs. "Stressed": o Parents need to understand what their child's limbic system is "telling" them.

Scripts: Constructive memory

• Schemas, scripts, and other knowledge structures can assist encoding to memory • Child chess experts remember new chess information better than adult non-experts • Stereotypes • Tend to encode schema-consistent information • Tend to not encode schema-discrepant information

Critique Piaget Methodology

• Small "n" for infancy work • Clinical method - flexibility - but ? leading questions - ? Generalisability • Tasks too complex - response formats are confounds BUT • Qualitative methods may capture the richness of children's thinking - which may otherwise be missed

Information Processing: Computer Analogy

• Thinking is information processing (Siegler, 1998) • Human mind like a computer • Hardware: Processor, hard drive, random access memory, input by mouse and keyboard • Human 'hardware': Brain, neural connections, working memory, memory, input through sensory organs/receptors • Software: programs for processing and storing information, programs for performing specific tasks • Human 'Software' - mental programs for how information is received, interpreted, stored, retrieved and analysed. • Parallel processing in both humans and computers

Function of attunement behaviours

• To "commune with" the baby • "intersubjectivity

Applications: Preschool Education

• Use concrete props & visual aids o Encourage manipulation of physical objects (e.g., sand, water play, playdough) • Give children physical practice (e.g., Walk through the shape of letters, mazes) • Learn about spatial relationships with computer activities • Make instructions short and use actions as well as words • Avoid "lectures" on social issues (e.g., sharing) for children not yet up to perspective taking

Individual Differences: Genes & Environment

• Why do people differ? • Why are some so alike? (Body language, posture etc) • Why are some people... Smarter? Heavier? More sporty? More musically talented? More anxious? Shy? • Nature (genes) o Genetic determinism vs. genes as influences, predispositions, tendencies, etc. • Nurture (environment, experience)

4 reasons why memory capacity increases with age

• faster processing time • better strategies • greater knowledge base • metamemory

Strategies: Schemas

•A mental framework about some facet of experience (e.g., what a supermarket is) •Knowledge (what it is like, what to expect) •Emotions (how does it make me feel?) •Memories related to the experience •Action tendencies and scripts •Guides expectations and actions •A cognitive short-cut Schemas are automatically triggered by something relevant to it They guide our expectations and actions automatically

Mediational Deficiencies

A failure to use a mnemonic strategy caused by an inability to carry out the cognitive operations required to execute the strategy

Haase et al (2013) cont.

n Age differences in the 3 processes of developmental regulation were consistent across studies n Older age predicted higher goal engagement; higher goal disengagement; & higher metaregulation n Metaregulation needs more research

Impact of Life Events

n Australian study by Burns & Leonard (2005). Middle-aged women only rarely mentioned normative developmental milestones such as marriage, childbirth, or menopause as turning points in their lives. n Rather, unexpected events such as divorce and job transfers were more likely to be viewed as crises. (also found in overseas studies e.g., Baruch, 1984; Lachman, 2003)

Stage theory of the process of dying: Kubler-Ross (1969; 1975)

n 1. Denial ("No, not me, it can't be true") n 2. Anger ("Why me?") n 3. Bargaining (e.g. not until after my son's wedding) n 4. Depression (Sadness: Reactive & Preparatory depression) n 5. Acceptance (lose interest in outside world, no longer talkative etc. - disengagement) & Hope throughout

Midlife Crisis - cliché or reality?

n 42 year old man leaves wife and children for 22 year old secretary n 46 year old man quits successful job, buys a Harley Davidson n 45 year old woman has extensive plastic surgery, joins a gym and has regular botox injections....

Reversibility

the capacity to think through a series of steps and then mentally reverse direction, returning to the starting point

Intermodal perception

the combining of information from two or more sensory systems

Rehearsal

the conscious repetition of information, either to maintain it in consciousness or to encode it for storage

cognitive development

the development of thinking, problem solving, and memory

Validity

the extent to which a test measures or predicts what it is supposed to

Perception

the process of organizing and interpreting sensory information, enabling us to recognize meaningful objects and events

shape constancy

the tendency to interpret the shape of an object as being constant, even when its shape changes on the retina

Adaptation

A trait that helps an organism survive and reproduce

sex-linked gene

gene located on a sex chromosome

Elaboration

linking a stimulus to other information at the time of encoding

Gender Stereotypes

• Gender stereotypic knowledge expands over the preschool years so that by about 5 or 6 years most children have extensive gender stereotypical knowledge of children's activities and interests (Blakemore, Berenbaum, & Liben, 2009). • From about 5 years of age onwards children begin to broaden their gender stereotypic knowledge, from concrete gender differences relating to activities and physical appearance to more abstract differences between the genders and to personality traits (Heyman & Legare, 2004). • Apart from extending their gender stereotypic knowledge as they age, children also become more flexible in their gender stereotypic conceptions. They begin to realize that there is variation in the gender stereotypicality of activities and there is variation in people's adherence to gender stereotypes (ConryMurray & Turiel, 2012). The gender stereotypicality of different classes of activities can vary not only within activities, but also across cultures, historical time, individuals, and age. For example, early last century pink was associated with boys as it was considered a strong color and blue was associated with girls as it was considered delicate and dainty. Over the course of the twentieth century, the gender stereotyping of the colors changed to pink for girls and blue for boys (Paoletti, 1997). • There are also age, gender, and cultural differences in beliefs about adherence to gender stereotypes. • Children are typically most rigid about conforming to gender stereotypical beliefs at about the time they begin school. Over the middle childhood years, they generally become more flexible before returning to greater rigidity during adolescence. Girls tend to hold more flexible gender stereotype beliefs than do boys, beginning in middle childhood (Blakemore et al., 2009). There is also evidence that there is more flexibility in gender stereotypic beliefs in some cultures than in others (e.g., girls prohibited from attaining an education in some cultures). It is not surprising that knowledge of gender stereotypes by themselves do not usually directly relate to engagement in gender stereotypical conduct. Most adults have attained a comprehensive knowledge of gender stereotypes, so this knowledge alone does not predict the variability in gendered conduct. One of the major factors associated with behavioural compliance with gender stereotypic knowledge are the expectations associated with gender non-conformity (Blakemore, 2003). Gender violations are often strongly sanctioned, and the more this happens, the more children anticipate negative outcomes for non-stereotypical conduct (Raag, 1999; Zouls et al., 2011). In addition to the influence of social outcome expectations on gendered conduct, from a social cognitive theory perspective (Bussey & Bandura, 1999), the extent to which knowledge of stereotypes influences conduct also depends on individuals' selfevaluative appraisals of their conduct. Children develop their own standards of gendered conduct synthesized from information abstracted from a number of sources including parents, peers, and the media. • Some children develop gendered standards in which they abhor conduct that deviates from gender-stereotypes and react with self-censure when they behave in ways that violate their gender standards. Other children develop more egalitarian standards of conduct and do not anticipate such negative self-sanctions for gender nonconformity, and may even anticipate pride for behaving in accord with egalitarian standards (Zeldin & Pajares, 2000).

Flexibility in Attentional Focus

A: Avoidant B: Secure C : Anx/ Ambiv Environment Exploration Relationships Closeness

Genotype

An organism's genetic makeup, or allele combinations.

Microsystem (Bronfenbrenner)

child's immediate setting: family, daycare center, school

Conservation

o Understanding that physical properties of an object/substance do not change when their outward appearance is altered (e.g., conservation of liquids task) o Similar construct to object permanence How do children come to understand invariants? (i.e., the stability of the physical world?)

Role-taking opportunities

refers to the opportunities individuals have to experience a different perspective on a situation by mentally or physically placing themselves in another person's position

Turn Taking and Reciprocity Malloch & Trevarthen (2008); Trevarthen (2020)

"Companionship Space" through joint use of music-like qualities in vocal & body gestures - communicative musicality o Seen where arm movements of infants synchronised with adult speech rhythms (e.g. songs with actions)

Pre-operational

2-6 years Use of symbols - internal representation

Heritability

The proportion of variation among individuals that we can attribute to genes. The heritability of a trait may vary, depending on the range of populations and environments studied.

Proximo-distal:

Core stability supports fine motor capacity

Moral Disengagement and Antisocial Conduct

Extensive research has documented the associations between moral disengagement and the perpetration of various forms of adolescents' antisocial conduct, as well as bullying and aggression.

Some of the Big Questions

How do we become who we are? What do children need? What causes a parent and a child to interact as they do? What can get in the way of providing this?

Six Sensorimotor Stages from Birth - 2 years

Knowledge based on organised patterns of sensory & motor action • Sensori-motor schemas - a specific class of actions is applied to a particular class of events o Doing x makes y happen

Gene Environment Interactions

Vulnerability to Depression (Caspi et al., 2003)

Reactivation

a process in which the hippocampus replays the neural activity associated with a memory

Rooting reflex

a baby's tendency, when touched on the cheek, to turn toward the touch, open the mouth, and search for the nipple

Questionnaires

a list of questions to be asked of respondents

Body mass index

a measure of body weight relative to height

Behaviour modification

a systematic approach to changing behaviour through the application of the principles of conditioning

Neo-Piagetian Theories

more recent theories that integrate findings about attention, memory, and strategy use with Piaget's insights about children's thinking and the construction of knowledge

Implicit memory

retention independent of conscious recollection

Hypotheses

specific assumptions and predictions that can be tested to determine their accuracy

How many do you recall?

• 2 year olds might remember 1 or 2 items , • 4 yo 4 • 8 yo ~7, • Adult ??

Causality

the notion that a change in one factor results in a corresponding change in another

Age as an Explanatory Variable?

? Lifespan definitions are culturally and historically constrained • Different age‐grades/norms in different cultures, cohorts • Distinguish between conceptualisations of age o Chronological age: Number of years since birth o Physical/Biological age: Age in terms of biological health o Psychological age: An individual's adaptive capacities compared to others of the same chronological age o Social age: Social roles and expectations related to a person's age (C.f. Neugarten "The Social Clock" - Example: Age at first birth)

Midlife Crisis?

? Priming - Due to widely accepted "cliché", people take it for granted that they will go through a period of intense psychological turmoil in their 40's. n But, the data suggest that midlife is no more or less traumatic for most people than any other period of life e.g. compared to early adulthood (Robertson & Wright, 2013). n Midlife is just one of life's challenges, for some, it is experienced as a transition, for many it is a time of questioning, for a few, this does turn into a crisis.

Organisation

A memory strategy that involves grouping or classifying stimuli into meaningful clusters

Stylised Voices

Adult speech to Babies = Stereotypic • Raised pitch • Pitch and loudness changes exaggerated • Slow speed • Long pauses between utterances

Stylised Facial Expressions

Adults... • Initiate interaction—mock surprise • Maintain interaction—smile • Terminate interaction—frown with head aversion and breaking gaze • Avoid interaction—neutral face with gaze aversion

Sociocultural approach

An approach to psychology that examines the ways in which social and cultural environments influence behavior.

Bronfenbrenner's Integrative Social Ecology Model

Bronfenbrenner described the ecological environment as composed of systems at four different levels.

Animism

Belief that objects, such as plants and stones, or natural events, like thunderstorms and earthquakes, have a discrete spirit and conscious life.

Sensori-motor

Birth - 2 years Relationships between sensation & motor behaviour

Pictorial distance cues

Cues that can be used in a static two-dimensional picture to convey a sense of depth.

Behaviour problems/Socialemotional problems

Deficits in emotion regulation • Under-regulated: Conduct disorders, oppositional, defiant, explosive (externalizing) • Over-regulated: Inhibited, anxious, fearful, social anxiety, peer relationship problems (internalising)

Touch, Temperature, Pain

Important to exploration of the environment and emotional development Newborns • Oral exploration predominates - but by 4 months manual tactile exploration developing • After 4 months manual/tactile exploration takes over • Sensitivity to tactile stimulation illustrated by reflexes • Baby massage (Tiffany Field) • Sensitive to warmth & cold • Register pain

Why Focus on Child/ Organismic Factors?

Individual differences are present from (?before) birth • Regularity of biological functions • Motor activity • Intensity of emotions • Reactions to novelty

Moro reflex

Infant reflex where a baby will startle in response to a loud sound or sudden movement.

Affect Attunement (Daniel Stern)

Performing behaviours that express the quality of a shared affect state, but without imitating the exact behavioural expression of the inner state

Social scaffold

The vehicle through which health technologies become more widely established

Contextual Theories

Theories that social and cultural factors affect development; changes in persons or situations interact with and influence other changes

Repetition priming

When an initial presentation of a stimulus affects the person's response to the same stimulus when it is presented later.

Some issues raised: Mid life crisis

Where am I going? Dissatisfaction/taking stock Juggling career, kids, ageing parents Feeling driven, on a treadmill Running out of time Stress related health problems - too busy Re-evaluating life choices - feeling preprogrammed

Gender Development

• Gender-linked behaviour and preferences • Gender identity • Gender stereotypes

Mechanisms of Moral Disengagement

- moral justification "In my group of friends, bullying is okay." - euphemistic language "Slapping and shoving someone is just a way of joking." - advantageous comparison "It is not serious to insult a friend because beating him/her up is worse". - displacement of responsibility "Youth cannot blamed for misbehaving if their friends pressured them to do it". - diffusion of responsibility "If a group decides together to do something harmful it is unfair to blame a single member of the group for it". - distorting the consequences of action "Teasing someone does not really hurt him/her". - dehumanization "It is okay to treat somebody badly who behaved like a 'worm'". - attribution of blame "Some kids get bullied because they deserve it."

Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale (NBAS)

A neurobehavioral assessment scale that describes an infant's functioning in seven key areas: habituation, orientation, motor activity, range of state, regulation of state, autonomic functioning, and reflexes.

Flexibility in Affect Expression

A: Avoidant B: Secure C: Anx/ Ambiv Negative Affect Minimised Attachment system Hypoactivated (denial) Negative Affect Maximised Attachment system hyperactivated Defences (somaticising)

Sensorimotor 1: Reflexive Schemes (0-1 month)

Exercising and adapting/integrating reflexes • Baby strengthens, generalises and differentiates behaviours that began as reflexes (Tutorial 1) • Constructs a world of things to look at, suck, grasp, listen to

Developmental theories

Explain development • Give meaning/connections to knowledge • Provide a framework to help us organise our thinking, make and test predictions

Freud's Psychoanalytic Theory

Focus on the influences of early childhood Emphasis on unconscious motives/conflicts Primary focus on sexual and aggressive urges

Thalidomide

A mild tranquilizer that, taken early in pregnancy, can produce a variety of malformations of the limbs, eyes, ears, and heart.

Carriers

heterozygous individuals who carry the recessive allele but are phenotypically normal

Dominant genes

member of a gene terror that controls the appearance of a certain trait

Visual Scanning

- track baby's eye movements • Best focus 20 - 25 cm • Newborns - visual acuity limited o Patterns and contrasts - scan edges; tend to fixate on a single feature o Colour vision develops quickly over first few months • 2-month-olds scan more extensively but still focus on contours or edges

Connectionist Theories

-Mind as interconnected network of simpler units -tendency to group memories with overlapping features

Laboratory Assessment of Temperament: Effortful Control (HOT TASK)

... Some cautionary notes on the Marshmallow Experiment Recent replication failures SES a factor - waiting for a greater reward, a middle-class phenomenon Trust of authority figures? Cumulative risk models?

Intimacy

...the ability to experience an open, supportive, tender relationship with another person, without fear of losing one's identity in the process (Newman & Newman, 2003, p. 196) • A counter-pointing as well as a fusing of identities • A stable achieved identity is a pre-requisite for mature intimate love • Key part of young adulthood - see next lecture!

Summary: Sensorimotor Stage

1. Infant actively learns about properties of objects and relations among them through sensori and motor activity 2. Cognitive structures become more tightly organised 3. Behaviour gradually becomes more intentional 4. The self is gradually differentiated from the environment

Memory Strategies: STM to LTM

1. Rehearsal • E.g., repeat the word/name you have to remember 2. Scripts (basic understanding ~2-3) 3. Organisation (9-10 years) • eg. chunking phone numbers, categorising 4. Elaboration (12+ or so) • creating meaningful links between items to be remembered • more effective if you have a broader knowledge base

Oedipal complex (Freud)

= Literally, the child's desire to have sex with its mother and kill its father {these desires conflict with the reality principle and so must be repressed so that the child can form its own gendered ego; an unresolved Oedipal complex can lead to displaced feelings of guilt and shame later in life}

Foetal alcohol syndrome (FAS)

A birth defect caused by alcohol abuse by the mother; FAS babies have facial deformities, restricted intelligence and an agitated personality.

Cognitive complexity theory

A developmental theory proposed by Halford (1993) in which they key mechanism driving development is a stage-like change in children's capacity to process multiple concepts in parallel.

Codon

A specific sequence of three adjacent bases on a strand of DNA or RNA that provides genetic code information for a particular amino acid

Placenta

A structure that allows an embryo to be nourished with the mother's blood supply

Maturational theory

A theory of motor development proposing that motor behaviors develop in a relatively uniform sequence as the muscles and the brain mature. This approach assumes that motor behaviors are genetically predetermined and develop independently of experience.

Random selection

A way of ensuring that a sample of people is representative of a population by giving everyone in the population an equal chance of being selected for the sample

Expansion of Baumrind's Parenting Typologies (Maccoby & Martin, 1983)

AUTHORITATIVE AND AUTHORITARIAN PARENTS DIFFER IN THE WAY CONTROL IS IMPLEMENTED

Postural stability

Ability to prepare, maintain, anticipate, and restore stability of the entire Human Movement System.

During Pregnancy Risks: Fetal Programming - Prenatal Stress

Animal studies: Fetal Programming • Extensive literature • Controlled laboratory conditions o Ethical constraints in humans • Prenatal stress associated with: o Heightened fear & anxiety o Reduced exploration & play o Social withdrawal o Elevated corticosterone levels • Mediating role of the HPA axis • Moderating role of maternal behaviour

Autosomes

Any chromosome that is not a sex chromosome

Research

Any model also needs to acknowledge & incorporates research findings on: n Continuing bonds (Klass), n Adaptive grieving styles (Doka & Martin), n Resilience (Bonanno), & n Meaning making (Neimeyer).

Normative/descriptive approach

Approach to developmental psychology that describes the normal or average status of people on specified characteristics at different age levels. It is the 'what happens when?' approach that was pioneered by Arnold Gesell

Attachment Develops in Parallel with Developmental Competence

As infant develops they are able to... • Exert more control over interactions with caregivers • Initiate rather than simply respond to caregiving • Early attachment behaviour repertoire limited - crying... with mobility - proximity seeking is under infant control IWM depends on object permanence & capacity for mental representations • Capacity to reflect on internal states of self & other is critical in mature goal corrected attachment relationship -ToM

Pavlovian (classical) conditioning

Associative learning where the pairing of a conditioned and unconditioned stimulus to produce a unconditioned response can lead to a conditioned response in the presence of the unconditioned stimulus alone.

Other Stage Model

Bowlby (1980) Model of Grief n Shock n Yearning & Protest n Despair n Restitution

Meiosis

Cell division that produces reproductive cells in sexually reproducing organisms

Can Infants Feel Pain?

Changing views over time • Rebecca Slater er al., at Radcliffe Hospital Oxford used MRI imaging to show young infants do feel pain and threshold may be lower than for adults Implications for... Circumcision Neonatal surgery Innoculations

Piaget's Cognitive Developmental Theory

Children actively construct knowledge by manipulating and exploring their world. Mental structures adapt to better fit with environment. Development moves through four broad stages.

Level 3 > 9 years of age (concrete operations)

Children understand n finality n inevitability n universality n Results from internal or biological causes Everyone dies, and it cannot be avoided.

Barchia & Bussey (2011)

Children who scored highly on moral disengagement were more aggressive over time (8 months) than children with lower moral disengagement scores even after controlling initial aggression levels.

Lying and Truth Telling

Children's actual lying and truth telling and their understanding of these concepts have received considerable attention.

Adolescents use less of the prefrontal cortex than adults when reading emotions.

Confronted with a feeling, say, somebody looks at them with an expression of fear an adolescent will have more of an emotional response. The part of the brain that has more of that gut reaction will respond to a greater extent than the adult brain will. One of the implications of this is that the brain is responding differently to the outside world in teenagers compared to adults

Brain develops from bottom to top, from inside out

Controlled conscious processes Impulse control Planning Decision making Controlling emotions Automatic processes: Emotion Memory Self preservation

From Co-Regulation to Self Regulation

Early & on-going co-regulation supports shift from external to selfregulation (Calkin & Hill, 2007; Sroufe, 2000) Task of parent Use coregulation to support downregulation • Begins in infancy: imitation, joint attention, co-operation • Terrible Twos - turbulent, perplexing - disequilibrium - tantrums, meltdowns.... o Rapid acquisition of exciting new capacities can be out of synchrony with capacity to regulate o Child becoming capable of "executive functioning" and "effortful control"

How do developmental psychologists make a difference?

Evidence and Theory Base to influence Educational practices • bullying in schools, early childhood, childcare Children in the legal system • how children give evidence in course, age of legal responsibility Social policies • children in detention, aged care and positive ageing Social initiatives in underprivileged communities • Headstart Interventions for parents, children, older adults • Parenting Interventions, "Cool Kids" "Ageing Wisely", ASD

Brazelton

Flexible approach advocating waiting until signs of readiness appear

Dominant-Recessive Gene Principle: (Simple Case of Eye Colour)

Gene for brown eyes (B) is dominant over the gene for blue eyes (b) Genotype— genetic constitution E.g., parents Bb, bb. Possible outcomes are BB, Bb, bB, bb Phenotype—observable characteristic - eye colour • BB = brown eyes (homozygous) • bb = blue eyes (homozygous) • Bb = brown eyes (heterozygous) • bB = brown eyes (heterozygous)

Recessive gene

Gene that is hidden when the dominant gene is present

Ortho-genetic

Gross (global) to Fine (differentiated) eg., grasp

Complex movement skills

Higher-order movement skills that depend on a range of factors including sensory and neurological maturation, practice, and the continued development of higher processes such as sensory integration and cognitive skills.

Control group

In an experiment, the group that is not exposed to the treatment; contrasts with the experimental group and serves as a comparison for evaluating the effect of the treatment.

Polygenic inheritance

In most cases, many genes interact to produce a particular characteristic • Human Genome Project—humans have 30,000 genes Reaction range — a range of possible phenotypes for each genotype Genetic potential for high IQ o Restricted environment IQ = 80 o Enriched environment IQ = 150 Genetic potential for average IQ o Restricted environment IQ = 50 o Enriched environment IQ = 108

Postural Stability

Inter (cross) modal perception: Different sensations are combined to inform perceptions • Integration of kinaesthetic, visual and vestibular information underpins postural reflexes • Vision is fundamental (Prechtl & colleagues study of blind infants) o Motor development is compromised Need for early intervention: Compensatory activities ─ E.g., Postural experiences, Scooter boards for children with developmental motor problems, etc

Highly Informative interactions

Interactions used in the moral development study in which excessive information was given out and may have been perceived as overly opinionated lecturing

Highly representational interactions

Interactions used in the moral development study in which reasoning was drawn out through appropriate probes

Sleeping & States

Key Developmental Task in first Three Months: • Establishing an organised sleep-wake pattern o Short sleep/wake cycles over 24 hrs - longer sleep at night as infant develops ─ Average young infant sleeps 16/24 ─ Large individual differences ─ Cultural differences (e.g., beliefs about night waking, co-sleeping) • Young infants spend more time in REM sleep. As infants develop REM sleep decreases • Sleep regulates sensory stimulation o "witching hour " fussiness attributed to overstimulation

trophoblast layer

Layer of peripheral cells of blastocyst

Negative change

Loss of competence or capacity

Level 1: 3-5 year olds (Preoperational)

Magical thinking, egocentrism n Confuse death with sleep or a trip* n Believe the dead can be brought back to life n Associate life with movement and death with stillness n Believe that only people who want to die or people who are "bad" die n May blame themselves

Developmental differences: Children's Developing Understanding of Death

Maria Nagy (1948) using Piagetian Principles Note more research needed to establish if this model is valid

Maturation vs. Practice/Learning

Maturationist view - genetically programmed, universal unfolding Practice/environment effect on timing • Deprived infants • Example of frog plasters • Floor time • Some cultural rearing practices - can both restrict and enhance motor development Maturation is necessary, but not sufficient

Mid-Life Crisis - Women

Menopause & Empty nest n Assumption these will be experienced as crises n Many women see them as very positive (?Greer) n Women do tend to experience some emotional upheaval during menopause (though not always)

Erikson's Stage Approach- adult stages

Middle Adulthood- is there a midlife crisis? (week 12) • Successful Ageing (week 12) • Death and Dying (week 13)

Bandura's Social Cognitive Model

Model of reciprocal determinism whereby behaviour (B) is an interplay between person (P) factors (cognitive, emotional) and situational aspects (E)

Does marital satisfaction decline and divorce peak in midlife?

Myth of the midlife man running off with the younger woman n Marital satisfaction does tend to decline in the childrearing years, n But divorce is less common at midlife than in couples in their teens and 20's.

Impact of Ageism: in midlife and older adulthood

National Seniors recently highlighted impact of ageism on those 55-67 who are unemployed & not yet eligible for aged pension, ageism reduces chances of getting new job - n at home see video clip from TV at https://nationalseniors.com.au/news/latest/ageism-a-big-issue-across-australia? utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=Ageism&utm_content=Ageism%20a%20big%20issue%20across%20Australia %3A%20201019 n Older single women who don't own their own home growing number among the homeless

Nature & Nurture: Contributions to Temperament

Nature "He's just like his father..." genetics • Grandmother reports - sometimes not supportive.... • Twin studies Nurture (pre and postnatal environments) •Prenatal environment - teratogens, stress exposure placenta HPA axis •Birth experiences - anoxia, birth order (twins) •Caregiving - effectiveness of soothing (Meaney's rats) •Cultural background of parents - different temperamental traits valued in different cultures e.g., surgency/activity, sociability vs. persistence, low intensity affect expression

Turn Taking and Reciprocity Condon & Sander (1974)

Neonates movements are organised with adult speech (not replicated)

Chorion

Outermost layer of the two membranes surrounding the embryo; it forms the fetal part of the placenta.

