Chapter 5 Developing Through the lifespan

Sensorimotor stage

in Piaget's theory, the stage (from birth to nearly 2 years of age) during which infants know the world mostly in terms of their sensory impressions and motor activities.

Concrete operational stage

in Piaget's theory, the stage of cognitive development (from about 7 to 11 years of age) during which children gain the men- tal operations that enable them to think logically about concrete events.

Developmental researchers who emphasize learning and experience are supporting ________; those who emphasize biological maturation are supporting__________.

Continuity; stages

Egocentrism

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

Pre operational stage

in Piaget's theory, the stage (from about 2 to about 6 or 7 years of age) during which a child learns to use language but does not yet comprehend the mental operations of concrete logic.

social clock

the culturally preferred timing of social events such as marriage, parenthood, and retirement.

Fetus

the developing human organism from 9 weeks after conception to birth.

Embryo

the developing human organism from about 2 weeks after fertilization through the second month.

Stranger anxiety

the fear of strangers that infants commonly display, beginning by about 8 months of age.

Zygote

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

Puberty

the period of sexual maturation, during which a person becomes capable of reproducing.

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.

imprinting

the process by which certain animals form strong attachments during early life.

Formal operational stage

in Piaget's theory, the stage of cognitive development (normally beginning about age 12) during which people begin to think logically about abstract concepts.

Identity

our sense of self; according to Erikson, the adolescent's task is to solidify a sense of self by testing and integrating various roles.

What findings in psychology (1) the stage theory of development and (2) the idea of stability in personality across the lifespan? What findings challenge these ideas?

(1) Stage theory is supported by the work of Piaget (cognitive development), Kohlberg (moral development), and Erikson (psychosocial development), but it is challenged by findings that change is more gradual and less culturally universal than these theorists supposed. (2) Some traits, such as temperament, do exhibit remarkable stability across many years. But we do change in other ways, such as in our social attitudes.

Teratogens

(literally, "monster maker") agents, such as chemicals and viruses, that can reach the embryo or fetus during prenatal development and cause harm.

Match the correct cognitive developmental stage (a-d) to each developmental phenomenon (1-6). a. Sensorimotor b. Preoperational c. Concrete operational d. Formal operational 1. Thinking about abstract concepts, such as "freedom." 2. Enjoying imaginary play (such as dress-up). 3. Understanding that physical properties stay the same even when objects change form. 4. Having the ability to reverse math operations. 5. Understanding that something is not gone for good when it disappears from sight, as when Mom "disappears" behind the shower curtain. 6. Having difficulty taking another's point of view (as when blocking someone's view of the TV).

1. d, 2. b, 3. c, 4. c, 5. a, 6. b

Match the psychosocial development stage below (1-8) with the issue that Erikson believed we wrestle with at that stage (a-h). 1. Infancy 2. Toddlerhood 3. Preschool 4. Elementary school 7. Middle adulthood 5. Adolescence 8. Late adulthood 6. Young adulthood A. Generativity vs. stagnation b. Integrity vs. despair c. Initiative Vs. Guilt d. Intimacy vs. Isolation e. Identity vs. Role confusion f. Competence vs. inferiority g. Trust vs. Mistrust h. Autonomy vs. Shame and doubt

1. g, 2. h, 3. c, 4. f, 5. e, 6. d, 7. a, 8. b

5-12 How is adolescence defined, and how do physical changes affect developing teens?//How is adolescence defined, and what physical changes mark this period?

Adolescence is the transition period from childhood to adulthood, extending from puberty to social independence. During puberty, both primary and secondary sex characteristics develop dramatically. Boys seem to benefit from "early" maturation, girls from "late" maturation. The brain's frontal lobes mature and myelin growth increases during adolescence and the early twenties, enabling improved judgment, impulse control, and long-term planning.

5-20 What themes and influences mark our social journey from early adulthood to death?

Adults do not progress through an orderly sequence of age-related social stages. Chance events can determine life choices. The social clock is a culture's preferred timing for social events, such as marriage, parenthood, and retirement. Adulthood's dominant themes are love and work, which Erikson called intimacy and generativity.

5-19 How do neurocognitive disorders and Alzheimer's disease affect cognitive ability?