Parenting/Childrearing Styles (Baumrind, 1967; 1991; 2013)

Parenting/Childrearing Styles (Baumrind, 1967; 1991; 2013) • Based on naturalistic observations of family interactions and interviews with parents • Two intersecting dimensions Balance 1) Parental Warmth/Responsiveness 2) Parental Demandingness/Control *Parallels with attachment theory

Voluntary Control of Emotional Expressions: Preschoolers

Posing Facial Expressions • Ability to pose facial expressions on request increases from 2-5 years of age - E.g., pretending anger in play, including "smile" for photos • Negative emotions are more difficult to pose than positive emotions o Muscular control? o Children socialised not to show negative emotions? o Avoid feelings?

Crossing-over

Process in which homologous chromosomes exchange portions of their chromatids during meiosis.

Individual Differences in Attachment

Quality not presence/absence of an attachment relationship We talk about HOW dyads are attached not IF.... • Orphanage studies....attachment disorders/ indiscriminate attachment Two key dimensions on which qualitative differences are apparent • Secure/insecure (avoidant or anxious/ambivalent) • Organised/disorganised

Identity Issues: Erikson's Identity vs Alienation

Questioning, exploring abstract principles •Who am I? - self and self-esteem •What is my place in the world? •Dialogues about religion, morality, politics, sexuality •Integrate into coherent sense of self (same person at different times in different settings)

Ascribed source of moral authority

Someone or some principal which guides an individual's moral thinking

Cumulative Stress Model

Stressors (risks) add together until a threshold is reached above which problem outcomes occur

Strain comparison studies

Studies comparing the behaviour of different strains of animals that have been inbred for a specific characteristic

Definition of temperament

Temperament is... Biologically based individual differences in reactivity and self-regulation that tend to be stable over time & context (Rothbart, 2011) The "how" vs. what or why of behaviour Behaviour that is consistent across contexts - therefore "within the child" (vs. attachment) ? The biological core of personality

Nature/nurture controversy

The controversy over the extent to which development is influenced by nature (inheritance) and by nurture (environmental experiences)

Macrosystem (Bronfenbrenner)

The cultural values, economic conditions, and other forms that shape a society. Ex: Religion

Developmental Psychology

The discipline that seeks to identify changes that individuals undergo from the moment of conception until they die

Attachment and Emotion Regulation

The essential task of the first year of life is the co-creation of a secure attachment bond of emotional communication How it all begins... o Infants don't use verbal language. They connect with those who intuitively understand nonverbal communications o The foundation of a secure attachment is a sensitive and responsive carer who is predictable, consistent, and emotionally available to externally co - regulate affect

independent variable

The experimental factor that is manipulated; the variable whose effect is being studied.

Passive movement

The movement of an injured limb or body part through the range of motion with no assistance from the injured individual.

dependent variable

The outcome factor; the variable that may change in response to manipulations of the independent variable.

Sampling

The process of selecting representative units from a total population

Gerontology

The study of the old and the processes of aging

monozygotic (MZ) twins

Twins who originate from one zygote that splits apart very early in development. (Also called identical twins.) Other monozygotic multiple births (such as triplets and quadruplets) can occur as well.

Multiform moral thinking

Thinking that reflects the varying importance of moral decisions, giving people the ability to extract, weigh and integrate morally relevant information in different situations

Function of attunement behaviours

To "commune with" the baby • "intersubjectivity"

Theory of Mind allows children to:

Understand ▪mental processes like guessing, remembering, ▪phenonema like tricking, deception, secrets Predict ▪what other people will do, how people will feel

Immediate Postnatal Environment

Varies according to cultural & economic factors o Eg., early discharge, availability of community and extended family support, cultural practices • Maternal mood o Postnatal Depression ("The baby blues") and/or Anxiety ─ Risk factor ─ Impact on offspring - mechanisms ─ Risk & protective factors

Critiques of Typological Approach to Parenting

What is the direction of the effect? • Child temperament/vulnerability may influence parenting style... to a degree Are parents consistent? • Different parenting in different circumstances/moods/eras • Different parenting in different domains - protection vs companionship, etc. • Birth order effects • Family events/disruptions How universal is the typology? (Sorkhabi, 2005) • Different SES and cultural groups? • Are the advantages associated with authoritative parenting from western middle-class studies also apparent in other cultures? Typologies should be applied to parenting behaviours, not parents

Constructive memory

a process by which we first recall a generalized schema and then add in specific details

Preferential Looking

a research technique that involves giving an infant a choice of what object to look at

habituation/dishabituation

an experimental technique that allows researchers to measure recognition in babies

Cathexis

an investment of psychic energy in an object or person

Metamemory

an understanding about the processes that underlie memory, which emerges and improves during middle childhood

Kinship

blood relationship

Ethics committee

committee made up of individuals who are involved in a patient's care, including health care practitioners, family members, clergy, and others, with the purpose of reviewing ethical issues in difficult cases

Reliability

consistency of measurement

Id

contains a reservoir of unconscious psychic energy that, according to Freud, strives to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive drives. The id operates on the pleasure principle, demanding immediate gratification

Imitation

copying the behavior of another person

Kinetic cues

cues to depth perception in which motion is used to estimate depth

Polygenically Determined Characteristics

determined by the interaction of many different genes

Macrosystem

e.g, COVID-19, Society's attitudes toward violence, corporal punishment, gay marriage, children

Media Pathology Bias

e.g. clip re midlife in men link on iLearn site for you to watch at home http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibZ6uO7CKMg n Mostly discussing clinical sample Issues are valid - generalisability is questionable... a) ? Universality b) ? Unique to midlife - many of these issues are major issues for adolescents, during the transition to parenthood

NEONATAL BEHAVIORAL ASSESSMENT SCALE

evaluates the baby's reflexes, muscle tone, state changes, responsiveness to physical and social stimuli, and other reactions

Experimental research

gathering primary data by selecting matched groups of subjects, giving them different treatments, controlling related factors, and checking for differences in group responses

Gene expression: Post-genomics

gene therapies; gene editing

Genotype

genetic constitution E.g., parents Bb, bb. Possible outcomes are BB, Bb, bB, bb

socially desirable responding/faking good

giving answers on a survey (or other self-report measure) that make one look better than one really is

Moral development

growth in the ability to tell right from wrong, control impulses, and act ethically

Egocentrism

in Piaget's theory, the preoperational child's difficulty taking another's point of view

Selection bias

in an experiment, unintended differences between the participants in different groups

Instincts

innate tendencies that determine behavior

Assimilation

interpreting our new experiences in terms of our existing schemas

Reflex movements

least complex, often integrated by spinal cord, although some are modulated by the brain

Encoding

the processing of information into the memory system—for example, by extracting meaning.

Explicit memory

memory of facts and experiences that one can consciously know and "declare"

Animism

mistaken belief that non living things are alive or have attributes of people - "the sun chased the clouds away"

Proprioceptors

monitor the position and movement of skeletal muscles and joints

Alternatives to stage models: (1) Task Model: Worden (1991)

n Accept reality of loss n Experience pain of grief n Adjust to life without deceased n Relocate deceased emotionally and move on

Gene expression: Mendel

peas (1822-1844) - bred hybrids - discovered " a basic unit of heredity forgotten until

Interviews

person-to-person conversations for the purpose of gathering information by means of questions posed to respondents

Encoding specificity

phenomenon of remembering something better when the conditions under which we retrieve information are similar to the conditions under which we encoded it

Sociodramatic play

pretend play in which children act out various roles and themes in stories that they create

Implantation

process in which a blastocyst attaches itself to the wall of the uterus

Parallel processing

the processing of many aspects of a problem simultaneously; the brain's natural mode of information processing for many functions, including vision. Contrasts with the step-by-step (serial) processing of most computers and of conscious problem solving.

Genetic imprinting

selective expression of either the maternal or paternal copy of a gene

Olfaction

sense of smell

Stages of Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development

sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, formal operational

lifespan developmental psychology

study of physical, cognitive, and psychosocial changes throughout the lifespan, from conception until death

Niche-picking

tendency to actively choose environments that complement our heredity

Semiotic function

the ability to use symbols - language, pictures, signs, or gestures - to represent actions or objects mentally

Confidentiality

the act of holding information in confidence, not to be released to unauthorized individuals

Zygote

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

Selective attention

the focusing of conscious awareness on a particular stimulus

Task analysis

the research technique of identifying goals, relevant information in the environment, and potential processing strategies for a problem

Storage

the retention of encoded information over time

Privacy

the right of people not to reveal information about themselves

Behavioural genetics

the study of how genes and the environment influence behaviour

Size constancy

the tendency to interpret an object as always being the same actual size, regardless of its distance

Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Systems Theory

views the person as developing within a complex system of relationships affected by multiple levels of the surrounding environment

heteronomous period

(5-10 years): Children see rules of authority figures as rigid, unchangeable.

Temperament Patterns: Three(ish) Classifications

1. "Easy Child" 2. "Slow to Warm Up Child" 3. "Difficult Child" .... 4. "Difficult to Classify"

Critiquing Piaget: Limitations

1. Inadequate support for stage notion - evidence does not support strong structural version of stages across all content areas 2. Stages are less coherent than Piaget suggested - but useful points of reference - there is certainly consistency and orderliness in development 3. Children can be trained to reason at higher levels - some children are held back by waiting until "they are at that stage", but generally true that children vary in their "readiness" to learn something new 4. Confounding competence and performance - what children understand and what they can demonstrate they understand 5. Underestimation of abilities of infants & preschoolers - task demands - requiring children to report and reflect on their reasoning 6. Over-estimation of adolescent cognitive capacities 7. Methodologies culturally biased - western settings, formal education 8. Insufficient attention to social & emotional aspects of development - sociohistorical influences

human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)

Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) is caused by HIV, which damages the cells in the body's immune system so that the body is unable to fight infection or certain cancers.

6. Intimacy vs Isolation "We are what we love"

Age: Early adulthood Sphere of Influence: community, culture, nation Crisis: to be able to fuse with another without the loss of oneself Ego Strength: Love "the mutuality of devotion forever subduing the antagonisms inherent in divided function" (Erikson, 1964, p. 129)

Object Permanence: Post Piagetian Research

Baillargeon et al., 2010 for a review Violation of Expectations Paradigm Baillargeon & de Vos (1991): If you show babies a rolling ball that disappears - babies predict visually where it will reappear (4 months) Nonsearch "A Not B" Error Task Baillargeon and Graber (1988): Tested the "a not b" error in an experiment which didn't require reaching - just looking - babies look, but can't yet act/search appropriately - evidence of location memory at 8 months ? Attentional or memory deficits

During AND Post-Pregnancy Risks: Barker Hypothesis

Barker Hypothesis (Lancet, 1986) Adult disease is linked to prenatal and early postnatal life - obesity, cardiovascular disease, diabetes

Phases of Prenatal Development: The Emergence of Behaviour

By 14 weeks fetus can swallow and digest amniotic fluid, urinate, move fingers • Thumb sucking may be present from 12 weeks • Kicking also present - mother feels about 18-20 weeks • By 24 weeks fetus can hear sounds, open & close eyes • By 28 weeks daily circadian rhythms established • Fetal habituation research - prenatal learning

heirarchical classification/seriation

Children in the pre-operational stage struggle with hierarchical classification/seriation • Classification - Grouping objects into categories, divide into sets and subsets, e.g., o A daffodil is a daffodil and a yellow flower and a flower o A daddy is a daddy and a parent and a man ... Requires more than one dimensional thinking • Seriation - Ordering stimuli along a quantitative dimension (in your head)

Cultural Context for Learning

Children learn from: • parents, • teachers, • peers, • schools, • neighbourhoods • Instruction and learning are shaped by the beliefs and goals of the community • Unvalued, unneeded aspects of the culture are not transmitted

How "universal" is Midlife Crisis?

Does everyone have one? - personality? n "Questioning" vs Crisis n Is it unique to mid-life? Disparate views of midlife as a time of peak functioning & a time of crisis (Lachman, 2014) Do these represent individual differences? Are peaks causally related to crises? There may be peaks in some life domains and crises in others - development is multidimensional (Baltes et al., 1989)

Socio-Emotional Expression in Infancy (Sigelman & Rider, 2006)

Emotions present at birth • Interest • Distress • Contentment • Neonatal smile (reflexive) • Startle response Emotional Expression • 3 weeks to 3 months o Social smile • 3 to 4 months o Joy o Surprise o Anger o Disgust o Sadness

Fine motor skills

physical abilities involving small body movements, especially of the hands and fingers, such as drawing and picking up a coin

Activity Theory

Havighurst (1950's & 1960's) & n Lemon, Bengston, & Peterson (1972) n Argues there is a positive relationship between activity and life satisfaction & the greater the role loss, the lower the life satisfaction. n desirable to maintain as many activities as possible or develop new roles to replace those lost with ageing (e.g. loss of work role)

Sensorimotor 3: Secondary Circular Reactions (4-8 months)

Infant more object oriented - secondary circular reactions are oriented to the external world • Repetition of actions in which the interesting outcome occurs beyond or independent of her own body - eg., shakes rattle, pushes a ball away • Highchair - dropping objects

Developmental Trajectory

Infants - attention regulation/object engagement, gaze aversion, self- soothing o Toddlers - effortful control (emerging capacity to control thought, feelings and action)

Psychosocial crisis

If not resolved, according to Erikson: •Role confusion •Identity crisis •Delinquency •Aggression •Anti-social behaviour

Schemes

In Piaget's theory, actions or mental representations that organize knowledge.

Private speech to inner speech

Piaget saw private speech as egocentric, cognitive immaturity Vygotsky > more socially competent (evidence supports this). Plans, guides & monitors behaviour, forerunner of thinking in words Social speech > private speech > inner speech (around 7 years) Private speech becomes inner speech - children silently think in words - serves a link between thinking and behaviour. • PS increases as tasks become more difficult

Biological Mechanisms

Reactivity - volatility, irritability, proneness to distress ... amygdala o Regulation - processes than can facilitate or inhibit reactivity... prefrontal cortex

Gendered Social Influences Marketing

Shewmaker and Hains (2021) investigated: How do LEGO's marketing themes convey messages regarding gender? • The LEGO Shop website featured 1,524 items for sale, categorized into 21 categories, including "Apparel & Accessories," "Books," "Home and Office," "Seasonal," "Vehicles," "Video Games"—and "Girls." • There was no category for "Boys". Of the 1,524 items for sale, 142 (9.31%) were tagged "Girls." These were: Bricks & More (2 of 7 items, 28.6%), DC Comics Super Heroes (1 of 46 items, 2.2%), Disney Princess (10 of 10 items, 100%), DUPLO (21 of 80 items, 26.3%)

Characteristics of attuned behaviours

Some form of matching occurs - inner states (unconscious) • The matching is largely cross-modal (modality of expression used by mother to match is different from the modality used by the infant e.g., vocalisation vs behaviour) • Most common dimension matched is intensity

Crying

Survival - Universal/Adaptive (Problem - Aversive Cries) • Early communication - different cries • Cross cultural / cohort differences (beliefs about crying and soothing) • Developmental trajectory • Individual differences - confounds • Distressed babies learning compromised • Regulation critical

Cognitive maturity

The ability to engage in problem-solving, deduction, and complex memory tasks.

Allantois

The allantois is an extra-embryonic membrane that is involved in gas exchange and stores uric acid.

Secondary circular reactions

The second of three types of feedback loops in sensorimotor intelligence, this one involving people and objects. Infants respond to other people, to toys, and to any other object they can touch or move.

Trimesters

Three equal time periods into which prenatal development is sometimes divided, each of which lasts three months

Sociocognitive Modes of Influence

Three major modes of influence: 1. Modeling 2. Enactive experience 3. Direct tuition

Phenylketonuria (PKU)

a disorder related to a defective recessive gene on chromosome 12 that prevents metabolism of phenylalanine

Cohort

a group of people from a given time period

Teratogens

agents, such as chemicals and viruses, that can reach the embryo or fetus during prenatal development and cause harm

Private speech

speech by children that is spoken and directed to themselves

Continuity/discontinuity controversy

deals with the issue of whether development is a gradual, continuous process or a sequence of separate stages

Exosystem

e.g. the workplace • higher unemployment, lack of job security • families isolated from formal and informal social support systems marital discord.... • paid parental leave, etc?

Milestones

formal project review points used to assess progress and performance

Interventions

make changes to the environment Interplay of nature vs nurture

Visual acuity

sharpness of vision

Co-dominance

situation in which both alleles of a gene contribute to the phenotype of the organism

Core-knowledge approach

states that infants are born with domain-specific innate knowledge systems

Ordering of Kohlberg's Stages

• Developmental ordering: continuity from adolescence to adulthood is quite high - suggests that most plasticity is in childhood. • People can reason at two stages simultaneously • Situational factors

Social Cognitive Theory

• Mischel (1966) - social learning theory • Bussey and Bandura (1999) - social cognitive theory

Regulators of Moral Conduct

• Social expectations • Self-expectations • Perceived self-efficacy

Ethological Attachment Theory Caregivers & Emotion Regulation

• Soothe/calm • Validate • Confirm • Stimulate • Challenge • Encourage

Having a ToM implies at least 3 things:

• Understanding the links between beliefs and behaviour • Understanding the logic of mental state language • Understanding that beliefs can be false

4. Factors influencing career choice

•Familial factors •Childhood experiences, mother/father as role models, family expectations •Individual factors •Self-expectancies, abilities, attitudes, goals, fear of failure, assertiveness, role conflict •Societal factors •Education, peer group, gender, media, changes to nature of careers in 00s •Situational factors •Chance, course of least resistance - serendipity •Socio-economic factors •Social class, race, sex discrimination, economy*

Leaving home... and coming back

•Intermittently at home - leaving occurs relatively early, but returning is common •66% in early 20s were at home, but < 40% had never left •20% adults in late 20s living with parents (mostly returnees)

Seven Assumptions about Development (Baltes, 1987)

1. Lifelong process 2. Multidirectional 3. Involves both gains and losses at every age 4. Lifelong plasticity • Change in response to positive and negative experiences 5. Historically embedded (cohort effects) 6. Contextualism as a paradigm (cultural effects) 7. Understanding development requires multiple disciplines

Gene-Environment Correlations (Scarr & McCartney, 1983)

1. Passive—child passively receives correlated genes and environment • Eg. musical parents provide both genes & a musical environment 2. Evocative—child elicits reactions from parents that lead them to provide environments correlated with the child's genes • Eg. parents notice musical ability in child and respond by providing input to foster that ability 3. Active (niche-picking)—child's genes lead him/her to actively seek out correlated environmental experiences • Eg. musical child seeks to go to conservatorium for high school, goes to musicals on weekends, saves money for music lessons

The Birth Process

3 Stages of Labour o 1st Stage: Contractions of uterus to dilate cervix o 2nd Stage: Pushing baby through the birth canal ("crowning") o 3rd Stage: Expelling the placenta • Caesarean delivery o Aust has highest rate in the world (32% of all births, cf. NZ at 20%) • Birth risks to the infant o Prematurity: Baby born before lungs, sucking fully mature o Hypoxia: Due to labour complications - "failure to progress", posterior presentation

9. ? A ninth stage: Gerotranscendence

Age - very old • A broad perspective on life, universe, cosmos- decreased concern for one's personal life and increased focus on flow of life • Decreased emphasis: self-other, past-future • Increased meditation, decreased social interactions • Ego Strength ? Spirituality, faith - inner peace, spiritual contentment

Phenotype

An organism's physical appearance, or visible traits.

The Secure Attachment Pattern

Behaviour • Eager to interact with and engage the parent • Can communicate distress to caregiver (because she is predictably available/accepting) • Readily comforted • Balance between responsiveness to parent and autonomous activities/exploration *CAREGIVER - Prompt, predictable, appropriate responses Child's template of relationships: IWM • I am lovable, worth helping • "Others" are reliable and approachable and likely to help you when you need it.

The Insecure/Avoidant Pattern

Behaviour • Very little interaction with parent • Does not appear distressed by separation • May play equally well with stranger • Does not seek comfort from caregiver • Focus on exploration/toys rather than interaction *CAREGIVER - discourages physical contact, intrusive Child's template of relationships: IWM • I am not that lovable • "Others" are likely to reject my attachment bids - so I don't make them Defensive strategy - independence/exploration

Gender Schema Theory

Bem (1981) - androgyny • Flawed methodology, but did show the mental health benefits of androgyny • Recent research has begun to examine gender typicality and mental health outcomes.

Changing Childbearing Patterns for Women

Biological clock precipitates crisis/ review? (Heckhausen, 2001) n ? Co-occurrence of "mid-life crisis" and transition to parenthood? n Double caregiver burden n Risk and resiliency factors - hardiness

Moral Disengagement and Bullying/Aggression

Bullies and aggressive adolescents have been shown to score higher on moral disengagement than victims, non-aggressive adolescents, and those not involved in bullying across all types of aggressive and bullying behaviour including overt, covert, and cyber forms (see meta-analyses - Gini et al., 2014; Killer, Bussey, Hawes, & Hunt, 2019).

Baltes: An overarching & integrative theory

Development involves age ‐ related change in adaptive capacity

How does a Theory of Mind develop? Multiple theories

Dunn et al (1991) • Language about feeling states between mother and child correlated with ToM Meins et al (1998) • Secure attachment at 12 months predicted ToM • Mothers of securely attached infants more "mind minded" (mother's tendency to focus on mental states facilitates ToM understanding) Ruffman et al (1999) • False belief understanding more advanced when mothers focus on feelings/mental states in discipline contexts

Sensorimotor 4: Co-ordination of Secondary Schemas (8-12 months)

Emergence of goal directed behaviour - planning, intentionality • Can combine several secondary circular reactions eg., Pushes an obstacle away in order to grab a toy, uses a stick to reach a toy, lifts a cloth to find a lost object

Embryonic disc/bilaminar disc

Epiblast and hypoblast layers. Inner cell mass recedes from trophoblast.

Laboratory Assessment of Temperament: Lab-TAB

Examples • Fear (e.g., stranger, masks) • Frustration/anger (e.g., attractive toy in transparent box - infant can't reach) • Sadness (e.g., empty box - no toy) • Exuberance (e.g., playing trick games, peek a boo) • Persistence (e.g., sustained attention - bead sorting - activity level)

Michael Meaney's work with stress and rats

Rats exposed to prenatal stress whose mothers lick them more often are calmer than rats that are not licked enough. o Caretaking quality can offset effects of prenatal stress exposure *POSSIBLE EPIGENETIC IMPLICATIONS?

Childhood amnesia

The inability to remember events and experiences that occurred during the first two or three years of life.

Walking reflex

This reflex happens when supported upright with soles of feet on firm surface. The response is reciprocal flexion/extension of the legs.

Rh incompatibility

a condition in which antibodies produced by the mother are transmitted to the child, possibly causing brain damage or death

Down syndrome

a condition of intellectual disability and associated physical disorders caused by an extra copy of chromosome 21.

Computer simulation

a type of mathematical model that expresses ideas about mental processes in precise ways

Rubella

a viral infection characterized by a low-grade fever, swollen glands, inflamed eyes, and a fine, pink rash

Symbolic representations

abstract mental representations that do not correspond to the physical features of objects or ideas

Realism

attributing tangible qualities to events of the mind

domain specific knowledge

information that is useful in a particular situation or that applies mainly to one specific topic

mnemonic strategies

methods for organizing information in order to remember it

Gene locus

specific location of a gene on a chromosome

accommodation

the process by which the eye's lens changes shape to focus near or far objects on the retina

Retrieval

the process of getting information out of memory storage

Intermodal exploration

The process whereby information about an object received through one sense leads to exploration of the object using another sense.

Other Sources of stress: Caregiving - Australia's 'Sandwitch generation' (Gillett & Crisp, 2017)

The sandwich generation represents adults, often in midlife, who care for both children and ageing parents/relatives. n Caregiver Stress is identified as having a significant negative impact on the well-being n Savla, Zarit & Almeida (2018) found providing even routine support to ageing parents, & work related stress can each contribute to negative affect & higher cortisol output. n consideration should be given to support services available to meet the distinct needs and circumstances of this group.

Normative change ‐ universals

General changes in behaviour across ages that virtually all children share • Developmental milestones: walking, first words

Why Study Contexts?

Genes AND Environment • Currently can't change genes • Environment can be modified or improved • Importance of culture • Family structures are evolving • New contexts can be developed/put in place o E.g., Childcare, parenting interventions, screening programs

What are Genes?

Genes are units of hereditary information — "blueprint" for a structure or the "recipe" for encoding a process o "Genome": An algorithm or code • DNA is in genes o Genes are comprised of short segments of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) • Genes are on chromosomes - these are structures within cells that contain a person's genes o 46 chromosomes (23 pairs = 22 pairs of autosomes + 1 pair of sex chromosomes XX or XY) o Genes (in pairs, one from each parent) are carried on the 46 chromosomes

Recognition

a measure of memory in which the person need only identify items previously learned, as on a multiple-choice test

Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale

a test that consists of a series of items that vary according to the age of the person being tested

Operant conditioning

a type of learning in which behavior is strengthened if followed by a reinforcer or diminished if followed by a punisher

Unpacking Dimension 1: Parental Warmth/ Responsiveness

Affectionate supportive responsiveness (follow child's lead/cues whenever possible) • Warm and involved caretaking • Expressed concern for child's well-being • Clarity and inclusiveness of communication o Extent to which parent solicits and listens to child's opinions/feelings o Extent to which parent provides rationales or reasons for decisions (e.g., punitive/restrictive measures) • Expressed pleasure in child's accomplishments "delight in me"

"Activating" the attachment system

Attachment system is a "control system" designed to maintain a steady state - quiescent when caregiver is present (i.e., child should be in exploratory mode) Thermostat Analogy 28 • Still Face Procedure (Tutorial 3) • Strange Situation Procedure (Mary Ainsworth)

The Insecure/Anxious Ambivalent Pattern"C"

Behaviour • Communicates distress to caregiver - but very intensely with an "angry" component • Not easily comforted by caregiver - either infant or mother move away too quickly • Balance favours monitoring/clinging to parent over autonomous activities *CAREGIVER - inconsistent, delayed responsiveness, uncertain Child's template of relationships: IWM • I am not that lovable • "Others" are unpredictable & likely to abandon you - I better cling on...., but that mightn't work...I better cry harder.... She always lets me down.... Defensive strategy - amplify dependency needs

heritability coefficient

a statistic that describes the proportion of the difference between people's scores that can be explained by differences in their genes

Piaget's revolutionary discovery:

Children's minds are not miniature versions of the adult mind

Operant conditioning infancy

Conditioned to pull ribbons on mobile at birth • At 2 months remember to pull ribbons after 3 days • At 3 months after 8 days • At 5 mths just 5-10 secs. exposure needed • At 6 months after 21 days • Reactivation (Rovee-Collier): At 3 months babies lost a conditioned response after 8 days BUT when given an appropriate reinforcer 24 hours before testing, recovered the conditioned response after a 28 day gap • Encoding specificity: Retrieval better if the external environment is similar to that experienced at the time of encoding.