Alzheimer's destroys even the brightest of minds. First memory deteriorates, then reasoning. (Occasionally forgetting where you laid the car keys is no cause for alarm; forgetting how to get home may suggest Alzheimer's.) As the disease runs its course, after 5 to 20 years, the person becomes emotionally flat, then disoriented and disinhibited, then incontinent, and finally mentally vacant—a sort of living death, a mere body stripped of its humanity. Underlying the symptoms of Alzheimer's are a loss of brain cells and a deterioration of neurons that produce the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, which is vital to memory and thinking. An autopsy reveals two telltale abnormalities in these acetylcholine-producing neurons: shriveled protein filaments in the cell body, and clumps of a free-floating protein fragment that accumulate as plaque at neuron tips where synaptic communication normally occurs. A diminishing sense of smell and slowed or wobbly walking may foretell Alzheimer's. Among older adults, hearing loss, and its associated social isolation, predicts risk of depression and accelerated mental decline. Compared with people with good hearing, those with hearing loss show declines in memory, attention, and learning about three years earlier. In people at risk for Alzheimer's, brain scans have also revealed—before symptoms appear—the degeneration of critical brain cells and diminished activity in Alzheimer's- related brain areas. When people memorized words, scans also showed diffuse brain activity, as if more exertion was required to achieve the same performance. Alzheimer's is somewhat less common among those who exercise their minds as well as their bodies. As with muscles, so with the brain: Those who use it less often lose it.

5-18 How does memory change with age?

As the years pass, recall begins to decline, especially for meaningless information, but recognition memory remains strong. Older adults rely more on time management and memory cues to remember time-based and habitual tasks. Dementia and Alzheimer's disease are brain ailments, not normal parts of aging. Developmental researchers study age-related changes (such as memory) with cross-sectional studies (comparing people of different ages) and longitudinal studies (retesting the same people over a period of years). "Terminal decline" describes the cognitive decline in the final few years of life.

5-7 How do parent-infant attachment bonds form?

At about 8 months, soon after object permanence develops, children separated from their caregivers display stranger anxiety. Infants form attachments not simply because parents gratify biological needs but, more important, because they are comfortable, familiar, and responsive. Ducks and other animals have a more rigid attachment process, called imprinting, that occurs during a critical period.

5-8 How have psychologists studied attachment differences, and what have they learned?

Attachment has been studied in strange situation experiments, which show that some children are securely attached and others are insecurely attached. Infants' differing attachment styles reflect both their individual temperament and the responsiveness of their parents and child-care providers. Adult relationships seem to reflect the attachment styles of early childhood, lending support to Erik Erikson's idea that basic trust is formed in infancy by our experiences with responsive caregivers.

What distinguishes imprinting from attachment?

Attachment is the normal process by which we form emotional ties with important others. Imprinting occurs only in certain animals that have a critical period very early in their development during which they must form their attachments, and they do so in an inflexible manner.

5-3 What are some newborn abilities, and how do researchers explore infants' mental abilities?

Babies are born with sensory equipment and reflexes that facilitate their survival and their social interactions with adults. For example, they quickly learn to discriminate their mother's smell and sound. Researchers use techniques that test habituation, such as the novelty-preference procedure, to explore infants' abilities.

What are some of the most significant challenges and rewards of growing old?

Challenges: decline of muscular strength, reaction times, stamina, sensory keenness, cardiac output, and immune system functioning. Risk of cognitive decline increases. Rewards: positive feelings tend to grow, negative emotions are less intense, and anger, stress, worry, and social-relationship problems decrease.

5-9 How does childhood neglect or abuse affect children's attachments?

Children are very resilient, but those who are moved repeatedly, severely neglected by their parents, or otherwise prevented from forming attachments by age 2 may be at risk for attachment problems.

5-1 What three issues have engaged developmental psychologists?

Developmental psychologists study physical, mental, and social changes throughout the life span. They focus on three issues: nature and nurture (the interaction between our genetic inheritance and our experiences); continuity and stages (whether development is gradual and continuous or a series of relatively abrupt changes); and stability and change (whether our traits endure or change as we age).

5-15 How do parents and peers influence adolescents?

During adolescence, parental influence diminishes and peer influence increases. Adolescents adopt their peers' ways of dressing, acting, and communicating. Parents have more influence in religion, politics, and college and career choices.

5-14 What are the social tasks and challenges of adolescence?

Erikson theorized that each life stage has its own psychosocial task, and that a chief task of adolescence is solidifying one's sense of self—one's identity. This often means "trying on" a number of different roles. Social identity is the part of the self-concept that comes from a person's group memberships.

Developmental psychologists use repeated stimulation to test an infant's ________ to a stimulus.

Habituation

5-5 From the perspectives of Piaget, Vygotsky, and today's researchers, how does a child's mind develop?

In his theory of cognitive development, Jean Piaget proposed that children actively construct and modify their understanding of the world through the processes of assimilation and accommodation. They form schemas that help them organize their experiences. Progressing from the simplicity of the sensorimotor stage of the first two years, in which they develop object permanence, children move to more complex ways of thinking. In the pre-operational stage (about age 2 to about 6 or 7), they develop a theory of mind, but they are egocentric and unable to perform simple logical operations. At about age 7, they enter the concrete operational stage and are able to comprehend the principle of conservation. By about age 12, children enter the formal operational stage and can reason systematically. Research supports the sequence Piaget proposed, but it also shows that young children are more capable, and their development more continuous, than he believed. Lev Vygotsky's studies of child development focused on the ways a child's mind grows by interacting with the social environment. In his view, parents and caretakers provide temporary scaffolds enabling children to step to higher levels of learning.