Turn Taking and Reciprocity

Condon & Sander (1974) o Neonates movements are organised with adult speech (not replicated) • Kozak-Mayer &Tronick (1985) o Turn-taking conversational structure of mother-infant face-to-face interaction where mother provides turn-giving signals and infant engages in turn-taking • Malloch & Trevarthen (2008); Trevarthen (2020) o "Companionship Space" through joint use of music-like qualities in vocal & body gestures - communicative musicality o Seen where arm movements of infants synchronised with adult speech rhythms (e.g. songs with actions) • Infants soothed by adult voice

How Does Knowledge Develop? Stage Theorist:

Development sequential qualitative changes • Stages: Thinking and behaviour reflect a particular underlying mental structure • Schemas: Patterns of thought (frameworks) we construct to make sense of our experiences

Additive Main Effects Model

Developmental outcome is the result of the combined effects of stressors (-ve) and protective (+ve) factors

Alleles

Different forms of a gene

Sensitivity to sound relevant to language perception

Discrimination of phonemes; biologically primed to learn any language o Habituation paradigms "Pa... Ba' experiment • Newborns can localise sounds • Prefer patterned sounds at the frequency range of the human voice • Can distinguish between different sounds by 1 month

Child builds theory

E.g. Existing schema: Four-legged pet is a dog, therefore all four-legged animals are dogs Child sees this four-legged animal for the first time E.g. Assimilation: "This is a dog" (Seems to fit the theory Equilibrium) Child sees this four-legged animal for the first time E.g. Someone points out even though this has four legs, it's a cat (Casts doubt on the theory Disequilibrium) Realises that all four-legged animals are not dogs E.g. Accommodation: "This is a dog, and this is a cat... Four-legged animals can be dogs or cats" (Equilibrium re-established) Is able to identify dogs and cats E.g. Assimilation: These are dogs, These are cats (Organisation internal rearranging and linking of schemas)

Socio-Emotional Competence: 3) Competence in Emotion Regulation

Emotion Regulation (e.g., preschoolers) • Coping with aversive or distressing emotions o Managing your own anger, distress in an acceptable way • Coping with pleasurable emotions o Not being overwhelmed/over-excited by them • Strategically "up-regulating" the experience and expression of emotions o E.g., Pretending to be angry to deter a bully; pretending to be pleased to be polite (again... consider ToM)

Socio-Emotional Competence: 1) Competence in Emotional Expression

Emotional Expression (e.g., preschoolers) • Using gestures to express emotion (giving a hug) • Demonstrating empathy • Displaying complex social & self-conscious emotions appropriately (guilt, pride, shame, contempt) • Experience vs. expression - politeness, eg., hiding negative feelings - See ToM/perspective taking

Socio-Emotional Competence: 2) Competence in Emotional Understanding

Emotional Understanding (e.g., preschoolers) • Discerning one's own emotional states • Discerning emotional states of others • Using the vocabulary of emotion

Impact of Prenatal Stress

Emotional wellbeing (e.g., Maternal stress - prolonged and severe) o Decreased blood flow to uterus - growth o Maternal stimulant hormones increase fetal heart rate and activity level o Influence on infant HPA axis o Clusters of risk- anxious women more likely to smoke, drink, eat poorly, etc.

Non-disjunction

Error in meiosis in which homologous chromosomes fail to separate.

Cephalocaudal

Head control/trunk control first

What Can We Do? Attachment

Help parents to understand how they might support Emotion Regulation for their child Building "Coregulation"

Epigenetics

Heredity and environment are not independent influences...... Changes in phenotype (appearance) or gene expression can be caused by mechanisms other than changes in the underlying DNA sequence - instead, non-genetic factors can cause the organism's genes to behave (or "express themselves") differently • Genes & environments do not make separate contributions to the phenotypic outcomes of behaviour • Normally occurring environmental events influence gene activity - "turn genes on" • Genes are adaptively responsive to their internal (cellular) and external (nutrition, stress) environments

What contributes to stability?

Heredity • Twin and adoption studies (Plomin and others) Heritability Index = .50 - .60 Parenting (chicken-egg problem: bidirectional) Parenting may influence temperament Temperament may influence parenting Parents may be more responsive to irritable kids, but... if parents resources are stressed - difficult temperament may lead to poorer parenting - remember cumulative risk model

Inter (Cross) Modal Exploration

Inter (Cross) Modal Perception: Different sensations are combined to inform perceptions • Infants reach towards objects that are visually interested in (want to manipulate/explore them) • Infants turn towards sounds that interest them (so they can see the source) • Infants mouth objects that are interesting to look at and touch

Cognitive Developmental Theory

Kohlberg (1966) Gender Constancy is comprised of three components: 1. Gender identity: "are you a boy or a girl?" 2. Gender stability: "when you grow up, will you be a mummy or a daddy?" 3. Gender consistency: "if you played with dolls/trucks, what would you be?" Kohlberg (1966, 1969) used the term gender constancy to refer to the concept that a person's sex is a permanent attribute that is tied to underlying biological properties (i.e., the person's genitals and genetic constitution) and does not depend on surface characteristics such as the person's hair length, style of clothing, choice of play activities, and so on.

Development - emotional regulation

Learning to fit into the broader social environment - Playing, friendships require ability to regulate emotions within socially acceptable norms (emotional intelligence) Behaviour problems/Social - emotional problems - Deficits in emotion regulation • Under-regulated: Conduct disorders, oppositional, defiant, explosive (externalizing) • Over -regulated: Inhibited, anxious, fearful, social anxiety, peer relationship problems (internalising)

Temperament & Parenting: "Third Variables"

Moderators of the relationship between temperament and parenting • Age: Parents may not sustain positive efforts with "difficult" child over time • Gender: Less acceptance of "difficult" temperament in girls than boys, less acceptance of "inhibited" temperaments in boys • Parent Characteristics: Anxiety, depression, personality, match or mismatch (*goodness of fit) • Social & Cultural Factors: Like gender, above, different temperamental dimensions may be valued to different extents o E.g., Inhibition/shyness less valued in North America vs elsewhere

Emerging Semi-Logical Reasoning

Piaget also examined how children reason about the inner world o Animism - mistaken belief that non living things are alive or have attributes of people - "the sun chased the clouds away" o Realism - attributing tangible qualities to events of the mind o Artificialism - the belief that all natural phenomena are products of human engineering o Magical thinking - the pattern of reasoning and mental imaging in which an individual attributes experiences and perceptions to unnatural phenomena

Change can be

Quantitative - more/less (height, speed, vocabulary, visual acuity) • Qualitative - doing things differently (motor, language, thinking) • Sitting > Crawling > Walking • Thinking - reorganisation of thought and action, e.g., mentally representing objects and words

ADOPTION STUDIES

Shared heredity - genetically related individuals separated and reared in different environments - how similar are they? What does this tell us? • Shared environment - genetically unrelated individuals reared in the same environment New Interesting Case: Donor sperm/eggs/embryos Thinking Critically About Adoption Studies* Issue of non-random "selective placement" confounds interpretation • Adoption research relies on pre-existing social practices o Bias in placement with "similar" parents o Meeting criteria for eligibility- screening o "Wanted" children adds value to environment? Disclosure • Knowledge - sibling contrast effect • Timing of disclosure/emotional aspects • Donor sperm/egg/embryos

Selective Optimization with Compensation- SOC (Baltes)

So how is this well-being achieved in older adults? n Successful Ageing requires active adaptive responses to body changes, & other losses with ageing, by: n Selection: choosing areas to focus on n Optimisation: effort & maintaining resources n Compensation: other ways to achieve goals n Rather than passive resignation n maintaining normal activities and modifying routines to fit diminished capacities. n Use it or loose it- but be choosy in which you use in what areas

Clinical method

Studying psychological problems and therapies in clinical settings.

2. Gender Identity Consolidation

Task: Come to terms with: • Gender orientation - male or female? gender role socialisation • Gender driven expectations, long range goals • Female plumbers • Male nurses, child care workers • Reconcile desires and social expectations • 2000 study shows young women endorsed social values, helping others, spirituality; young men endorsed success in business • Revise childhood identifications ? New mentor? Task: Come to terms with: •Gender identity •Male or Female (Klinefelter's Syndrome - xxy) •Degree of masculinity/femininity •Sexual orientation •Sexual preference (Note: gender and sexuality are distinct and separate constructs)

Gendered Social Influences Media Influences

The media plays an influential role in gender development. For centuries, the print media has presented gender stereotypical content and from the 1950's, television has played an increasing role in presenting such content. In the present century music videos, computer games, the internet, and many other forms of social media all serve to affirm gender stereotypes. Despite the dilution of gender differences alluded to earlier, television depictions of men and women remain gender stereotypic. Men continue to be portrayed as authoritative, powerful, and muscular. In contrast, women are most often depicted in low status roles that focus on their appearance with provocative sexual implications (Coltrane & Messineo, 2000). The print media, particularly magazines and social media that are oriented towards teenage girls provide little information about women achieving high status occupations or managing the balance between family and work. Rather, the focus of these is on appearance, body image (relationship between body image disturbances and eating disorders), and relationships. Boys' magazines cover topics related to hobbies, occupations, and entertainment directing their focus away from issues related to the home and relationships (and increasingly on body building). Boys spend more time than girls playing video games and watching programs that feature sports, cartoons, and action-adventures. Girls spend more time watching comedy programs and those that focus on interpersonal relationships such as 'Sex in the City', which portrays the daily lives of young women living in New York, and princesses (Coyne et al., 2016). The effects of these media portrayals are not fleeting. The more time children spend watching television, the more gender stereotypic are their beliefs.

Centration

The tendency to focus on just one feature of a problem, neglecting other important aspects.

Maturation

The term used by Gesell for the mechanisms by which genes direct the developmental process

Tertiary circular reactions

The third of three types of feedback loops in sensorimotor intelligence, this one involving active exploration and experimentation. Infants explore a range of new activities, varying their responses as a way of learning about the world.

Foetal period

The third phase of prenatal development, lasting from the ninth prenatal week until birth, during which the major organ systems begin to function effectively and the foetus grows rapidly.

Predeterminist view

The view that development is determined at birth. The philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a predeterminist who believed that children are born inherently good and that development unfolds according to 'nature's plan'

Theory of Mind (ToM)

Theory of Mind: • a coherent understanding of other people as mental beings • understanding that other people have thoughts, feelings, mental states and that these mental states guide their behaviour

Summing Up FROM BIRTH TO EARLY INFANT MOTOR & PERCEPTUAL DEVELOPMENT

There are a number of risks to development relevant to the prenatal, perinatal and postnatal environment that are important to identify in order for early intervention to occur • Cumulative Stress and Additive Main Effects Risk models can be useful for understanding the balance between risk and resilience during development • Motor and perceptual changes occur early in the developmental period • Reciprocal parent-child exchanges and attunement is critical to the development of communication capabilities during infancy

Reciprocal Nature of Attachment Patterns Organised Strategies are Functional

There is a dyadic focus for the regulation of emotion o Patterns are predictable and relational - behaviours organised around the caregiver o A, B C - adaptive organised strategies for regulating emotion when the infant is alarmed - adapt to the caregiver and caregiving environment they have - hence, individual differences o Individual differences not indicative of "pathology"- They have their own internal logic - defenses (but defensive strategies have a cost!) *Learn to recognise and respect defences... gently challenge with new "corrective" experiences

Temporal Organisation

There is an innate temporal organisation to infant behaviour • Adults are (? intuitively) sensitive to this organisation - they adapt their own behaviour to it = Synchronised interactions

Critiques of Formal Operations Stage

Universality? • More than 50% of USA adults fail Piaget's formal operations tasks (Kuhn et al., 1977). 40-60% of University Students also fail these tasks (Keating, 1979; Sigelman & Rider, 2008) • Inconsistency across domains: IT competence, verbal capacities, mathematical ability, spatial judgements Individual Differences • Formal operations may be achieved when relevant • We may only use formal reasoning for problems where we have high levels of interest, familiarity, expertise (Vygotsky) • Tendency to use concrete operations in areas where we have less knowledge/experience/relevance • Formal schooling? • Cultural differences? What is adaptive? • Importance of context Adolescent Egocentrism (Elkind, 1976) • Belief that others are as interested in them as they are in themselves • Sense of personal uniqueness & invincibility • Imaginary audience - everyone is looking at me • Personal Fable - no one else can understand how I really feel • Invincibility - it won't happen to me

Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)

Vygotsky's concept of the difference between what a child can do alone and what that child can do with the help of a teacher

Motion parallax

a depth cue in which the relative movement of elements in a scene gives depth information when the observer moves relative to the scene

Vestibular sense

a sensory system located in structures of the inner ear that registers the orientation of the head

Mitosis

cell division in which the nucleus divides into nuclei containing the same number of chromosomes

amniotic fluid

fluid within the amniotic sac that surrounds and protects the fetus

Levels of Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Systems Theory

microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, chronosystem

Mesoderm

middle germ layer; develops into muscles, and much of the circulatory, reproductive, and excretory systems

Fragile X Syndrome (FXS)

most commonly inherited cause of intellectual disability and occurs when a DNA series makes too many copies of itself and turns off a gene on the X chromosome

Active movement

move more rapidly and in more complex ways

Bereavement in Children & Adolescents

n Age differences also occur in bereaved children n e.g., Ener & Ray (2018) younger bereaved children less withdrawn/depressed, anxious/depressed, and attentionrelated struggles than older children n Bereavement as a child or adolescent can have long term consequences - n They are at increased risk for diverse psychological and behavioral health problems (elevated rates of anxiety, depression, posttraumatic stress reactions, conduct disorder, substance abuse, & functional impairment). (e.g., see Griese et al., 2017)

Older Adulthood Wellbeing

n individual challenges (including ageism) & losses often accompany ageing n Older adults also typically report higher levels of subjective wellbeing than other age groups, at least until the around age 75 years (e.g., see Gana, Saada, & Amieva, 2015) n this maintenance of wellbeing in the face of increased losses with age is known as the paradox of wellbeing (Mroczek & Kolarz, 1998). n So what is wellbeing & successful/positive ageing? n How do theories explain this paradox of wellbeing?

Review: activity studies older adults by Adams et al (2011)

n longitudinal studies: social, physical and leisure activities predicted positive outcomes in most studies, & particularly important in buffering the effects of functional limitations and widowhood; social activities most evidence n contextual variables such as choice, meaning or perceived quality play intervening roles n gender sometimes moderates

Developmental Trajectory

o Infancy - attention regulation/object engagement, gaze aversion, selfsoothing o Toddlerhood - effortful control - emerging capacity to control thought, feelings and action open to parenting and social influences (ToM - requires child to inhibit what he/she knows....)

Organogenesis

organ formation that takes place during the first two months of prenatal development

Gross motor skills

physical abilities involving large body movements, such as walking and jumping

cohort effects (generation effects)

refer to differences between age groups (or cohorts) caused by unique characteristics or experiences other than age

Research integrity

refers to the relationship between researchers and the truth in reporting their findings

Replications

repeating a study, often with different subject populations or in different settings

longitudinal design

research design in which one participant or group of participants is studied over a long period of time

cross-sectional design

research design that examines people of different ages at a single point in time

Case study method

research that collects lengthy, detailed information about a person's background, usually for psychological treatment

Moral disengagement mechanisms

serve to exonerate immoral moral behaviour thereby reducing the discomfort and guilt that would typically be experienced when moral standards are violated. • By justifying immoral behaviour individuals are able to maintain their belief that they are moral people while behaving badly.

Competence

the ability to do something successfully or efficiently

Joint attention

the ability to focus on what another person is focused on

Histogenesis

the formation and development of the tissues of the body

Hearing & Auditory Perception

the human voice • Unborn fetuses can hear their mother's voice - and neonates show preference for mother's voice by 4 days after birth (DeCasper & Fifer, 1980) • Recognise familiar stories after pregnancy exposure: DeCasper & Spence (1986) o Cat in the Hat study ??? Music • By 6 months infants can discriminate pitch, tempo, contour, rhythm and melody

Endoderm

the inner germ layer that develops into the lining of the digestive and respiratory systems

Cultural tools

the innumerable products of human ingenuity that enhance thinking

Ego

the largely conscious, "executive" part of personality that, according to Freud, mediates among the demands of the id, superego, and reality. The ego operates on the reality principle, satisfying the id's desires in ways that will realistically bring pleasure rather than pain.

Guided participation

the process by which people learn from others who guide their experiences and explorations

Superego

the part of personality that, according to Freud, represents internalized ideals and provides standards for judgment (the conscience) and for future aspirations

Magical thinking

the pattern of reasoning and mental imaging in which an individual attributes experiences and perceptions to unnatural phenomena

embryonic period

the period from two to eight weeks after fertilization, during which the major organs and structures of the organism develop

Conservation

the principle (which Piaget believed to be a part of concrete operational reasoning) that properties such as mass, volume, and number remain the same despite changes in the forms of objects

Sensation

the process by which our sensory receptors and nervous system receive and represent stimulus energies from our environment

Explicit recall

• Improves with age • Matures in adolescence

Microsystem (the home)

• e.g., marital conflict and discord parents < positive and > negative interaction with children negative child behaviour > marital discord

Executive function

conscious control of thoughts, emotions, and actions to accomplish goals or solve problems

Yolk sac

a specialized structure that leads to the digestive tract of a developing organism and provides it with food during early development

Information Processing Approach

Emphasis on basic mental processes • Attention • Perception • Memory • Decision Making

Bandura's Social Cognitive Theory

Emphasizes behavior, environment, and cognition as the key factors in development

1. Autonomy

"....an ability to regulate one's own behaviour and to select and guide one's own decisions and actions without undue control from or dependence on one's parents" (Steinberg, 1990) An independent psychological status - Recognition and acceptance of both similarities and differences from parents, while still feeling love, understanding and connection •Depends on personal, family and cultural values •Autonomy and secure attachment •Independent does not mean separated, rejected, alienated

Kohlberg's Classic Approach

"I am a boy, therefore I want to do boy things, therefore the opportunity to do boy things (and to gain approval for doing them) is rewarding". In this view if a child who is categorized as a girl at birth and says they are a boy, their response is regarded as wrong (not consistent with more recent research by Olson and colleagues, 2015; 2018).

7. Generativity vs SelfAbsorption/Stagnation

"I am what I create" Age: Middle adulthood Sphere of Influence: World, community, culture Caring about one's own as well as future generations Ego Strength - Care "...the widening concern for what has been generated by love, necessity or accident" • The need to be needed

More Complex Emotions in Preschoolers Deconstructing Guilt

"I've done something that makes it unlikely that people will continue to be happy with me" • I have experienced this event and this feeling • I don't like it • I don't want it to continue

Keeping It In Perspective

"Insecure attachment on its own does not predict psychopathology in low risk samples" (Sroufe, 1990, 2005; Deklyen & Greenberg, 2009 ) Need to consider secure attachment as a protective factor and insecure attachment as a risk factor along with temperament, ineffective parenting and family adversity

Erikson's Neo-Freudian Theory

A psychosocial theory of personality development built on Freudian psychoanalytic theory but focusing on the role of the outside world rather than on the instinctual urges of the id

Scientific method

A series of steps followed to solve problems including collecting data, formulating a hypothesis, testing the hypothesis, and stating conclusions.

Summary: Assimilation, Accomodation & Organisation

Equilibrium and Disequilibrium • Use assimilation during equilibrium • Disequilibrium prompts accommodation Organisation: Internal rearranging and linking of schemas when prompted by "unsettling" development

Developing an Adult Identity

Erikson has defined identity as: " a persistent sameness within the self and a persistent sharing of some sort of consistent character with others" (1959, p. 102).

interventions

Evidence based theoretically grounded interventions can make a difference • Problems that confront our society are intergenerational

Children's thinking: Siegler, 1998

1. Encoding - the process by which information gets into memory - encode the relevant / ignore irrelevant (screening) 2. Automaticity - the ability to process information with little or no effort (e.g. schemas - more later) 3. Strategy Construction - the discovery of a new procedure for processing information, multiple strategies even at 4-5 (e.g. see Shrager & Siegler, 1998) 4. Generalize - apply information to other problems

Life cycle

"The life cycle consists of a "gradual unfolding of the personality through phase-specific psychosocial crises"

Social Interaction & Thought: Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)

"The range of tasks that are too difficult for the child to master alone but can be learned with the guidance and assistance of adults or more skilled children" (ie., with social scaffolding) • "buds" vs. "fruits" of development • Skills within the zone are ripe for development • Parent/teacher instruction is most fruitful when pitched to this zone • Parents do this naturally - put in more instruction when their child is stretched • Parents build bridges between the child's present abilities and new skills • Child internalises the problem solving skills he/she learns in these interactions

Allan Schore

"These early experiences shape the development of a unique personality, its adaptive capacities as well as its vulnerabilities to and resistances against particular forms of future pathologies. Indeed, they profoundly influence the emergent organization of an integrated system that is both stable and adaptable, and thereby the formation of the self."

Erikson, 1958, p. 111-112

"To be an adult means among other things to see one's life in continuous perspective, both in retrospect and prospect.... the adult is able to selectively reconstruct his past... in this sense we do choose our parents.... We manoeuvre ourselves into the position of creators..."

Attachment Based Parenting Interventions

"Tuning into Kids/Tuning into Teens" • Suite of parenting programs that focus on the emotional connection between parents/carers and their children • Demonstrated success in improving parenting, parent-child relationships and children's emotional competence and behaviour. • About building "Emotionally Intelligent Parenting" • Relies heavily on the concept of "Emotion Coaching" (Gottman)

Gene expression: Epigenetics

(Gottlieb) - changes in gene expression due to base pairs in DNA being turned off or turned on in response to environment

Barker Hypothesis

(Lancet, 1986) Adult disease is linked to prenatal and early postnatal life - obesity, cardiovascular disease, diabetes

Reactivation

(Rovee-Collier): At 3 months babies lost a conditioned response after 8 days BUT when given an appropriate reinforcer 24 hours before testing, recovered the conditioned response after a 28 day gap

Methods of Assessment: Beyond Infancy

(Separation no longer activates attachment system) Middle Childhood •Projective tests e.g., SAT •Attachment narratives Adolescence and Adulthood •Adult Attachment Interview o "Surprise the Unconscious" o Avoid socially desirable responses o But complex, training onerous, costly •Self-Report Questionnaires e.g., ECR

Gene expression: Behavioural Genetics

(Turkheimer & Gottesman, 1991 ) o contributions of nature and nurture to human and animal behaviour and behavioural diversity

Dominant-recessive gene principle

(the case of single gene-pair inheritance—Mendel) o There are 2 hereditary elements for each trait ─ 1 from the male parent ─ 1 from the female parent o These 2 alternate forms of the same gene are called "ALLELES " o One dominant allele can override the effect of the other recessive allele o Recessive genes are only expressed if both parents carry the recessive gene ie., there are 2 recessive genes

Gendered Social Influences Parents

- Converse differentially with boys than with girls. They talk more about science and technical issues with their sons, and engage in more emotional discussion with their daughters (Leaper, 2002). - Fredricks and Eccles (2002) showed that parents' stereotypical gender expectations impacted their sons' and daughters' performance and self-beliefs in their math and sport competence. - Not all parents raise their children to conform to gender-role stereotypes. - When parents adopt more gender-egalitarian practices with their children, daughters perform better academically than daughters of gender-traditional parents (Bussey, 2013). Girls who selected STEM subjects at school and went on to occupations in these fields reported that their mothers' modeling of technological related activities was pivotal in their developing an interest in these fields and believing that they could successfully perform in them (Zeldin & Pajares, 2000). Parental influence may lose its impact when parents espouse countervailing views that are at odds with the general society, children's immediate peer group, and the models they view on television and social media.

Artificialism

- the belief that all natural phenomena are products of human engineering

Divorce and Separation Shared Parenting

1) Cooperative • Talk about children • Avoid arguments • Support each other's parenting efforts 2) Conflicted • Talk about children but with criticism, acrimony and defensiveness • Child "caught" in cross-fire • Undermine each other's parenting 3) Disengaged • Parallel parenting—each parent adopts own style and does not interfere with the other's parenting • Communication with each other avoided, except through children • Reduces direct conflict but also cooperation

Determinants of Parenting (Belsky, 1984) PARENT, CHILD, CONTEXT

1) Parent Characteristics • Attachment history - psychological resources (e.g., attachment style, resilience) and personality • Mental health status (including substance use issues) • Employment/Education (linked to SES) 2) Child Characteristics • Temperament, disability, health, birth order, gender 3) Contextual Factors • Family Structure Stability? o Single/Two Parent/Co-Parenting/Blended Parenting/Siblings o Extended/Adoptive/Foster o Family Conflict/Marital Discord/Separation/Divorce/DV • Social Network and Resources Safe/Supported Environment? o Rural/Urban o Neighbourhood o Schools/Community Resources/Supports • SES Opportunity?

Erikson: Identity

1. Content a) Inner/private self - agency, self-reflection •What one thinks about •What one values, believes in b) Public self - roles/expectations of others •Traits/characteristics by which one is recognised by others

Critiquing Piaget: Strengths

1. Recognition of central role of cognition in development - theories, strategies, representations 2. Piaget searched for the modes of thinking underlying overt behaviour - general cognitive processes across multiple domains 3. Characterised learning as an active process 4. Viewed children's thinking as different in kind rather from adults - discovery of surprising features of children's thinking - object permanence, conservation, animism 5. Wide scope of theory - followed up implications of cognitive development for social development, learning, epistemology 6. Ecological validity - focus on children's adaptation to the everyday world

Goals of Developmental Psychology

1. To describe • Normal development • Individual differences 2. To explain - individual differences 3. To optimise - to make a difference to people's live trajectories

Formal operational

12+ years Abstract, hypothetical reasoning

Step-Families

13% of Australian families have stepchildren • Most family members perceive remarriage as a positive life event • Many remarried families achieve a workable integration Remarriage may be experienced as difficult and relationships with stepparents can be complicated (esp. for young adolescents) • Higher divorce rate for remarriages • Multiple marital transitions associated with compromised parenting?

Adolescent Thinking

Capacity to consider Abstract ideas The future A number of different perspectives Relationship between issues and a larger set of social relationships Thought is becoming logical, abstract and flexible - thinking about thinking

Adult Cognitive Functioning: ? Beyond formal operations

Capacity to see knowledge as relative rather than absolute - contextual • Relativistic thinking - knowledge depends on the subjective perspective of the knower o Postmodernism: requires meta-cognition • Capacity to come up with more than one solution to a problem - flexible thinking •Adaptation to contradictions & inconsistencies

Gesell/Brazelton

Careful systematic observations of children

Strange Situation Procedure

20 minute procedure • Initial Play - Parent, baby • Stranger enters - stranger, parent, baby • Parent leaves - first separation- baby, stranger • Parent returns - first reunion • Parent leaves - second separation - baby alone • Stranger joins child • Parent returns - second reunion

Normative‐descriptive approach

Careful systematic observations of children (Gesell/Brazelton) • Maturational theory - genetic determinants • Largely invariant (universal) sequences • Cycles "better"/"worse" phases • Provides descriptive age-norms

Attachment = Interactive regulation of emotion

Carers need to be psychobiologically attuned to the infant and respond by regulating the baby's psychobiological state by minimising negative affect "downregulation" (e.g. through soothing) and maximising positive affect "upregulation" (e.g. through play)

Neural Development

A 3 year old child has 2-3 times the synaptic connections of an adult and will burn twice times as much glucose! Pruning of synaptic connections is a key task in adolescence Illustration from Mike Nagel •First 3 years crucial, especially for development of brain's emotion centres •At age 1, brain looks similar to an adult brain •Brain wires up in accordance with what we experience: Adults 1 quadrillion connections •Need the right type of stimulation BUT there are optimal windows for different types (e.g., visual centres) "No amount of stimulation, no matter how developmentally sound, can inoculate children against the debilitating effects of poor environments they may encounter, such as poor quality schools, dysfunctional homes and neighbourhoods!" (Mike Nagel)

Blastocyst

A fluid-filled sphere formed about 5 days after fertilization of an ovum that is made up of an outer ring of cells and inner cell mass. THis is the structure that implants in the endometrium of the uterus.

Huntington's disease

A human genetic disease caused by a dominant allele; characterized by uncontrollable body movements and degeneration of the nervous system; usually fatal 10 to 20 years after the onset of symptoms.

Constructivist approach

A learner-centered approach that emphasizes the importance of individuals actively constructing their knowledge and understanding with guidance from the teacher.

Recall

A measure of memory in which the person must retrieve information learned earlier, as on a fill-in-the-blank test.

Bipolar disorder

A mood disorder in which the person alternates between the hopelessness and lethargy of depression and the overexcited state of mania.

Emotional Development

A more differentiated range of emotions - anxiety, shame, embarrassment, depression, aggression •Emotion regulation a major challenge •Internalising disorders •Anorexia/Bulimia •Depression •Adolescent suicide •Externalising disorders •Delinquency - difficulties in controlling and regulating impulses •Substance abuse • 25% of adolescents have mental health problems compared with 8% over 1970s •Stress and psychotic illness

Divorce and Separation Outcomes of Divorce for Children

A transition leading to a variety of living arrangements Changes in family roles, financial stress, witnessing parental conflict & parental distress • Most children experience emotional and behavioural problems in the first year • Most show improved functioning by 2 years post divorce (Rapoport, 2013) • About 20-25% have serious ongoing problems • Even when marital problems are not serious, there can be painful memories, sadness, greater likelihood of own marriage ending in divorce, weaker ties to fathers (Amato, 2005) • Problems can reappear or intensify following parental remarriage and at the time of adolescence/young adulthood

Disengagement Theory

According to disengagement theory: n High levels of satisfaction are associated with reducing roles n Happiness related to recognition of need to "move on" Disengagement is a process by which individual gradually separates him/ herself from society - final stage is death

Neural Development Neural pruning

Adolescence •Giedd et al, (1999) longitudinal MRI study of adolescent brain •Strauch (2003) Frontal lobes seem to peak in volume at 11 in girls, and 12 in boys then "does an about-face and starts a steep trek back down" (p. 16), then continues to grow or "specialize" (p. 16). Adolescence • When pruning completes, brain is faster • Further myelinisation also increases brain efficiency, speed and connectivity - up to 3000 times faster (Siegel, 2012; see Brown & Jernigan 2012) • Brain still 'under construction', particularly during myelinisation and pruning, but also into young adulthood. • Accelerator works fine • Brakes still incomplete PLUS - need to factor in: •Influence of hormones •Social pressures; identity development

8. Ego Integrity vs Despair "I am what survives me"

Age: older adulthood Sphere of Influence: Universe, world, culture Individuals face their own deaths by engaging in a life review process - introspection Ego Strength: Wisdom - "... detached concern for life itself, in the face of death itself" (Erikson, 1964, p.134) - capacity for integration, a sense of coherence

Aggression and bullying

Aggression and bullying have provided an important arena for studying moral disengagement due its pervasiveness and that it is universally considered a moral transgression (Nucci, 2001). • In the aggression and bullying contexts significant associations between moral disengagement and aggression and bullying among children and adolescents have been reported.

Internalising

An attempt to address an externality by making the economic actors take account of the external costs or benefits being imposed.

Heterozygous

An organism that has two different alleles for a trait

Homozygous

An organism that has two identical alleles for a trait

Impact of Prenatal Stress: Fetal Programming

Animal studies: Fetal Programming • Extensive literature • Controlled laboratory conditions o Ethical constraints in humans • Prenatal stress associated with: o Heightened fear & anxiety o Reduced exploration & play o Social withdrawal o Elevated corticosterone levels • Mediating role of the HPA axis • Moderating role of maternal behaviour

Temperament

Are individual differences present at birth or before? • What is temperament? o Reactivity o Self-Regulation o Sociability • Why is temperament important? o Influences development o Influences attachment o Drives how parents reponsiveness *The nature/nurture debate

Gendered Social Influences Peers

As children age, peers assume an increasingly important role in influencing their gender development. Peers use the same means of influence as those used by parents. Typically they guide children's activities in gender stereotypical directions, praise them for gender stereotypical conformity, censure them for gender stereotypical non-conformity, and model gender stereotypical patterns of behaviour (Bussey & Bandura, 1999, 2004). Young children are more direct than older children in their sanctioning of peers who violate gender norms, whereas older children and adolescents tend to use more indirect methods of sanctioning gender nonconforming peers. Sanctions including ridicule, harassment, and exclusion are used to influence peers' gender conformity (Bockting, 2014; Neilsen-Hewett & Bussey, 2017 Young & Sweeting, 2004). In fact, gender atypical adolescents are more frequently cyberbullied than gender typical adolescents (Jackson & Bussey, 2020). • Boys receive stronger negative sanctions from the peer group for gender non-conforming behaviour than do girls (Braun & Davidson, 2017; Kornienko et al., 2016) • Halim, Ruble, and Amodio (2011) argue that this is possibly due to the higher valuation of male than female traits (Messerschmidt, 2012) and comes into play around school age after the dominance of "Pink Frilly Dresses". Boys who were victimized by peers reduced their female stereotypical behavior over the course of a school year (Ewing Lee & TroopGordon, 2011) and children who anticipated receiving negative sanctions for their gender nonconformity showed lower levels of adjustment than those children not anticipating such censure (Carver, Yunger, & Perry, 2003). The influence of peers on gender development is further enhanced by children's social interactions with same gender peers. Gender segregation begins in the early years and increases during middle childhood (Bussey, 2011). There is debate about why this occurs. One of the most widely proffered explanations is based on the similarity of behavioural interactions among children of the same gender, especially the higher activity level and rough and tumble play enacted by boys' compared with girls' groups (Maccoby, 1998; Mehta & Strough, 2009). Whatever the reasons for gender segregation, it has been argued that male and female peer groups function so differently that this is akin to two gender cultures (Maccoby,1998). Despite the gender-differentiated behaviours of gender segregated peer groups, other research shows that there is more variation within male and female groups and more overlap between them than suggested by the two cultures model (Underwood, 2004, 2015; Zharbatany, McDougall, & Hymel, 2000). Not all peers are united in their intolerance of gender nonconformity. It is increasingly apparent that within peer groups there are variations in the beliefs and attitudes of peer group members. For example, girls who develop interests in stereotypical male domains such as math and science establish groups with other girls who have the same interests (Zeldin & Pajares, 2000). It is noteworthy that girls who develop interests in these stereotypical male achievement domains do not join boys' groups which may be expected if behavioral similarity was the only factor guiding their selection of peers. Girls who do not conform to gender roles may expect as much censure from gender conforming boys as they do from girls. Hence, those who challenge gender roles may be as selective in their choice of same gender peers as they are in their avoidance of other gender peers. This may be one of the reasons why gender segregated schools have not shown achievement advantages for girls (Halpern et al., 2011).

During Pregnancy Risks: Other risks to the developing fetus

Characteristics of mother • Age o Very young o Much older • Emotional wellbeing (e.g., Maternal stress - prolonged and severe) o Decreased blood flow to uterus - growth o Maternal stimulant hormones increase fetal heart rate and activity level o Influence on infant HPA axis o Clusters of risk- anxious women more likely to smoke, drink, eat poorly, etc.

Summing Up Attachment

Attachment relates to a caregiver's capacity to engage in affect attunement and coregulation of emotion, as well as provide a "secure base" in supporting their child's exploration and play, and "safe haven" in attending to the their child's emotional needs. • Attachment style is best considered a dyadic concept in that the child responds to their caregiver to some extent adaptive • Temperament can also influence attachment style (and also, caregiver responses) • Secure attachment in the first year of life is protective for later social-emotional development (along with other family and child characteristics) • Good things lead to good things... but attachment insecurity is not in itself indicative of pathology • More research is needed on the cross-cultural validity of ethological attachment theory • Cherish the parents!

Historical Context Adolescence

Australia: •Adolescents •Over 2 million but steady decline as a proportion of population from 1996 to 2016 •In ABS data (trends to March 2021), small increases ages 10-14 , small decreases ages 15-19 Historically: •Influences on adolescence evolved with changes to the labour market & education system - less need to work; more to learn •Changed child labour laws •Technological advancement replaces young labour •Mandatory mass public education

Longer Term Outcomes of Temperament: ATP

Australian Temperament Project (ATP; Sanson, Pryor, Oberklaid) • One of longest running studies of social and emotional development in Australia. • 2,400 children followed for 30 years (15 waves across childhood, adolescence and into adult life) • Three generation study - grandparents, parents, offspring • The study assesses parental emotional health, the parent-child relationship (including observational assessments of infant attachment and parental caregiving behaviour), and offspring social and emotional development. • The study has also been set-up to study biological (epigenetic) processes linking generations.

Empirical Support for Generativity cont'

Cheng, 2009 (Hong-Kong sample) • Older adults; 2 time points 1 yr apart • The effects of generative action (actions to benefit the next generation) were mediated by perceived respect • Continuing concern for the next generations is only expressed if the older person thinks that their actions are valued and then • generativity leads to higher wellbeing

Strategies: Scripts

Children have scripts for weekdays, weekends, school, restaurants, bedtime etc. Birthday party (3 year old) "you eat cake, open presents, play and come home" Bedtime "Cup of milk, kiss mum goodnight, dad reads me a story, snuggle up in bed"

Parenting and Acculturation: Migrant Parents (USA & Australia)

Chinese American Parenting Beliefs (Cheah et al., 2013) • Parents integrate "typical" Chinese and American parenting • Acknowledge need to be flexible to accommodate mainstream cultural values • Mothers adapted/blended their parenting after spending more time in new setting Vietnamese-Australian parents (Nguyen et al., 2014) • "Harmonious balance between East and West" • Desire to build closer connections with their children • Recognition that traditional modes of parenting may be at odds with current environment • Continued emphasis on cultural continuity, educational prowess central, and filial piety (honouring parents)

homologous chromosomes

Chromosomes that have the same sequence of genes and the same structure

What is Tiger Parenting?

Chua (2011) • Highly controlling, authoritarian • Assumes child strength - little concern with selfesteem • Parent knows best and over-rides to achieve desired outcome *RESEARCH EVIDENCE IN USA - A REAL PHENOMENON, BUT RELATIVELY RARE *PRECISE DEFINITION AND MEANING - DEBATABLE - VARIES ACROSS CONTEXTS, REPORTERS

Inter (Cross) Modal Exploration Combining information

Combining information from different senses to produce "amodal" representation • E.g., Oral and visual 48 Classic experiment with pacifiers (Melzoff & Borton, 1979) 1.Infants suck dummy with distinctive shape/texture 2.Shown pictures - look longer at dummy they have sucked on

Revisions: George Vaillant

Critical Stages of Adult Ego Development 1. Intimacy 2. Career Consolidation* (new) Commitment, compensation, contentment, competence 3. Generativity: Player, coach, referee 4. "Keeper of the Meaning" * (new) See Isabel Allende, Tutorial 5

Apprenticeship Concept (Rogoff, 1990, 1998)

Cultures vary: • in goals for development • in their activities for and communication with children e.g., traditional Indigenous Australians vs. non-Indigenous Australians

Gene expression: Watson & Crick

DNA double helix (1951-1953), more recent recognition of contributions of Wilkins & Franklin

Genes

DNA segments that serve as the key functional units in hereditary transmission.

Theoretical Contributions

Daniel Levinson (1978) •"novice phase" 17-33 years •Task to build stable life structure •Dream •Find mentor •Occupation •Intimate relationship •Transition 28-33 •Note concurrence with new neural data •Erik Erikson - (1950, 1968) •Identity versus role confusion. Who am I? •"Moratorium" - away from safety of childhood but a moratorium from responsibilities of adulthood •Very culturally specific •Also, conflicts from earlier stages often also arise: •Trust •Competence/inferiority •Independence/dependence

Transition vs crisis

Defining Crisis: " When internal resources and external social support systems are overwhelmed by developmental tasks that require new adaptive resources" (Cytrynbaum et al. 1980) Transitions may be experienced n as stressful/crisis-like n or relatively smooth Most adults do experience both role changes and changes to inner perspectives - but Is it a crisis? n For some adults it clearly is n This particular transition may be more crisis like than others (esp. for middle class white men) n ? Impending mortality

The Birthing Environment/ Baby's Response to Childbirth

Delivery practices & setting o Impact of contractions/expulsion - (moderate) stress - stimulates baby's respiratory function - complication - anoxia (cord tangle, position of baby) o Drugs in labor - Maternal pain relief in labor (morphine derivatives) may have sedative effect on infant respiratory function. In contrast, maternal distress and blood pressure during childbirth can affect baby's hearth rate o Epidural anaesthetic - mother does not actively push baby out - greater likelihood of instrumental delivery • Early caretaking practices o E.g., co-sleeping/rooming in vs. nurseries

Empirical Support: Ego Integrity and Forgiveness

Derdaile, Toussaint, Thauvoye & DeZutter (2019) studies 329 elderly people in residential care (Mean age = 87) Forgiveness and depression are negatively correlated in the elderly Forgiveness increases with age Ego Integrity - requires a willingness/open-ness to remember and review - deep introspection Deep introspection and open review can lead to integration (integrity) and coherence - self-acceptance, coming to terms with regrets Study showed that having a forgiving attitude facilitated achievement of egointegrity.

Object Permanence

Describes a child's ability to know that objects continue to exist even though they can no longer be seen or heard.

Continuity Theory Atchley (1989)

Developed as a challenge to Activity & Disengagement theories Dynamic view of continuity n Individuals have "a basic structure which persists over time, but allows for a variety of changes to occur within the context of this basic structure." n Implies evolution not homoeostasis

Kohlberg's Theory of Moral Development

Developing children progress through a predictable sequence of stages of moral reasoning (preconventional, conventional, postconventional).

Attachment Pattern "D"

Disorganisation "D" • "D" infants experience caregivers as frightening or frightened o Represents a collapse in the relationship strategy for emotion regulation o Fear underlies disorganisation *PARADOX: CAREGIVER is both the safe haven and the source of fear Predicament: Fear without a relationship solution relationship repair is unpredictable No functional defensive strategy - adopt bewildering behaviours that may indicate fear (e.g., freezing, contradictory approaches). Also, if parent frightened/helpless child may feel need to protect/control parent...role reversal as child develops

Basic Genetic Principles

Dominant-recessive gene principle (the case of single gene-pair inheritance—Mendel) o There are 2 hereditary elements for each trait ─ 1 from the male parent ─ 1 from the female parent o These 2 alternate forms of the same gene are called "ALLELES " o One dominant allele can override the effect of the other recessive allele o Recessive genes are only expressed if both parents carry the recessive gene ie., there are 2 recessive genes

Clarifying terminology

Dying -the perspective of the person who knows they are going to die soon - the emotional reactions and fears of the dying patient themselves Bereavement - the state of being deprived of someone by death Grief - the emotional response to bereavement Mourning refers to culturally determined expectations about the expression of grief

Research evidence for continuity cont. & Case Example

Evidence of external continuity & change There is also evidence of continuity and change in social networks & social support. Networks decrease in size in older ages, but social support satisfaction is maintained (e.g. Carstensen, 1994) n https://jeanhailes.org.au/health-a-z/mental-emotional-health/ healthy-ageing Healthy Ageing - Sheila's story

Considerations: Temperament in Context

Evocative gene-environment correlations: Child elicits reactions that lead others to provide environments correlated with the child's genes (i.e., shapes responses from caregivers, peers) Active gene-environment correlations: Child selects an environment consistent with temperament Parent perceptions of "difficultness" can become self-fulfilling prophecies

Stylised Facial Expressions are...

Exaggerated in space, time • Repertoire limited • Universal (?) "games " adults play with babies 55 oPeek-a-boo surprise games ─Builds gross motor skills, ─Strengthens visual tracking ─Encourages social development ─Promotes regulation ─Teaches object permanence

During Pregnancy Risks: Fetal Programming - Prenatal Stress

Example - Michael Meaney's work with stress and rats • Rats exposed to prenatal stress whose mothers lick them more often are calmer than rats that are not licked enough. o Caretaking quality can offset effects of prenatal stress exposure

Social Address: Advantaged vs Disadvantaged

Example of Different Contexts in Australia - Two speed childhoods, advantaged and disadvantaged (Hayes, 2011; AIHW "A picture of Australia's children", 2009; Stanley et al., 2005) Entrenched Poverty & Social Exclusion Limits Parenting Capacity and Opportunities for children - how do we identify and support families at risk? • More than 1.2m Australian children are living below the "Poverty Line" o Think: Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs • Unacceptable rates of child abuse o 61,000 substantiated reports in 2016; 46,448 children in out of home care Universal vs. targeted interventions? Early intervention programs (parenting skills, practical support) High quality childcare and preschool can offset risks • Indigenous Australians - how do we close the gap? o > Likelihood of domestic violence, sexual assault, out of home care o Inter-generational disadvantage, abuse, neglect o 44% families financial stress, 14% poverty Community interventions are needed Adequate resourcing of child protection system

Lying and Truth Telling Research

Extensive research addressing numerous issues: • A focus on knowledge of and actual lying and truth telling involving different types of lies (e.g., antisocial, white, polite) and in different contexts (legal, friendship, interpersonal, cultural). • Detecting deception • Processes linked to lying and truth telling: - Cognitive (e.g., theory of mind understanding, executive functioning) - Social (e.g., social influences from parents, peers, and the media)

Pre-Pregnancy Environmental Risks: Factors influencing sperm/egg

Factors associated with the physical well-being of the mother or father • Maternal chronic illness (diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity) • History of drug use or toxin exposure in either parent • Inadequate nutrition in childhood or adolescence • Previous numerous closely spaced pregnancies • Family genetic history • Mutations during gamete formation • Age of mother or father at time of conception

Learning about other people 4 years: False Beliefs

False Beliefs • A child understands false beliefs when they can understand that another person may have a belief about the world that the child knows to be untrue • Belief psychology can be tested through 'False Belief tasks' such as the 'Unexpected Transfer Task'

Summing Up What Children Need

Family structures vary; Exposure to stressful events varies; Critical factor is quality of parent-child relationship (and parent-parent relationships) • Sensitive, responsive, authoritative, consistent parenting • Associations between parenting practices and child wellbeing apply irrespective of race, sexuality, ethnicity or income (Amato & Fowler, 2002) Capacity for parenting depends on (Belsky's model) • Parent characteristics (Internal resources) - ego-strength, flexibility, secure attachment working model that allows for perspective taking • Contextual factors (External resources) - availability of social/partner support, adequate housing, financial security • Child characteristics - temperament, disability, etc Important to remember... • "Social Address" in terms of economic advantage or disadvantage also impacts a parent's ability to provide their child certain opportunities. • Cross-cultural variability - applicability of Western parenting models to non-Western cultures?

Fathering Father Contributions to Children

Fathers contribute to child social-emotional wellbeing over and above maternal contribution (Cabrera & Tamis-Lemonda, 2013; Fletcher 2011; Lamb, 2010) o May have a unique contribution regarding development of self-regulation and appropriate risk taking (e.g., Kochanksa et al, 2008) o Play differently? "Rough and tumble play" (e.g., Madjanzic et al., 2014) • Father involvement associated with lower psychopathology in offspring (Barker et al., 2017) • Father involvement is greater and may provide a compensatory/protective effect when mother is depressed/unavailable (Goodman et al., 2014)

Cognitive Capacities

Formal operational thought • more systematic thinking • more deductive, more abstract • Mental manipulations using purely mental representations •Hypothetico-deductive reasoning - Need to hold alternatives constant to test something Formal operational thought •Propositional reasoning (if-then propositions, logic) •All men are mortal •Socrates is a man •Therefore Socrates is mortal • Metacognitions - thoughts about thinking • complexity - humour, metaphor, sarcasm, satire, cynicism • can apply operations to possibilities • perspective taking - social ramifications

Pre-operational Stage (2- 6 years)

Gains in mental representation • Make-believe play • Symbols-represent the concrete world • Drawing Limitations • Pre-Logical • Centration o One dimensional thinking Egocentrism Conservation Hierarchical classification Children in the pre - operational stage struggle with egocentrism • Egocentrism: o The inability to distinguish between someone else's perspective and your own o Incomplete differentiation of the self and the world E.g. 2 year olds playing hide & seek or on the phone; spatial (c.f. three mountains task) Children in the pre-operational stage struggle with conservation • Conservation o Understanding that physical properties of an object/substance do not change when their outward appearance is altered (e.g., conservation of liquids task) o Similar construct to object permanence How do children come to understand invariants? (i.e., the stability of the physical world?)

Gender identity

Gender identity typically refers to a person's gendered self-characterization. Increasingly it is believed that it involves self-categorization as male or female which may or may not align with their biological sex. • Although gender identity develops over the life span, most developmental research has focused on the early years and children's attainment of gender identity knowledge. • Kohlberg's theory has been the major theory of gender identity (see a later slide for more details). However, it is increasingly apparent that a broader theory is needed. This will be examined towards the end of the lecture.

What are Genes?

Genes are units of hereditary information — "blueprint" for a structure or the "recipe" for encoding a process o "Genome": An algorithm or code • DNA is in genes o Genes are comprised of short segments of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) • Genes are on chromosomes - these are structures within cells that contain a person's genes o 46 chromosomes (23 pairs = 22 pairs of autosomes + 1 pair of sex chromosomes XX or XY) o Genes (in pairs, one from each parent) are carried on the 46 chromosomes Molecular Biology

Timing of Genetic Influences

Genes do not complete their work before birth... they provide potentials o Turn on and turn off in patterned ways throughout lifespan Important question not: How much is explained by genes vs environment? Rather: How do heredity and environment work together? E.g., Which environmental factors cause genes to turn on?

Gene expression: Darwin

Genetic variation in a species was adaptive - theory of natural selection (1859)

Phases of Prenatal Development: Three Phases

Germinal period - Conception (mid cycle, egg meets sperm) Teratogens rarely have an influence in first 2 weeks • zygote > blastocyst (mitosis) • Implantation occurs around day 6 after fertilisation • A lot of pregnancies are lost at this stage Embryonic period - Implantation 8 weeks (*Many unaware pregnant) Time of maximum susceptibility to teratogens. Gross structural anomalies typically result • Most rapid period of development; groundwork for all body structures and internal systems is laid down - organogenesis o Amnion o Chorion o Placenta - placental barrier o Brain (3-4 wks); Heart beat (4 wks) o Eyes, nose, ears, mouth 2nd month o Sexual differentiation Fetal period - 8 weeks term (40 weeks) General impact of teratogens is less. Some organ systems may still be strongly affected (central nervous system, endocrine system, genitals)

Positive change

Growth in competence or capacity

Gross Motor Milestones

Head control in prone • Rolling over o Overcome Asymmetric Tonic Neck Reflex o Importance of floor time • Propping crawling o Movement enhances learning, interaction • Sitting o Postural stability underpins fine motor development, vestibular system • Pull to stand • Cruise • Walk • Run, stand on one leg, hop (3 years) • Walk backwards, change direction quickly (5 years)

Form of reasoning

How cognitively sophisticated the explanation is

Piaget's Position on Developmental Issues

Human nature - intrinsically motivated, inherently active - ie organismic rather than contextual Nature/Nurture - interactionist view- maturation, experience in physical and social world Development -- a qualitative change in structure of thinking makes possible quantitative changes in knowledge • How does Piaget explain progression in cognitive development? • What are mental representations? What are mental operations? • How does object permanence evolve? • What is centration? How does it contribute to egocentrism? • Why can't preschoolers succeed in conservation tasks? • Why did Piaget under-estimate what infants and preshoolers could do? • How does concrete operational thinking differ formal operational thinking? • What are the applications, criticisms and contributions of Piaget's theory?