Emerging Adulthood

a period from about age 18 to the mid-twenties, when many in Western cultures are no longer adolescents but have not yet achieved full independence as adults.

5-17 What physical changes occur during middle and late adulthood?

Muscular strength, reaction time, sensory abilities, and cardiac output begin to decline in the late twenties and continue to decline throughout middle adulthood (roughly age 40 to 65) and late adulthood (the years after 65). Women's period of fertility ends with menopause around age 50; men have no similar age-related sharp drop in hormone levels or fertility. In late adulthood, the immune system weakens, increasing susceptibility to life-threatening illnesses. Chromosome tips (telomeres) wear down, reducing the chances of normal genetic replication. But for some, longevity-supporting genes, low stress, and good health habits enable better health in later life.

Object permanence, pretend play, conservation, and abstract logic are developmental milestones for which oh Piaget's stages, respectively?

Object permanence for the sensorimotor stage, pretend play for the preoperational stage, conservation for the concrete operational stage, and abstract logic for the formal operational stage.

5-11 What are three parenting styles, and how do children's traits relate to them?

Parenting styles—authoritarian, permissive, and authoritative—reflect varying degrees of control. Children with high self-esteem tend to have authoritative parents and to be self-reliant and socially competent, but the direction of cause and effect in this relationship is not clear.

5-22 A loved one's death triggers what range of reactions?

People do not grieve in predictable stages, as was once supposed. Strong expressions of emotion do not purge grief, and bereavement therapy is not significantly more effective than grieving without such aid. Erikson viewed the late-adulthood psychosocial task as developing a sense of integrity (versus despair).

5-13 How did Piaget, Kohlberg, and later researchers describe adolescent cognitive and moral development?

Piaget theorized that adolescents develop a capacity for formal operations and that this development is the foundation for moral judgment. Lawrence Kohlberg proposed a stage theory of moral reasoning, from a preconventional morality of self-interest, to a conventional morality concerned with upholding laws and social rules, to (in some people) a postconventional morality of universal ethical principles. Other researchers believe that morality lies in moral intuition and moral action as well as thinking. Some critics argue that Kohlberg's postconventional level represents morality from the perspective of individualist, middle-class males.

How does daycare effect children?

Quality day care, with responsive adults interacting with children in a safe and stimulating environment, does not appear to harm children's thinking and language skills. Some studies have linked extensive time in day care with increased aggressiveness and defiance, but other factors—the child's temperament, the parents' sensitivity, and the family's economic and educational levels and culture—also matter.

5-10 How do children's self-concepts develop?

Self-concept, an understanding and evaluation of who we are, emerges gradually. At 15 to 18 months, children recognize themselves in a mirror. By school age, they can describe many of their own traits, and by age 8 to 10 their self-image is stable.

Do self-confidence and life satisfaction vary with life stages?

Self-confidence tends to strengthen across the life span. Surveys show that life satisfaction is unrelated to age. Positive emotions increase after midlife and negative ones decrease.

The three parenting styles have been called "too hard, too soft, and just right." Which one is "too hard," which one "too soft," and which one "just right," and why?

The authoritarian style would be too hard, the permissive style too soft, and the authoritative style just right. Parents using the authoritative style tend to have children with high self-esteem, self- reliance, and social competence.

5-4 During infancy and childhood, how do the brain and motor skills develop?

The brain's nerve cells are sculpted by heredity and experience. Their interconnections multiply rapidly after birth, a process that continues until puberty, when a pruning process begins shutting down unused connections. Complex motor skills—sitting, standing, walking—develop in a predictable sequence, though the timing of that sequence is a function of individual maturation and culture. We have no conscious memories of events occurring before about age 3-1/2, in part because major brain areas have not yet matured.

5-2 What is the course of prenatal development, and how do teratogens affect that development?

The life cycle begins at conception, when one sperm cell unites with an egg to form a zygote. The zygote's inner cells become the embryo, and in the next 6 weeks, body organs begin to form and function. By 9 weeks, the fetus is recognizably human. Teratogens are potentially harmful agents that can pass through the placental screen and harm the developing embryo or fetus, as happens with fetal alcohol syndrome.

5-16 What is emerging adulthood?

The transition from adolescence to adulthood is now taking longer. Emerging adulthood is the period from age 18 to the mid-twenties, when many young people are not yet fully independent. But critics note that this stage is found mostly in today's Western cultures.

What does theory of mind have to do with autism spectrum disorder?

Theory of mind focuses on our ability to understand our own and others' mental states. Those with autism spectrum disorder struggle with this ability.

5-21 How does our well-being change across the life span?

We have to examine the patterns of growth, change, and stability in behavior that occur throughout the entire lifespan. - understand the changes in our life and understand people who are with us and also understand how we would cooperate with others and think in a more debt.

Developmental Psychology

a branch of psychology that studies physical, cognitive, and social change throughout the life span.

Schema

a concept or framework that organizes and interprets information.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD)

a disorder that appears in childhood and is marked by significant deficiencies in communication and social interaction, and by rigidly fixated interests and repetitive behaviors.

Alzheimer's disease

a neurocognitive disorder marked by neural plaques, often with an onset after age 80, and entailing a progressive decline in memory and other cognitive abilities.

5-6 What is autism spectrum disorder?

a serious neurodevelopmental disorder that impairs a child's ability to communicate and interact with others. It also includes restricted repetitive behaviors, interests and activities. These issues cause significant impairment in social, occupational and other areas of functioning.

Cross-sectional study

a study in which people of different ages are compared with one another.

Basic trust

according to Erik Erikson, a sense that the world is predictable and trustworthy; said to be formed during infancy by appropriate experiences with responsive caregivers.

Neurocognitive disorders (NCDs)

acquired (not lifelong) disorders marked by cognitive deficits; often related to Alzheimer's disease, brain injury or disease, or substance abuse. In older adults neurocognitive disorders were formerly called dementia.

Accommodation

adapting our current understandings (schemas) to incorporate new information.

Cognition

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

Attachment

an emotional tie with another person; shown in young children by their seeking closeness to the caregiver and showing distress on separation.

critical period

an optimal period early in the life of an organism when exposure to certain stimuli or experiences pro- duces normal development.

Maturation

biological growth processes that enable orderly changes in behavior, relatively uninfluenced by experience.

Habituation

decreasing responsiveness with repeated stimulation. As infants gain familiarity with repeated exposure to a stimulus, their interest wanes and they look away sooner.

The biological growth process

growing by our genetics

Intimacy

in Erikson's theory, the ability to form close, loving relationships; a primary developmental task in young adulthood.

Assimilation

interpreting our new experiences in terms of our existing schemas.

Freud defined the healthy adult as one who is able to ______________ and to ______________.

love, work

The biological growth process, called ________, explains why most children begin walking by about 12 or 15 months.

maturation

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.

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS)

physical and cognitive abnormalities in children caused by a pregnant woman's heavy drinking. In severe cases, signs include a small, out-of-proportion head and abnormal facial features.

According to Kohlberg, ______________ morality focuses on self-interest, ______________ morality focuses on self-defined ethical principles, and ______________ morality focuses on upholding laws and social rules.

preconventional; postconventional; conventional

Longitudinal study

research in which the same people are restudied and retested over a long period.

Social Identity

the "we" aspect of our self-concept; the part of our answer to "Who am I?" that comes from our group memberships.

Object permanence

the awareness that things continue to exist even when not perceived.

Menopause

the time of natural cessation of menstruation; also refers to the biological changes a woman experiences as her ability to reproduce declines.

Adolescence

the transition period from childhood to adulthood, extending from puberty to independence.

Dual parenting facts Some encouraging findings:

• Active dads are caregiving more. Today's co-parenting fathers are more engaged, with a doubling in the weekly hours spent with their children, compared with 1965 fathers (Livingston & Parker, 2011). • Couples that share housework and child care are happier in their relationships and less divorce prone (Wilcox & Marquardt, 2011). • Dual parenting supports children, regardless of parent gender. The American Academy of Pediatrics (2013) reports that what matters is competent, secure, nurturing parents, regard- less of their gender and sexual orientation. The American Sociological Association (2013) concurs: Decades of research confirm that parental stability and resources matter. "Whether a child is raised by same-sex or opposite-sex parents has no bearing on a child's well-being."

Dual parenting Facts some hard facts about declining father care:

• Increased father separation. From 1960 to 2010, the number of children in the United States living apart from their fathers more than doubled (Livingston & Parker, 2011). • Increased father absence. Only one in five absent fathers say they visit their children more than once a week, and 27 per- cent say they have not seen their children in the last year (Livingston & Parker, 2011). • Nonmarital births predict father separation. Increased father absence accompanies increased nonmarital births. Even among couples cohabiting when a first child is born, the 39 percent odds of their relationship ending during the child's first years are triple the 13 percent odds of parental breakup among those who are married when their first baby is born (Hymowitz et al., 2013).