Polygenic inheritance

In most cases, many genes interact to produce a particular characteristic • Human Genome Project—humans have 30,000 genes Reaction range — a range of possible phenotypes for each genotype Genetic potential for high IQ o Restricted environment IQ = 80 o Enriched environment IQ = 150 Genetic potential for average IQ o Restricted environment IQ = 50 o Enriched environment IQ = 108

Socio-Emotional Expression in Toddlers and Preschoolers (Denham, 1998)

Individual differences (Temperament) • Balance of positive and negative emotions - default position (or disposition!) • Frequency of specific emotion displays • Intensity of emotion expressions • Speed (latency) of emotional onset These differences have implications for child as an emotional partner - e.g., parents, peers Stability of Individual Differences • Denham et al. (1995): Anger, fearfulness, interest, and joy often show between-age stability between 6 weeks and 30 months (for the same child) • LaFreniere & Sroufe (1985): Positive and negative expressiveness stable in 4- and 5-year-olds across context and time BUT... What Accounts for Stability/Change? • Correlations over time relatively modest • Parents respond selectively to babies' expressions - enculturation, learning, context o Note: Cultural differences

Sex chromosomes

One of the 23 pairs of chromosomes in the human, contains genes that will determine the sex of the individual.

Development in Context (Baltes and colleagues)

Individuals respond to and act on contexts: • Physical environment/context • Historical context • Social context • Cultural context Normative age‐graded influences • Biological and environmental influences that are similar for individuals in a particular age group (in a particular context, at a particular time) • Puberty • Menopause • Entry into school • Retirement Normative history‐graded influences • Common to people of a particular generation because of the historical circumstances they experience • Great Depression • World War I and II • 1960s - "Free love" era • Babyboomers • 9/11 • Millennials • COVID-19? • Major source of influence during adolescence and early adulthood Non‐normative life events • Unusual occurrences that affect an individual but do not have a broader influence • Major accident • Death of a parent • Winning the lottery • Source of such influences increases across the lifespan • Developmental pathways more varied after childhood

What are the different ways to solve the problem? Brainstorming is a useful technique to help identify the largest set of possibilities. Anything goes-wild ideas are welcome. Several designers working together are much better than one working alone.

Influence of media, parents, and peers on the development of stereotypic conceptions. The social cognitive theory of gender development is presented later as an alternate theory (Bussey & Bandura, 1999).

Amnion

Innermost membranous sac surrounding the developing fetus

Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development

Intelligence: A basic life function that helps the child adapt to the environment Active construction of knowledge: Maturation determines what the child seeks out and takes in from the environment Result of the biologically maturing child interaction with the environment (caregiver less emphasis)

Why do children in the pre-operational stage fail to conserve?

Involves several aspects of pre-operational thinking 1) Unable to engage in decentration (focus only on one dimension of a problem) 2) Perception bound (focus on what is most perceptually striking) 3) Static thought: A tendency to focus on states rather than transformations 4) Lack capacity to mentally undo, i.e. reverse a transformation

Sources of Felt Pressure

Jackson, Bussey, and Myers (2021) assessed felt pressure regarding masculine and feminine stereotypic behaviours and compared pressure from parents, peers, and the self and how these sources are associated with self-perceived gender typicality. Participants (N = 275; 53.09% female; grade 7 M = 12.35 years; grade 9 M = 14.3 years; 71% Anglo-Celtic). • Male adolescents reported highest felt pressure to strive for gender conforming behaviour from parents and the self and pressure to avoid gender nonconforming behaviour was greatest from peers. • Female adolescents reported felt pressure to strive for gender nonconforming behaviours and this pressure was the strongest from the self (See Figure 1). • Additionally, for both genders, felt pressure from the self was most consistently associated with gender typicality. These findings highlight the importance of self-expectations for gender identity

Sensorimotor 6: Symbolic or Representational Thought (18-24 months)

Mental Manipulation of "Cause/Effect" Relationships/Mental Representations • External physical exploration gives way to internal mental exploration • Children can use symbols to mentally represent actions, objects, people, information, events & experiences o i.e. Solve problems in their head rather than through trial and error • One object can represent another - this capacity allows deferred imitation and make-believe play ─ FEEDING A DOLL ─ DRIVING A CAR ─ TALKING ON THE (TOY) PHONE

Evaluation of Piaget's Approach

Methodological confound: • Bad intention, small negative outcome • Good intention, large negative outcome • Unconfounded (good intention, small negative outcome; good intention, large negative outcome; bad intention, small negative outcome; bad intention, large negative outcome)

Apprenticeship Concept (Rogoff, 1990, 1998)

Learning through Guided Participation Children participate in cultural activities that socialise them into skilled activities • Learning is a process of changing participation in cultural activities • A lot of learning is informal

emotional intelligence

Learning to fit into the broader social environment - Playing, friendships require ability to regulate emotions within socially acceptable norms

Incidental learning

Learning without trying to learn, and often without awareness that learning is occurring.

Unpacking Dimension 2: Parental Demandingness/ Control

Limit setting (whenever necessary take control) • Discipline and regulation of behaviour in accord with parental standards o Appropriate to risk/developmental needs OR o Overly harsh/punitive OR o Over-protective/over-involved • Maturity Demands - age appropriate? o Providing appropriate scaffolded opportunities for selfregulation o Pressure/demand to perform, self-regulate *NB: Gray and Steinberg (1999) behavioural vs psychological control

Positive Adaptation to Parenting Parenting Quality

Longitudinal studies Transition to Parenthood (E.g., Heinicke, 2002; The Minnesota Longitudinal Study - Sroufe et al; Intergenerational Attachment Studies) • Heinickle, 2002 Within parent effects Personality Characteristics 1) Adaptation-competence/Ego Strength o Efficient, non-anxious, persistent, flexible approach to problem solving o ?Psychological maturity 2) Capacity for sustained relationships o Empathy, positive mutuality, perspective taking, quality of partner relationship, support networks 3) Self-development (maturity) o Autonomy and confidence vs. insecurity Longitudinal studies Transition to Parenthood (E.g., Heinicke, 2002; The Minnesota Longitudinal Study - Sroufe et al; Intergenerational Attachment Studies) • Minnesota Longitudinal Study (Sroufe et al. 2009; Egeland et al. 1980 ) Individual's Level of personality integration - Maturity? o Ability of parent to recognise/reflect on own psychological needs and processes o Ability to perceive psychological needs and processes in others o Ability to integrate the two competing agendas ..."Reflective functioning" Longitudinal studies Transition to Parenthood (E.g., Heinicke, 2002; The Minnesota Longitudinal Study - Sroufe et al; Intergenerational Attachment Studies) • Intergenerational Attachment studies (e.g., metaanalyses - Van Ijzendoorn, 1995; Verhaage et al., 2016) Working model of attachment (based on childhood caretaking history) predicts security of attachment of offspring Moderate effect size o Characteristics of an adult secure/autonomous state of mind regarding attachment Flexibility (non defensive thinking; open) Capacity for perspective taking Autonomy ..."Earned Security"

Simple summary - Reproduction & Individual Heredity

Mitosis - normal cell replication for somatic reproduction (skin, blood, muscles) • Single cell divides and replicates resulting in 2 identical cells • Each cell contains two sets of chromosomes • Growth, repair of aging tissues, skin Meiosis - special process of cell division for sexual reproduction. Fundamental to formation of sperm (males) ova (females) • 1st division sequence similar to mitosis • A 2nd division sequence producing 4 cells, each with ½ number of chromosomes of original cell • Fertilisation occurs when sperm and ova come together • Each sex cell has 23 chromosomes ("haploid") • At fertilization, chromosome pairs come together and the fertilized cell (zygote) returns to having the usual 23 "pairs" of chromosomes (i.e. 46 chromosomes; 2 of each, called "diploid") • Crossing over occurs and there is the mixing genetic information from chromosomes of the 2 parents • Each chromosome "pair" in the fertilized egg (zygote) is a unique mixture of maternal and paternal DNA Mutations—"errors" in the process of meiosis or mitosis mean that chromosomal mutations or abnormalities can occur (~1/200 foetuses) • E.g., Inversions, deletions, duplications, translocations Down Syndrome Trisomy 21 Turner Syndrome (XO) Klinefelter Syndrome (XXY) Chromosomal abnormalities are the main cause of spontaneous miscarriage

How does a Theory of Mind develop?

Nativist explanation • Neurological maturation • Assumes specialised "mind reading" processors in the brain • Studies with autistic children cited to support this position • Assumes that the Theory of Mind module is damaged • "Watershed" at age 4 - through maturation

Taste

Newborn infants discriminate among basic taste qualities (Steiner) • Sweet expression of satisfaction, slight smile, sucking • Sour lip-pursing, wrinkling of nose, blinking of eyes • Bitter dislike expression, spitting, vomiting movements *Food preferences may relate to early taste exposure

Face Perception

Newborns readily look at faces - have features infants find interesting Movement Edges Paired with a voice Solidity (3 dimensional) Complexity Scrambled faces: • 2-month-old infants (but not 1 month old) distinguish and "prefer" natural faces, e.g., own mother's face • 3 to 6 months - distinguish facial expressions

Dimensions of Temperament Parent Interviews (Thomas & Chess, 1950s)

Nine Characteristics Associated with Personality... • Activity level • Rhythmicity • Approach/withdrawal (behavioural inhibition) • Threshold of responsiveness • Intensity • Quality of mood/negative affectivity • Distractibility • Attention span and persistence Reactivity - excitability of response systems (time and intensity) Self-Regulation - processes that modulate reactivity through approach/avoidance, inhibition and attentional focus

Cumulative Risk: The Case of Child Abuse

Ontogenic Development- An individual's biological characteristics and developmental history & social context • Parent—childhood history of parental rejection or maltreatment, unplanned pregnancy, poor prenatal education, lack of experience in caring for children, immature personality characteristics • Child—premature birth (aversive cry, physically not as drawn to them, lack social responsiveness, hard to care for); baby who cries and is difficult to soothe • Context - social support, employment, housing, domestic violence

Clinical Applications of Piaget's Theory During Infancy

Parents • Infant is not a "mini-adult" • Play styles - Tactile Stimulation, Object Permanence Play, etc • Importance of supervision Childcare and Other Early Learning Environments • Children encouraged to interact in a physical way with the world Children with sensorimotor problems • Impact on cognitive development • Knowledge of the world initially intimately interwoven with sensory and motor experiences

Sensory Processes

Perception = Interpretation of Sensory Input from Sensory Organs • Mouth for sucking - first sensory focus • Hands for grasping - tactile • Sensory receptors in eyes nose ears • Vestibular system - inner ear, motion • Kinaesthesis - proprioception (joint and stretch receptors): Knowing where your body is in space

Identifying at Risk Newborns

Physical Risk Factors • Prematurity • Low birth weight o Linked to low SES ─ Quality of nutrition, smoking/drugs in pregnancy, access to antenatal care & education o Linked to multiple birth • Respiratory Distress - anoxia APGAR test - Appearance (skin colour); Pulse (heart rate); Grimace response (reflexes); Activity (muscle tone); Respiration (breathing rate and effort) Neonatal Intensive Care Supportive programs to assist parents

Children learn through interaction

Piaget - cognitive growth a process of individual discovery Vygotsky - children do not strive alone - they ask questions and expect answers Parents/siblings/older peers • Present challenges for new learning • Offer assistance with difficult tasks • Provide instruction • Encourage & motivate

Emerging Semi-Logical Reasoning

Piaget's Interviews with Preschoolers Piaget: "What makes the wind?" Julia (5 yrs): "The trees" Piaget: "How do you know?" Julia (5 yrs):"I saw them waving their arms" Piaget: "How does that make wind?" Julia (5yrs):"Like this" (waves hand in front of Piagets face)"Only bigger... There are lots of trees." Questions from 5 year olds • What makes you grow up? • Who was the mother when everybody was a baby? • What makes the sun come up? • How do people get dead?

Language and Thought: Talking to Learn

Piaget: cognitive development influences language development Vygotsky: language shapes thought Private speech: (around 3 years) Children use private speech to guide their thinking "I need a blue pencil. Never mind, I'll draw with the red one and wet it with water, it will become dark and look like blue"

Achieving Autonomy from Parents

Process: • Leaving home • Necessary now? Economic issues •Gap year • Revising/reviewing attachment relationships with parents •Individual differences • Becoming self-sufficient • Longer education • Cost of living issues; housing 26*media income

Fine Motor Development

Progression from reflex to voluntary (integrate grasp reflex) • Grasp (no release) - gross to fine - voluntary release • Swipe and palmar grasp - pincer grasp • Underpinned by trunk stability o Fine and gross motor development are intertwined - differentiated movements are grounded in "core strength" • Second year - voluntary and controlled release (can build tower of blocks), can scribble

Risk and Resilience in Development Protective Factors

Protective Factors — positive factors within the child or within the environment that can modify/reduce the negative impact of stressors or risks o eg. good nutrition, economic advantage, good schools o eg., supportive responsive parenting (Meaney's study) o eg., child with easy temperament o eg., specific genetic code Additive Main Effects Model — Developmental outcome is the result of the combined effects of stressors (-ve) and protective (+ve) factors

Kinaesthetic system

Provides information about body and limb position; direction, extent and velocity of movements; and the level of tension in the muscles. Receptors are in muscle spindles, tendon organs, joint receptors and stretch receptors in the skin overlying the joints

A Bio-Psycho-Social Transition

Puberty • Hormonal changes over 2-4 years- • Cultural variations in timing, reactions Biological • Physical • Neurological Psychological • Cognitive • Emotional - time of emotional vulnerability Social • Relationships • Schooling

Piaget: Children's understanding of mental states

REALISM • Before 6 or 7 years children have no understanding of mental life - don't distinguish between things and thoughts about things - realists (eg. dreams) • 4yo - 'I dream with my eyes'; A movie outside of mind that could be seen by anyone • 7yo - dreams are clearly thoughts and imaginings • Recent research suggests children understand mental states much earlier than this ANIMISM • Inanimate things are alive & have thoughts, feelings & intentions • "the sun is angry at the clouds & chased them away" • My teddy is lonely and has been crying

Laboratory Assessment of Temperament: Effortful Control

Rationale "Effortful Control" is a higher order self-regulatory process Ability to intentionally shift and focus attention, selectively inhibit and activate behaviours • Linked to attention regulation, social competence, learning, school readiness • Recruitment of effortful control processes helps to regulate negative affect and temperament reactivity • Parenting may be a crucial factor in developing effortful control Effortful Control Tasks • "Hot": Ability to delay gratification (snack, wrapped gift) - Emotion Regulation - Predicts externalising problems? • "Cool": A conflict task where the child has to inhibit a dominant response in order to perform a subdominant response - predict academic performance - persistence/attention regulation o Motor Inhibition - Walk a straight line, build a tower o Whispering - Modulating voice o Effortful Attention - Stroop task/Go - don't go - hit button which is not congruent with stimulus

Reciprocal Nature of Attachment Patterns

Reciprocal species-specific (innate) caregiving system Dimensions of Caretaking (Ainsworth & Bell) • Sensitivity / Insensitivity • Acceptance / Rejection • Cooperation / Interference • Accessibility / Ignoring Longitudinal observations of caregivers... • A (Insecure-Avoidant) Group - Rejecting, insensitive, intrusive • B (Secure) Group - Sensitive, responsive, accepting • C (Insecure-Anxious/Ambivalent) Group - Inconsistent caregiving, sometimes over-involved/interfering, sometimes ignoring inconsistently available

Babinski reflex

Reflex in which a newborn fans out the toes when the sole of the foot is touched

Studying Gene-Environment contributions: Methods

Research methods used with animals & with plants and crops can't be used with humans - e.g., eugenics... • Experimental breeding - Animal models • Selective breeding for heritable traits (e.g., activity level, wool type, "maze bright"), selectively mate animals exhibiting that trait • Genetic manipulation/editing - insert a particular variant of a normal gene in cells or "knockout" a normal gene - compare these experimental animals with control animals to determine the function of the manipulated genes (Wehner & Balogh, 2003) Human developmental psychobiology is more ethically & morally challenging!

Subjective Sense of Adulthood (Arnett, 1997, 1998, 2000)

Research shows that demographic transitions are not critical. Important are: 1. Accepting responsibility for oneself 2. Making independent decisions 3. Financial self-sufficiency 4. Parenthood - those who have had a child rank becoming a parent the most important marker Many do not reach this stage (Arnett 2000) • End of adolescent exploration/moratorium • ? "settling down" •Taking on major roles and activities which will define remainder of life •Impact of "commitment phobia" - "adultescence" •FOMO, Friends with benefits • ? "Transition events" •Getting a job •Getting a mortgage? •Getting married? • Having a child?

What is Thinking?

Research shows that preschoolers tend to think that: • Only people engage in this activity (thinking) • A brain is necessary for thinking & the brain is inside our head • A person is thinking if strong & clear cues are given - person looks pensive - Rodin sculpture • Preschoolers don't attribute any mental activity to • A person who sits quietly, waiting • A person who is talking, reading, listening to stories (Flavell et al 1995)

Risk and Resilience in Development

Risk factors (stressors) — factors within the child or within the environment that stress or impair an individual's adaptive functioning o eg. Mental illness in a parent, poverty o eg. Alterations to the uterine environment, difficult birth, premature labor o e.g. Difficult temperament Cumulative Stress Model — Stressors (risks) add together until a threshold is reached above which problem outcomes occur

How does a Theory of Mind develop? Alternate approach

Role of learning and experience Children more likely to pass standard ToM tasks if • More advanced language development • Have older siblings • Have regular contact with extended family • Parents talk about feelings of others in disciplinary situations • Parents use language about feelings, intentions (note cultural differences) • Mothers more highly educated

Hazan & Shaver, 1987

Secure "I find it relatively easy to get close to others and am comfortable depending on them and having them depend on me. I don't often worry about being abandoned or about someone getting too close to me" Avoidant/Dismissing "I am somewhat uncomfortable getting close to others. I find it difficult to trust them completely, and difficult to allow myself to depend on them. I am nervous when anyone gets too close, and often love partners want me to be more intimate than I feel comfortable being." Anxious/Ambivalent/Pre-occupied "I find that others are reluctant to get as close as I would like. I often worry that my partner doesn't really love me or won't want to stay with me. I want to merge completely with another person and this desire sometimes scares people away."

Sequelae of Individual Differences in Attachment (Sroufe, 2010; Thompson, 2016)

Secure attachment predicts... Emotion regulation - Constructive emotionality and emotion selfregulation, greater emotional understanding *Social competence - capacity to develop and maintain supportive relationships with parents/peers, desirable personality qualities More positive self-regard Social cognitive competence - social problemsolving skills Modest effect sizes: These positive outcomes more likely when sensitive caregiving maintained and secure attachment stable

Lachman et al (2004, 2015) & Willis (2010) review papers

See midlife as a time of losses, gains & maintenance n Losses are primarily in the physical realm, & n Gains, mainly in the psych & social realms. 3 things emphasised: n exact timing of change is not fixed- change occurs over an extended period of time; n change can be both positive & negative (at the same time); n Considerable individual differences

Sensorimotor 5: Tertiary Circular Reactions (12-18 months)

Sensori-Motor Problem Solving: Experiments Actively try to discover how various actions will affect an object or outcome (e.g., squeeze, hit, chew, kick and throw a rubber duck) Deliberate trial and error exploration Begin to understand cause and effect relationships Example: Toy in a perspex box

Piaget's Four Stages of Cognitive Development

Sensori-motor Birth - 2 years Relationships between sensation & motor behaviour Pre-operational 2-6 years Use of symbols - internal representation Concrete operational 7-11 years Mastery of logic, rational thinking Formal operational 12+ years Abstract, hypothetical reasoning

Empirical Support for Erikson's theory: Identity & Intimacy

Sneed, Whitbourne et al. (2006; 2012)- longitudinal study over 34 years • Identity development occurred in early 20s, as predicted, but also in the late 20s & early 30s • Resolution of both Identity and Intimacy predicted midlife wellbeing • Ego Integrity increased from ages 31 to 54, consistent with Erikson, but need follow-up with older adults to check it continues to increase. Note: While description of developmental "crises" was supported, links to chronological age more complex

Ageing Conclusions

So...to age successfully/positively (& to consider when planning interventions for older adults): § Continue (or take up/Select) health promoting activities (to optimise your health & well-being) § Compensate, where possible for age-related losses § Develop Disengagement (incl. Accommodation & Acceptance) & Metaregulation skills § Maintain good close social relationships § Accept yourself & the changes that occur with ageing § Keep your sense of humor!

Locomotor Development

Some Key Principles Sensorimotor integration Integration of primitive reflexes Reflexes - automatic, involuntary, stereotyped response to external stimulation • Indicators or early neurological integrity - mostly integrated by 6 mths • Superceded by voluntary motor control - may be basis for later movement • See notes Tutorial 1 Progression of development • Ortho-genetic: Gross (global) to Fine (differentiated) eg., grasp • Cephalocaudal: Head control/trunk control first • Proximo-distal: Core stability supports fine motor capacity

Genetic Disorders: Dominant-Recessive Relationships

Some disorders are carried on dominant gene - expressed in every individual carrying the allele eg., Huntington's disease - which strikes after 40 yrs - 1 in 2 chance of inheritance • Some disorders are carried on recessive gene e.g., Cystic Fibrosis; both parents have to carry the gene - there is a 1 in 4 chance of inheritance - (similar to eye colour example) • For some traits there is co-dominance - effect of recessive gene is not totally masked, so phenotype is a combination • E.g., Skin colour (black + white = light brown)

Prenatal Diagnosis and Genetic Counselling

Some genetic & structural anomalies can be detected early in pregnancy • Ultrasound - routine • Maternal serum blood tests • Chorionic villus sampling • Nuchal translucency ultrasound scan o Fluid at back of neck (11-13 weeks) o Relative risk only • Amniocentesis Purpose • Not to produce perfect humans - although many ways in which technology can be applied • Allow early treatment as appropriate • Facilitate informed decision making • Facilitate planning for a child with a health problem

Genetic Disorders: Sex-Linked Inheritance

Some traits are influenced by single genes that are located on the sex chromosomes o Typically "X-linked" (recessive) ─ These traits are expressed in males: Why? • Red-green colour blindness • Haemophilia • Certain forms of deafness • Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy

Conservation Task

Sources of confusion? 1. What does"more" mean? Longer? Wider? Rephrase question - Are they the same? 2. Child confused by question repetition? Why is she asking this? 3. Naïve faith in adult rationality??? Accidental vs intentional transformations - Rationale provided for repeating question (McGarrigle & Donaldson, 1974; Donaldson, 1982)

Muscle tense

Tense muscles move faster than relaxed muscles.

Evaluating Erikson's Theory

Strengths Theory • Has provided a language/framework for describing adult development • Links developmental stages to social structures - nature/nurture • Emphasizes ego development as healthy across the lifespan Strengths cont' • Has provided a framework for psychotherapy and educational interventions • Concept of identity crisis part of our lexicon • Concept of developmental "crises" has proved useful in examining tension between individuals & society* Limitations • Theory largely descriptive: • Mechanisms for resolving crises are not clearly delineated • Transitions from 1 stage to the next are not clearly explained • Stages need more empirical verification -empirical evidence generally doesn't support links with chronological age • Male, heterosexual, eurocentric perspective with emphasis on emergence of the "individual" • Culture bound

Estimating Genetic & Environmental Influences

TWIN STUDIES Methodologies • Same Environment: In what ways are identical twins more similar than fraternal twins? • Different Environment: Identical twins separated near birth particularly informative TWIN STUDIES Identical & Fraternal Twins • Identical twins - one fertilized ovum divides to form genetically identical individuals • Fraternal twins - two ova are released at the same time - each is fertilized by a different sperm o IVF and twins ─ Mostly fraternal - baby Gammy case ─ Changes in practice - fewer twins in recent years TWIN STUDIES Twin Study Designs • What can we learn by comparing identical twins (MZ) & fraternal (DZ) twins? o MZ share 100% of genes o DZ share 50% of genes (like siblings) • For traits influenced by heredity, MZ twins will be more similar than DZ twins E.g. For height, MZ correlation is .86 DZ correlation is .45 TWIN STUDIES Thinking Critically About Twin Studies* • What could explain the lack of a perfect correlation for identical twins? • What factors other than genes could explain similarities between identical twins? • Do all children in the same family have the same environment? • Is the family environment more similar for twins? • What early factors might mean there are different environments for monozygotic (identical) twins?

Potential to Enhance the Prenatal Environment

Talking to/thinking about unborn baby o Ultrasound may help • Health Promoting Behaviours o Mother's diet, relaxation, health • Avoiding potentially harmful environments • Music? Concept of fetal attachment o Establishing a relationship with the fetus - behaviours that may follow from that

How is the developmental crisis resolved?

Task: To integrate various components and determine which have greatest salience Crisis: To reconcile past identities, future aspirations & contemporary cultural issues Resolution 1. Autonomy - from parents, teachers 2. Gender identity consolidation 3. Internalised morality 4. Career Choice 5. Fidelity (sustain values despite conflicts/inconsistencies) 6. Relationships

Longer Term Outcomes of Temperament: Dunedin

The Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study (Caspi & Silva, 1995) Assessed Child Self-Control at Age 3 • Under-Control/Impulsivity in preschoolers predicted... o Mental health/suicidality o Alienation/hostility o Substance dependence, o Personal finances o Criminal offending at age 32 • High Behavioural Inhibition (low approach behaviours) o Greater harm avoidance o Reduced social potency o Less positive emotionality o Increased risk of depression

Longer Term Outcomes of Temperament: More Recent Evidence

The Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC) • Major study following the development of 10,000 children and families across Australia o Commenced in 2004 with two cohorts of (around 5,000 each) of children aged 0-1 and 4-5 years, considered representative of children of these ages across Australia (except for remote or very remote locations) o Data collected every two years from child (when of an appropriate age), parents (both resident and non-resident), carers, teachers. Interviewer also conducts observations. o Aim is to identify policy opportunities for improving support for children and their families, and identifying opportunities for early intervention o Leading researchers from Universities around Australia (including Macquarie!) provide content and methodology advice. The Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC) • Data from first 5 waves (n = 4983) o Temperament (in pre-schoolers) is an identifiable (modest) risk factor for development of psychopathology at age 12-13 High reactivity predicted higher symptoms for ADHD, conduct problems, anxiety, depression (Very) High approach/sociability predicted symptoms for Conduct disorder ADHD Low approach/sociability predicted anxiety Low Persistence predicted fewer conduct and ADHD problems

Generalisability

The extent to which results can be generalised beyond the sample to a wider population or situation

Primary circular reactions

The first of three types of feedback loops in sensorimotor intelligence, this one involving the infant's own body. The infant senses motion, sucking, noise, and other stimuli and tries to understand them.

Germinal period

The first two weeks of prenatal development after conception, characterized by rapid cell division and the beginning of cell differentiation.

'Tabula rasa' view

The idea proposed by John Locke that children's minds at birth are like a 'blank slate' to be written on by life's experiences

Gendered Social Influences

The main gendered social influences are: - Parents - Peers - Media Differential Treatment by Parents, Peers, and the Media for Gendered Conduct • Parents "see" sons and daughters differently: boys are seen as bigger and more active than girls who are seen as weaker and more passive than boys - despite no objective differences between male and female infants. • Parents respond differently to same the infant's emotional response depending on whether they believe the infant is a boy or girl - fear or anger. • Parents provide different environments for their sons than for their daughters: rooms are often furnished on the basis of the infant's gender; toys are provided on the basis of their infant's gender.

Mesosystem (Bronfenbrenner)

The network of different relationships and settings that the individuals encounter.

Moral Development Conclusion

The overlap between the viewpoints of morality: - With increasing age there is a broadening of social reality that changes the nature of moral concerns - Change of reasoning from concrete to abstract with maturity - Change from external regulation to increasing autonomy and self-regulation (moral agency) • Research findings confirm that the stronger the moral disengagement the weaker the felt guilt for engaging in immoral behaviour. • Moral disengagement can be used to explain the mismatch between moral standards and moral behaviour.

Selective breeding

The process of selecting a few organisms with desired traits to serve as parents of the next generation

Clinical Interviewing

The process of structured, purposeful, client-centered, ethically guided conversations with clients aimed at identifying problems as well as assets and resources that may help in problem resolution.

Longer Term Outcomes of Temperament

Three Major Longitudinal Studies • New York Longitudinal Study (Thomas & Chess, 1950s) • Australian Temperament Project (Sanson, Pryor, Oberklaid) • Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study (Caspi & Silva, 1995)

Midlife Crisis Conclusion

Thus, midlife is not a crisis for most. n It may, however be a period when several aspects of life acquire new meaning & significance, & n There are a mixture of pressures: n such as care-giving for both children & ageing parents occur, n often when you're at the peak of your career. n Often ageism is experienced in ate-midlife & beyond

Stability of Temperament

To be a meaningful construct should show stability over time, across contexts • ATP study found stability of .7 - .8*, many show small changes, few change radically • Parent concordance .7-.8; Parent/teacher agreement typically around .4-.5 Reporter bias & different contexts make different demands • Some instability may be due to expression of underlying constructs changing at different developmental stages • Caregiving may moderate the impact of temperament

Turn Taking and Reciprocity Kozak-Mayer &Tronick (1985)

Turn-taking conversational structure of mother-infant face-to-face interaction where mother provides turn-giving signals and infant engages in turn-taking

dizygotic (DZ) twins

Twins who are formed when two separate ova are fertilized by two separate sperm at roughly the same time. (Also called fraternal twins.)

Empirical Support: Ego Integrity, Personality & Mood

Westermeyer, Bohlmeijer, & McAdams (2017) Cross-sectional study of 218 Dutch adults aged 5—95 How are personality and mental health related to Ego Integrity/Despair Key findings: Extraversion and "open-ness to experience" were indirectly associated with Ego Integrity, mediated by well-being - ego-integrity is related to fluctuating states of mental health - reminiscing about the past in ways that are open to finding new meanings in past experiences that accommodate both positive and negative life events is adaptive Neuroticism (negative affectivity) was directly related to despair - Neuroticism was associated with rumination and blame

Stage Movement

What causes movement to the next stage? • Maturation • Experience • Social interaction • child builds/revises mental schemas

Content of reasoning

What or who the person thinks about in a moral dilemma

When does a transition become a crisis?

Whether a transition such as midlife turns into a crisis seems to have less to do with the persons age, and more to do with their: n life circumstances, and n Personality - neuroticism, self-efficacy, flexibility vs rumination n coping abilities (including how they have dealt with previous life changes) & the n earlier life experiences n resources that they have available to deal with life n timing of events may also be important (on-time vs off-time). n gender

Withdrawal reflex

a spinal reflex that pulls a body part away from a source of pain

Apgar scale

a standard measurement system that looks for a variety of indications of good health in newborns

Cognition

all the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating

Binocular depth cues

clues about distance based on the differing views of the two eyes

Ethology

concerned with the adaptive, or survival, value of behavior and its evolutionary history

sequential design

developmental research design based on cross-sectional and longitudinal designs

Mesosystem (neighbourhood & community)

e.g., quality of local playgroup, childcare Centre will influence parenting capacity (indirect effect) and child behaviour (direct effect)

Norms

how values tell us to behave

Exosystem (Bronfenbrenner)

links between a social setting in which the individual does not have an active role and the individual's immediate context e.g. extended family

Caregiving- a common stress associated with Ageing

n Caregiving very common: n 27 per cent of respondents provided care for grandchildren or children under 12 n 22% provided care for an adult n 6 per cent provided care for both children AND adults n 54% of carers of grandchildren rated their health as good or better n But 66 per cent of carers of adults rated their health as fair or poor... n Caring for a parent of spouse or other adult very stressful, especially if they have dementia

Bereavement Research Findings: Galatzer-Levy & Bonanno (2012)

n Chronic grief pathway from depression following grief to improvement 4 years later only present in only 9% of bereaved. n But overall depression levels were highest at 6 months post-loss n 66% are very resilient (show little or no depression, even early on after the loss) contrary to Kubler-Ross

Adult Conceptualisations of Death

n Consciousness about death intensifies in middle adulthood - how much time to I have? n Middle aged adults fear death more than older adults n However older adults think about death more and talk about it more

Sociocultural & historical Contexts

n Cultural differences in longevity - Indigenous Australians - 20 years less n Sex differences in longevity n Historical Changes: n Increasing complexity (with technology) of defining when someone is truly dead n The age group to whom it most often happens n Where it happens - home vs hospital n Terrorism - complete unpredictability - we all have to think about death..

Empirical Support for & Critique of SOC model

n Defined too broadly (all behaviour can be classified as selection or compensation) n It is necessary to demonstrate that changes in behaviour and cognition result from blocked goals, if they are to be considered compensatory n Selection and compensatory efforts sometimes fail - they can be misdirected or insufficient to compensate for a loss

Chicken and Egg distinction

n Do crises cause life-events or do lifeevents cause crises? n Internal dynamics vs external events n Questioning of life's meaning more likely to be provoked by specific life events - getting married, changing jobs, experiencing marital problems, death of parent, onset of chronic illness

Freund & Baltes (1998) cont. SOC questionnaire example items

n Elective Selection: e.g., "I concentrate my energy on a few things" n Loss-based selection: e.g., "When things don't go as well as before, I choose one or two important goals" n Optimization: e.g., "I make every effort to achieve a given goal" n Compensation: e.g., "When things don't go as well as they used to, I keep trying other ways of doing it until I can achieve the same result as I used to"

"Adult Understanding of Death"

n Finality--it is the cessation of life and of all life processes, such as movement, sensation, and thought n Irreversiblity--it cannot be undone n Universality-- that it is inevitable and happens to all living beings n Biological causality -- it is the result of internal changes in the body even if external events bring about those internal changes

Review of midlife crisis debate:

n Freund & Ritter (2009) a review the debate as to whether there is a midlife crisis: n conclude that it is not normative, but that it can be an interesting period of transition and a developmental challenge that needs to be mastered n For a Broader coverage of Midlife, see: n Lackman (2015). Midlife as a pivotal period of the life course. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 39(1), 20-31.

Model of Developmental Regulation Across the Lifespan

n Hasse, Heckhausen & Wrosch (2013) n Combines concepts from n Dual Process model of assimmilation & accommodation (Brandstadter & Renner, 1990; Brandstadter, 2009); n Motivational Theory of Lifespan Development (Hackhausen & Schulz, 2010); n SOC (Baltes) n Argues there are 3 processes: goal engagement, goal disengagement & metaregulation 1. Goal engagement: n Elective Selection of goals n Optimization n Tenacious goal pursuit/ Assimilation n Primary Control 2. Goal Disengagement n Compensatory Secondary Control/ Accommodation n Loss-based Selection 3. Metaregulation n Guides adaptive goal choice across domains, ensuring goals: n are congruent with contextual opportunities for goal attainment, n have adaptive inter-domain & long-term consequences, n provide a sufficient diversity of goals. n Thus, through metaregulation, individuals take into account contextual opportunities for goal attainment & flexibly activate goal engagement & disengagement to promote successful development.

Stage Models: Criticisms

n Have not been empirically supported n Emphasis on stages n Assumes a single "normative" pathway of adjustment n Assumption that there is a valued destination to be reached - "acceptance" n Grief actually a complex and ever-changing interplay of emotions (Shneidman) n Unpredictable emotional changes rather than predictable stages n What about individual differences? n Individuals*, families n Disease pathways

Universality

n Impact of range of factors incl: n Nature of the disease vs sudden death n Ethnicity/ different cultures n Personality or cognitive/coping style n Social support n Developmental level & attachment etc. n These are best summarized in the Integrative Risk Model of Bereavement (Stroebe, Folkman Hansson & Schut, 2006) n This model attempts to explain the wide range of bereavement outcomes

Two types of continuity

n Internal Continuity "...a remembered inner structure, such as the persistence of structures of ideas, personality, preferences, experiences and skills." n External Continuity "...remembered structure of physical and social environments, role relationships, and activities. ... result from being and doing in familiar environments, practicing familiar skills, and interacting with familiar people."

So if not as a crisis... How else is midlife viewed?

n Lachman found young, midlife, & older adults viewed midlife as: n a period with many responsibilities, n increased stress in several domains, & n little time for leisure, BUT Lachman & various reviews found midlife is also as a time of: n Gains:- competence; ability to handle stress; sense of personal control; & social responsibility; vocabulary. n Losses:- physical abilities; women's ability to bear children; & physical appearance; speed n Stability/maintenance:- personality.

Phenotype

observable characteristic - eye colour • BB = brown eyes (homozygous) • bb = blue eyes (homozygous) • Bb = brown eyes (heterozygous) • bB = brown eyes (heterozygous)

Children who are terminally ill...

n Life experiences may override developmental or age considerations n Systematic growth in understanding of death n Finality, inevitability & completeness grasped even by those "too young" n Learn from changes in own condition, responses from those around them, observations of other ill children n Show a realistic shift in the time perspective n Young children n often become very aware that they are dying and experience the full range of emotions that dying adults experience n reveal emotions in temper tantrums or in their pretend play, or drawings rather than in spoken words

Mental Health in older adults

n Only 10 to 15% of older people experience depression and about 10% experience anxiety (APS, 2019) - so most are doing well n but in Residential Aged Care Facilities (RACF), n 86% had at least one diagnosed mental health or behavioural condition, with n 49% having depression, n 58% anxiety, & n 52% have dementia n Royal Commission needs to address this n Elder abuse is also a concern (2-16% community, unknown rate in RACF) - n Royal Commission into Aged Care

Proportion of adults at least satisfied with their lives, by age. ABS (2011)

n Overall life satisfaction varied somewhat with age. n People aged 65-74 years old were the most likely to be at least satisfied with their lives (83%) n those aged 45-54 years old were the least likely to be at least satisfied with their lives (73%).

Research evidence for continuity: Evidence of internal continuity

n Personality "Big-5"traits, there is much evidence of rank-order stability in personality over adulthood (after age 30) (e.g. McCrae & Costa, 1994), but some changes do occur in middle & older adulthood incl. increases in Agreeableness & Conscientiousness (Roberts, 2008) n Also longitudinal evidence of stability in values, both those more deeply ingrained "terminal" values (e.g. self-respect, selffulfillment, and sense of accomplishment) & more instrumental ones (e.g. leisure values) (Stockard, Carpenter & Kahle, 2014)

Level 4 - Adolescent - formal operations, but egocentric

n Prospect of death & ageing seem remote, irrelevant ("invincibility", "it won't happen to me") However: n More abstract conceptualisations of death n Relativistic & dialectical modes of thought n Religious and philosophical views

Research on Ryff's model of Successful Ageing e.g., Ryff (1989)

n Qualitative open-ended responses by middle-aged and older adults largely confirmed Ryff's 6 dimensions of successful ageing. n But, also shown to be important were: n having a sense of humor, n enjoying life, and n In older adults, accepting change*

SOC research: Longitudinal study (same sample in both studies, 145 adults ages 22-94)

n Robinson et al, (2016) n More SOC used on high-stress vs low-stress days & n relationship between daily stress & memory problems was buffered by daily SOC use, i.e., on high-stress days, those who used more SOC strategies reported fewer memory problems than participants who used fewer SOC strategies n Teshale & Lachman (2016) n On days in which middle-age and older adults & individuals with lower health used more SOC, they reported greater happiness. & n Lower happiness led to greater subsequent SOC usage

Developmental differences: Pre-Verbal children

n Salience of separation/abandonment to infants - focus preservation of life itself - persistent search behaviour prior to despair - analogous with how adults respond to loss (Bowlby) n Object permanence - "all gone" - any disappearance has the potential to be coded in the category "all gone" - the death of an object (Piaget) n Death related play - children re-enact activities they carried out with lost caregiver - internal representations can be observed behaviourally n Games of hiding, disappearances, making things all gone n The very young seem to be able to register death relevant experiences

Losses associated with ageing

n Sensory deterioration (sight & hearing) n While the majority (72% in 2014-15) of older Australians report their overall health as good, at a population level, ageing generally means more ill health (87.2% have one or more longterm health conditions) n For some, esp. over 85, social losses (esp. death of spouse & siblings & friends) can lead to loneliness, which impacts mental health

Is there a midlife crisis in women?

n Several researchers have concluded that women are more likely to experience continuous struggles with the balance of career and family (e.g., Mercer et al., 1989; Roberts & Newton, 1987), rather than a predictable mid-life crisis

Ageism- psychological services

n Societal ageism contributes to n low uptake of psychological services by older adults & n Low numbers of psychologists working with older adults n based on false beliefs that older people won't benefit from psychological interventions (they're too old and stuck in their ways), or that there's no point in wasting money (they're going to die soon anyway). n Contrary to public belief n psychological interventions are effective for older people, significantly improve outcomes, and potentially reduce expenditure in the long term

Death and Dying: Overview

n Terminology & background n Developmental differences in understanding of death n Critique of Stage models of Dying n Dual Process model & n Integrative Risk Model n Conclusions & implications for therapy

Challenges for developmental psychologists with respect to death

n There is more to the human encounter with death than self-report questionnaires can measure and routine theories can explain n Need to engage in more depth with the human relationship with death n We need to stop trivialising and compartmentalising death & yet not treat it as a mental illness

"Death is a developmental psychological issue.. "

n Throughout life people think about it n Partly a function of earlier psychological developments n Differential impact according to timing n Lifespan continuities in dealing with death, bereavement

Degree of Continuity

n Too little continuity - life seems too unpredictable. n Optimum continuity - the pace and degree of change are perceived as in line with personal preferences and social demands and well within their coping capacity. n Too much continuity - the individual feels uncomfortably in a rut; there is not enough change to enrich life.

Midlife crisis Research Evidence

n Two studies by McCrae & Costa (1987; 2003) could only identify a handful of men who had a crisis, and even they experienced a crisis anytime between 30 and 60. Note: Cross-sectional study - - informative about how crisis is related to age But not about which individuals are likely to experience crises - or how earlier life experiences impact n US MIDUS study found 10-20% reported a midlife crisis (Wethington, 2000) n Those who have crises at midlife are often those who have upheavals at other points in their life too, and are higher in neuroticism (Freund & Ritter, 2009; Lachman, 2004)

Other aspects of well-being

n Well-being can also be measured by looking at emotion (affect) & life satisfaction n With declines in resources older adults might have been expected to have lower well-being; BUT n Positive affect remains stable with age; n Negative affect decreases with age (levelling off after about 70); & n Older adults regulate their emotions better than younger adults; & n Older adults have lower rates of mental illnesses (except dementia).

Corr (2019) Review

n although the five stages model is important as a classical theory with constructive historical implications, n it does not measure up to the standards of a sound theory in contemporary thinking, n can actually do damage when misapplied to individuals or applied too rigidly, & n should be set aside as an unreliable guide to both education and practice.

(3) Integrative Risk Framework of Bereavement Stroebe et al (2006)

n aspects in model have mixed support n Growing support for the Dual Process Model, incorporated in this model (loss vs restoration orientated stressors) n not parsimonious. n Open to modifications based on research findings e.g. taking some variables out etc. n The model suggests that context, risk factors and resources are all very important and may influence coping and outcomes. Best model so far!

Review of SOC research Freund (2008)

n converging evidence from studies using different methods (e.g., self-report, behavioral, correlational, experimental) that selection, optimization, & compensation, contribute to wellbeing & successful development. n little is known about the interplay of these 3 processes (S, O, & C). n Other studies show SOC particularly helpful for those with fewer available resources (Jopp & Smith, 2006; Lang et al, 2002)

Others report relative stability in other indexes of wellbeing until about 70 to 80 (e.g. positive affect)

n developmental scientists report relative stability in well-being in adults under 70 years of age (Baird et al. 2010; Diener and Suh 1998; Kunzmann et al. 2000; Lachman et al. 2015; Mroczek and Spiro 2005).

Adolescents: Reactions reflect developmental concerns of their age group

n effects on their physical appearance, and on their ability to be accepted by their peers n Capacity to attract a partner n Capacity for independence from parents n Career and life plans

What is Successful/ or Positive Ageing? Ryff (1989)

n emphasis on wellness rather than illness n a developmental growth oriented perspective 1. Self Acceptance 2. Positive Relations With Others 3. Autonomy 4. Environmental Mastery 5. Purpose in Life 6. Personal Growth

Ectoderm

outermost germ layer; produces sense organs, nerves, and outer layer of skin

Mitosis

part of eukaryotic cell division during which the cell nucleus divides

Theory of mind

people's ideas about their own and others' mental states—about their feelings, perceptions, and thoughts, and the behaviors these might predict.

Reaction range

potential variability, depending on environmental conditions, in the expression of a hereditary trait

Archives

public records; place where public records are kept

Social referencing

reading emotional cues in others to help determine how to act in a particular situation

Haptic perception

the active exploration of the environment by touching and grasping objects with our hands

Operations

the activities and processes used in making both tangible and intangible products

Vygotsky's Sociocultural Theory

the approach that emphasizes how cognitive development proceeds as a result of social interactions between members of a culture

Class inclusion

the understanding that a general category can encompass several subordinate elements

False belief

the understanding that someone else may believe something that a child knows to be untrue

Dynamic-systems theory

the view that development is a self-organizing process, in which new forms of behavior emerge through consistent interactions between a biological being and cultural and environmental contexts

Altruism

unselfish regard for the welfare of others

Correlational research designs

used to search for and describe relationships among measured variables

Learning

—the process through which experience brings about relatively permanent changes in thoughts, feelings, or behaviour - nurture

Adolescent suicide

• 2nd highest cause of death (Behind MVAs) •For 15-24yo, trebled 1960-1990 • Rare under 14, rapid increase 15-19, increases again 20-24 •For males twice as high in rural areas • 40% higher for indigenous Australians • 10 - 49% of teenagers have suicidal thoughts at some time • 5% of young people self-harm (higher in females than males) •Rates of attempted suicide higher for girls •Rate of completed suicide 4-5 times greater for males than females •Males - most commonly use firearms •Females - most commonly use poisoning •Increases in adolescent suicide in US, Asia and Europe. Decrease in UK.

Dimensions of Generativity

• A biological drive to reproduce* • An instinctual need to care for & be needed by others • A cultural expectation • A philosophical urge for transcendence/symbolic immortality • A productive niche in society - meaning in life (eudaemonic well-being) ? An indicator of psychological maturity

Limitations of Twin "Designs"*

• A natural experiment, but...... • Can't systematically vary the environment • Can't randomly allocate to different environments • Can't remove one twin experimentally • Assumption that the diversifying influences of environment are no greater for fraternal than identical twins • Role of Parents • Parents who think twins are monozygotic may be more likely to treat them more similarly and expect the same from each twin because they look the same, compared with dizygotic twins - would interesting if this could be manipulated!

Conclusions: Erikson's model

• A valuable framework for understanding human growth & development • Comprises 8 stages in which psychosocial crises must be resolved • Failure implies a core vulnerability • Each stages resolution has implications for subsequent developmental gains, but crises may be reworked at a later stage • Reflects culturally and historically determined values

Heinz Dilemma

• A woman was on her deathbed. There was one drug that the doctors thought might save her. It was a form of radium that a druggist in the same town had recently discovered. The drug was expensive to make, but the druggist was charging ten times what the drug cost him to produce. He paid $200 for the radium and charged $2,000 for a small dose of the drug. The sick woman's husband, Heinz, went to everyone he knew to borrow the money, but he could only get together about $1,000 which is half of what it cost. He told the druggist that his wife was dying and asked him to sell it cheaper or let him pay later. But the druggist said: "No, I discovered the drug and I'm going to make money from it." So Heinz got desperate and broke into the man's laboratory to steal the drug for his wife. Should Heinz have broken into the laboratory to steal the drug for his wife? Why or why not?

Stereotype threat

• According to stereotype threat theory, negative stereotypes impair performance and can lead to reduced motivation. • Before completing a mathematics test 80 (54 female) participants were informed either that men outperform women on the test (stereotype threat condition) or that men and women perform equally well (no-stereotype condition) - Fogliati & Bussey (2013). • Women under stereotype threat performed worse and were less motivated than non-stereotyped women to attend mathematics tutorials after receiving negative feedback (see Figure 1). • These results suggest that the effect of stereotype threat on women's mathematical performance is potentially compounded by its capacity to reduce motivation to improve.

Nine Characteristics Associated with Personality

• Activity level • Rhythmicity • Approach/withdrawal (behavioural inhibition) • Threshold of responsiveness • Intensity • Quality of mood/negative affectivity • Distractibility • Attention span and persistence

Adherence to Culturally Defined Display Rules*

• Affect displayed strategically to: o Minimise o Maximise o Substitute o Mask ... Surge in primary school years *Requires knowledge of when, where, and how

Developing Gender Identity

• Although most children develop knowledge of their gender and that of others over the first years, the influence of their gender identity on their gendered conduct varies across the life course and in different contexts depending on the regulators influencing their behaviour as is apparent from the preceding slides. • This view departs from that of Piaget who claimed that once children achieve gender constancy they are motivated to behave in ways that are gender consistent with their identity.

Historical Background - Genes

• Ancient Greeks -"likeness" transmitted parents to children - Pythagoras - via male semen? Aristotle - women also involved • Mendel - peas (1822-1844) - bred hybrids - discovered " a basic unit of heredity forgotten until • Darwin - Genetic variation in a species was adaptive - theory of natural selection (1859) • Watson & Crick DNA double helix (1951-1953), more recent recognition of contributions of Wilkins & Franklin • Behavioural Genetics: (Turkheimer & Gottesman, 1991 ) o contributions of nature and nurture to human and animal behaviour and behavioural diversity • Epigenetics (Gottlieb) - changes in gene expression due to base pairs in DNA being turned off or turned on in response to environment • Post-genomics - gene therapies; gene editing

Historical Background Temperament

• Ancient civilizations - body humors/fluids (Galen) - choleric/melancholic/ sanguine/phlegmatic • Chinese tradition - Chi - yang and yin • 1920s to 1950s environmental (social) determinism* o Watson - behaviourism - "spare the rod..." o Freud* - psychoanalytic theory Thomas & Chess (1950s) • Why do kids turn out differently despite similar families/caregiving environments? o Bio-psychosocial (interactive) model o Behavioural genetics: Evocative geneenvironment correlations* o "Goodness of fit" (Lerner et al., 2011) *Evocative gene-environment correlations: Child elicits reactions from parents that lead them to provide environments correlated with the child's genes

Different Meanings of Control

• Applying Baumrind's typologies to Asian families may be problematic (Chao & Tseng, 2002) o May not capture the types of control and warmth used and endorsed by these families • Studies conducted on Chinese students in the US and Hong Kong suggest problematic impact of authoritarian parenting on child self-esteem seems restricted to individualist cultures (Rudy & Grusec, 2006)

Gender Identity

• As children age, they become aware of the increasing social identities they can assume. In some circumstances, and for some children and adults, gender identity will gain prominence and for others, ethnic or a combination of these two social identities or other identities will predominate. • Both social and personal factors are expected to contribute to the prominence of these social identities. • Increasing awareness of the limitations of the binary approach to gender development as more children identify as transgender and the fluidity of gendered behaviour is observed. • The more that social approval or sanctions are tied to gender, the more gender identity is expected to influence activities and preferences. Personal values and self-beliefs of one's competence linked to gender are also expected to increase the salience of adopting a gendered social identity.

Learning About Other People 2 years: Desire Psychologists

• At 18-24 months begin to understand that others may have different desires and wants • At 2 may test those dimensions on which their desires conflict with parents' desires • May begin to show empathy • Comfort another child • Nurse a toy that has had an 'accident' • No representation of people's belief states

Learning about other people 4 years: Belief Psychology

• At 4 children start to become belief psychologists - they understand the complex relations between beliefs and behaviour • The mind is an active, constructive entity • People represent the world in their minds • Mental states are representations of reality • The mind can misrepresent reality • People act on the basis of their mental representations of reality rather than on reality itself

(Belsky, 1984) PARENT, CHILD, CONTEXT 1) Parent Characteristics

• Attachment history - psychological resources (e.g., attachment style, resilience) and personality • Mental health status (including substance use issues) • Employment/Education (linked to SES)

Vygotsky's theory: Strengths

• Attention to social-cultural context "corrects" other approaches • Integration of learning & development - focus on change & dynamic assessment • Sensitivity to diversity in development - acknowledgement of individual differences vs universality - "corrects" western middle class bias

Developmental Origins of Moral Disengagement

• Avoiding External Sanctions. From a young age children begin to excuse their transgressive and immoral behaviour by justifying it to others. These self-serving justifications are externally oriented and are typically used to avoid punishment or for the transgressor to be viewed positively by others (Banerjee, Heyman, & Lee, 2020) . • Children use various exoneration strategies such as blaming someone else for their transgressive behaviour, for example, "my friends made me do it" (Recchia, Brehl, & Wainryb, 2012) or "the cat knocked over the glass of milk" (Bussey, 2020). • These justifications are directed towards others to avoid external sanctions and blame for the wrongful behaviour. In other words, children begin to justify their wrongful behaviour in order to exonerate themselves from external sanctions for such conduct. • Avoiding Self-Sanctions. Moral disengagement comes into play when children begin to shift the focus of their justifications from the avoidance of external sanctions to the avoidance of internal sanctions. • Moral disengagement mechanisms are aimed at protecting one's positive selfviews as a moral person who abides by their moral standards. • People strive to protect their positive views of themselves through using moral disengagement strategies to explain their immoral conduct in certain situations. • Moral disengagement mechanisms have the potential to come into play once children develop the capability to self-regulate their own behaviour. • Once self-regulatory skills are developed, children begin to use moral disengagement strategies to self-exonerate their behaviour when it is expected to contradict their moral standards.

Moral Disengagement Bandura et al., (1996)

• Bandura et al., (1996) have shown that adolescents who use moral disengagement processes are more likely to engage in interpersonal aggression and delinquent conduct. • Moral reconstruals of harmful conduct by linking it to worthy purposes and vilification of victims seems to contribute most heavily to engagement in detrimental activities.

Collective Moral Disengagement

• Bandura has defined collective moral disengagement as "an emergent grouplevel property arising from the interactive, coordinative, and synergistic group dynamics (2009). Collective moral disengagement includes the same mechanisms as individual moral disengagement (parallels with collective efficacy), but refers to justificatory beliefs that are believed to be shared by a relevant reference group. Collective moral disengagement at the classroom level significantly predicted bullying beyond individual level moral disengagement (Gini, Pozzoli, & Bussey, 2014, 2015).

Intimacy vs Isolation →Ego Strength - Love

• Be comfortable with intimacy & able to express love The Implicit attitudes of intimacy are: • I'm OK and others are too • Others can generally be trusted • Life can be difficult but through mutual interdependence we can make it (Hamackek, 1990)

Adolescent Egocentrism (Elkind, 1976)

• Belief that others are as interested in them as they are in themselves • Sense of personal uniqueness & invincibility • Imaginary audience - everyone is looking at me • Personal Fable - no one else can understand how I really feel • Invincibility - it won't happen to me

New Views on Gender Identity

• Binary views of gender identity have been challenged by a broader view of identity including transgender identities and fluid identities. • Three- to 5-year-old socially transitioned transgender children did not differ from controls or siblings of transgender and gender nonconforming children on gender preference, behaviour, and belief measures (Fast & Olson, 2018). • However, transgender children were less likely than both control groups to believe that their gender at birth matches their current gender, whereas both transgender children and siblings were less likely than controls to believe that other people's gender is stable. • Gender roles are more flexible • However, gender stereotypes remain alive and well • Gender dictates important aspects of the life course • Pervasiveness of gender influences, but not all people adopt gender roles to the same extent and sex categorization and gender identity are not always the same for all people

Gender Differences

• Biological differences: chromosomes, hormones. • Cognitive and Behavioural Differences: Gender identity, gender roles, gender role norms, gender typing, gender stereotypes

Characteristics of Concrete Operational Thought

• Can use mental operations - mentally reverse actions (e.g., conservation) • Logical reasoning replaces intuitive reasoning - but only in concrete circumstances • Not abstract - can add up & subtract in head but can't do algebra - solve theoretical problems • Classification skills - can divide things into sets and subsets (e.g., daffodil, yellow flower, flower)

3. Internalised Morality

• Capacity to consider multiple perspectives • More abstract issues of social justice, human rights • Experiences in early adulthood that promote moral reasoning: moral challenges •Exposure to diverse information, relationships, worldviews •Sub-cultural relativity of one's moral code •Emerging values may be contrary to family/cultural background

Inhibition & Parental Protectiveness

• Caregivers may inadvertently support stability of a fearful temperament by being overprotective and not allowing children to develop regulatory strategies of their own ("helicopter parenting"; Hudson et al., 2012) o Implications for development of anxiety disorders o Remember discussion on social referencing - how children may learn to be afraid (Tutorial 2)

Considerations: Differential Susceptibility

• Certain temperamental dispositions are particularly susceptible to environmental influence • Those with heightened susceptibility are more sensitive to BOTH positive and negative environments o Particularly bad outcomes in negative environments o Particularly positive responses to environmental enrichment

Divorce and Separation Determinants of Child Adjustment Post Divorce

• Child adjustment predicted by quality of parenting environment o Authoritative, consistent parenting by custodial parent o "Quality" contact with non-custodial parent o Capacity of divorced parents to establish & maintain co-operative shared parenting o Quality of relationships with step-parents are critical • Timing of divorce also important worse outcomes for children aged 11-16 years

Concrete Operational Stage (7-11 years)

• Children can perform mental operations on objects... but only those belonging to their immediate concrete experience oA mental operation is an internalised mental action that is part of an organised structure (e.g., compare finger counting to adding up in your head)

2) Authoritarian Pattern: "Power Assertion Parenting" Child Outcomes

• Children have little control over environment o Fearful of asserting themselves o Unhappy, conflicted, neurotic behaviour common in children o Low self-esteem (Babour et al., 2016) o External locus of control o Low scores on measures of conscience - i.e., don't internalise standards, poor self-regulation o More negative long term outcomes for boys (who may become hostile) than girls

Cognitive development summary

• Children start with an understanding of the world based on schemas • Move to an understanding based on mental representations • Move to an understanding based on internalized organised mental operations • Thought becomes decentred, dynamic and reversible But: Can only deal with the concrete - what is rather than what could be

Memory Strategies

• Children will use as many as 4 strategies on a single memory task • Strategies improve with age and are one reason explicit recall improves with age Tired learning • Cognitive tipping point • Deep sleep

Variability in Children's Lying and Truth Telling

• Children's knowledge and evaluation of lying and truth telling show considerable variability. • For example, children evaluate antisocial lies as more morally reprehensible than polite and white lies. • This variability raises questions about children's ability to distinguish between two lie types that are of great importance in the legal context: false allegations and false denials.

Biological Theories

• Chromosomes • Hormones • There is surprising similarity in the makeup of boys and girls. Biological sex is not always dimorphic. • Males and females are differentiated genetically at conception (XX = female and XY = male). • Because of the multiple stages of gender differentiation that occurs throughout gestation, infants can vary in the extent to which their biological make up is more typical of one gender than the other. - For example, it is possible for an infant to be genetically male but have the genitalia characteristic of a female (complete androgen insensitivity syndrome (CAIS)) and similarly it is possible for an infant to be genetically a female and have the genitalia of a male (congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH)). Research has shown that hormones can affect the infant's developing genitalia. The evidence for the effects of hormones on psychological development is less strong and more difficult to obtain than it is for genital gender differences One of the reasons for this difficulty is that gender differences in many areas of human functioning are small and have been declining. It is also impossible to experimentally manipulate the various biological markers that differentiate the two genders to establish their causal effects on human performance. Consequently, most research in this area relies on children who have impaired hormonal development either from normal variability or resulting from some form of misadventure.

Siblings How Siblings Influence Development

• Companionship, comfort, play and learning opportunities (e.g., resolving conflicts) o Sibling relationships can fulfil attachment functions in adult life • Friction, rivalry, jealousy, conflict o "Black Sheep" o Opportunities for social development?

STUDY 2

• Concern that in Study 1 children may have been so drawn to the toy because it was familiar to them ('My truck!') that they did not match objects to people. Therefore, in this study children saw two photos of the same toy followed by a girl and boy face. • Participants: 18- and 24-months. • Procedure: During the trials a neutral voice said, "See my car (doll)?" - two identical photos of the toys were followed by the boy and girl faces and a neutral voice saying "Look at me" and "Look at the people" for the control trials (no voice prompt was used in the first study for the control trial - it was used here to equate attention to the photos). Results 1. Girls looked significantly more at the faces that "matched" the preceding toy standard than at the "mismatching" faces or control faces - no differences in boys looking times across the conditions. 2. No preferences for either same- or other-sex children's faces. Conclusion Gender-linked preferences are evident at 18 months - knowledge of gender-linked preferences is more tentative - it occurs for girls and not boys and is dependent on the methodology used.

Applications: Education

• Continue to use concrete props and visual aids, (esp. for complex material) • Continue to provide opportunities to manipulate and test objects • Use familiar examples to explain more complex ideas • Provide opportunities for classifying and grouping objects • Extend by providing problems that require analytical thinking (e.g., brain teasers) • Assessment should look at reasoning - mistakes are meaningful • Readiness: Consider the child's level of thinking - present concepts in a concrete way to young children • Teach concepts sequentially: Children must master underlying concepts not just facts o Problems with this? • Constructivist approach: Let children actively discover for themselves (e.g., Classrooms as settings for exploration & discovery, facilitate rather than direct) o Problems with this? • Remember: Focus is on "here and now"

culture and parenting Conclusions

• Culture needs to be considered - different perspectives on duty and overt expressions of warmth But irrespective of culture... • Harsh authoritarian parenting practices are associated with negative outcomes for children (Sorkhabi, 2005; Nelson et al., 2005; Yu et al., 2015) o Child internalising and externalising behaviour problems, hyperactivity, and emotional dysregulation in both majority and minority families • More research needed to identify relations between functional and dysfunctional parenting practices in non-western cultures • Parental sensitivity relates positively to child language, cognitive, and social-emotional skills across cultures (Tamis- Lamonda et al., 2009; Washington et al., 2015)

A stage theory: Revision (cf Piaget)

• Development change is qualitative • At given stages a particular emotional conflict predominates all other concerns for a time • There is a sensitive period to resolve each "crisis" before a new crisis is presented • But critiques, including of Piaget • As each crisis is resolved the ego gains strength • Results of this "resolution" lay foundations for dealing with the next "crisis" and its resolution - although crises can be revisited

Emphasis of Vygotsky's approach

• Developmental analysis • The role of social relations and culture • Developmental skills are mediated by words, language, discourse and interaction • Research shows the importance of the influence of other people when learning.

Theoretically Informed Intervention Studies

• Developmental models and concepts can help psychologists working with clients of various ages assess their current functioning • Ground interventions in areas that enhance well-being through focussing on unresolved issues from prior stages of development and reworking them in the present However: rigid application of stage models can be problematic (see also Kubler-Ross; Piaget; Erikson)

Divorce and Separation The Australian Family: 2017 ABS Census

• Divorce trends 1995 to 2017 peak in 2001 • Decline in marriages; increase in cohabiting, esp. prior to marriage • 36% marriages end in divorce • Median age divorce men 45.5; women 42.9 • Mean duration of marriage ending in divorce 12.1 years • 47% of divorces involve children younger that 18 yrs • Many couples repartner after divorce (13% have stepchildren)

The importance of context

• Do lab studies really tell us about development in the real world? • Processes such as attention, memory and learning are clearly affected by what is outside the child (including social world). • Important players: Lev Vygotsky Uri Bronfenbrenner

Bandura's Approach: Developmental Sequence

• During the course of development regulation of moral conduct shifts from predominantly external regulators (parents, peers, and teachers) to internal ones. • Children develop standards of moral conduct from observing others, evaluative feedback, and direct tuition. • The regulation of behaviour shifts from predominantly external sanctions and mandates to a stronger role for self-sanctions guided by personal standards. • The standards provide the guidance; the anticipatory self-sanctions provide the motivators (self-satisfaction and a sense of selfworth versus self-censure). Self-sanctions thus keep conduct in line with personal standards.

Vygotsky: Method of Assessment

• Dynamic assessment of potential developmental level - what a child can do with assistance from others is the best reflection of their intellectual ability • Provide a problem and tools and clues • Look at change in skills during an experimental session - focus on process of problem solving • Assess abilities in culturally appropriate ways

Temperament Influences Parents: Lifestyle, Approach to Parenting, Self Efficacy

• E.g., Baby who is "adaptable" can be fed different foods, in different places, put to sleep anywhere, left with others... • E.g., Baby who is difficult to soothe, won't sleep in strange environment, go to others, influences parents' self-efficacy, confidence to go out...

Why do Gender Stereotypes Persist?

• Eagly's (1986, 2016) social-role hypothesis and Wood and Eagly's (2002) biosocial theory. The biosocial theory focuses on the physical attributes of men and women and the social contexts in which they live to explain gender differences. Differences in strength and childbearing capabilities, set the stage for the different social roles, despite technological advances. Eagly developed the social role theory which attributes current sex differences to the labor division between men and women. Eagly suggests that men and women were constrained to certain roles in the work force and then assumed to embody the psychological characteristics of those roles without exception.

Contextual Variables Influence Memory in Older Adults

• Education - less educated, out of the workforce longer • Health - chronic or degenerative diseases • Lifestyle - lead less active lives, perform fewer cognitively demanding tasks. Use the new neurons! • Negative stereotypes of ageing

Information Model of Learning

• Encode information • Sensory pathways • Store information • Retrieve information • Recognition • Recall

During Pregnancy Risks: Examples of teratogens*

• Environmental hazards o Radiation o Pollutants o Agent orange • Maternal disease factors o Rubella (German measles) o Toxoplasmosis o HIV/AIDS • Drugs (eg., medications*, tobacco, cocaine, alcohol)

Ageing & Memory

• Episodic memory (where and when) - young adults have better recall than older adults • Semantic memory (knowledge about world) - older adults take longer to retrieve information • Working memory and processing speed - decline as people age (from 45ish WM 25ish PS) • Explicit and implicit memory - explicit memory declines more than implicit memory • Memory Strategies - used less by older people

Life Cycle (e.g., Erikson) vs. Life course model (emphasis on events)

• Erikson's model is a Life Cycle model with development unfolding over a sequence of stages (or tasks) driven by internal ego • Life Course models suggest larger role for social & historical factors • e.g., Elder & colleagues (1974, 1991) impact of great depression & WWII on different cohorts; • Neugarten timing of events (normative vs nonnormative; on-time vs off-time: - to be discussed in tutorial 5) • Perhaps these 2 approaches can be integrated to best explain variations in development.

Attachment Pattern "D" IWM May be "Damaged"

• Erratic, irrational, aggressive child behaviour follows from the internalisation of erratic, chaotic, irrational, aggressive caregiving Parents who are frightening or frightened/ helpless • These parents are neither a safe haven nor a secure base • Children who have had multiple carers and/or institutional caregiving may have damaged IWM

1) Authoritative Pattern: "Reciprocal Parenting"

• Expectation of mature behaviour and clear standard setting • Firm enforcement of rules and standards o Uses commands and sanctions when necessary ..."whenever necessary, take charge" • Encouragement of independence and individuality (e.g., autonomy support, exploration) ..."whenever possible, follow child's need" • Open communication o Parents express/explain their view and listen to child's views • Rights/perspectives of both parents and children recognised

Explicit Memory

• Explicit - ability to consciously recall the past • True recall memory emerges at 8-11 mths (can retrieve an image of something that is no longer present) • Eg. Search for hidden object • Eg. Deferred imitation of a simple action after 24 hours at 9 mths (Meltzoff, 1988) • Repeating sequence of actions at 12 mths (Bauer, 1996, 2000) teddy to bed, blanky, read story

(Belsky, 1984) PARENT, CHILD, CONTEXT 3) Contextual Factors

• Family Structure Stability? o Single/Two Parent/Co-Parenting/Blended Parenting/Siblings o Extended/Adoptive/Foster o Family Conflict/Marital Discord/Separation/Divorce/DV • Social Network and Resources Safe/Supported Environment? o Rural/Urban o Neighbourhood o Schools/Community Resources/Supports • SES Opportunity?

Information processing - Babies

• Foundations: Babies translate information into coherent representations - make predictions - innate powerful programs already booted up • Learning: children reprogram themselves • Neural rewiring • Other people: Are programmed to help children reprogram themselves • Mickey Mouse • Voice pitch

Approaches to Moral Development

• Freud's Psychoanalytic Approach • Piaget and Kohlberg's Cognitive Developmental Approach • Bandura's Social Cognitive Approach

Gender Stereotypes

• Gender stereotypes are beliefs about the activities and preferences, emotions and affect, and thought patterns that are differentially associated with each gender. • During the first year, infants show little awareness of gender stereotypes, but toward the end of the second year they begin to show some knowledge of them. • Evidence of this stereotypic knowledge in pre-verbal children has been obtained using the preferential looking paradigm to demonstrate infants' association of gender stereotypic objects with gender categories. • Serbin, Poulin-Dubois, Colburne, Sen, & Eichstedt (2001) investigated the development of preferences for stereotyped toys and knowledge of the association of toys with gender categories between 12 and 24 months, using the preferential looking paradigm.

Regulators of Gendered Conduct and Role Behaviour

• Gender-linked social expectations • Gender-linked self-expectations • Perceived self-efficacy: four sources (mastery experiences, vicarious experiences, social persuasion and encouragement, and mood states)

Empirical Support Generativity

• Generativity is associated with mature defenses, psychosocial adaptations • McAdams & Colleagues (Loyola Generativity Scale, Generative Behaviour Checklist) • Positive correlations with life satisfaction, happiness, selfesteem, sense of coherence, midlife wellbeing • Negative correlations with depression, neuroticism Westermeyer (2004;2013) - 48 year longitudinal study of men only. Aged 21, 53 then 69. • 56% were successfully generative by midlife • Generativity at midlife was predicted by: • earlier experiences of warm families, a mentor relationship, & close friendships in young adulthood (good conditions for development of Erikson's earlier stages) • career success (supporting Vaillant's modification). • Essentially the same factors predicted better adjustment at the 2nd follow-up at 69, but their effects diminished (e.g. mentoring) • Increasing physical health problems were not associated with mental health problems in older age

Moral Emotions

• Hoffman (1994) examined the role of emotion in moral development. - Sympathy - feeling of distress - Empathy - understanding - identification of distress

ToM and Autism

• Hypothesis that autistic children experience severe problems with interaction because they suffer from "mind blindness" (BaronCohen, 1995) • Explanations for lack of ToM in autism: • ? Abnormal brain development (ToM module damaged) • ? Lack of social conversation and interaction impedes normal development of ToM

Cross-Cultural Research

• Identifies what is universal about development, what is culture specific & mechanisms by which culture influences development • Prevents over-generalisation of findings Examples: • Infant sleeping: With parents ? Sleep through the night • Infant holding: facing mother vs facing out • Class-sizes - Japanese vs US vs Australian preschools: 30:1; 8-14:1; 5:1 • Cultural support/non-support for participation in non-academic subjects • Placid babies versus robust babies in Brazil

Attention: Adolescence and Adulthood

• Incidental learning decreases quickly • Capacity to shift attention from one cognitive task to another increases (but this shift - multi-tasking - takes a cognitive toll and costs time for everyone (up to 40%?) • Attentional skills excellent in young adulthood • Decline with ageing- older adults less able to engage in more than one task

The "Only Child"

• Increasing social trend due (in part) to delayed childbearing • No evidence for stereotyped "spoiled, selfish" (Amato, 1987) • No evidence of any lasting cognitive, social deficits o May do better, but most research shows at least comparable outcomes ? Compensatory additional stimulation and attention from parents

Phases of Attachment

• Indiscriminate social responsiveness (birth to 2-3 mths) o Reciprocity, dyadic interactions • Discriminating social responsiveness (2-3 to 6-7 mths)* o Preferences, differential smiling, settling • Active proximity seeking or true attachment (6-7 mths to 3 yrs) o Separation protest (person permanence) o Proximity seeking • Goal-corrected partnership (3+ yrs) o Takes parent perspective into account, internal representation of parent-child relationship, can hold parent and parent intentions in mind

"Inclusion Criteria": Infant Temperament

• Individual differences in behaviours related to affect, activity, attention o Intensity, latency, duration, recovery time • Linked to biological mechanisms • Counterparts in primates and social mammals • Appears in the first few years of life • Relatively enduring and predictive of coherent outcomes

Gender-linked Preferences

• Infants do not show any preferences for toys and activities typically associated with their gender. • During the second year, gender differences in stereotypical play preferences emerge (Blakemore et al., 2003). • From about 18 months both boys and girls look more at same- than other-genderstereotypical objects (Serbin et al., 2001). • By about 2 years most girls prefer to play with stereotypical female play objects (e.g., dolls, home maker toys) and most boys prefer to play with stereotypical male objects (e.g., cars, toy guns) (Servin, Bohlin, & Berlin, 1999). • Children's gender stereotypical activity preferences tend to remain stable over the early years (environmental and person stability). • Those children whose play and activity preferences were more gender stereotypical at 2½ years were also the most gender stereotypical at 5 years of age (Golombok & Rust, 2008; Karson, Kung, & Hines, 2017). • Boys exhibit behaviour patterns consistent with gender stereotypes at an earlier age than do girls, even though their gender stereotypic knowledge lags behind girls' knowledge. • As children age, these early gender stereotypical activity preferences are expanded to other domains including academic pursuits, occupational choice, and interactional patterns. Along with this broadening of gender differences to other domains of psychological functioning there is also an increasing trend for the diminution of many gender differences and an increasing overlap in the performances of boys and girls, and of men and women.

Interrelationship among The Components of Moral Development

• Interconnection between moral judgment, moral emotions, and moral behaviour. • Hartshorne & May (1928) - children increased their cheating between the ages of 9 and 14 years when their moral thinking became more sophisticated. • Children who cheated in one situation did not cheat in other situations. • Overall, Hartshorne & May (1928) found no relationship between moral thought and moral behaviour. • Your textbook indicates that a stronger relationship has been found in more recent research, but the magnitude of the relationship has been small. • Youniss & Yates (1997) found a relationship between all three moral components: adolescents who served food to the homeless for a year (behaviour) increased their compassion (emotion) and developed a broader conception of justice (cognition).

Unexpected Transfer Task (Wimmer & Perner, 1983)

• Involves presenting a scenario in which a character believes something that the child participant knows is not true (a false belief) • Robust findings that children under 4 years can't predict the behaviour of a character who has a false belief • Child is still egocentric - they assume the character knows what they know • Assumption of a watershed in children's ToM abilities around 4th birthday

Gendered Social Expectations

• Jackson and Bussey (2020) showed that young men (12-17 years) reported higher felt pressure (social expectations) to conform to same gender behaviour than did young women, and young women reported felt pressure to conform to other gender behaviour whereas young men reported pressure to avoid other gender behaviour.

Metamemory

• Knowledge about memory • Older children know more about the process of memory and their own memory ability • Some of what a 5 year old knows: • You have to work at remembering • Easier to recall a short vs a long list • Salient events easier to remember • Noise distracts memory • Adults remember more than babies • It is easier to remember yesterday than last month • Older children understand their own memory limitations and may develop adaptive strategies • However, the knowledge about memory needs to be relevant to the memory task at hand for it to help with recall

Kohlberg's Cognitive Developmental Theory of Moral Judgment

• Lawrence Kohlberg used moral dilemmas to study moral reasoning starting in adolescence • Heinz dilemma: Participants were asked if the husband's act was right or wrong and why?

Kohlberg levels of moral development

• Level 1: Preconventional morality - Stage 1: punishment and obedience orientation - Stage 2: instrumental hedonism • Level 2: Conventional morality - Stage 3: "Good boy" and "good girl" morality - Stage 4: authority and social order maintaining • Level 3: Postconventional morality - Stage 5: morality of contract, individual rights, and democratically accepted law - Stage 6: morality of individual principles of conscience

Fathering Changes in Expectations/ Recognition of Role of Fathers

• Limited attention to fathers in developmental literature - generally mother focused (Lamb, 1975; 2010) or focused on father absence • Early research on fathers' involvement relied on maternal report • For last 30 years normative for fathers to attend antenatal classes and be present at birth o Predicts ongoing involvement with child (Cabrera et al., 2008)

Formal Operations Stage (12 years +)

• Logical mental actions can now be performed on thought/symbols as opposed to objects • Abstract, idealistic and logical thinking • Hypothetical deductive reasoning - can generate hypotheses • Thinking about thinking: meta-cognition - performing operations on operations o Eg., reflecting on and modifying your own memory strategies • Reflection & questioning - the meaning of life, religion, hypocrisy, motives

4) Uninvolved Pattern: "Neglectful Parenting"

• Low level of involvement with child • Minimise time and effort in interaction with child • Do whatever is necessary to minimise costs in time and effort of interacting with their children • Failure to monitor child's activity

Learning, Memory and Ageing

• Majority of 40-80 year olds say they have had some decline in memory in the past 12 mths (Aitken, 1998) • On average older adults learn new material more slowly & remember it less well • Experts in a field remember more than novices do • Not all older people experience memory difficulties • Not all aspects of memory are equally effected by ageing

Young Adult Aspirations Survey*

• Majority of adults aged 20-29 (born in 70s) had done none of the things considered traditional rites of passage toward family formation •Sequencing of marriage, children, mortgage is diverse and "untraditional" Institute of Family Studies, 1998-sample of 589 young adults aged 20-29 years born in the 1970s

Fathering Involvement around the time of the birth

• Many men "nest build" • Similar hormonal response for males and females (< testosterone, > prolactin) Evidence fathers become "wired" for caregiving (Dayton et al., 2014) research in its infancy • Fathers who attend baby-care courses are more likely to take on more care later • Men feel deeply moved by the experience of childbirth • Mothers report fathers are their main source of support after the birth

Divorce and Separation Association between Marital Conflict & Parenting

• Marital and parent-child relationships are inter-dependent Happily married parents are more sensitive, responsive, warm to children than unhappily married parents • Processes o Family Systems - triangulation, scapegoating, new alliances, boundary problems o Stress and Coping - marriage is a source of stress or support for the parenting role, may deplete or buffer... o Affective Spillover - Negative affect arising from marital conflict "spills over" into parenting (or vice versa... ) o Third Variable - personality/attachment style influences both marriage and parenting, assortative mating "If you want to look after the children, cherish the parents..." Bowlby (1982) Promoting marital satisfaction promotes good parenting

Bandura's Social Cognitive Approach

• Modeling - influences not only moral judgments, but behaviour too (resistance to temptation) • Multiform moral thinking • Self -regulation

Piaget's Approach

• Moral reasoning • Invariant sequence • How to decide what to do and not to do • Intentions and consequences

Piaget (1932)

• Morality of constraint (heteronomous phase) • Morality of cooperation (autonomous phase) • Intentions vs consequences - "Paul was stealing a biscuit from the cookie jar when he broke a cup and saucer" - "Peter was sweeping out the kitchen when he knocked over a tray and broke 15 cups and saucers" - Who is naughtier, Paul or Peter?

Feminist Critiques of Erikson

• More emphasis given to individuality than connectedness (Gilligan, 1977, 1982) • Adolescence identity/intimacy • Focus on childbearing as a foundation for female identity; achievement of psychological maturity • Privileges heterosexual model of development

Adolescence

• Most freedom in adolescence and early adulthood • Looking back, people often refer to seminal events during adolescence that had a powerful effect on their thoughts, life direction, approach to life.

Moral Disengagement

• Most people learn to distinguish right from wrong and good from bad in the early years. • However, people do not always act in accord with this knowledge. • Sometimes there is a mismatch between adopting moral standards and behaving in line with them. • From the social cognitive theory view of moral agency, it is posited that this mismatch between standards and behaviour is accommodated by invoking moral disengagement mechanisms (Bandura, 2002; 2016)

Methodological Challenges

• Most studies rely on parent ratings of temperament o Why is this a limitation? o How could you "validate" parent ratings? Mixed methods are optimal • Parent/teacher report • Laboratory procedures o Observe child o Physiological measures E.g. Laboratory Temperament Assessment Battery or "Lab-TAB"; Effortful control tasks (executive attention)

Socio-cultural approach

• Most theories focus on individual development with environment as an "influence" • Socioculturalists - culture is central - defines what knowledge and skills children need to acquire and how we think

Divorce and Separation Methodological Challenges

• Need to tease out contributions of divorce vs. pre-existing circumstances (e.g., parent characteristics, conflict) Moderators Cumulative Risk Models • Most important: Custodial parents' psychological health/parenting capacity • Dysfunctional family relationships (ongoing conflict, conflict of loyalties) • Quality relations between non-custodial parent & children post-divorce • Child characteristics (eg., age, gender, temperament, special needs) • Social/financial supports • Step families (Hetherington, 2003; Rappoport, 2013) *DV exposure - major impact on parenting capacity, wellbeing

Learning about other people: The first 12 months

• Newborn babies understand that there is something special about people - they are hard-wired to interact with people around them. • prefer human faces • imitate facial expressions • coo and babble • elicit responses from caregivers • Joint attention • 8-12 months • Monitor parents' gaze • Attend to objects that the parents gaze at • Shows a rudimentary understanding of intentionality Social referencing • Check with parents about scary things • Demonstrated at 8-12 months • Visual cliff task • Shows some understanding that others experience different emotions to oneself • Imitate what adults do with objects

Attention: Developmental Changes

• Newborn infants can effectively scan novel stimuli • Selective attention: By 4 months infants selectively attend to an object • Toddler shifts attention rapidly from 1 activity to another (e.g., task: remember just the animals) • Ability to focus increases with age • Preschoolers will attend for up to 30 minutes - but attend just as much to irrelevant as relevant information • By age 6 or 7 children able to efficiently attend to relevant dimensions of a task - cognitive control • Incidental learning: Processing of irrelevant information is robust in children and remains static till age 11 or so • Decreases rapidly after age 11 or so

Educational Applications of Vygotsky's Principles

• Offer just enough assistance - ask child what they think the answer is • Use more skilled peers as teachers • Use vertical groupings (e.g., composite classes)/ mentors • Monitor and encourage private speech • Assess child's ZPD - learning potential - emphasis that learning is interpersonal • Place instruction in a meaningful "real world" context

Why do these social factors influence ToM?

• Provide context in which children are confronted with conflicting views (Dunn, 1994) • Pretend play with siblings important • Older kin provide informal apprenticeship about the mind (Lewis et al., 1996) • Provide contexts for internalising dialogue relating to differences in perspective (perspectival conflict; Fernyhough, 1996) • Still issues to be resolved ....

Influences on the Use of Moral Disengagement

• On the one hand parents aim to instill moral values in their children so that they know right from wrong and are motivated to behave in accord with their moral standards. • On the other hand, however, they aim to protect their child from forming negative self-views even when harming others (Wainryb et al., 2005) • This tension between encouraging children to acknowledge their wrongdoing and at the same time building a sense of moral agency that enables children to preserve their positive views of themselves provides a fertile ground for children to learn to use moral disengagement mechanisms to self exonerate their transgressive behaviour • As Wainryb et al., (2005) noted, there is considerable variability in parents' handling of their children's wrongdoing. • Some parents rigidly seek children's compliance with moral standards and react negatively when this does not occur whereas others are less rigid in their expectation of their children's compliance with such standards and seek to minimize their wrongdoing. • In the latter situation, parents are laying the foundation for their children to develop the propensity to enlist moral disengagement mechanisms to enable them to reconstrue their transgressive behaviour as right.

2) Authoritarian Pattern: "Power Assertion Parenting"

• Parent's demands on their children not balanced by recognition of child's perspective o Children expected to inhibit begging, demanding - "don't ask..." • Parent's demands are edicts o Rules not discussed in advance or arrived at through negotiation o Maintenance of parental authority strongly valued o Affection may be withdrawn or contingent on compliance o Low threshold for disobedience o May include severe punishment of children o Punishment often physical

How Parents Influence Children

• Parent-child relationships and child-rearing styles (quality of interaction) • Parents as instructors, educators or consultants • Parents as managers or regulators of opportunities and environments for children o "Parental Monitoring" (Dishion & McMahon, 1998) - Regulation of children's choice of social settings, activities and friends. Low monitoring delinquent and anti-social behaviour, lower academic performance o Providing social opportunities (e.g., social initiator & arranger, childcare, child-oriented clubs and organisations)* Australian data children from low SES backgrounds less likely to be involved in organised sport Middle-class parents more likely to provide these opportunities and be involved in them Economic advantages *SES and cultural context differences *Can there be too many "opportunities"?

Applications: Temperament as a "Protective" or "Risk" Factor Clinical Implications

• Parents need to take children's individuality seriously and respond to the child they have - one size doesn't fit all! o Parent interventions that train parents to identify and respond to the specific cues/signals/needs of their child (Van den Boom, 1994, 1995) • Some temperament characteristics pose more challenges than others - extra support and training for parents of distress prone infants differential susceptibility

Socialised/Learned foundations of complex emotions

• Parents' reactions to children's success, failure, and wrongdoing • Parents' values (e.g., regarding academic achievement) o Note: Cultural variability • Vicarious experience of others' emotions - parents who talk about feelings, presence of siblings, storybooks about feelings etc. (mental state language)

STUDY 1 Serbin, Poulin-Dubois, Colburne, Sen, & Eichstedt (2001)

• Participants: 12, 18, and 23 months. • Procedure: In a series of trials, infants were shown stereotyped male and female toys (vehicles and dolls). Each pair of toys was preceded by either a male or female face and voice to determine whether the infant could visually match the toy with the face by looking differentially at the toy that corresponded to the preceding face. In the interspersed control trials only the male- and femalestereotyped toys were shown (see Figure 1 for the stimuli used). Results: 1. 12 months: children of both sexes showed a visual preference for dolls over trucks - no evidence of any awareness of gender stereotyping of the toys. 2. 18 months: boys showed more visual interest in the male sex-typed vehicles than girls did, and girls looked longer at the dolls than boys did. 3. 23 months: as for the 18-month-old infants, these infants also displayed gender-linked preferences, i.e., boys looked longer at the vehicles than did the girls and girls looked longer at the dolls than did the boys - as for the younger two age groups there was no evidence of "matching" either dolls or vehicles with their respective gender category.

Ego Integrity & Self-Compassion

• Phillips & Ferguson (2013) (Australian) • 185 Australian older adults (65+) • Found that Self-Compassion (being kind to yourself, seeing your problems as part of our common humanity, and being able to see emotions and events in a balanced perspective) was related to ego integrity, and to positive and negative affect (NA) and meaning in life • Ego Integrity was related to other indices of successful ageing

Socio-cognitive Conflict (Doise & Mugny, 1975)

• Piaget's Conservation task experiments (5- 7 year olds) • All had NO conservation skills on pretest • Experimental group - sharing task; Control group - no sharing task Results • 24/37 children in sharing group showed progress on conservation • Only 2/12 controls showed progress • Progress was maintained for 1 month

Comparison with Piaget

• Piaget: Interactions with objects and materials direct cognitive development • Vygotsky: placed emphasis on social interaction and cultural origins of physical objects " the path from object to child and from child to object passes through another person"

1) Authoritative Pattern: "Reciprocal Parenting" Child Outcomes

• Positive self-esteem • High adaptability • High competence (especially for boys) • Internalised locus of control • Self-reliant, self-regulated (Amato & Fowler, 2002) • Popularity with peers • Low levels of anti-social behaviour • Altruistic

Assessing Infant Perceptual Abilities: How Infants See and Interpret the World

• Preferential looking paradigms • Habituation paradigms • Visual cliff paradigm • Conditioning paradigms

Learning and the ZPD

• Process is the same at every age • Involves cultural context, social customs, guided participation • Learning begins when mentor senses learner is ready - arranges new social interactions that will develop skills • Learner is drawn into the zone - the ZPD that is

Ethological Attachment Theory Attachment Figure

• Provides comfort when the infant is distressed - safe haven • Infant feels safe to explore when the attachment figure is present - secure base Reciprocal interplay between attachment & exploratory systems

Physical Changes: Puberty

• Puberty - to grow hair • Secondary sex characteristics (distinguish the sexes but are not the sex organs) • hair, breasts, adam's apple • Range of ages of onset: • 9-17 Menarche (girls) oestrogen • 10-14 Spermarche (boys) testosterone • Timing • On time? • Early? • Late? Timing •Early for girls - stress, isolation, high risk sexual behaviour, Sexually Transmitted Illnesses (STIs) •Adolescents highest STI risk group •25% of sexually active adolescents will have an STI in any given year •Early for boys - 50s good; now - stressful • Late puberty can also cause difficulties Onset •Onset of puberty much younger than it used to be (4mths per decade over last century or so) •Texts cite genetics •Obesity, Diet, Chemicals •What about the chickens ...? Earlier puberty •Risk factor - later health, women •Need to find socially appropriate regulation/expression of sexuality •Social risks - marginal social status, unwanted pregnancy •Body changes outstrip emotional capacity and maturity •Sexualisation of children •Earlier exposure to sexually explicit material

Temperament Patterns "Easy Child"

• Regularity/rhythmicity - sleep/feeding • Positive "approach" vs. withdrawal o New people, new environments, toys • High adaptability to change • Mild or moderately intense mood which is mostly positive

Temperament Patterns "Slow-to-warm up Child"

• Relative inactivity • Mild intensity of reaction to new stimuli • Slow adaptability after repeated contact (8% ATP) *These babies are "easy" - but at risk of understimulation

Fathering Fatherhood in Australia: Influence and Competence Interviews with fathers (Russell, 1978; 1994; 2003)

• Report having most influence over... o Child's self-control/self-discipline (Empirical research supports this, e.g., Malin et al., 2014) o Attitudes and value • Rate as most important... o Being accessible o Guiding and teaching o Providing income/economic security o Providing emotional support • Competence and commitment o 71% feel very competent as a father o 97% say have a strong commitment to role as a father

Limitations: ZPD and Scaffolding

• Responsive adults are not always available • Adults vary in capacity to scaffold • Perspective taking/egocentricity • Older and more experienced guides are better mentors

During Pregnancy Risks: Alcohol as a common teratogenic risk

• Risk drinking (7+ drinks per week, or 5 drinks on one occasion) • The more alcohol consumed, the greater the risk, but no amount is considered entirely safe - recommendation no alcohol • Effects vary from sluggish, placid newborn with mental development slightly below average to Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder • Differential effects of maternal drinking on babies during pregnancy

Self-sanctions

• Selective activation and disengagement of internal control permits different types of conduct with the same moral standards. • Self-sanctions can be disengaged from detrimental conduct by - reconstruing the conduct - obscuring personal causal agency - misrepresenting or disregarding the injurious consequences of one's actions, and - vilifying the recipients of maltreatment by blaming and devaluing them.

Gender Typicality

• Self-perceived gender typicality (sometimes considered a component of gender identity) was used to examine the association of gender with cyber victimization and perpetration (Jackson, Bussey & Trompeter, 2020). • Participants were 297 adolescent males and females recruited from independent schools in grade 8 (Mean age = 13.8) and grade 10 (Mean age = 15.8) who completed a self-report survey. • Multiple regression analyses revealed that only for males, high other-gender typicality and low same-gender typicality were associated with high cyber victimization, but when same gender typicality was high there was no association (see Figure 1). • Independent associations of same- and other-gender typicality with cyber perpetration were present only for males (see Figure 2). • Specifically, for adolescent males higher same-gender typicality was associated with higher cyber perpetration. For other-gender typicality, there was a significant association of other-gender typicality and cyber perpetration for adolescent males (b = 3.03, p < .001), but not for females (b = .02, p = .957). Specifically, for males, higher levels of other-gender typicality were associated with higher cyber perpetration (indicative of high levels of retaliation as a result of their victimization).

What is culture?

• Shared beliefs, values, knowledge • Structured relationships • Customs • Symbols - language • Social settings (schools) • Physical settings (shopping malls, villages) • Objects (TV, computers, machetes) • Physical and historical influences

Language mediates thought

• Shared mental interaction is internalised - thinking is social • Children internalise the mode of problem solving that was supported socially • External dialogues become internal dialogues - become self-regulated • Structure of conversations with other people becomes the structure of internal thought • Children grow into the intellectual life of those around them

Divorce and Separation Final Thoughts

• Should parents stay together for the sake of their children? o If children are to be exposed to ongoing parental conflict, may fare better postseparation • Presence of an authoritative custodial parent is critical for children BUT parenting quality is compromised under financial stress • No evidence that fathers or mothers are superior custodial parent o Parent's motivation to be the custodial parent is what is important • Shared (cooperative) parenting is ideal, but research to date is equivocal about overnight stays/shared households o May depend on child's developmental stage

Sociocognitive conflict: How does it stimulate cognitive development?

• Shows that peer interaction facilitates the acquisition of conservation knowledge (Conservation task - sharing) • Child is made aware of responses other than his own - this causes disequilibrium • Others provide relevant clues • Increases probability that child will be cognitively active

Social Scaffolding

• Similar principle • Guided participation: parents, teachers and older siblings guide the child through learning and cognitive development • Adult provides the means for the child to find the solution to the problem • Leads the learner through the process • This social scaffold makes learning easier and makes possible tasks that would normally be beyond the child's unassisted capabilities

Australian Data

•Transition to adulthood diverse, delayed •"Peter Pan" phenomenon Generation born in 1970s: •Pushed back traditional markers of adulthood •Stay at home •Stay at "school" •Stay single •Avoid mortgage •Put off babies

"The New Normal": Contemporary Family Structures

• Single Parenting - challenges depend on context o Poverty, parental age, support • Adolescent Parenthood - poverty, impact on education/employment • Parenting after ART (see Golombok, 2017) o Genetically related o Non-genetic parenting (disclosure) • Same Sex Parenthood o Negative presumptions need to be subjected to scrutiny Findings to date categorically suggest comparable development, main problem is stigma (Qu, Knight, & Higgins, 2016) (for more information, see https://aifs.gov.au/publications/same-sex-couple-families-Australia ) • Adoptive and Foster Parents

Cognitive Foundations of More Complex Emotions

• Social cognitive event analyses • Self-recognition and Self-other awareness o Social referencing o Joint attention o Theory of Mind o Social comparison • Understanding/Internalising of standards and rules ... Rudimentary moral development

Characteristics of attuned behaviours

• Some form of matching occurs - inner states (unconscious) • The matching is largely cross-modal (modality of expression used by mother to match is different from the modality used by the infant e.g., vocalisation vs behaviour) • Most common dimension matched is intensity

Countering Gender Stereotypes

• Song-Nichols and Young (2020) used depictions of gender-counter-stereotypic robots (e.g., a female construction worker robot) and genderstereotypic robots (e.g., a female secretary robot) as sources of information about cultural gender stereotypes. • Forty-five 6- to 8-year-old children participated in a short counter-stereotyping task. • Children in the counter-stereotypical condition viewed videos of cartoon female gendered robots with culturally stereotyped masculine occupations, interests in activities, and traits. • Children in the stereotypical condition viewed videos of cartoon female gendered robots with culturally stereotyped feminine attributes. • From pretest to posttest, children's gender stereotyping decreased in the counterstereotypical condition and increased in the stereotypical condition. • These finding suggest children may learn from robots as models of cultural gender stereotypes.

Fathering Barriers to Fatherhood

• Still only a small number of reversed role families father primary caregiver (~4% in Australia... but ^) • Work-family challenges (Graeme Russell, Annabel Crabb, etc) o 68% of fathers surveyed felt they didn't have enough time to spend with their children and that their workplaces didn't support them o Access to parental leave? o "Who's looking after your baby?" societal attitudes • Mothers as gatekeepers? • Family violence Shared custody?

Different Meanings of Control Special Issue: Asian American Journal of Psychology, 2013, Volume 4

• Studies suggest Baumrind's typologies don't quite capture Asian parenting styles o High demands (authoritarian aspects) + High warmth "Ga-jung-kyo-yuk" - a blend of authoritarian and authoritative parenting "Chiao shun" - highly directive training - respect for elders associated with positive academic outcomes in Chinese children

Potential to Enhance the Prenatal Environment

• Talking to/thinking about unborn baby o Ultrasound may help • Health Promoting Behaviours o Mother's diet, relaxation, health • Avoiding potentially harmful environments • Music? Concept of fetal attachment o Establishing a relationship with the fetus - behaviours that may follow from that

Applications: Temperament as a "Protective" or "Risk" Factor

• Temperament and parenting quality have reciprocal and "cumulative" influences on adjustment This is another aspect of the nature-nurture discussion... Can temperament be considered a protective or a risk factor for child cognitive and social-emotional development and family wellbeing? o Whether a particular characteristic is difficult/adaptive depends on the context (E.g., Socially disadvantaged kids and marshmallow test)

(Belsky, 1984) PARENT, CHILD, CONTEXT 2) Child Characteristics

• Temperament, disability, health, birth order, gender

Different cultures have different definitions of...

• The "ideal child" • Ages at which children should/could do things • "Good parenting outcomes" "Good parenting" • How parental authority is implemented

Ethological Attachment Theory Bowlby, Ainsworth

• The primary function of the attachment relationship is protection of the young • There is a biological predisposition to form attachments • There is a reciprocal caregiving system • Safety is a key construct with evolutionary significance

Gendered Social Influences Social Media Influences:

• The role of social media in the development of body image concerns has been supported by meta-analyses (Huang et al., 2020; Mingoia et al., 2017; Saiphoo & Vahedi, 2019) - particularly physical appearance using Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram among other platforms. • Females desire thinness and males strive for muscularity.

Cross-Cultural Validity? Attachment

• Three basic patterns found in every culture • In most cultures majority of children are secure HOWEVER... • Ainsworth's work began in Uganda, but cross-cultural database very small • Dyadic approach is perhaps too limited? Need to think in attachment networks • Almost no research in China, but Chinese mothers select similar security descriptors (Q sort measure) • Japanese and Israeli infants show high degrees of distress in the SSP greater proportion classified as "C" • In cultures where mothers have many children and demands, more avoidant attachment • Level of stress engendered by separation may also vary • Psychological meaning of SSP may differ across cultures 51 *Mesman et al., 2016

Generativity vs Stagnation → Care

• To be generative & able to show care for others - often through parenting - can be achieved through mentoring others &/or through contributing to future generations through art or writing. The Implicit attitudes of generativity are: • What can I give to others? • Risks I would like to take are... • I enjoy being productive and creating... (Hamackek, 1990)

3) Permissive Pattern: "Indulgent Parenting"

• Tolerant of child's impulses (including sexual & aggressive) • Use little punishment, avoid asserting authority or imposing restrictions • Make few demands for mature behaviour e.g., manners, household tasks, homework • Allow children to regulate own behaviour (e.g., bedtime) and make own decisions, few rules governing the child's schedule

Erikson's stage theory

• Trust vs mistrust (birth-1 yr) → hope • Autonomy vs shame & doubt (1-3 yrs) → will of their own • Initiative vs guilt (3-6 yrs) → purpose • Industry vs inferiority (6-11 yrs) → competence • Identity vs role confusion (adolescence) →fidelity & belonging • Intimacy vs isolation (young adulthood) →love • Generativity (midlife)→ care • Integrity vs despair (late adult) → wisdom

Implicit Memory

• Unconscious, unaware • Motor/body memory; skills • Conditioned learning/Associative memory • Affects behaviour • Does not improve with age (mature at 2-3) • Repetition priming from age 3 - complete fragmented pictures of primed objects; even those implicitly encoded into memory • Different part of brain; Long term memory • Often strong in kids with learning problems

3) Permissive Pattern: "Indulgent Parenting" Child Outcomes (> Likelihood only)

• Uncontrolled, impulsive • Demanding, dependent (Baumrind, 1997l; Querido et al., 2002) • In adolescence, disengaged from school, involved in drug and alcohol use, school misconduct, early sexual activity • Strongly oriented towards peers BUT • May feel close to parents • May have high social competence/self-confidence • Role reversal reactions

Internal Working Models (IWM)

• Underlying Central Nervous System (CNS) organisation • Inner (mental) representations of the attachment figure and the self o Incorporate child's expectations of accessibility & responsiveness of the attachment figure and of the self as worthy of that in relation to the attachment figure Generalizes to model of how relationships work • Influence how the child perceives the environment and how the child behaves when stressed or afraid or sad... • May be associated with the development of personality structures (eg., defenses) o Individual differences in attachment behaviours when frightened, distressed are based on these schemas (sets of expectations)

Vygotsky's Theory: Limitations

• Vagueness of measurement of ZPD • Need for greater elucidation of developmental variability in different contexts • Practical difficulties in studying the links between broad social-historical contexts and specific parent-child interactions

Idiosyncratic - Individual differences

• Variability in when/how universal developmental milestones are achieved • rate of development • sequence of development (e.g., bottom shufflers) • style of responding/learning

Actual Gender Differences are Small: Similarity Hypothesis

• Verbal abilities • Spatial abilities • Mathematical abilities • Aggression • Activity level • Developmental vulnerability • Empathy

Information processing

• View development as continuous (not stage-like) • Children's cognitive abilities differ from adults because they are limited in the amount of information they can take in, store, manipulate and retrieve • Development equivalent of upgrading your computer hardware and software

Siblings Siblings as Tutors (Vygotsky, ToM research)

• Vygotsky - learning is social - tutors/life coaches o Benefits to older and younger child • ToM and social cognition o Consistent evidence of earlier acquisition in children with siblings o Mutual interest and understanding promotes interest in contents of other minds o More practice at conflict resolution o Richer more varied social experiences

Lie and Truth Telling

• Whether one lies or not is dependent cognitive (Theory of Mind understanding - false belief) and on motivational issues (outcome expectancies, self sanctions, self-efficacy) which vary across lie type and cultures). • Younger children's lying is regulated by the anticipation of punishment and older children's lying is more regulated by the anticipation of guilt.

Grandparents

• Work-family challenges have also led to children spending more time in non-parental care formal child care arrangements vs family care (e.g., grandparents) o Prohibitive cost of formal child care, family views, etc • Involvement of grandparents across different cultures tends to vary • For some children contact with grandparents may be minimal to non-existent

Ego Integrity vs Despair →Wisdom

• a process of reviewing one's own life? (e.g., any major life regrets?) • Resolution/acceptance of previous dilemmas and struggles • Have I exhibited Ego Integrity? • Can I find new meanings in past experiences? The implicit attitudes of ego integrity are: • I have much to be thankful for • I am in control of my life • I accept myself for who I am & others for who they are

Vygotsky questioned whether:

• egocentric thought is impervious to experience • development could not be impeded or accelerated through instruction • development was independent of culture and was a universal characteristic • children should not be taught until they were in the appropriate developmental stage

Neural Development Implications for the adolescent

•Preference for physical activity • Less than optimal planning and judgment sometimes • More risky, impulsive, sensation-seeking behaviours • Less consideration of negative consequences Adolescence thus a vulnerable time •Due to neural reconfiguration, Giedd and others remark that "Adolescence .... may be one of the worst times to expose a brain to drugs and alcohol or even a steady dose of violent video games" (Strauch, 2003; p. 21).

Educational Impact

•Secondary schools - formal segregation of childhood from adulthood •Forced contact with peers - age graded contact •Recent demographic changes - time in education - adolescence extends to 30?? •Longer period of economic dependence on parents

Identity Formation

•Takes a long time •Occurs at different rates in different domains • More complex process for members of ethnic minority groups •Does not always follow theoretically predicted path (e.g., Identity crisis for some occurs in mid-life) "Trying on life's uniforms and partners in search of the perfect fit" Various possibilities in love, work and worldviews are explored

Early Adulthood: Intimacy vs Isolation

•The developmental crises of identity and intimacy may not be in the strict sequence as Erikson suggested •Can occur in parallel but identity is given priority •E.g., stay with partner or go to a uni in another city •Work versus motherhood